RBL book review of Biblical Theology: Past, Present, and Future Walsh, Carey and Mark W. Elliott, editors (original) (raw)
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Biblical Theology is a much talked-about enterprise pursued with little agreement on method or goal. Biblical Theology’s lack of definition is out of proportion to the potential importance of its findings both for the academy and the church. Rather than offering a new definition of Biblical Theology, this paper sketches a framework for such a definition by describing various theories and practices of “whole Bible” Biblical Theologies published since 2000. Using the categories developed in Understanding Biblical Theology (Zondervan, 2012), this paper categorizes a range of recent offerings by plotting them on a spectrum extending from more historical to more theological. Noting especially how each work settles issues of historical diversity versus theological unity, the descriptive versus prescriptive nature of the discipline, whether Biblical Theology is an academic or ecclesial discipline, and especially the kind and degree of unity/disunity between the Old and New Testaments, this paper will isolate the weaknesses of each work. Here a pervasive weakness surfaces, namely, the failure to consider the canon as a criterion for Biblical Theology. Upon isolating this and other shortcomings, the paper will conclude by arguing for a broader, more eclectic approach to Biblical Theology—one that balances both historical and theological concerns as a fitting way forward.
Review of James D. G. Dunn, New Testament Theology: An Introduction (Library of Biblical Theology; Nashville: Abingdon, 2009)., 2012
of Contents New Testament Theology: An Introduction serves as the introductory volume for the NT side of the Library of Biblical Theology series, thus, serving as prolegomena for the task of doing NT Theology. Within the volume itself the six main parts can be further subdivided into "preliminary matters" and "key theological categories." The first two parts belong to the former; the remaining parts to the latter. A brief conclusion brings together Dunn's findings. Having looked at the basic shape of the book, this review now turns to the introductory issue of the possibility of even doing NT Theology. After briefly commenting on the various ways scholars have gone about doing NT theology , Dunn writes, My own desire and preferences to get inside the process by which the theology of the NT came about, to see and treat the theology of the NT writings as a living, moving thing, a grappling with issues for faith and life which came to expression in these writings and was both the reason for their being written in the first place and also for their being retained as vital resources for ongoing faith and life, and hints to become regarded as scripture" (ix; italics original). Dunn calls this process theologizing since he is interested in "both the historical production of the NT" as well as their "continuing impact on subsequent thinking about and enacting Christian faith" (ibid.) In parts 3 through 6, the author uses four key topics though which to illustrate this theologizing; those topics are God, salvation, the church and finally ethics. In the conclusion the author summarizes his primary findings and then articulates how the process of theologizing can renew Christian theology and provide a healthy corrective to the Reformation's distrust of tradition.
Biblical theology as Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy In: Református Szemle 103/1 (2010)
Book review of Walter Brueggemann: Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2005. Walter Brueggemann has written an impressive Old Testament theology. His approach is provocative for the OT Theology and is quite different from the models of W. Eichrodt and G. von Rad, who had dominated the twentieth century. Entering into discussion he summarizes the study of the OT Theology from the Reformation, and in the same time he describes his perspective on the social and theological environment within which an Old Testament must be elaborated today. Brueggemann gives a critic of different approaches, starting from Luther and throw Wellhausen, Bart, Alt, Noth, Eichordt, von Rad he arrives to the " Contemporary Situation " (Childs, Barr, Clines, Alter, etc.) characterised by plurality. Brueggemann points out how recent trends in scholarship have led to a move away from the hegemonic classical critical approaches to the incorporation of contributions from sociological and rhetorical criticism. Any interpretation now takes place within a pluralistic context, a reality, which for him is both challenging and enriching. There is no " interest-free interpretation, no interpretation that is not in the service of some interest and some sense advocacy ". Brueggemann particularly champions what he calls the " efforts at the margins, " those works arising from within the struggles of feminist, liberationist, and black theologies. But in the same manner he is criticising what he calls the " Centrist Enterprises "-Childs, Levenson, Barr and Rendtorff-. In his view primary attention must be given to the rhetoric and the rhetorical character of faith in the OT. Rhetorical criticism focuses on the final form of the biblical