[5] Childs set out his canonical approach in his Biblical Theology in Crisis (1970) and applied it in Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (1979).

In Childs' canonical approach, writes Barton, "the interpreter of the Bible should not confront the biblical text as if it were a newly discovered document."

[1] There is no one hermeneutical key for unlocking the biblical message, but the canon provides the arena in which the struggle for understanding takes place.

In 2007, shortly after returning from his spring residence in the United Kingdom, Childs suffered a severe fall at his home in Connecticut from which he did not recover.

[2] Ellen Davis of Duke Divinity School studied under Childs and notes: His scholarship was very fully integrated into his character, it would be very difficult to separate those two.