When is Theology Truly “Biblical”
Scot McKnight
November 26, 2012
Everyone claims their theology is biblical. Which means “biblical” is used by everyone and so many different approaches use “biblical” that “biblical” diminishes in value. It becomes, sad to say, little more than a claim to authority.
What does it take for you to say something is “biblical”? Does biblical theology (as historical description — below) hold theology hostage to historical discoveries?
Jacob Milgrom is a world’s leading scholar on Leviticus: are his commentaries “biblical” theology? Lutheran and Reformed scholars and pastors teach a covenant theology (what I call covenant soterian theology): is this biblical theology? N.T. Wright ties the Bible together into the Story from creation to consummation: is this “biblical” theology? Wayne Grudem offers a politics that he would say is “biblical”: Is it biblical? What makes something a “biblical” theology?
Good question. And we’ve got a wonderful new textbook in a texbook-ish format, but readable, accessible and useful for upper level college and seminary/graduate students, that introduces us to five kinds of “biblical” theology. The book is called
Understanding Biblical Theology: A Comparison of Theory and Practice, by Edward Klink III and Darian Lockett. We need this kind of book for students. Just this semester at
Northern Seminary I taught (and am still teaching) “New Testament Theology” and I did a brief taxonomy of the various methods and approaches to NT theology on that day. What I did not find was a student-level sketch of the various approaches to NT theology, and this book — while more focused on the whole Bible — will be a good taxonomy for anyone teaching “biblical” theology — Old or New Testament.
They provide five models, and I suspect not a few of us will raise some questions about the order on their spectrum. It is only in the analysis of each model and theologian that their rationale will become clear. But they move the models or types along a spectrum from “history” to “theology,” and their five types of biblical theology (BT) are:
1 - BT as historical description: James Barr
2 - BT as history of redemption: D.A. Carson
3 - BT as worldview-story: N.T. Wright
4 - BT as canonical approach: B. Childs
5 - BT as theological construction: Francis Watson
The book is mostly theoretical and could have used a single text, which I will do in this series of posts, like Genesis 1:26-27, to illustrate each type of biblical theology.
Each type is processed through the following themes:
- Task
- Use
- Scope
- Sources
- Hermeneutical approach
- Subject matter
BT As Historical Description
November 26, 2012
The first type is biblical theology as historical description, and the choice of James Barr is both exceptional and odd. Exceptional because he is well-known for his fierce criticisms of how many/most do “biblical” theology, and some of his attacks were withering and made many of us nervous about using sources (like Kittel) and studies (like Von Rad or Childs). The reason Barr is odd is because Barr never really produced a biblical theology. One could also probe Milgrom, Walton on Genesis 1, Hugh Williamson on the Chronicler or Isaiah.
But it all comes down to history, so that biblical theology is to be done by the professional biblical scholar who alone is qualified to read the languages at the level of expertise needed to contextualize those texts in history; the method does not care at all about normative theology but only “what it meant” “back then” to the “original author/text.” It is set over against theology as we know it; it uses any-and-all historical methods; and it is exegesis and history, including the dissection of the text into its sources.
The big category often used here: it is descriptive, not prescriptive. It is description of the past, of the text in the past, of the author in the past. The past tense is the best way to carry out the business of biblical theology.
[As example, the] “image of God” meant what it meant in the Ancient Near East (representative of a king) so there are discussions of how these terms are used in the ANE texts in Egypt and Babylon etc, or how this term is used in the Priestly source of Genesis 1:1–2:3, or in Genesis — but Barth’s relationality or modern scientific studies showing the uniqueness of humans over against the animal kingdom or the feminist appropriation of Genesis 1′s text are of no use. Nor does the use of “image of God” for Jesus have anything to do with “biblical” theology in Gen 1. The “us” of “let us” is not about the Trinity but about a divine council or angels or something along these lines because that is what the author at that time would have meant.
All that matters is what that text meant to that source/text at that time in its context. And that is biblical theology for this type of biblical theology. What it might mean for theology in later texts or in church history or today are of no concern to this type of biblical theology.
Though Klink and Lockett do not think this approach is the same as the History of Religions School, I would connect them closer than they do even if there are some notable differences (it’s degree not kind).
BT As A History Of Redemption
November 28, 2012
How does one read the Bible “biblically,” that is how does one read it right? That word “biblical” has some options and it is not quite as simple as some suggest. Some theologians study a theme hard and then run the whole Bible — or much of the Bible — through that theme and sometimes they discover some parts don’t fit their framework so they ignore those elements of the Bible. Very, very few “biblical” theologies or Story-approaches to the Bible know what to do with the Wisdom literature, which reading then ironically is a revelation of an “unbiblical” reading of the Bible!
