Grundtvig og Gammel Testamente - den danske Bibel eller Septuaginta

Resumé

Grundtvig and the Old Testament - the Danish Bible or the Septuagint

By Christian Thodberg

The article begins with an account of Grundtvig’s attitude to the Old Testament (OT). Gmndtvig does not have to presuppose the New Testament when dealing with OT, but can read it freely: it is the same God that acts in both books of the Bible, though in different ways, according to how he leads and maintains his people. The same freedom finds expression in Gmndtvig’s sermons where he moves about effortlessly in the whole of the Biblical universe.

Some of these sermons are dominated by a solemn, Old Testament tone, especially those that follow a triadic stmcture: first the Old Testament prophecy is mentioned, in the middle its fulfilment in and with the coming of Christ is described, and finally follows the most important part, the fulfilment of the prophecy in the present, Grundtvig not failing to place his activity in the centre - but as a stage, naturally, in the course of the history of salvation.

In Grundtvig’s hymns, too, this structure recurs, as in Blomstre som en Rosengaard, in which the triadic structure is connected with the so-called Vstructure, the right side of the »V« of the hymn describing the fulfilment of the prophecy. By means of the V-structure Thodberg shows how baptism is the focus of the hymn, and also that in his interpretation of Isaiah 35 as a prediction of baptism Grundtvig leans on the Septuagint rather than the contemporary Danish Bible translation. In the Danish Hymn Book, Blomstre som en Rosengaard is only a torso - baptism is not the essential thing here.

The article mentions a number of other examples of influence from the Septuagint on Grundtvig’s hymns and sermons. Among these the hymn Hyggelig, rolig stands out since it contains a large number of phrases that refer to the Septuagint. This applies to stanza 4 in which Grundtvig shows how even the person most troubled by doubts and most deeply bereaved will have a foretaste of the Kingdom of God when approaching Heaven in his or her heart on the tone ladder of songs of praise. This is a rendering of Psalm 84 in the Septuagint. The article concludes that from the 1830s Grundtvig makes extensive use of the Septuagint when quoting from OT. The background is that Grundtvig regarded the Septuagint as more poetical than the Danish translation from 1736, and - more importantly - that in preferring the Septuagint Grundtvig follows Irenaeus by relying on the Bible of the New Testament and the Old Church.