Biblical Theology
Encyclopedia
Biblical theology is a discipline within Christian theology
which studies the Bible
from the perspective of understanding the progressive history of God revealing Himself to humanity following the Fall
and throughout the Old Testament
and New Testament
. It particularly focuses on the epochs of the Old Testament
in order to understand how each part of it ultimately points forward to fulfillment in the life mission of Jesus Christ. Because scholars have tended to use the term in different ways, biblical theology has been notoriously difficult to define.
Biblical theology seeks to understand a certain passage in the Bible in light of all of the biblical history leading up to it and later biblical references to that passage. It asks questions of the text such as:
Biblical theology seeks to put individual texts in their historical context since what came before them is the foundation on which they are laid and what comes after is what they anticipate. Biblical theology is sometimes called the "history of special revelation" since it deals with the unfolding and expanding nature of revelation
as history
progresses through the Bible
.
The motivation for this branch of theology comes from such passages as Luke
24.27: "And beginning with Moses
and all the Prophet
s, [Jesus] explained to [the disciples] what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." The assumption of this text seems to be that the Old Testament
anticipated the messiah
and that Jesus fulfilled those prophecies. Thus, Biblical theologians suggest that, in order to understand the intended meaning of a Biblical text, one must understand what the text points toward or back to. For instance, when reading about the sacrificial system
in the Old Testament, Biblical theologians follow the trajectory the Bible lays out for that system (namely, pointing to Jesus as the true sacrifice), and likewise, when a New Testament
text refers back to the Old Testament (for example, Jesus being the son of David
and heir of his covenant
), they try to understand that text against its proper, specified background.
Biblical theology can be compared with and is complemented by systematic theology
, in that the former focuses on historical progression throughout the Bible while the latter focuses on thematic progression. Systematic theology deals with a single topic in each place it is dealt with, whereas biblical theology seeks to follow the flow of "redemptive narrative" as it unfolds. In this way, biblical theology reflects the diversity of the Bible, while systematic theology reflects its unity.
Though most speak of biblical theology as a particular method or emphasis within biblical studies, some scholars have also used the term in reference to its distinctive content. In this understanding, biblical theology is limited to a collation and restatement of biblical data, without the logical analysis and dialectical correlation between texts that Systematic theology emphasizes.
The Christian concept of progressive revelation
differs from the Islamic understanding in which successive revelations of God might annul former revelations, completely replacing them with a new truth. The Christian model within biblical theology sees the concept of revelation as progressive; each new truth supports, expands, and stands upon former revelations of God's truth like brick laying. This progressive revelation ultimately climaxes in Christ, and ends with the New Testament acts of the Apostles under the direction of the Holy Spirit
awaiting the Second Coming
of Jesus.
Though the distinction existed prior, the beginning of biblical theology as a significant and separate discipline can be traced to J. P. Gabler’s 1787 address upon his inauguration as professor at the University of Altdorf, when he used the term and called for a separate discipline apart from the dogmatic emphasis of the confessions. This concern developed in the history of Israel's religion school, but the term eventually passed into its present usage.
Today, the discipline of biblical theology is primarily associated with viewpoints that also adhere to a belief in biblical inerrancy
and biblical inspiration
. Consequently, the work of Walter Brueggemann
, Rudolf Bultmann
, and other such scholars who reject these beliefs is not dealt with in the discipline [?]. While it does engage with the work of philosophy
and cultural and personal experience, it gives the Bible priority over each of these other lines of thought. Within this framework, biblical theology has been mostly carried out as either New Testament theology or Old Testament theology.
The work of Geerhardus Vos
(Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments), Herman Ridderbos (The Coming of the Kingdom), Meredith Kline (Kingdom Prologue) Graeme Goldsworthy
(According to Plan, Gospel and Kingdom), and Vaughan Roberts
(God's Big Picture) have helped popularize this approach to the Bible. They summarize the message of the Bible as being about "God's people in God's place under God's rule and blessing" (in Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel and Kingdom, Paternoster, 1981).