How do you respond to the “salvation historical” approach to biblical theology?
What Edward Klink III and Darian Lockett, in their
Understanding Biblical Theology, do is sketch five types (reminds one of Niebuhr’s types) of “biblical” theology, and they grade them from the historical to the systematic theological. The historical approach is typified by James Barr and in this post we want to look at the second type, “Biblical Theology as History of Redemption,” and they use D.A. Carson as their prototype. One of the highlights of this section in their book is the discernment of three “schools” in this approach, and when I began reading this chp I wondered if they’d factor in the various approaches — and I’m delighted they did. Furthermore, while Carson is the prototype here they use Graeme Goldsworthy throughout their sketch, and I would argue his many writings might even be a more forceful example because of his many writings directly on their theme.
What is not mentioned is that this “salvation history” approach to biblical theology is a species of Reformed, covenant theology. More needs to be said about this, but it would take us away from their sketch of this kind of biblical theology.
Here are the major elements of type 2:
1. The aim is to discern the historical progress of God’s work of redemption.
2. In the Canon of Scripture, all of Scripture, but tied together in the sweep of Scripture. Progressive revelation of the progress of redemption.
3. Themes discerned inductively are a major avenue to find this history of redemption.
4. Scripture is a revelation of God; Scripture is the source though other texts clarify contexts.
5. History is the arena in which God reveals himself; so history is fundamentally important.
6. Scripture is a profound, sometimes typological, unity revealing this history of redemption, and this biblical theology influences exegesis.
7. But exegesis builds into biblical theology and always has priority over systematic theology.
8. The church is the place where this theology is expressed — not just an academic exercise (as in Barr’s proposal).
The contribution of this chp entails their breakdown into three schools:
The Dallas School which focuses more on biblical books (Isaiah) and sections (Synoptics) as the arena for biblical theology, with larger syntheses being more systematics.
The Chicago School, which they use for Carson and his series of books in New Studies in Biblical Theology, extends the Dallas School to a larger synthesis of the Bible’s history of redemption. So the focus is a thematic coherence of the Bible.
The Philadelphia School, which is the Reformed tradition behind and at Westminster, with his great christocentric hermeneutical reading of the Bible — from the very beginning. I see this School as the origin of the second and which was countered by the more original forms of the Dallas School.
To continue the meme I began in the first post. What about the Image of God in Gen 1:26-27. Dallas might emphasize the meaning of “image” in Genesis 1 and Genesis and the Pentateuch; the Chicago School might focus on how Image becomes Image of Christ so that there is a progression in revelation leading to even fuller insights into the meaning of Genesis; the Philadelphia will begin in Genesis but will know that it needs fuller interpretation in light of Christ as the Image — leading them perhaps to say Adam, as Image, is made in the Image of Christ. Each of these will involve understanding Image in its Ancient Near East setting as the king representing God.
What is interesting, of course, is the division between Chicago and Philadelphia, and it illustrates the whole problem of “biblical” theology: a hermeneutic is formed, always on the basis of how the Bible is read, to the level that it becomes the guiding theme for reading each passage. The Chicago School focuses on redemption (salvation) while the Philadelphia School focuses on christology (though one might say their approach is also redemption history with a christocentric emphasis). The issue here is Who decides which theme guides our reading? I am convinced that all “soterian” and “history of redemption” readings are rooted more or less in Romans 5:12-21 or more broadly in Pauline soteriology (often enough justification theory). Other themes rise their hands asking for attention: like election, or the People of God, or missio Dei in a wider sense of redemption, et al.. But I want to emphasize that a cheap postmodern critique of this approach won’t work; the chp discussing Carson’s theory is laced together with his awareness of the issue of presuppositions, et al.
The authors provide what I think is an important reminder by way of critique: “Carson (and BT2 [this second type] in general) seems to underplay the abstracting character of history alongside that of reason and philosophy. History is not as neutral as Carson’s implicit construction suggests” (89). It is because NT Wright does deal with this “not as neutral” element that he is actually farther along the theological line for these authors, and yet one could make the case he is closer to the history end for the same reason.
BT As A Worldview-Story
November 30, 2012
In a spectrum from history to systematic theology, where does someone like NT Wright fit? Is he closer to the history or the systematics end? Edward Klink III and Darian Lockett, in their fine new book,
Understanding Biblical Theology, put Wright smack-dab in the middle of the two, but they put D.A. Carson’s history of redemption approach closer to history and Wright closer to theology. More of that later.
