According to the Scriptures by C. H. Dodd
Essentials in Biblical Theology Series
According to the Scriptures by C. H. Dodd[1]
In According to the Scriptures, C. H. Dodd sought to discover a theological foundation common to the New Testament authors. Writing in response to “modern critical study of the New Testament that has made us appreciate the individuality of the great theologians of the apostolic age,” Dodd searched for a sub-structure, a common foundation, for the theology of the New Testament authors on which they built their own unique theological “buildings.”[2] According to the Scriptures is, in part at least, an argument that such a sub-structure to the theology of the New Testament does exist.
Dodd was also responding to the idea the New Testament authors were using testimony books, books “which contained various kinds of proof texts (testimonia) commonly used for apologetic purposes.”[3] According to this theory, the New Testament authors pulled from these testimony books when citing from the Old Testament, rather than from the text of the Old Testament itself in its Old Testament context. Dodd did not believe that such collections of Old Testament proof texts best explained how the New Testament authors used the Old Testament. For Dodd, these Old Testament texts themselves, in their context in the Old Testament, form the sub-structure of the theology of the New Testament.
Dodd searched the New Testament for Old Testament texts independently cited by two or more New Testament authors, arriving at fifteen passages that he argued form the basis of the Old Testament testimonies to Jesus and the gospel.[4] These fifteen passages provided strong grounds “for believing that New Testament writers were working upon a tradition in which certain passages of the Old Testament were regarded as ‘testimonies’ to the Gospel facts, or in other words as disclosing that ‘determinate counsel of God’ which was fulfilled in those facts” (57). The New Testament authors believed these fifteen texts demonstrated that the gospel message was indeed “according to the Scriptures.”
The bulk of this short work is Dodd’s attempt to demonstrate how these fifteen texts make up the sub-structure of the theology of the New Testament authors. Dodd divided these Old Testament testimonia texts into four groups: apocalyptic-eschatological Scriptures, Scriptures of the new Israel, Scriptures of the servant of the Lord and the righteous sufferer, and unclassified Scriptures. Dodd examined the context of these fifteen Old Testament texts, concluding that the New Testament authors were often not referring just to the specific verses they cited, but that “the unit of reference was sometimes wider than the usually brief form of words actually quoted” (61). Instead of referring to specific verses or phrases, the New Testament authors often had in mind the broader scope of these Old Testament testimonies to Jesus, viewing the passage itself as fulfilled in Jesus and in the events of the gospel. Where did the New Testament authors learn to read the Old Testament in this manner? Dodd argued that the disciples most likely read the Old Testament this way because Jesus himself taught them to do so.
After arguing that these testimonia texts provide the answer to how the gospel facts were according to the Scriptures, Dodd went on to argue that “that the fundamental and regulative ideas of Christian theology as it meets us in the New Testament arise out of the understanding of these Scriptures in relation to the evangelical facts” (111). For example, the apostles’ ecclesiology arose from the idea that the church was the fulfillment of the Old Testament people of God. “What happened was that the existing Jewish community ceased to represent the true Israel of God, as the embodiment of his purposes for mankind, and its place was taken by the Christian ecclesia” (113). The church, then, was the direct fulfillment of the people of God in the Old Testament.
But were the New Testament authors misappropriating these Old Testament texts when they read them as being fulfilled in Jesus and in the church? Dodd argued that the New Testament authors operated with a patterned view of history; “a pattern, not in the sense of a pre-ordained sequence of inevitable events, but in the sense of a kind of master-plan imposed upon the order of human life in this world by the Creator himself.” In other words, the New Testament authors found divinely ordained patterns in the Old Testament that were fulfilled in the New Testament, even if not directly predicted in the verses of the Old Testament.[5] “In general, then, the writers of the New Testament, in making use of passages from the Old Testament, remain true to the main intention of their writers. Yet the actual meaning discovered in a given passage will seldom, in the nature of things, coincide precisely with that which it had in its original context. The transposition into a fresh situation involves a certain shift, nearly always an expansion, of the original scope of the passage” (130).[6]
The New Testament authors then serve as a pattern for Christian theologians today. Just as the New Testament authors went to the Old Testament in an effort to answer the most pressing questions of their day, Christians today should likewise go back to the source in the Scriptures, to apply these Scriptures to the pressing questions of our day. “The challenge of a new period with its peculiar problems should force us back to the pit from whence we were digged and the rock from whence we were hewn” (138).
In According to the Scriptures, Dodd has most directly contributed to study of the scriptural use of Scripture. He argued both that the New Testament authors were contextual in their use of the Old Testament and that we as Christians today can imitate their method of reading the Old Testament. While not everyone has followed Dodd on either account,[7] many contemporary works have built their ideas from Dodd’s conclusions.[8] Dodd stands as a precursor to many modern scholars who argue that the New Testament authors largely used the Old Testament in a contextual manner and that our reading of the Old Testament today should be patterned after how the New Testament authors read the Old Testament.
As to the field of biblical theology more specifically, Dodd’s main contribution lies in how he views the connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament. One of the main issues in biblical theology is how the two Testaments relate to one another. For Dodd, they are connected in that they both have the same patterned view of history, and based on this consistent pattern of history, we genuinely can talk about the New Testament as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Dodd’s work continues to provide the sub-structure of much evangelical discussion on how the New Testament authors use the Old Testament, and by extension, he provides a reasoned starting point for those who see a genuine connection between the two Testaments, with the Old Testament truly being fulfilled in the gospel message.
Charlie Ray
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (August 2025)
TL;DR
Dodd responded to an overemphasis on the uniqueness of each New Testament author by arguing that their unique writings were based on a common sub-structure to their theology.
He rejected the idea that the New Testament authors pulled from “testimony books” of Old Testament proof texts, instead arguing that the New Testament authors read the Old Testament in its context.
The New Testament authors really did see Jesus and the church as the fulfillment of the Old Testament, but not as much in a prophecy-prediction manner, but in the sense that the New Testament authors picked up on patterns in history, ordained by God, that were fulfilled in Christ.
Dodd has had a large impact on many evangelical scholars and how they view the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, and he provides one example of a scholar who sees the theology of the New Testament as the genuine fulfillment of the theology of the Old Testament.
[1] C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-structure of New Testament Theology (London: Nisbet & Co., 1953).
[2] “Can we find a substructure—a part of the actual edifice—which is common to them all, or are there several buildings individually different from the foundation up?” (13). Dodd used the metaphor of a building to argue that while we recognize the New Testament authors were unique in how they wrote, that their “style of building differs considerably,” each of the buildings was built on a common foundation, a common sub-structure.
[3] G. K. Beale, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 6. Beale briefly discussed the Testimony Book debate to which Dodd was responding, noting that “Dodd believed that his conclusions about the NT authors’ awareness of the context of the OT references show that a testimony book did not exist.”
[4] “Our first task will be to collect passages from the Old Testament which, being cited by two or more writers of the New Testament in prima facie independence of one another, may fairly be presumed to have been current as testimonia before they wrote” (28–29). The fifteen texts are Psalm 2:7, Psalm 8:4–6, Psalm 110:1, Psalm 118:22–23. Isaiah 6:9–10, Isaiah 53:1, Isaiah 40:3–5, Isaiah 28:16, Genesis 12:3, Jeremiah 31:33–34, Zechariah 9:9, Habakkuk 2:3–4, Isaiah 61:1–2, and Deuteronomy 18:15, 19.
[5] Dodd is clear he believes this view of history was the view of the Old Testament prophets (128-29).
[6] Dodd went on to argue that any truly great piece of literature would not have its meaning restricted to what was in the mind of the author when he or she wrote, but he did argue that the interpretation of the New Testament authors was in line with the intent of the Old Testament authors. “I believe reflection will show the development of meaning is a living growth within the given environment, and that the doctrines associated with these passages by New Testament writers gain in depth and significance when we have regard to the original, historical intention of the psalms they cite. Without pursuing this problem further, I would submit that, while there is a fringe of questionable, arbitrary or even fanciful exegesis, the main line of interpretation of the Old Testament exemplified in the New is not only consistent and intelligent in itself, but also founded upon a genuinely historical understanding of the process of the religious – I should prefer to say the prophetic – history of Israel as a whole” (130).
[7] For example, Richard Longenecker argued that we should not imitate the exegetical practices of the apostles. See Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999). Longenecker claimed, “As students of history we can appreciate something of what was involved in their exegetical procedures, and as Christians we commit ourselves to their conclusions. But apart from a revelatory stance on our part, I suggest that we cannot reproduce their pesher exegesis” (197).
[8] For examples of those who broadly agree with Dodd and extend his conclusions, see Gary Edward Schnittjer and Matthew S. Harmon, How to Study the Bible’s Use of the Bible: Seven Hermeneutical Choices for the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2024), 17-18, and Abner Chou, The Hermeneutics of the Biblical Writers: Learning to Interpret Scripture from the Prophets and Apostles (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2018), 20-21. Richard Hays’s use of ideas like metalepsis or transumption also has affinities with Dodd. See Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 20.
