Reading Scripture Canonically: Theological Instincts for Old Testament Interpretation

by Mark S. Gignilliat

Veteran Old Testament teacher Mark Gignilliat explores the theological and hermeneutical instincts that are necessary for reading, understanding, and communicating Scripture faithfully. He takes seriously the gains of historical criticism while insisting that the Bible must be interpreted as Christian Scripture, offering students a "third way" that assigns proper proportion to both historical and theological concerns. Reading and engaging Scripture requires not only historical tools, Gignilliat says, but also recognition of the living God's promised presence through the Bible.

Genres: Theology, Old Testament

144 pages, Paperback

Published June 18, 2019

Reviews

[Michael Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic yet technical work on an approach to reading and interpreting scripture (hermeneutics). Bonus, he explores Christian metaphysics and how that relates to interpretation of Old Testament as well.

Gignilliat makes an argument for the following in this work:

1) that the text of Scripture contains it's own canon consciousness which presses us to read the final form whole as a witness to our Triune God. Canon then is not just an exterior decision but an internal character of the text. (LOVED THIS!)

2) that Christian confessional commitments are essential to reading Scripture correctly because the author and the subject of Scripture is God Himself. (LOVED THIS!)

3) to articulate and defend a "canonical approach" to Scripture which avoids the fallacies of modern historical critical methods (or evangelical historical-grammatical limitations) while at the same time benefiting from advancements in these areas. (ENJOYED THIS MIDDLE-ROAD/3rd Way Solution to the TIS vs. Historical-Grammatic/Historical-Critical Hermeneutics)

4) to argue that the word of God can contain meaning embedded in the text itself that is tethered to but not limited by the original meaning/knowledge of the human author. This argument is made based on the philosophy of human language, the complex witness of literary types in the Old Testament, the Christian confessional beliefs about God being the author and subject of Scripture, the canon consciousness within the text itself, and the priority of the final form by authors and the nature of Scripture. (LOVED THIS ALBEIT FAR FROM THE FINAL WORD ON THE SUBJECT)

5) to lay out a way of bringing these theories to bear on the Old Testament and seeing the revelation of the triune God (in essence and person) in the Old Testament.

A great achievement in such a short time. There is much more that could be said but this book was loaded with new ways of seeing God's word. It has helped propel me in my reading of the TIS (theological interpretation of Scripture), engaging with Christian metaphysics and understanding the trinity, and leading to more questions.

Praise God for His revelation of Himself in His word--that the Church can mine, discover, and see until He returns.

[Carl Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is small, but not for the faint of heart. In a very concise way Gignilliat dives headfirst into discussions about canon and scholarship and so if you aren't somewhat familiar with the works of Brevard Childs and those writing in response to his work on the Old Testament canon. Gignilliat also chooses to go with the more academic language on the issue rather than bring it to a popular level. This isn't a strike against him at all, but it is something that should be considered given the size of the volume which could be a bit misleading to some.

The first two chapters of Gignilliat's book were a bit dry in my opinion, but well worth working through in order to get into the last four chapters. He walks the line well of finding a balance between recognizing and honoring the ancientness and authority of the OT while also finding how it speaks to us as Christians today. Gignilliat does well to show that reading the scripture canonically helps us to better understand the text overall as it reveals, not every bit and piece of the journey that the scripture took, but what the text is trying to say overall about God and who He is.

The last two chapters give an example of how this is done, and Gignilliat has chosen, in my opinion, a difficult task in tackling the topic of the trinity. How do you find the trinity within the OT? Is YHWH the Father, or all three persons of the Godhead? If the trinity is even in the OT, would the authors have known it? Gignilliat does well to flesh this out and find the Godhead in the Jewish scripture while remaining faithful to the text as a whole.

Overall I would recommend this book to anyone with at least a bit of familiarity to discussions about the OT canon and the work of Childs. It's a dense and concise work that feels like a good add-on to much of what has already been established in this area of study.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley for an honest review.

