Joel Green et al. on the Future of New Testament Theology

There’s an interesting-looking collection of essays on New Testament theology edited by Joel Green, available as an open access pdf here.

Reframing New Testament Theology

I recently stumbled across a new series published by Abingdon Press – Reframing New Testament Theology – with Joel B. Green as its general editor. Joel Green has also produced the first volume in the series: Why Salvation? (Nashville: Abingdon, 2013).

In the Foreword, he notes the framing question for books in the series:

‘How do we take seriously that, together with the Old Testament, the New Testament has in the past and should in the present inform, form, and transform the church’s faith and life?’

And later:

‘What holds this series together is not a particular set of methodological commitments but a keen sense that scripture has in the past and should in the present instruct and shape the church’s faith and life. What does it mean to engage the New Testament from within the church and for the church?’

Green’s contribution on salvation is essentially a revision of a 2004 book published by Chalice Press in their ‘Understanding Biblical Themes’ series. I have always thought that series has been generally overlooked, so perhaps the book will get a wider audience in this new format.

Forthcoming volumes are promised on the cross (by Donald Senior), the church (by Robert W. Wall), and mission (by Dean Flemming).

Nijay Gupta has an interview with Joel Green about the series here.

Greg Beale Lectures on Biblical Theology

The following set of lectures by Greg Beale on biblical theology is available for free download on iTunes U here.

1. Introduction; Inaugurated Eschatology I

2. Inaugurated Eschatology II

3. Inaugurated Eschatology III

4. Inaugurated Eschatology IV

5. Inaugurated Eschatology V; Biblical Theology of the Gospels I 

6. Biblical Theology of the Gospels II 

7. Biblical Theology of the Gospels III 

8. Biblical Theology of the Gospels IV 

9. Biblical Theology of the Gospels V

10. Biblical Theology of the Gospels VI

11. A Redemptive Historical Perspective of the Temple I 

12. A Redemptive Historical Perspective of the Temple II 

13. The Damascus Road Resurrection Christophany I 

14. The Damascus Road Resurrection Christophany II 

15. The Eschatological Nature of Paul’s Anthropology and Relationship of New Creation to Reconciliation I 

16. The Eschatological Nature of Paul’s Anthropology and Relationship of New Creation to Reconciliation II 

17. Sanctification, Justification, and the Relationship of Christ to the Law I 

18. Sanctification, Justification, and the Relationship of Christ to the Law II 

19. The Eschatological Conception of the Church I 

20. The Eschatological Conception of the Church II 

21. The Eschatological Role of the Holy Spirit I 

22. The Eschatological Role of the Holy Spirit II

Interview with James D.G. Dunn

Having heard James Dunn present a paper at a conference yesterday, I was interested to see an interview with him here, conducted by Frank Viola.

Among other things, Viola asks him what he considers to be his most important works and why, what he sees as the main misrepresentations or objections to his work among evangelical Christians, and about his writing routines.

Gregory K. Beale on New Testament Biblical Theology

Gregory K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 1072pp., ISBN 9780801026973.

This due out next month – a massive and significant work – what Beale is calling a ‘NT biblical theology’.

Here’s the blurb from the publisher:

‘In this comprehensive exposition, a leading New Testament scholar explores the unfolding theological unity of the entire Bible from the vantage point of the New Testament. G.K. Beale, coeditor of the award-winning Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, examines how the New Testament storyline relates to and develops the Old Testament storyline. Beale argues that every major concept of the New Testament is a development of a concept from the Old and is to be understood as a facet of the inauguration of the latter-day new creation and kingdom. Offering extensive interaction between the two testaments, this volume helps readers see the unifying conceptual threads of the Old Testament and how those threads are woven together in Christ. This major work will be valued by students of the New Testament and pastors alike.

A generous excerpt, containing the first two chapters is available here, and another excerpt, containing chapter 3 is available here.

Scot McKnight on Jesus vs. Paul

Christianity Today carries a long-ish piece by Scot McKnight (beginning here) on the perennially-vexing question of the relationship between Jesus and Paul on ‘the gospel’

He begins:

‘Many biblical scholars and lay Christians have noted that Jesus preached almost exclusively about the kingdom of heaven, while Paul highlighted justification by faith—and not vice versa. Some conclude that they preached two different gospels. Others argue that really they both preached justification; still others say it's all about the kingdom. What gives?’

He notes that his own early experience of reading the gospels as they are ‘filtered through Paul's theology’ is not unusual for evangelicals, and he also thinks the Reformation and the Great Awakenings and revivals of the 18th and 19th centuries largely led to a ‘Paul-shaped movement through and through’. And yet, increasingly, he says, there is an ‘unmistakeable shift among many evangelicals from a Pauline-centered theology to a Jesus-shaped kingdom vision’.

‘It is not exaggerating to say that evangelicalism is facing a crisis about the relationship of Jesus to Paul, and that many today are choosing sides. I meet many young, thinking evangelicals whose “first language” is Jesus and the kingdom. Yet despite the trend, perhaps in reaction to it, many look to Paul and justification by faith as their first language. Those addicted to kingdom language struggle to make Paul fit, while those addicted to Paul’s theological terms struggle to make Jesus fit.’

According to McKnight, attempts to make the one fit the other only end up reducing the gospel – either it gets equated with the kingdom or it becomes a synonym for justification by faith.