In their spectrum there are five types: history, history of redemption, worldview story, canonical and theological construction. BT1, BT2, BT3, BT4, and BT5, and today we look at BT3, worldview story. The big idea is learning to read each passage of the Bible in light of the worldview story/narrative of the Bible, however that might be constructed — and the commentary series of which I am the General Editor (now called “Story of God Bible Commentary”) will offer commentaries in light of this worldview story approach to the Bible. Had we had this book we would have asked each author to “subscribe” to BT3!
Where would you place NT Wright on the spectrum from history (left) to theology (right)? Is he more historical or theological than the History of Redemption/Carson?
Some major theoretical issues:
1. Narrative is both a literary and philosophical category.
2. Worldview story inherently critiques historical criticism in the direction of Hans Frei’s famous Eclipse of Biblical Narrative.
3. The way to read a passage is to see its location in the overall plotline of the Bible’s narrative/story.
4. This narrative speaks to modern readers/Christians.
This worldview story, in their view, is more connected to academy than to church, and here I would contend the pre-2oth Century church especially did not carefully distinguish church from academy so that appealing to anything before the (early?) 20th Century church is not much of an appeal.
Big for this approach is how the NT uses the OT; the sources for this approach are both canonical and non-canonical. The subject of the this kind of “biblical” theology is the narrative structure at work in the texts to which the author/s appeal, including both canonical and non-canonical authors.
Their sketch of NT Wright’s works is adequate, though it is more than difficult to read, let alone put together, all of them. My read of their sketch is that it is adequate. They focus on two words, story and worldview, then combine them into Tom’s approach being a worldview story. (I don’t know that Tom ever uses that expression.) But his “story” brings into concrete reality a worldview that is a set of assumptions. More important, NT Wright reads the NT in light of a “historically reconstructed ‘story’ of Israel’s Scriptures” (112). That’s dead-on. NT Wright’s method is critical realism. His worldview story is tied into Judaism’s story and stories and worldviews. The NT “continues” the OT story.
Well, what about the “image of God”? As I have said, I want to see if I can flesh out how each kind of biblical theology would explain “image of God” in Gen 1:26-27. NT Wright, connecting to folks like John Walton, sees the expression in light of the Ancient Near East and in the context of the role given to humans in creation: as those who represent God. We/they are, in other words, both kings and priests. This theme is unfolded in the Story of the Bible — to Abraham and Israel and to David and then to Jesus, as the priest-king, who is King/Messiah, and then as the Temple itself as well. And on to Paul’s use of Christ as temple and king and priest, into Hebrews, and with the people of God as kings and priests … to the new heavens and new earth. In other words, it’s not so much about progressive revelation as the continuation of an idea as the Story unfolds, a Story that gives meaning to the Bible and shows where humans fit in God’s Story, but also provides meaning for us today.
I have some issues with how the authors sketch the spectrum, and after reading the two chps on History of Redemption and Worldview Story I am less confident of their ordering. Here’s why:
1. NT Wright calls himself a historian; none in the History of Redemption self-identifies as historians. I find it odd then that they place Wright closer to the theology end.
2. Both read each passage in light of a “worldview” or “theology,” so this point applies to both: each reads each passage in light of a theology.
3. NT Wright is criticized in both of their chps for being too tied into a historical method; the BT2 History of Redemption approach is not criticized for its historiography.
4. Hovering over this entire set of chps is what the authors mean by “history,” and a good study of historiography shows that NT Wright’s approach to History is much more in tune with what history is — the creation of a story/narrative out of facts, sometimes conceived of as discrete facts, which is what NTWright does in his book. BT2 seems to me to be more in tune with theology and less in tune with this theory of history.
In the late 80s and early 90s perhaps no Old Testament scholar had built around him a way of Bible reading more than Brevard Childs at Yale. Childs resisted two approaches to Bible and theology — the historical-critical method that all but ignored theology and the “biblical theology” approach because it was too historical-critical in approach. He proposed what is often called a “canonical approach.” Childs knew his Bible well, and not just his Old Testament — so much so that he wrote an
The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction, which I read as a young professor and then reviewed in
TSF Bulletin. I sent my review to Childs, and he wrote back a long response which
TSF Bulletin also published. I often greeted Childs at the SBL meetings and was saddened to hear, years later, that he was not physically well … a full study of Childs has been published by Daniel Driver,
Brevard Childs, Biblical Theologian.