[Isaiah Kirkley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The great American philosopher Peter Griffin once said of the Godfather: "It insists upon itself." And while the Godfather has not right to do so (if Peter is correct), Gignilliat makes a convincing argument that Scripture DOES have the right to "insist upon itself".

Following Brevard Childs, Gignilliat advocates for a slightly modified "canonical" approach to hermeneutics, which Childs pioneered, under the influence of Karl Barth and other neo-orthodox theologians. He does this with brief but pregnant overviews of what we mean by canon, how it has been given shape, how Scripture defines itself as canon, textual criticism, and finally, a short reflection on the hermeneutical approach arising from these ideas.

TLDR for those who don't want to read my personal reflections intermingled with a review: This book is not introductory level – it is extremely dense and academic. But if you have some basic theory of hermeneutics, textual criticism, and philosophy of Scripture under your belt, and want deeper reflections beyond the grammatical-historical method, it’s an extremely worthwhile read. It’s the Charles Barkley of hermeneutics books: short for the subject matter it tackles, but dense and agile enough to bang its way around the paint.

FULL REVIEW:

I will attempt to keep this brief. If you are in the evangelical/reformed world and have read any book on hermeneutics it has most likely advocated for, explicitly or implicitly, a grammatical-historical/historical-critical interpretive method for Scripture. I am aware that these are different terms in the scholarship depending who you ask, but I am lumping them together for the sake of simplicity.

For the past few years, I have had the nagging suspicion that something about these methods are "off" and don't quite do Scripture justice. For one, I believe they do not interpret Scripture the way Scripture interprets itself, see: Galatians 4:21-31, 1 Corinthians 10:1-5, Matthew 19:8-9, and I could go on. Using a grammatical-historical method alone, I do not believe we fully arrive at Paul’s conclusion when reading Numbers 20:1-13: “Christ was the rock.” I understand we are not Jesus or the apostles in our freedom to interpret and employ creative theology, but I do not believe our interpretive methods should leave us so far afield of them. While GH provides the essential historical foundation, Paul’s reading of Numbers 20 also reflects a typological and theological interpretation that goes beyond what grammatical-historical analysis alone yields. I realize advocates of a comprehensive GH approach would argue that biblical theology and systematic theology complete the interpretive process. However, at that point, we are moving beyond the hermeneutic itself, and this exposes what I believe is its weakness: we end up needing to do homiletical hula-hoops to arrive at the Gospel in the way we preach many Old Testament passages, instead of naturally finding Jesus, the Word given form, at every corner.

Now, let me clarify: I realize the grammatical-historical method is the method of the Reformers. We are indebted to them and should be taking spoonfuls of humility where we correct them or diverge from them. However, I think there are two issues here: one, the reformers were responding to specific theological issues for their moment in history and overcorrected in some areas. This is why Luther struggled to find hermeneutical space for James. Two, I believe what we call the "grammatical-historical" method is far removed from what the Reformers called the grammatical-historical method, due to the post-Enlightenment influence on critical methods.

Gignilliat sums this up very well: "Somewhere lurking in the shadows, or perhaps dancing in full view, is the historicist resistance to metaphysics as a critical tool for reading historical texts. Brian Daley does not dance around the issue when he claims that historical criticism often operates as 'methodologically atheistic'. John Webster expresses it this way: 'Once the historia scripturae is allowed to be determinative of the way in which the ontology of Scripture is conceived, then the biblical texts become a sub-set of the larger category of 'texts in general'' The seemingly safer ground of evangelical historical-grammatical readings does not escape these historicist concerns either."

