Did you see Superman?

The latest kerfuffle at WTS, involving Green/Fantuzzo, is an extension of the Enns affair. To what extent Green/Fantuzzo (or Longman and McCartney) share the perspective of Enns is disputed. However, this raises, once more, the issue of how the OT "points" to Jesus. 

i) Christians of good will can, and often do, struggle to formulate how the OT points to Jesus. That's not surprising. For one thing, this, in part, goes to general philosophical debates concering rival theories of meaning. It's not as if Christians are guilty of special pleading if they find it challenging to hit on the right formulation. These hermeneutical issues are not unique to Scripture, although Scripture adds an extra dimension to the debate.

ii) Apropos (i), the fact that some Christians may have an unsatisfactory model of how the OT points to Jesus is not, in itself, disqualifying. However, not everyone is acting in good faith. Although we can debate the right answer, there is clearly a wrong answer. More precisely, there's clearly a right starting point and a wrong starting point.

The right starting point begins with the inspiration of Scripture. In some sense, God reveals the future. He reveals the future to prophets. In addition, God has prearranged history so that some things foreshadow other things. 

An "Incarnational" model of inspiration, or "Christotelic" hermeneutic sounds pious enough, but as we know by now, that's cover fire for an essentially secular view of Scripture. Enns clearly denies the inspiration of Scripture, apart from Pickwickian definitions. By the same token, he implicitly denies predictive prophecy. Any hermeneutic which begins with that starting-point is a non-starter. 

iii) Let's attempt to sketch a positive hermeneutic. How is the OT about Jesus? 

Let's begin with a comparison. Suppose a pedestrian in Metropolis witnesses Superman save the day. Suppose you ask him, "Have you seen Clark Kent?" Suppose he says "No." Is his answer true or false?

Well, in on sense, by seeing Superman, the pedestrian saw Clark Kent. But he doesn't know that Clark Kent is really Superman. So the true answer is equivocal. We have to break it down.

iv) There are characters who know who Clark Kent is. Even in that respect, their knowledge may be limited or compartmentalized. Some characters know that Clark Kent is the bespectacled, unassuming reporter at the Daily Planet.

Other characters know the backstory of Clark Kent. He's was a farm boy who grew up in Smallville, USA. The son of Martha and Jonathan Kent. 

They may assume Martha and Jonathan were his biological parents. Only a few characters know that they are actually his adoptive parents.

Many characters know who Superman is, although their knowledge is usually quite limited or compartmentalized. Most of them know that he's a good guy, a heroic figure, with superhuman abilities, who uses his special powers to fight evil and defend the innocent. 

Very few characters know the backstory of Clark Kent. Very few know that he's an alien from the doomed planet of Krypton. That his "biological" parents were Lara and Jor-El. That his real name is Kal-El. Very few know that his superhuman abilities derive from his alien nature. 

By contrast, the narrator knows everything about Superman. He knows that Clark Kent is an alias for Superman. He knows the backstory of Superman.

And the audience is privy to what the narrator knows. The audience knows more about the true identity of Superman than almost any of the characters within the story. The audience knows that Clark Kent and Superman are one and the same individual. 

v) We might also distinguish between the actor and the role. Different actors can play the same role. You can know who Superman is, in the sense of being familiar with the character, without knowing in advance what actor will be cast to play that part. Conversely, it's possible to know about the actor without being conversant with the Superman mythos. 

vi) This illustrates some technical distinctions in hermeneutics. On the one hand, Superman and Clark Kent don't mean the same thing. On the other hand, Superman and Clark Kent are co-referring expressions. 

Superman denotes the alien superhero, whereas Clark Kent denotes his human alias. Superman leads a double life, slumming as an ordinary human being. 

Suppose a character describes Clark Kent. He doesn't intend his description to pick out Superman. But since Clark Kent is Superman, his description of Superman unintentionally refers to Superman. 

In addition, there's a difference between not intending to refer to Superman, and intending not to refer to Superman. The fact that in describing Clark Kent he did not intend to refer to Superman doesn't mean he intended to deny that Clark Kent was Superman. It was not his intention to contrast the two. Therefore, the true identity of Clark Kent doesn't contravene his intentions. 

vii) In Messianic prophecy, it's useful to distinguish between sense and reference. Did Isaiah think that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah? No. However, when Isaiah describes the Messiah, his descriptions pick out Jesus. That isn't a case of NT writers reassigning these descriptions to Jesus.

Different OT prophets know different things about the Messiah. God disclosed different things to different prophets. Some prophets know more about the Clark Kent side of Jesus, while other prophets know more about the Superman side of Jesus. Some know more about the backstories than others. 

Likewise, Isaiah could know what the Messiah would be like without knowing who would play the Messiah–just as I can know about the character without knowing ahead of time that Zack Snyder or Christopher Reeve will play the part.

There's another asymmetry. Later OT prophets can know what earlier OT prophets said, but not vice versa. Having the benefit of hindsight doesn't begin with the NT. That retrospective outlook was already unfolding in the OT. 

My analysis doesn't require me to say that an OT prophet did not intend to refer to Jesus. Rather, this is a limiting case. Even if (ex hypothesi) that's an unintentional implication of the description, it still refers to Jesus. If Clark Kent is an alias for Superman, then by metaphysical necessity (identity of indiscernibles/indiscernibility of identicals) an accurate description of Clark Kent will implicate Superman in the process. Even if an OT prophet is ignorant of the Messiah's true identity, Messianic prophecy successfully refers to the Jesus via the descriptions. An OT prophet can be talking about Jesus even if that's not what he had in mind. 

Isaiah intends his description. Isaiah intends the choice of words that form his sentences. The description may have objective implications above and beyond what he was consciously aware of. The future event is out of his hands. He doesn't intend or will the event. That's up to God.

Isaiah determines the sense, but not the referent, for the referent (e.g. future person or event) is causally independent of Isaiah.  

OT prophets are like characters in the story. Bible writers are instrumental authors in relation to the divine narrator. 

viii) Finally, God prearranges history so that some things are analogous to other things. Earlier persons, places, institutions, or events have later counterparts. There are prophetic events as well as prophetic texts. 

All this requires a strong doctrine of inspiration, revelation, and providence. But with those elements in place, it's not special pleading to discern how the OT points to Jesus.