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2007.
Christ and the Covenant.
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341.
Article contents
Of Metaphors and Analogies: Legal Language and Covenant Theology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Extract
For some years I have been interested in exploring the use made of legal language by Paul and other New Testament writers. Recently, however, I have been reading a fair amount of Covenant Theology, and have become increasingly aware of the problems that arise from the application of ‘covenant’ terminology and related metaphors. Accordingly, in this article I want first to consider the general nature and function of metaphors and analogies as I see their role in the transmission of the truths of Christianity, and then to apply these generalities to the field of Covenant Theology. It seems to me that much discussion in that field comes down to argument about the content of the metaphoric language involved, and that some of the argument arises from an improper approach to metaphor. However, as I am aware that my reading has been limited and patchy, and that, as a lawyer, I am intruding into another discipline, I will refrain from attempting the scholarly citation of precise examples from theological writing, in the hope that ideas from my discipline will not be dismissed merely on grounds of error of example.
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References
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page 9 note 1 Holdsworth, W. S., A History of English Law. 3rd ed., London, 1923, vol. 2, pp. 82–87Google Scholar; vol. 3, pp. 412–54; Simpson, A. W. B., A History of the Common Law of Contract. Oxford, 1973, pp. 9–52Google Scholar; Cheshire, G. C. and Fifoot, C. H. S., The Law of Contract. 7th ed., London, 1969, pp. 3–6Google Scholar; Arnold, M. S., ‘Fourteenth Century Promises’, Cambridge L.J. 35 (1976), pp. 321–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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page 11 note 1 Walker, pp. 522–3; Memorandum pp. 2–8, 23–4 (paras. 2–7; 27).
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page 11 note 3 Cocceius, Johannes (1603–69), Summa Doctrina defoedere et testamento Dei. Leiden, 1648Google Scholar, and the continental reformers, wrote from a civil law context.
page 12 note 1 Memorandum pp. 2, 5–6 (paras. 2 and 7). Cf. also Scot. Law Coram. Memorandum No. 36: Formation of Contract, pp. 4–5 (para. 5) and Cross, D. G. Asbton, ‘Bare Promise in Scots Law’, Juridical Review (1957), pp. 138–50.Google Scholar
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page 17 note 2 e.g. Campbell, K. M., God's Covenant. U.S.A., 1973Google Scholar, and ‘Covenant or Testament? Heb. 9.16, 17 Reconsidered’, Ev. Quart. 44 (1972), pp. 107–11. Ronald Knox's Catholic translation solves the problem by restricting ‘testament’ as a further example, not integral to the covenant metaphor.
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