Boom. Suddenly, my grasping at vague feelings is put to words with the above quote. In an attempt to preserve "authorial intent", we are using a nearly atheistic philosophical approach to interpretation. This turns Scripture into something that has spoken, instead of the means by which God is speaking. Here is the thing: I love the Bible. It is the very words of God. It is the creator of the universe's self-revelation. But in our search for "authorial intent", we are at great risk of forgetting Scripture has two authors: human and divine. And one of these has ALWAYS been trinitarian, and was ALWAYS writing with a trinitarian view, whether the human was aware of this or not. To constrain Scripture to the limits of the human authors intent is to do a great disservice to the ontological nature of Scripture itself. This does not mean these tools are not useful, but the historical context, human intent, and original audience should merely be a springboard to final interpretation, not the goal of interpretation itself.

A rallying cry I often here is to let Scripture interpret Scripture, and yet what we practical often do is let the original human author and original audience interpret Scripture. What Gignilliat is saying is this: let Scripture actually interpret Scripture in the canonical form which we have received it.

As a final sidenote, I have another nagging feeling which I am still working out, that many of the controversies in the church today, from egalitarianism to sexual ethics, are rooted in an overfocus on "original authorial intent". Debates around the meaning of 'arsenokoitai' and Paul's view of women in the church seem pretty quickly put to rest with a canonical reading of Scripture, as in my view it leads a "creational ideal" understanding of the Scripture's moral and ethical framework that knocks down the majority of arguments for these innovative ideas which are foreign to church history. I am still an infant in the world of hermeneutics, so I am sure this is an overly ambitious thought but still felt it worth jotting down.

Overall, this book is worth the read and does serious justice to the topic at hand if you are looking to expand your horizons beyond a strict grammatical-historical method. I realize this is mostly personal reflection, but the words above were given form by Gignilliats book, so if any of these ramblings interest you, I think the book would be of great value.

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written as an introduction to what is called the canonical approach of the Bible. The approach is known best by its advocate Brevard Childs. I have previously read the author’s earlier book titled A Brief History of Old Testament Criticism and have found that work extremely helpful. In this present book it is less a history of Old Testament Criticism as it is a short introduction to one method of biblical criticism: Canonical criticism. By criticism I don’t mean complaining or critiquing the Bible as it is a means of coming to understand the Bible rigorously.
The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 is on “Scripture's Material Form.” This section consists of four chapters. Part 2 on the other hand is on “Scripture's Subject Matter” and consists of two chapters. Before the main body of the book there is an introduction and also an epilogue.
Part 1 is largely on what is the canonical approach and also the relationship of the canonical approach to other discipline and other aspect of the Scripture. For example chapter one is titled “Scripture and Canon” and focuses on the issue of how does one understand canon. This of course is important if we are going to have a canonical approach to the Scriptures. Chapter two is on the discussion of the final form of the Scripture we have while chapter three is on canonical intentionality and chapter four is on the canon in relations to textual criticism. My favorite chapter in part 1 is actually chapter four on textual criticism. I really enjoyed the author’s discussion about the the various ancient translations of the Old Testament, the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint and the role of the Septuagint in the study of Scripture, and also role in the Church today as opposed to the acceptance of the Masoretic text. I thought the best discussions of the book happened here.
Part 2 titled as “Scripture's Subject Matter” is on how the Canonical Approach to the Old Testament will see the Old Testament is about the Trinity. Here the author is quite nuanced in that he’s clarifying he’s not saying that the human authors of the Old Testament had a developed concept of the doctrine of the Trinity but a canonical reading of the Old Testament in various key passages in light of what is to follow in the New Testament yields that certain passages is talking about the Triune God. I thought this part of the book was more disappointing than part 1. For starters the discussion was too brief. It was only two chapters as opposed to the four chapters in part 1. Also after much nuanced statement by the author of what he does and does not mean I felt rather disappointed that he handled only a few verses. Very disappointing to me as I wanted the author to flesh out more robustly from the Scripture what he believe is Scripture’s subject matter. Also I also wonder why the author held his view that the human authors didn’t grasp what they were writing about concerning the Triune nature of God. I wonder why it isn’t possible that instead the Old Testament writers might have some idea of the Trinity in incipient form which of course later in progressive revelation in the New Testament it further flesh out. While it is important to distinguish between the human and divine author of Scripture I think we must not divorced them artificially and the author’s view seem to be approaching the danger of that by insisting the human author didn’t intend on saying something about the Triune nature of God.
If I have a final criticism of the book is that I wished it gave more examples of how the canonical approach gives us deeper insight into the Bible or interpretation of the Bible. The few examples made me hunger for more examples but I felt the author spend too much time on other matters. Also the author spent too much time in my opinion of stating how the canonical approach is compatible with higher criticism, etc. There are times when I read this book I asked myself why should the author and other Christians give so much credence to higher criticism that often have a low view of the Bible. To the author’s credit the final epilogue does call for readers to be faithful to the Bible and a clear statement that the health of the church in contingent on preachers really be faithful to the message and study of the Bible.
NOTE: This book was provided to me free by Baker Academic and Net Galley without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