Christian theology
- Divisions of Christian theology :There are many methods of categorizing different approaches to Christian theology. For a historical analysis, see the main article on the History of Christian theology.- Sub-disciplines :...
which studies the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
from the perspective of understanding the progressive history of God revealing Himself to humanity following the Fall
The Fall of Man
In Christian doctrine, the Fall of Man, or simply the Fall, refers to the transition of the first humans from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience to God. In Genesis chapter 2, Adam and Eve live at first with God in a paradise, but the serpent tempts them into...
and throughout the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
and New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
. It particularly focuses on the epochs of the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
in order to understand how each part of it ultimately points forward to fulfillment in the life mission of Jesus Christ. Because scholars have tended to use the term in different ways, biblical theology has been notoriously difficult to define.
Biblical theology seeks to understand a certain passage in the Bible in light of all of the biblical history leading up to it and later biblical references to that passage. It asks questions of the text such as:
- How much does this person or group know about the attributes of God?
- To what extent are God's plans revealed, such as future plans of sending Jesus as the messiah?
- How has Israel responded to God's interactions with them up to this point?
- How is a given theme or subject progressively developed throughout redemption history?
Biblical theology seeks to put individual texts in their historical context since what came before them is the foundation on which they are laid and what comes after is what they anticipate. Biblical theology is sometimes called the "history of special revelation" since it deals with the unfolding and expanding nature of revelation
Revelation
In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...
as history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
progresses through the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
.
The motivation for this branch of theology comes from such passages as Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
24.27: "And beginning with Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
and all the Prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
s, [Jesus] explained to [the disciples] what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." The assumption of this text seems to be that the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
anticipated the messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
and that Jesus fulfilled those prophecies. Thus, Biblical theologians suggest that, in order to understand the intended meaning of a Biblical text, one must understand what the text points toward or back to. For instance, when reading about the sacrificial system
Sacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or people to God or the gods as an act of propitiation or worship.While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts...
in the Old Testament, Biblical theologians follow the trajectory the Bible lays out for that system (namely, pointing to Jesus as the true sacrifice), and likewise, when a New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
text refers back to the Old Testament (for example, Jesus being the son of David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
and heir of his covenant
Covenant (biblical)
A biblical covenant is an agreement found in the Bible between God and His people in which God makes specific promises and demands. It is the customary word used to translate the Hebrew word berith. It it is used in the Tanakh 286 times . All Abrahamic religions consider the Biblical covenant...
), they try to understand that text against its proper, specified background.
Biblical theology can be compared with and is complemented by systematic theology
Systematic theology
In the context of Christianity, systematic theology is a discipline of Christian theology that attempts to formulate an orderly, rational, and coherent account of the Christian faith and beliefs...
, in that the former focuses on historical progression throughout the Bible while the latter focuses on thematic progression. Systematic theology deals with a single topic in each place it is dealt with, whereas biblical theology seeks to follow the flow of "redemptive narrative" as it unfolds. In this way, biblical theology reflects the diversity of the Bible, while systematic theology reflects its unity.
Though most speak of biblical theology as a particular method or emphasis within biblical studies, some scholars have also used the term in reference to its distinctive content. In this understanding, biblical theology is limited to a collation and restatement of biblical data, without the logical analysis and dialectical correlation between texts that Systematic theology emphasizes.
The Christian concept of progressive revelation
Progressive revelation (Christian)
Progressive revelation in Christianity is the concept that the sections of the Bible that were written later contain a fuller revelation of God compared to the earlier sections. For instance, the theologian Charles Hodge wrote,...
differs from the Islamic understanding in which successive revelations of God might annul former revelations, completely replacing them with a new truth. The Christian model within biblical theology sees the concept of revelation as progressive; each new truth supports, expands, and stands upon former revelations of God's truth like brick laying. This progressive revelation ultimately climaxes in Christ, and ends with the New Testament acts of the Apostles under the direction of the Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
awaiting the Second Coming
Second Coming
In Christian doctrine, the Second Coming of Christ, the Second Advent, or the Parousia, is the anticipated return of Jesus Christ from Heaven, where he sits at the Right Hand of God, to Earth. This prophecy is found in the canonical gospels and in most Christian and Islamic eschatologies...
of Jesus.