Today our concern is how Edward Klink and Darian Lockett, in their
Understanding Biblical Theology, sketch a fourth type of biblical theology: Biblical Theology as Canonical Approach. The big issue here is to call attention to biblical theology as something involving decisions by the church on what constitutes its Bible. Bible is not just a document; it is a church’s book, a canon (as list and as norm for its theology).
But the big point is this one: the place for determining meaning is not the original setting or the original author but the text in its final form in the context of the canon. The task then for biblical theology is to affirm importance of canon.
What do you think of the “canonical approach” to biblical theology? What happens to our study of the Bible if we recognize canon as an important theological approach?
It looks more specifically like this:
1. The goal is not to find the original event, etc but to examine/explain the final “construal” of the event in the Scripture. The problems with the “find the original event/text/history” approach: history determines truth not the text; hypothesis makes all conclusions speculative; the Bible as the church’s text is denied; history trumps theology. Childs himself embraced the hist-crit method but it was swallowed into his canonical approach.
2. OT and NT are interwoven in this approach because they are unified. The Hebrew Bible becomes the Christian Old Testament, and Jesus Christ becomes the substance — though this does not mean the OT is swamped by NT theology. The OT is the initial hearing that is heard more fully in Christ.
3. The Bible as canon means the Bible is the church’s theology.
4. The substance and scope of the Bible is Jesus Christ. [This cuts a bit into BT2, the history of redemption approach, which makes redemption the substance of the Bible.]
5. I add this one: the canonical approach also asks what a given text — say John — now means in light of its inclusion in the canon, and might even ask what its ordered location (fourth Gospel, just before Acts) in the Bible means for how to read that text. My point here is that the canonical approach shapes each text in light of its placement in canon. As with BT2′s salvation history influence and BT3′s worldview-story influence, so this approach sees the decisive influence from canon. One might say BT2 and BT3 are “canons” within the canon influences — they ask what is driving the canon while the canonical approach asks that from a wider angle.
His approach has three “steps”:
1. Begin with the ancient text and its “plain” sense.
2. Dialogue between ancient text and canon.
3. Dialogue between subject matter and ancient text.
Christopher Seitz, a disciple of Childs, sees three areas: literary/exegetical (the final form is a commentary on the preceding forms of the text), catholic/ecclesial (the questions the church has posed to the Bible matter), and theological.
There are problems here, some of them overblown a bit, but many have pointed to lack of clarity on the meaning of “canon” — though I think this distracts from the genuine contribution of Childs and, at the same time, the challenge of making this approach work. A significant question for me is “Whose canon? Which canon? Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish?” And “Which text?” This one is interesting because Childs embraces the entire textual manuscript tradition of the church … variants, too!
BT As A Theological Construction
December 4, 2012
"Restoring Theology to Biblical Theology"
The problem is that Old and New Testament scholars, almost uniformly, ignore (systematic) theology in favor of what is demonstrable from the text in its historical context. Yet, yet, yet … who can read the Bible and not observe that it is theological? For theology, by theologically minded and for those who worship? This backing away from all things theological occurred from the Enlightenment on and now has a fierce (and oft-protected) grip on biblical studies and therefore some on biblical theology.
Where does theology invade biblical theology the most?
To the “rescue” comes a kind of biblical theology concerned with the theological dimension and focus of the text. This is BT5 in Klink and Lockett’s
Understanding Biblical Theology, and they have chosen Francis Watson as their major proponent of this approach.
What is the “biblical theology as theological construction”? It is how the church reads Scripture as church and how the church reads Scripture as Scripture. That’s theoretical and, to be blunt about it, both “biblical theology as theological construction” and “theological interpretation of Scripture” is no clearer — in any statement I’ve seen. Maybe they’ll consider my definition for understanding their discipline.
Reading the Bible, then, is a theological enterprise — for the present. The Bible is not a historical text; for the church the Bible is Scripture. It is unlike any other book and so is unique as a genre. Those who judged this discipline are those for whom it matters: those of faith, those in the church. It involves the whole Bible — OT and NT, seeing a two-Testament Bible. Christian tradition matters.
There are emphases: the revelationist approach (Vanhoozer), textualist (Lindbeck), and functionalist (Fowl). The subject matter is God and secondly the church.
They move then to Watson, who offers a textually-mediated theology and a textually-mediated Jesus. The Gospels are narrated history (neither just history nor just narrative). This mediated theology is taken up into Christian worship and praxis, which influence how we read the Bible. Watson discusses the Old and New issue: a twofold Bible, with one preceding and one following, with the New taking on precedence in the person and work of Christ. So he argues for a christocentric reading of the Bible.
Most of Watson’s critics think he is not theological enough (not Trinitarian enough) while historians will say he’s too theological.