[Demetrius Rogers]

This book is written very academically. I might need to read this one again. There was a lot I didn't grasp. But the gist can be summarized as a reminder that the Bible serves as witness rather than source. Hence, our energies are not to be spent reconstructing the text as much as recognizing it's message as delivered to us in its final form.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I do not deliberately set out to read books that provide an echo chamber for my ideas and methodologies, I occasionally end up with a book that both makes me wish that I were about to embark anew on my biblical and theological studies or that sounds like lectures I’ve given in the past. Reading Scripture Canonically by Mark S. Gignilliat (whose own A Brief History of Old Testament Criticism: From Spinoza to Childs I have reviewed positively elsewhere on this site) is one such book. This volume simultaneously encourages me within my basic instincts in biblical interpretation (i.e. Once the source critical, form critical, text critical, and rhetorical critical work is done, it is not only permissible, but required, to look at the text as a whole and seek a Holy Spirit-directed understanding within a holistic biblical (aka “intertextual”) understanding.).

I could hear my old seminary lectures when Gignilliat cited secular literary critics in observing that there is a broader context of meaning than the initial, sometimes called reductively “literal,” meaning of the words. In that vein, Gignilliat wrote, “When Isaiah or Moses or Jeremiah utter a prophetic word, do not their language and verbal expressions say more than they could grasp?” (p. 93) As I told my students, regardless of the valuable insights of historical-critical tools, there is some point at which we must move beyond dissecting the cadaver and let the Holy Spirit breathe life into the Word. If one believes the Holy Spirit of God to be active in the creation, preservation, adaptation, and application of the scripture, one must assume that the words, passages, meanings can and do so more than the human vessels who spoke, penned, edited, or even preserved them could have known. I definitely agree with the warning quoted from Brian Daley in this book on the danger that historical criticism often functions as “methodologically atheistic.” (p. 89)

This latter consideration is addressed by Gignilliat when he writes of “thick” or “thin” authorial intention. “A thin account locates intentionality within a narrow frame of individual authorship. A thick account takes into view a providentially constructed understanding of history where a wide range of historical figures and inspired words are deemed relevant to the texts as they come into their full form.” (p. 44) He comes to this assertion after defining Kanonbewusstein or “canon consciouosness” (p. 30) via a statement concerning Isaiah 7:14. “Within its canonical context Isaiah 7 now does more than report a historical encounter between Isaiah and Ahaz. To be clear, it does not do less than give us a record of this encounter, but its canonical role does more than this.” (p. 31) So, saying, it is not Gignilliat’s methodology to jump past the benefits of historical-critical work and jump right to a New Testament interpretation. Rather, his intent is that we don’t stop with the traditional approaches or artificially limit our encounters with the text but push on to an understanding taken in a fuller context. In other words, the entire scripture becomes the Sitz im Leben (setting in life) from which we interpret the text (p. 47).

