Out Of Egypt

by Editors Craig Bartholomew, Mary Healy, Karl Möller, Robin Parry; Series Editors Craig Bartholomew, Anthony C. Thiselton

• ISBN13: 9780310234159
• ISBN10: 0310234158
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-11-01
• Publisher: Zondervan

Summary

Biblical theology attempts to explore the theological coherence of the canonical witnesses; no serious Christian theology can overlook this issue. The essays in the present volume illustrate the complexity and richness of the conversation that results from attentive consideration of the question. In a time when some voices are calling for a moratorium on biblical theology or pronouncing its concerns obsolete, this collection of meaty essays demonstrates the continuing vitality and necessity of the enterprise. Richard B. Hays, George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament, The Divinity School, Duke University, USA This volume on biblical theology jumps into the fray and poses the right kind of questions. It does not offer a single way forward. Several of the essays are quite fresh and provocative, breaking new ground (Bray, Reno); others set out the issues with clarity and grace (Bartholomew); others offer programmatic analysis (Webster; Bauckham); others offer a fresh angle of view (Chapman, Martin). The success of this series is in facing the challenge of disarray in biblical studies head-on and then modelling a variety of approaches to stimulate our reflection. Christopher Seitz, Professor of Old Testament and Theological Studies, St. Andrews University, UK

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Contributors	p. xiii
Abbreviations	p. xvii
The Artists	p. xix
Out of Egypt	p. xxiii
Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation:Introduction 1	p. 11
Out of Egypt: The Content of this Volume	p. 16
Approaches to Biblical Theology
The Church Fathers and Biblical Theology	p. 23
Gerald BrayDefining our Terms	p. 23
The Relevance of the Fathers for Biblical Theology Today	p. 29
Ontology and Biblical Theology	p. 33
The Nature and Genre of Biblical Theology: SomeReflections in the Light of
''Prolegomena to a Biblical Theology''	p. 41
Karl M÷llerScobie''s Approach to Biblical Theology	p. 41
Reflections on the Nature and Genre of Biblical Theology	p. 53
The Role of Descriptive Analytical Biblical Theologies	p. 60
Some Directions in Catholic Biblical Theology	p. 65
Francis MartinDei Verbum	p. 66
The Challenge of Catholic Biblical Theology since Dei Verbum	p. 73
Concluding Reflections	p. 84
The Theology of the Old Testament by Marco Nobile:A Contribution to Jewish-Christian Relations	p. 88
Nuria Calduch-BenagesThe Current Situation of Biblical Theology	p. 89
viii ContentsThe Theology of the Old Testament by Marco Nobile	p. 90
The Contribution of Nobile''s Work to Jewish-Christian Relations	p. 96