Though the distinction existed prior, the beginning of biblical theology as a significant and separate discipline can be traced to J. P. Gabler’s 1787 address upon his inauguration as professor at the University of Altdorf, when he used the term and called for a separate discipline apart from the dogmatic emphasis of the confessions. This concern developed in the history of Israel's religion school, but the term eventually passed into its present usage.
Today, the discipline of biblical theology is primarily associated with viewpoints that also adhere to a belief in biblical inerrancy
Biblical inerrancy
Biblical inerrancy is the doctrinal position that the Bible is accurate and totally free of error, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact." Some equate inerrancy with infallibility; others do not.Conservative Christians generally believe that...
and biblical inspiration
Biblical inspiration
Biblical inspiration is the doctrine in Christian theology that the authors and editors of the Bible were led or influenced by God with the result that their writings many be designated in some sense the word of God.- Etymology :...
. Consequently, the work of Walter Brueggemann
Walter Brueggemann
Walter Brueggemann is an American Protestant Old Testament scholar and theologian.-Life:The son of a minister of the German Evangelical Synod of North America, he was ordained in the United Church of Christ. Brueggemann received an A.B. from Elmhurst College , a B.D. from Eden Theological...
, Rudolf Bultmann
Rudolf Bultmann
Rudolf Karl Bultmann was a German theologian of Lutheran background, who was for three decades professor of New Testament studies at the University of Marburg...
, and other such scholars who reject these beliefs is not dealt with in the discipline [?]. While it does engage with the work of philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and cultural and personal experience, it gives the Bible priority over each of these other lines of thought. Within this framework, biblical theology has been mostly carried out as either New Testament theology or Old Testament theology.
The work of Geerhardus Vos
Geerhardus Vos
Geerhardus Johannes Vos was an American Calvinist theologian and one of the most distinguished representatives of the Princeton Theology. He is sometimes called the father of Reformed Biblical Theology.-Biography:...
(Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments), Herman Ridderbos (The Coming of the Kingdom), Meredith Kline (Kingdom Prologue) Graeme Goldsworthy
Graeme Goldsworthy
Graeme Goldsworthy is an Australian Anglican theologian specialising in the Old Testament and Biblical Theology. He has authored several books including According to Plan and Preaching the whole Bible as Christian Scripture.The "Goldsworthy Trilogy":...
(According to Plan, Gospel and Kingdom), and Vaughan Roberts
Vaughan Roberts
Vaughan Roberts is the Rector of St Ebbe's Church, Oxford, United Kingdom., an evangelical Anglican church, subscribing to a traditional eleven point evangelical doctrine. In 2009, he became president of the Proclamation Trust.-Life:...
(God's Big Picture) have helped popularize this approach to the Bible. They summarize the message of the Bible as being about "God's people in God's place under God's rule and blessing" (in Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel and Kingdom, Paternoster, 1981).
See also
- Biblical law in ChristianityBiblical law in ChristianityChristian views of the Old Covenant have been central to Christian theology and practice since the circumcision controversy in Early Christianity. There are differing views about the applicability of the Old Covenant among Christian denominations...
External links
- The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline - classic definition of Biblical theology by Geerhardus Vos (1894)
- BiblicalTheology.org - writings of Geerhardus Vos, who is sometimes called "the father of ReformedReformed churchesThe Reformed churches are a group of Protestant denominations characterized by Calvinist doctrines. They are descended from the Swiss Reformation inaugurated by Huldrych Zwingli but developed more coherently by Martin Bucer, Heinrich Bullinger and especially John Calvin...
Biblical Theology" - Kerux: The Journal of Northwest Theological Seminary - has been printing biblical-theological material in the CalvinisticCalvinismCalvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
tradition since 1986 - Beginning With Moses: The Biblical Theology Briefings - articles, essays and book reviews by various scholars in biblical theology
- The Reemergence of Biblical Theology: What is Going On? from Catalyst (United Methodist perspectiveUnited Methodist ChurchThe United Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination which is both mainline Protestant and evangelical. Founded in 1968 by the union of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, the UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley...
) - WWW Biblical Theology Index
- Biblical and Systematic Theology: A Digest of Reformed Opinion on Their Proper Relationship
- Monergism.com - Directory of articles on Biblical Theology from the Reformed perspective.
- What is Biblical Theology? - an article by Rich Lusk on Biblical Theology.