Reading Scripture Canonically is not a “how-to” book. It is more of a call to action. Despite the insights provided on the validity of seeing trinitarian insights in the use of the name Yahweh (particularly with “Angel of …” or “Messenger of…”) in texts like Genesis 32 and Hosea 12 or in the so-called “Suffering Servant Songs” of the latter Isaiah, Gignilliat’s methodology (as one sometimes feels when reading Brevard Childs) seems somewhat “touchy-feely.” Perhaps, that is only to be expected when the process depends upon a faith perception and willingness to surrender to something beyond one’s own exegetical work. Again, this is not a surrender to mystery instead of using critical tools; it is beyond mere human effort. Of course, Gignilliat quotes none other than Karl Barth in making that clear: “Exegesis, exegesis, and yet more exegesis. Keep to the Word, the scripture which has been given us.” (p. 116)

I particularly liked the closing remarks of the book, one of which would have sounded familiar in my classes: “Still, it is the open Bible that sustains and energizes every component of pastoral ministry and, for that matter, Christian existence.” (p. 119) The sentiments expressed in Reading Scripture Canonically would definitely have been welcomed by the Master of Divinity students in my cohort during my first year of seminary. Even in graduate work, there were many students who were willing to dissect the cadaver, but never try to bring anything to life. Reading Scripture Canonically is a marvelous corrective in terms of theory, but still doesn’t quite provide a handle for doing canonical interpretation on one’s own.

[Samuel Bierig · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a GREAT read. The 6th chapter which was on Trinitarian readings and the the OT was very encouraging and spiritually nourishing. Gignilliat's wields a breadth of reading from OT to Systematics to the Christian Tradition to hermeneutics to textual criticism, etc. He displays a masterful grasp of a good many disciplines. stunning really. This is the second best book I have read in 2019.

[Jack Hayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark G. Gignilliat wrote Reading Scripture Canonically to stop speaking about the text without encountering its author God by turning to a Brevard Child’s inspired canonical interpretation.
Yet challenges abound. One such challenge arises from textual criticism’s stress on historical reception over canon and Scripture. Incorrectly "silo[ing]" and distorting the text’s "internal pressures.” To correct this, Gignilliat proposes a turn to a canonical reading, which, following Childs, emphasizes a broader range of the text—valuing the "beginning" and final received version of the text rather than the moment of exclusion or inclusion from the canon. More importantly, a canonical reading follows the communities that received and generated the text, belief that despite its varied forms and human authors, it is where "God has spoken (Deus dixit) and is speaking" (9). An idea demonstrated within the text, particularly by the prophets' retelling and interpretation of Israel’s history. Here Gignilliat connects how canonical readings can accept God speaking today while honoring the text’s original context.

Gignilliat is aware that these propositions seem to open the flood gates of subjectivity. However, he holds that a canonical reading does not put aside historical-critical studies but acknowledges the text’s complexities without being caught in them. In this way, canonical readings accept both the infinite meaning of Scripture (God's authorship) and privilege its final form (material form). “The canonical approach resists the atomizing instincts of form criticism that tend toward an overly historicized understanding of the biblical text, even if its history is religious and not empirical." (20-22; 33). Thus, a canonical reading does not "deny complexity or theological diversity" but exposes imposed false dichotomies between of source vs. witness, and theology vs. history. Meanwhile, challenging modern "impositions" of "conceptual coherence" on the biblical material. (36) Again, Gignilliat points back to the prophets who speak with unity and separate voices duly influenced by the canon. All these moves bestow a hope for Gignilliat that the canonical method will grant exegesis with a theological framework (40).

