depends on the New Criticism,112 though Childs himself insists that he has no such conscious dependence.113 Against the interpretation and association of his “canonical approach” as a part of the New Criticism or the like, Childs emphatically maintains that this “is a misunderstanding”114 on the part of John Barton. For Childs, in contrast to a literary reading of the Bible, “the initial point to be made is that the canonical approach to Old Testament theology is unequivocal in asserting that the