Conclusion	p. 99
Mission as a Matrix for Hermeneutics and BiblicalTheology	p. 102
Introduction: Bible and Mission	p. 102
Steps Toward a Missional Hermeneutic	p. 109
Contours of a Missional Hermeneutic	p. 120
Conclusion: Framework or Map?	p. 137
Story and Biblical Theology	p. 144
Introduction	p. 144
The Impetus Toward Narrative from Philosophy and Theology	p. 145
The Impetus Toward Narrative from Practical Theologyand Theological Ethics	p. 147
The Impetus Toward Narrative from Missiology:Missionary Encounter between Two Stories	p. 150
Story and Biblical Theology	p. 153
Arguments Against Reading the Bible as a Grand Story	p. 158
Conclusion	p. 167
The Problem of ''Biblical Theology''	p. 172
Introduction	p. 172
Posing the Problem	p. 173
The Fundamental Nature of the Problem	p. 174
The Central Subject Matter of Biblical Theology	p. 177
Conclusion	p. 183
Great Themes of the Bible
Biblical Theology and the Problems of Monotheism	p. 187
Richard BauckhamIntroduction	p. 187
Monotheism as a Misleading Category	p. 188
The Quest of the Historical Monotheism	p. 196
The Old Testament: A Monotheistic Book?	p. 206
The Shema in the New Testament	p. 218
The Unity of Humankind as a Theme in Biblical Theology	p. 233
Stephen C. BartonIntroduction: Humankind at Risk	p. 233
Contents ixWhy Unity? Unity of What Kind?	p. 234
The Unity of Humankind in the Greco-Roman Tradition	p. 236
The Unity of Humankind in the Bible and Early Judaism	p. 238
The Unity of Humankind in the New Testament	p. 242
Conclusion	p. 254
Parts of the Bible and Biblical Theology
Zechariah	p. 14 and Bibli
Al WoltersIntroduction	p. 261
Patristic Commentaries	p. 264
Twentieth-century Commentaries	p. 277
Conclusions	p. 283
Paul and Salvation History in Romans 9:30 - 10:4	p. 286
Salvation History and Covenant	p. 288
The New Covenant in the New Testament	p. 289
National and Believing Israel	p. 296
Paul and Law in the Light of the Cross	p. 297
Conclusion	p. 310
Hebrews and Biblical Theology	p. 313
Biblical Theology and Hebrews	p. 313
Scripture and the Relationship between Old and New in theRhetorical Structure of Hebrews	p. 317
Some Features of Hebrews'' Christological Reading of Scripture	p. 320
Does Hebrews'' Christological Reading Have a CoherentHermeneutical Framework?	p. 325
Hebrews and Biblical Theology	p. 330
Theological Interpretation and Biblical Theology
Systematic - In What Sense?	p. 341
Trevor HartSystem Addicts? Or, On the Need to Avoid both ofTwo Patron Saints	p. 341
Transformation and Convergence in the Frame of Knowing:The Distinctive Task of a Systematic Theology	p. 345
x Contents
Biblical Theology and the Clarity of Scripture	p. 352
The Importance of Claritas Scripturae	p. 353
The Effective Illuminating Presence of God the Revealer Cla	p. 358
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

1
The Church Fathers and Biblical Theology
Gerald Bray
Defining our Terms
Where do the church fathers stand in relation to biblical theology? In one
sense, this is an extremely easy question to answer, because if we define the
‘church fathers’ as those Christian writers who expounded the faith in the centuries
when the dominant Greco-Roman culture was still pagan, then it is clear
that they all believed that the Judeo-Christian Scriptures were the only acceptable
source of Christian theology, and in that sense they could all be called ‘biblical
theologians’ virtually without exception. The difficulty comes when we
turn to consider the meaning of the term ‘biblical theology’. If we believe that
‘biblical theology’ is the attempt to grasp Scripture in its totality, according to
its own categories and inner dynamic, can the claim of the Fathers to have been
‘biblical theologians’ be allowed to stand, even if we have to make some reservations
when it comes to the phrase ‘according to its own categories’.
Problems with the assertion that patristic theology was simply ‘biblical theology’
inevitably arise when we try to impose modern understandings of what
biblical theology is (or ought to be) on the ancient texts. Even allowing for the
fact that modern interpreters are by no means always agreed about how the
term ‘biblical theology’ ought to be defined,1 it is clear that there are some
things which are now included in it which would not have occurred to the
Fathers. Likewise, there are other things, including some of the basic
See J. Barr, The Concept of Biblical Theology, for a recent discussion of this problem.
Barr does not discuss the church fathers as such, but it is clear that he would not recognize
them as ‘biblical theologians’ because their methods of reading Scripture
were very different from what modern biblical scholars would accept as justifiable
forms of interpretation. At the risk of oversimplifying Barr’s approach, it can be said
that his basic objection to the Fathers’ reading of Scripture would be that they did
not read the Bible ‘according to its own categories’, but rather according to a scheme
which they imported from elsewhere – mainly from different types of late Hellenistic
philosophy.
24 Gerald Bray
presuppositions of modern theological thought, which make establishing a
genuine relationship between what the Fathers thought of as ‘biblical theology’
and what we now understand by that term somewhat problematic.
Modern scholars think of ‘biblical theology’ primarily in analytical terms.
They start with what they regard as the theology of Paul, or of the wisdom literature
(or whatever), and then they try to situate this in relation to the rest of
the canonical scriptural tradition. To take only the most familiar instance,
modern scholars all believe that it is possible to discern peculiarly Pauline
themes in his writings and to present a generally coherent picture of them,
though by no means all of them would claim that Paul’s theology is either comprehensive
or entirely consistent. They may assert that he developed his ideas
over time, and even that he tailored his arguments to fit his different audiences,
with the result that discrepancies can be detected when one compares different
writings. Furthermore, many of them divide the Pauline corpus into ‘authentic’
and ‘deutero-Pauline’ writings, using theological content as one of the criteria
for deciding which is which. What is true of Paul is even more true when
his writings are set alongside the rest of the Bible. Broadly speaking, most
modern students of biblical theology are prepared to believe that it developed
over time, and that the later a document was written, the more sophisticated
the theology it contains is likely to be. Loose ends and contradictions are an
almost inevitable consequence of this pattern of development, so that we must
not expect ‘biblical theology’ to offer us the kind of coherent picture that systematic
theology demands.
The analytical principles and practices associated with this modern form of
biblical theology are certainly not beyond questioning, and even when they are
accepted they can lead to some surprisingly varied conclusions, but it can safely
be said that the Fathers would have found them alien and unacceptable. They
approached the Bible as pagans who had been converted to the Christian
gospel, and Scripture presented them with a mental and spiritual universe that
struck them as entirely different from what they had grown up with. Some of
them were prepared to grant that certain pagan philosophers, like Plato, had
discovered elements of the truth – but this was either because those philosophers
had read the Old Testament and adapted it to their own purposes or
because they had stumbled upon some aspect of reality, rather like blind men in
the dark, and had correctly guessed what it was they had encountered.2 What
we now call ‘natural’ and ‘philosophical’ theology was acceptable to the
Fathers only in so far as it was validated by Scripture itself. Passages like Psalm
19, for example (‘The heavens declare the glory of God’), provided a basis on
2 This was the opinion advanced by Justin Martyr (d. 165) in his Hortatory Address to the
Greeks 25–36, and much the same thing can be found nearly three centuries later in
Augustine, City of God VIII, 11.
The Church Fathers and Biblical Theology 25
which they could recognize the validity of some pagan insights. The Apostle
Paul’s appeal to the philosophers of Athens in Acts 17 showed that it was sometimes
possible to quote pagan authors in support of Christian beliefs. But, for
the Fathers, the true locus of authority was never in doubt. Pagan testimonies
were valid only to the extent that they agreed with the biblical witness, and
such agreement was likely to be haphazard and partial at best.
As far as the influence of Hellenistic philosophy was concerned, the notion
that a coherent, Christian theological system could be built up using only the
evidence of nature and reason was anathema to the Fathers. It is not that they
were unaware of the possibility of doing this – they knew only too well that
someone could take a philosophical idea, find it in some biblical text, and erect
an entire system on that slender basis. This was actually being done in the late
first and early second century by a number of teachers whom we collectively
refer to as ‘gnostics’. The first person to attempt a refutation of their methods
was Irenaeus of Lyon (d. 202), who attacked their heresies (as he understood
them) by claiming that the Bible was the only source of truth, that it spoke primarily
of the Christian God and that it could be read and interpreted only
according to a ‘rule of faith’ which outlined its fundamental teachings.3
It is not too much to say that it was Scripture, even Scripture alone, which
set their theological agenda, and it is noticeable that their apologetic was often
strongest precisely at those points where Scripture clashed with what the average

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Excerpted from Script/herm Out of Egypt Biblical Theology and Interpretation: Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation
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