Another reason the canonical reading is superior is that the Bible’s final form that we have access to is the canon. Thus, the text's final form should be favored over authorial intention (43). Furthermore, because a canonical approach goes beyond historical provenances, it allows the "actualization of the text." Just as it spoke in their day, it can speak in ours (49). Therefore, surprisingly, the material form of the text allows for Scriptural application today. However, this does not lead to Origenian free jazz. Because first, "the canon is not an object which can become detached from its reception by synagogue and church." Second, there is a "hard distinction between text and interpreter to keep Scripture from becoming a wax nose." At the same time, interpretation is not "a closed door but a wide-open gate," allowing a new generation to hear God's voice (52).
In part two, Gignilliat begins with two critiques. One is that historicism needs to discard its opposition to metaphysical commitments. To demonstrate this, Gignilliat employs a canonical reading to display that it is okay that Moses is not a Trinitarian while being inspired by the Trinitarian God. On the other hand, and here is the second critique, theological interpretation cannot overlook the text’s details and deny the "material sufficiency of Scripture" (86). In this via media, the surplus meaning of the text is accepted while concurrently, the "literal sense and Scripture’s subject matter resist dissolution" (97).

But why should exegetes be concerned with the metaphysical? One reason is that Scripture is concerned with who and what God is. One example Gignilliat gives is the stress the Pentateuch places on knowing who and what God is; this is not an "extrinsic imposition" but an internal pressure. Yet can a canonical reading generate a Trinitarian reading? Gignilliat judges, yes. And he does this by attending to the details of the text, demonstrating his method. For illustration, he sees a plurality of personhood being identified with Yahweh in the example of Jacob wrestling with an angel who is a man yet recognized as God. By looking at the details of Gen. 32 and by canonically looking forward to Hos. 12:5, Gignilliat senses a canonical concern with the personhood of God. Employing the canonical reading, he can say that Yahweh is the Trinity, but the name is not possessed by one person (112).

Gignilliat’s little book, almost a pamphlet, hiding the depth of a tome, argues with clarity. By pointing to a canonical reading, Gignilliat offers an inter-disciplinary discussion harkening to those wandering the "theological mountains" to return to the composition of these mountains while reminding those who attend to the history that God wrote the canon.

However, Gignilliat seems to conflate theological readings with readings that are applicatory and, by doing so, fails to demonstrate how the canonical reading is exactly theological. Theological reading is more than the text’s application to modern contexts. This is exhibited by Gignilliat himself when he shows the text’s concern with who God is, which is undoubtedly a theological reading but not explicitly applicable. This is exposed by his attempt to link Bonhoeffer's reading to a canonical reading. While the canonical reading might 'validate' Bonhoeffer’s reading, Bonhoeffer is not reading canonically in a Child-sian way. Therefore, is the canonical reading generating theological readings or a way to explain and validate them? It would have been helpful to flush out what a theological reading is.

Flowing from this, the book could have discussed the connection between doctrine and canonical readings. This is most needed during his correct critique that theologians are in danger of disregarding the material sufficiency of Scripture. However, these ideas could have benefitted from more discussion. For example, why do we need ontologies if the Bible is materially sufficient? Do the ontologies arise from the Bible’s material sufficiency? While the OT talks about personhood, how can we talk about the Bible's material sufficiency while using concepts outside of it? A canonical reading does not seem to account for these issues.

Overall, this is a wonderful book, which, hopefully, Gignilliat will expand upon in the future. The path seems set, but it can use more examples and seek to articulate how the canonical reading is theological.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Someone should invent a machine that every writer of theology has to put their book through before they publish it to take out all the high-brow, elitist language before they publish. I'll give you an example from Mr. Gignilliat's book: "The current chapter expands on the previous one by examining more closely the relationship between intentionality and canon. Admittedly, critical inquiry into authorial intentionality or textual intentionality opens up a veritable Pandora's box."

[Here is an interesting aside, the term "Pandora's box" came from the saga of the mutiny on the Bounty. Some of the mutineers were brought home on a ship in a brutally small and hot box that they named "Pandora's box" after the name of the ship, the Pandora]

Mr. Gignilliat continues: "This chapter, therefore, makes no claim to coverage, exhaustive or otherwise, of this complex hermeneutical matter. What this chapter does seek to do is situate the canonical approach within a hermeneutical frame that, on the one hand, denies the indeterminate character of biblical texts and, on the other hand, affirms modern criticism's problematizing of any simple, romantic understanding of authorial agency."

