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According To The Scriptures
1961. Reprinted. 145 pages. Grey dust jacket over blue cloth. Binding remains firm. Pages are lightly tanned throughout. Previous owner's inscription to front free endpaper. Boards have light shelf-wear with corner bumping. Slight crushing to spine ends. Unclipped jacket has light edgewear with chips and creasing. Light tanning to spine and edges.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1952
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About the author
C.H. Dodd
55 books15 followersCharles Harold Dodd was a Welsh New Testament scholar and influential Protestant theologian. He is known for promoting "realized eschatology", the belief that Jesus' references to the kingdom of God meant a present reality rather than a future apocalypse.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 11, 2024
This is my favorite type of Christian book- one that helps me better understand the vast storyline of Scripture, the continuity of thought from Old to New. CH Dodd has an unbelievable grasp of the whole of Scripture and is able to make clear the themes and threads of the entire Bible.
Phenomenal book, if a bit technical (not a hard read; you just have to wade through un-translated greek words and roman numeral chapter references, eg: Ps. cvii 1). The book is no longer in print but available used and free to read online.
I picked it up because of the sheer number of times it is cited in other great books.
Dodd asserts that as the early NT church sought to make sense of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus by reading and reasoning "according to the Scriptures”; they set themselves to studying the OT Scriptures.
To understand the good news, to understand how it is good news, we must understand what has gone before (the OT). All of the NT authors explained "the Gospel by arguing from the [OT] Scriptures.”
"What we are trying to do is get an opening into the intellectual workshop of the early Church, and to watch its mind at work."
Dodd does this by analyzing the Old Testament passages referenced by multiple NT authors. His main thesis: these Old Testament quotations in the New Testament were not cherry picked and applied arbitrarily by the NT authors, but instead were used in line with the entire flow of thought of the OT passage from which they were plucked. So when a NT author cites an OT verse he is likely referring to the whole chapter, not just the verse.
A few insights that were particularly helpful:
- The OT prophecies often seem to flow interchangeably between an individual figure and Israel collectivity ("My Servant Israel”). The NT does the same - interchangeably applying OT verses to attributes of both Christ AND the church (Dodd calls it “the transference of attributes between Christ and the Church, which we note in many places”). In Christ "this ambiguity is overcome. The role of the Servant in its completeness is personally enacted by Christ crucifed and risen, but His experience is no less corporate. In Him the people of God passes through disaster to glory.” Israel, in Christ, goes through judgment and destruction, then exaltation and glorification. And the Church, in Christ, becomes the Servant whom will crush the serpent under our feet (Romans 16:20). Israel AND Christ AND the church are the vine. They are all the Servant AND the Son of Man.
- Many of the OT prophecies follow this plot: The people of God (AND the messiah of God) will undergo suffering/judgement because of sin but will be restored through the forgiveness of sins. More succinctly: there will be “an emergence of a new Israel after terrible judgments.” Even more succinctly: Death and Resurrection.
- At some point, all the great messianic ideas (the Son of Man, the Suffering Servant, the vine of Israel, the victorious priest-king, and the man at the right hand of God) are all brought together in "an entirely new figure…a resolution of the tension between the individual and the collective aspects of several of these figures.” Who is the creative genius that was able to understand and explain all of those coming together in the person of Jesus?? It was Jesus Christ himself, in the days after his resurrection (road to Emmaus, et al) , who walked the disciples through the OT scripture, showing them how ALL of these were fulfilled in Him.
- None of Paul’s epistles were written to prove "the scriptural warrant for the Messiahship of Jesus, or for His sufferings and resurrection.” HIs audience didn’t seem to need need convincing on those points. But what was controversial and needed proving was whether Jesus’ kingdom included both Jew and Gentile. The longest discussion of this is in Romans 9-11. How does Paul convince them? By quoting from: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Samuel, Kings, Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel, Malachi (an astounding 14 different OT books in just three chapters). "This is evidence of the thorough and extensive biblical [OT] research which lies behind Paul's exposition of the Gospel."
- The two sermons of Paul in Acts (to the Thessalonians and Agrippa) and the summary in Luke of Jesus’ post-resurrection teachings are identical in their three points:
(a) that the Messiah is to suffer and
(b) to rise from the dead the third day, and
(c) that in His name repentance leading to forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all nations
And all three points are according to the OT scriptures. If you can argue these three from the OT, you probably don’t need to read Dodd. But if you can’t, then I’d recommend reading Dodd!
Phenomenal book, if a bit technical (not a hard read; you just have to wade through un-translated greek words and roman numeral chapter references, eg: Ps. cvii 1). The book is no longer in print but available used and free to read online.
I picked it up because of the sheer number of times it is cited in other great books.
Dodd asserts that as the early NT church sought to make sense of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus by reading and reasoning "according to the Scriptures”; they set themselves to studying the OT Scriptures.
To understand the good news, to understand how it is good news, we must understand what has gone before (the OT). All of the NT authors explained "the Gospel by arguing from the [OT] Scriptures.”
"What we are trying to do is get an opening into the intellectual workshop of the early Church, and to watch its mind at work."
Dodd does this by analyzing the Old Testament passages referenced by multiple NT authors. His main thesis: these Old Testament quotations in the New Testament were not cherry picked and applied arbitrarily by the NT authors, but instead were used in line with the entire flow of thought of the OT passage from which they were plucked. So when a NT author cites an OT verse he is likely referring to the whole chapter, not just the verse.
