Marcion redivivus

Steven makes a comment in relation to Peter Enns slide into liberalism that brought up something I’ve been thinking about:

Well Pete Enns has stepped into the abyss. A lot of these “Biblical Theology” guys do this, as they suppose that the New Testament “creatively rereads” the Old or that Paul puts a “new spin” on the old old story.

But do the apostles argue this way? If they did, should anyone have listened to them?

The answer to both questions is “No.”

I think this point would just as easily apply to Barthian understandings of revelation. If, per hypothesi, Jesus taught that he was the only revelation, and that scripture was not revelation, the Jews of his day would have had every reason to reject him. It would be tacitly denying Moses was a prophet in any sense they understood.

To the extent that pacifist/liberal anabaptist/emergent types criticize the OT ethic from the perspective of what they see as a “Christocentric” revelation, they are simply repeating Marcion’s thesis.

Or so it seems to me, anyway.