Now, I graciously make the assumption that Mr. Gignilliat knew what he was saying in this paragraph and probably 2 or 3 other theologians might. The rest of the unwashed masses are left outside the circle of knowledge perhaps to ponder where we went wrong in life.

This is the beginning of chapter 3 in this little book and so far I do not have a clue what it means to read scripture "canonically" or why it might help in Old Testament Interpretation as the cover claims. I did however, come across this gem of a sentence: "Christotelic readings run into the danger of fusing the ontological character of Israel's Scripture with the epistemic horizon of those who wrote, edited, and compiled them."

Having suffered through this book, I've come to the following conclusions:

1. For the most part I do not have a clue what Mr. Gignilliat is getting at in this book, and;
2. The language is mostly dense and opaque, no doubt written to his (3) peers, and;
3. I'm going to send this book to my oldest brother so he has to suffer through it also, and;
4. I did at least understand one sentence in the epilogue: "The church's long-term health and faithful witness rests on its commitment to seeking after God's Word in Holy Scripture." Now this I understand and heartily agree with; too bad the rest of the book was so inscrutable, fuliginous, and obnubilated.

[Brian Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to make of this book. My initial impressions are that its purpose isn't clear, and it is far less than the sum of its parts. I suppose I thought it would be a book that encourages its readers to read the Old Testament in light of the New. In other words, I assumed it would be a work of biblical theology. But it's not. The "Canonically" of the title is a reference to some debate among OT scholars such as Brevard Childs. So, the book is probably aimed at OT specialists. I'm not an OT specialist. I'm a pastor who preaches expository sermons, sometimes from the OT. I'm also a PhD student in philosophy of religion. I didn't feel like the book was at all helpful to someone like me. There were truisms that assert that the church has to take the Bible seriously (who doesn't know that) and that the Bible must be read as a whole, with the understanding that its author and subject is the triune God (again, this is obvious).

Perhaps the only interesting part of the book for me was the discussion of the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint. (The fact that the NT writers frequently quote the latter is proof that God's Word can be translated without losing its meaning.)

The other parts that were of interest to me were discussions of specific OT texts, such as the reference to the servant of God being "high and lifted up" in Isaiah 52:13; the revelation of the divine name in Exodus; and the account of Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord in Genesis 32.

[Ryan Storch · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his book, Reading Scripture Canonically, Mark Gignilliat provides serious students of scripture with an introduction to reading scripture canonically.

The first case that Gignilliat makes is for the relationship between scripture and canon. He argues that there is a canon consciousness within the text. Second, he argues for what he calls sanding with the grain. Here, he argues that the final form of the canon gets priority in its reading. Third, he argues for a canonical intentionality. The idea that there was an intentionality in the bringing together of the books of scripture. Fourth, he engages with textual criticism. He emphasizes the Divine Authorship as what lasts.
Along with that, he engages with uniformity. While in Qumran, texts were uniform, outside of Qumran, we see a unified textual tradition. Finally, he speaks to the Triune nature of God even in the Old Testament and the nature of scripture as divine speech.

[Christopher Gow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This makes the case that Christian Biblical scholars should be able to let their Christian convictions and inclinations shape the way they do Old Testament studies. That seems pretty basic, but Gignilliat makes the case very thoroughly and sometimes confusingly.

I found his ideas really helpful, but his writing pretty hard to read/obscure.

If this is assigned in a class that you are taking, the class is probably good (and you may not need a book like this anyway...), but otherwise I wouldn't recommend reading this unless you are really interested in Christian Old Testament hermeneutics

[Tyler Costilow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly useful instincts for reading the Old Testament. Wonderfully explains the distinct rails of the Trinity which guide the biblical canon from an internal process. Shorter book but very dense.