New Dictionary of Biblical Theology

T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner (eds.), New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Leicester: IVP, 2000), xx + 866pp., ISBN 085111976X.

[The following is a lightly-edited version of a review first written in November 2000 and published on London School of Theology’s website. Although the volume is now nearly 10 years old, it remains an excellent resource.]

Although there is no full agreement as to the nature, tasks, and limits of biblical theology, there can be little doubt that it is now well and truly on the map of the theological landscape, and that evangelical voices are making significant contributions to the discussion. The voices gathered together in this IVP dictionary provide evidence of that, and the work as a whole demonstrates the strategic place of biblical theology in Christian interpretation and appropriation of the Bible.

Here biblical theology involves reading the Bible as an historically developing collection of documents describing the progressive unfolding of God’s purposes of salvation for humanity; it operates with a coherent canon, and seeks to work from individual books out to the canon as a whole, making connections among the various biblical corpora (collections of books, such as wisdom, history, etc.), and between the two testaments with Christ at their heart. Not content with merely describing the theology of biblical books (as some have limited the biblical-theological task), this biblical theology moves forward to the tasks of constructing theology for the Christian community and the world today. As such it is intimately related to exegesis, systematic theology, historical theology, and preaching.

The editors have helpfully divided the volume into three major parts, which not only increases its ease of reference, but highlights some of the different facets of the biblical-theological task. Part One contains twelve long essays which overview some of the fundamental issues of biblical theology: how the New Testament uses the Old Testament, how biblical theology is related to exegesis and systematic theology, and so on. This could easily be a very useful book in itself, and provides an important orientation to all that follows. Part Two contains articles on the main biblical corpora and books, discussing the theology of the book under consideration as well as links to other books and themes in the rest of Scripture. The largest part, Part Three, contains entries on particular topics – covenant, love, rest, Israel, temple, light, sacrifice – which (in the words of the editors) ‘are of central importance for an understanding of the unity of the Biblical corpus’.

Like any multi-author work, the entries are only as good as the individual contributors themselves; but most here are very strong, and it is gratifying to read the distillation of wisdom and scholarship from men and women who have spent many years working on the areas they here so helpfully summarise.

In short, this is a highly recommended addition to resources on the Bible in general and biblical theology in particular.