Students of New Testament theology have the benefit of multiple New Testament Theologies written from many perspectives and utilizing many methodologies. Two recent New Testament theologies (Thielman and Marshall) proceed by examining the themes of individual New Testament books.

To my knowledge, there has been no comparable Old Testament theology. Walter Kaiser’s Toward and Old Testament Theology and his more recent The Promise-Plan of God move through the individual books of the Bible, but they do not examine them thematically. The Dallas Seminary compendium, A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament approximates this approach, but it deals with larger corpora: the Pentateuch, the Minor Prophets, etc. Paul Houses’s Old Testament Theology does move through the Old Testament book by book, but he does not examine these books thematically. Bruce Waltke’s acclaimed An Old Testament Theology, has a helpful introductory section, but it is heavy on Genesis and extremely light by the time it reaches the prophets.

Bell’s The Theological Messages of the Old Testament Books provides a thematic study of each of the books of the Old Testament. (The exceptions to this book-by-book approach are Judges and Ruth and the three minor prophets Obadiah, Joel, and Zephaniah. Intriguingly, Bell suggests that Judges-Ruth may have once been one book. Obadiah, Joel and Zephaniah are treated together because they share the common theme “Day of the Lord.”) In general, Bell discusses the structure of the book, he follows this with a thematic analysis, and he concludes with suggestions for pastoral application. He does not hold himself to following the pattern in every case (see explanation on p. 14).

Preceding the individual book theologies, Bell provides the reader with a brief orientation to biblical theology and to the method he employs in this volume. Regarding the nature of biblical theology, he contrasts Vos’s popular view that biblical theology and systematic theology are distinguished only by method with the view that the two disciplines differ in nature. Bell thinks a better approach limits biblical theology to studying what God revealed in Scripture (by which, I understand him to mean the primary messages that God intended each book to convey). Systematic theology, on the other hand, extends to investigating what is true about God using Scripture statements, implications from those statements, natural theology, and historical theology (4-5).

The introduction also reveals the two great advantages that Bell sees in biblical theology. First, biblical theology provides a way for the Christian to find relevance in the Old Testament without resorting to allegory or mere moralizing (1). Bell’s concern for enabling Christians to see the significance of the Old Testament is emphasized by the application sections that conclude each chapter and by two appendices which provide example sermons based on the methodology exhibited in this work. Second, while granting the “legitimacy of systematic theology” (5, n. 15), Bell believes Biblical Theology enables the Christian to see what God explicitly says. In his words, “It is very important for Bible students and pastors to be able to distinguish between what the Bible says and what the theologians have concluded, even when these conclusions may correctly reflect God’s truth” (5-6).

Bell notes that book theologies of the sort he proposes could easily match the dimensions of standard commentaries on those books. His work is therefore a starting point for deeper investigations.

The BJU Campus Store has the book available in the store and at their website. According to the website, books purchased before October 7th will received a signed copy. There is also a live book signing at the Campus Store on October 7 from 11:30 to 1:30.

Disclosure: I am an employee of BJU Press and I received a review copy from the BJU Campus Store.

Mark Ward has an excellent post summarizing an excellent message by our pastor last night.

Learn everything; afterwards you will see that nothing is superfluous.

Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon, 6.3

If the Manichees were willing to discuss the hidden meaning of these words in a spirit of reverent inquiry rather than of captious fault-finding, then they would of course not be Manichees, but as they asked it would be given them, and as they sought they would find, as they knocked it would be opened up to them. The fact is, you see, people who have a genuine religious interest in learning put far more questions about this text than the3se irreligious wretches; but the difference between them is that the former seek in order to find, while the latter are at no pains at all to do anything except not to find what they are seeking.

Augustine, On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees, 2.2.3.

“The great blessing of Google is its uncanny skill in finding what you’re looking for; the curse is that it so rarely finds any of those lovely odd things you’re not looking for. For that pleasure, it seems, we need books.”

Alan Jacobs, “Bran Flakes and Harmless Drudges,” in Wayfaring: Essays Pleasant and Unpleasant (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 38.

Second, there are not “a thousand” qualifications; there are only two: (1) only the original text is inerrant, and (2) only what is affirmed as true in the text is true and not anything else. The rest of the so-called “qualifications” simply address misunderstandings by noninerrantists.

 

It should have been sufficient to say simply, (1) the Bible is the Word of God. However, because some have denied the obvious, it is necessary to add another sentence, (2) the Bible is the inspired Word of God. However, when some use “inspired” in a human sense, it becomes necessary to say, (3) the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God. But since some deny that such a book is infallibly true, it is necessary to add, (4) the Bible is the divinely inspired infallible Word of God. Then when some claim that the Bible is infallible only in intent but not in fact, it is necessary to clarify that, (5) the Bible is the divinely inspired infallible and inerrant Word of God. Even here some have argued that it is only inerrant in redemptive matters; hence it is necessary to add, (6) the Bible is the divinely inspired infallible and inerrant Word of God in all that it affirms on any topic. When someone denies the obvious, it is necessary to affirm the redundant.

Geisler, Norman L. “An Evaluation of McGowen’s View on the Inspiration of Scripture.” Bibliotheca Sacra 167, no. 665 (Jan-Mar 2010): 34-35.

In Germany, and in some parts of Great Britain and America, it requires great independence of mind and carefully maintained devoutness, in order to stand firm against—not the arguments, but—the cool assumptions, that all ‘traditional’ views of the Bible are antiquated, and that the orthodox are weak and ignorant.

J. A. B. cited in Archibald Thomas Robertson, Life and Letters of John Albert Broadus (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1910), 383.

It is true that according to Warfield and the other Princetonians the doctrine of inerrancy has to be nuanced and finessed in various ways. But then why does this, in I. Howard Marshall’s phrase, quoted by McGowan, present the danger of the death of the doctrine ‘‘by a thousand qualifications’’? If it does, then why  may  not  finely  nuanced  accounts  of,  for  example,  the  Incarnation,
designed to avoid various heretical alternatives, Nestorianism, Apollinarianism, and so forth, result in the death of the doctrine of the Incarnation? The clarification of a doctrine does not result in its death so long as a substantial doctrinal thesis remains.

Paul Helm, “B. B. Warfield’s Path to Inerrancy: An Attempt to Correct Some Serious Misunderstandings.” Westminster Theological Journal 72 (2010): 39.

Reformation Heritage books is offering a sale on Whitaker’s A Disputation on Holy Scripture. An old, but very useful book on bibliology. Highly recommended.

It’s also available for free from Google Books.

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in evangelical quarters regarding patristic theology. In the hands of Thomas C. Oden, this has led to a resurgence of interest both in patristic biblical commentary and devotion, placed, one might add, in the service of an evangelicalism with a simple, ecumenical aesthetic which bears comparison, say, with the mere Christianity that has been such a part of the evangelical heritage.  Oden’s work is a treasure trove of theology; but the tendency of the project overall to relativize that which comes later, not least the great Protestant truths of justification by grace through faith, and personal assurance of God’s favor, render the overall project, in my opinion, less than Protestant. In the hands of others—most notably the recent work of Craig Allert—the patristic testimony has been placed in the service of contemporary critiques of established evangelical positions, such (in the case of Allert) as that on the inspiration and authority of scripture.  Of the two movements, that symbolized by the life and work of Oden is arguably constructive and helpful even to those, like myself, who wish to maintain a more elaborate doctrinal confession; the latter is rather an iconoclastic phenomenon, less easy to assimilate to orthodox, creedal Protestantism.
I would suggest that sound orthodox theology of today, however, can find a third way to do theology which both respects the insights of patristic theology while yet avoiding both the tendency to downplay later confessional developments and the desire to set the ancient church against the modern. It is that represented by the approach of such as Owen in the seventeenth century. Owen had an acute sense of the fact that there are a limitations to patristic theology, yet his Protestantism, far from making him dismissive of patristic theology, requires that he take patristic writers seriously. A commitment to scriptural perspicuity means that he examines in detail the history of exegesis relative to any passage of scripture he addresses. A commitment to the church as God’s means of transmitting the gospel from age to age means that he takes very seriously what the church has said about scripture and about God throughout the ages. A realization that there are a set of archetypal heresies, particularly focused on God, Christology, and grace, means that the early church provides him with much fuel for contemporary debate. A commitment to the fact that the church’s theological traditions, especially as expressed in her creeds, provides both resources, parameters and, at times, unavoidable conceptual problems for doctrinal formulations in the present drives him again and again to look at traditions of theological discussion from the early church onwards. Further, a belief that theology is talk about God, and not just communal reflection upon the psychology of the church in particular context, means that Owen regards it as having universal, referential significance; and thus he sees those who have worked in formulating doctrine over the years as having a significance which transcends their own time and geographical locale. In this context, he also understands that each solution to a doctrinal problem generates new problems of its own, and thus to understand why the church thinks as she does, one needs to understand how the church has come to think as she does (e.g., the anhypostatic nature of Christ’s humanity, a point likely to be incomprehensible to biblical theologians and/or no-creed-but-the-Bible types, but surely central to a sound understanding of incarnation in the post-Chalcedonian era). Each of these makes interaction with patristic authors necessary as Owen and others in his tradition work to ensure that the gospel is not reinvented anew every Sunday but, rather, is faithfully communicated from generation to generation.

Trueman, Carl. “Patristics and Reformed Orthodoxy: Some Brief Notes and Proposals.” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 12, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 58-59.