A few insights that were particularly helpful:
- The OT prophecies often seem to flow interchangeably between an individual figure and Israel collectivity ("My Servant Israel”). The NT does the same - interchangeably applying OT verses to attributes of both Christ AND the church (Dodd calls it “the transference of attributes between Christ and the Church, which we note in many places”). In Christ "this ambiguity is overcome. The role of the Servant in its completeness is personally enacted by Christ crucifed and risen, but His experience is no less corporate. In Him the people of God passes through disaster to glory.” Israel, in Christ, goes through judgment and destruction, then exaltation and glorification. And the Church, in Christ, becomes the Servant whom will crush the serpent under our feet (Romans 16:20). Israel AND Christ AND the church are the vine. They are all the Servant AND the Son of Man.
- Many of the OT prophecies follow this plot: The people of God (AND the messiah of God) will undergo suffering/judgement because of sin but will be restored through the forgiveness of sins. More succinctly: there will be “an emergence of a new Israel after terrible judgments.” Even more succinctly: Death and Resurrection.
- At some point, all the great messianic ideas (the Son of Man, the Suffering Servant, the vine of Israel, the victorious priest-king, and the man at the right hand of God) are all brought together in "an entirely new figure…a resolution of the tension between the individual and the collective aspects of several of these figures.” Who is the creative genius that was able to understand and explain all of those coming together in the person of Jesus?? It was Jesus Christ himself, in the days after his resurrection (road to Emmaus, et al) , who walked the disciples through the OT scripture, showing them how ALL of these were fulfilled in Him.
- None of Paul’s epistles were written to prove "the scriptural warrant for the Messiahship of Jesus, or for His sufferings and resurrection.” HIs audience didn’t seem to need need convincing on those points. But what was controversial and needed proving was whether Jesus’ kingdom included both Jew and Gentile. The longest discussion of this is in Romans 9-11. How does Paul convince them? By quoting from: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Samuel, Kings, Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel, Malachi (an astounding 14 different OT books in just three chapters). "This is evidence of the thorough and extensive biblical [OT] research which lies behind Paul's exposition of the Gospel."
- The two sermons of Paul in Acts (to the Thessalonians and Agrippa) and the summary in Luke of Jesus’ post-resurrection teachings are identical in their three points:
(a) that the Messiah is to suffer and
(b) to rise from the dead the third day, and
(c) that in His name repentance leading to forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all nations
And all three points are according to the OT scriptures. If you can argue these three from the OT, you probably don’t need to read Dodd. But if you can’t, then I’d recommend reading Dodd!
November 20, 2012
The correct book title is "According to the Scriptures," not "According to Scriptures."
In According to the Scriptures, Dodd proposed a serious consideration of the place of the Old Testament in the formation of the New Testament theology, in that the latter takes the former as its “sub-structure” and primary background beyond other contemporary Hellenistic influences.
Dodd also gave a fresh perspective with regard to the New Testament use of the "Scripture", namely the OT testament, as well as other pre-Christian Judaism, to be in principle true to their authorial intentions without too much theological twists or reshaping.
The most significant implication of Dodd’s proposal was to reevaluate the NT authors’ somewhat manipulative and even abusive use of OT not as corrupted direct quotations, but as index-reference to introduce the entire source verses in the OT as the context, a method Dodd called testimonia.
Critiques:
Though not a defender of the verbal revelation, Dodd's emphasis on the OT as the primary background of the NT is certainly welcomed by the conservatives. However we must keep in mind that Dodd's approach is not essentially different from the historical and literary critics before him. For Dodd this is simply a matter of fact discovered by his detective work. Therefore there is no warrant that his re-centering NT theology around the OT will succeed, if without persistently granting both OT and NT the status of divine verbal revelation as Scripture to the Church.
Dodd provides several examples to test and demonstrate his hypothesis, but without real testing of his idea in each case, it is still insufficient to prove that every place in the NT use of the OT has the same assumption as Dodd has wished.
In fact, Dodd may have lifted up the authority of pre-Christian Judaism in interpreting the OT more than the conservative would like to see. The method of testimonia can be applied differently, depending on the person's view of what the Old Testament is about.
In According to the Scriptures, Dodd proposed a serious consideration of the place of the Old Testament in the formation of the New Testament theology, in that the latter takes the former as its “sub-structure” and primary background beyond other contemporary Hellenistic influences.
Dodd also gave a fresh perspective with regard to the New Testament use of the "Scripture", namely the OT testament, as well as other pre-Christian Judaism, to be in principle true to their authorial intentions without too much theological twists or reshaping.
The most significant implication of Dodd’s proposal was to reevaluate the NT authors’ somewhat manipulative and even abusive use of OT not as corrupted direct quotations, but as index-reference to introduce the entire source verses in the OT as the context, a method Dodd called testimonia.
Critiques:
Though not a defender of the verbal revelation, Dodd's emphasis on the OT as the primary background of the NT is certainly welcomed by the conservatives. However we must keep in mind that Dodd's approach is not essentially different from the historical and literary critics before him. For Dodd this is simply a matter of fact discovered by his detective work. Therefore there is no warrant that his re-centering NT theology around the OT will succeed, if without persistently granting both OT and NT the status of divine verbal revelation as Scripture to the Church.
Dodd provides several examples to test and demonstrate his hypothesis, but without real testing of his idea in each case, it is still insufficient to prove that every place in the NT use of the OT has the same assumption as Dodd has wished.
In fact, Dodd may have lifted up the authority of pre-Christian Judaism in interpreting the OT more than the conservative would like to see. The method of testimonia can be applied differently, depending on the person's view of what the Old Testament is about.
June 15, 2015
Very helpful in understanding the correlation between the scriptures.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews