Martin Bucer as Interpreter of the Old Testament: A Re-examination of Previous Scholarship in Light of Bucer's Enarrationes in librum Iudicum (ca. 1540)

Abstract

The Alsatian reformer, Martin Bucer (1491-1551), lectured on the Old Testament book of Judges, probably in the early 1540s. Fragments of these lectures have been preserved because they were included in the 1554 edition of his Psalms commentary. In the present article an attempt is made to elucidate some aspects of Bucer's method of interpretation and of the theological motives underlying his exegesis. The Enarrationes in librum Iudicum generally seem to support the observation that Bucer's exegesis moves between the two poles of adherence to the Hebraica veritas on the one hand, and a focus on the internal and ethical meaning underlying the text on the other. However, they also suggest that Bucer in practice could resort to allegorizing exegesis in order to defend emerging, more characteristically ‘Reformed’ doctrine and that he could appeal to an authority even beyond the internal meaning of the text, viz., God's hidden will.