Instead, leaning on 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (in which, McKnight notes, there is not a word about ‘kingdom’ or ‘justification’), he says:

‘The gospel is first and foremost about Jesus. Or, to put it theologically, it's about Christology. Behind or underneath both kingdom and justification is the gospel, and the gospel is the saving story of Jesus that completes Israel’s story. “To gospel” is to tell a story about Jesus as the Messiah, as the Lord, as the Son of God, as the Savior.’

After some more elaboration of this point, he concludes:

‘My contention, then, is simple: If we begin with kingdom, we have to twist Paul into shape to fit a kingdom vision. If we being with justification, we have to twist Jesus into shape to fit justification. But if we begin with gospel, and if we understand gospel as Paul does in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, then we will find what unifies Jesus and Paul – that both witness to Jesus as the center of God’s story.’

Joel B. Green and Max Turner on Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology

Joel B. Green and Max Turner (eds.), Between the Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 256pp., ISBN 9780802845412.

[A version of the following review was first published on London School of Theology’s website in February 2000. It was the heraldic volume to the then forthcoming ‘Two Horizons’ series of commentaries, published by Eerdmans. It’s over ten years old now, but I think many of the essays remain significant early forays into the area of theological interpretation which, of course, has grown exponentially in the time since then.]

The review began by talking at some length about the gap in the academy between ‘Scripture’ and ‘doctrine’, and then went on to note that…

Joel B. Green and Max Turner are among a significant and growing number of scholars who are actively working on ways of bridging the gap, ‘spanning New Testament studies and Systematic Theology’ – as the subtitle of this collection of essays indicates.

In fact, the volume is designed to prepare the way for a ‘Two Horizons’ commentary series, published by Eerdmans and overseen by the two editors, which will seek to help readers ‘(1) to understand individual books theologically in their ancient context and (2) to be able to interpret them competently into the theological contexts of the turn of the twenty-first century’. If the series does the job well, it will succeed in filling a long-standing gap in biblical and theological reflection. So be it.

Some of the prospective commentary writers contribute essays to the current collection, and the volume as a whole explores several different and vital issues:

• Appropriate methodology and models of interdisciplinarity (Joel B. Green).
• The importance of the historical character of biblical texts and ‘behind the text’ issues in theology, as compared with ‘in the text’ and ‘in front of the text’ issues (Max Turner).
• Authorial intention and its theological relationship to divine intention in Scripture (in different ways, Max Turner and Stephen E. Fowl).
• How different commitments of faith shape interpretation and theology, and how we do justice to them in self-conscious and self-critical ways (Robert W. Wall and, with a test-case from a Pentecostal perspective, John Christopher Thomas).
• The methodological issues involved in developing theology from narrative texts (John Goldingay).
• The theological role of the two testament canon in theology (Steve Motyer).
• The question of multiple and competing voices in the canon (Robert W. Wall).
• The impact that tradition and an understanding of biblical authority has for Christian theology (Trevor Hart).
• A sample essay of how the project might be carried out on a given text (N.T. Wright on Galatians).

Some will doubtless complain that consideration of the Old Testament is significant by its absence; others will point out that most of the contributors are New Testament specialists and the project is still being shaped with their specific concerns in mind. Both criticisms are ultimately unfair and, in any case, only serve to invite Old Testament specialists and theologians themselves to get involved in the dialogue. As indeed they are doing.

At a time when increasing numbers of biblical scholars – both Old and New Testament – are becoming aware of the need for theological reflection, and when theologians are likewise looking for more engagement with the fruit of biblical studies, this collection (and the commentary series it heralds) calls all students of God’s word to move, with integrity and humility, from the biblical text through biblical theology to a theological formulation in a way which will speak powerfully to the contemporary church and world.

Richard Hays on New Testament Eschatology

Richard Hays, ‘“Why Do You Stand Looking Up Toward Heaven?” New Testament Eschatology at the Turn of the Millennium’, Modern Theology 16:1 (2000), 115-35.

Hays discusses what he sees as the ‘three unsatisfactory strategies’ of the Johannine option (eternal life now), the Jesus Seminar (driving a wedge between Jesus and the gospels), and N.T. Wright (apocalyptic eschatology historicised) (117-25).

He then lists seven reasons why the New Testament’s apocalyptic eschatology is essential to the Christian faith (125-31):

(1) The church needs apocalyptic eschatology to carry Israel’s story forward.
(2) The church needs apocalyptic eschatology for interpreting the cross as a saving event for the world.
(3) The church needs apocalyptic eschatology for the gospel’s political critique of pagan culture.
(4) The church needs apocalyptic eschatology to resist ecclesial complacency and triumphalism.
(5) The church needs apocalyptic eschatology in order to affirm the body.
(6) The church needs apocalyptic eschatology to ground its mission.
(7) The church needs apocalyptic eschatology to speak with integrity about suffering and death.

The passage of time has not disconfirmed apocalyptic hope any more than it had for those to whom 2 Peter was addressed.

He concludes:

‘The recovery of unabashed apocalyptic theology is… a recommendation pressed upon us by the character of the New Testament witnesses themselves, who steadily and adamantly construe the significance of Jesus’ proclamation, as well as his death and resurrection, within apocalyptic categories… If, as I have contended, the canonical New Testament is strongly apocalyptic in its interpretation of the story of Jesus, then to live and think within that story will necessarily draw the church into sharing its apocalyptic frame of reference. As we are formed by the story, we will learn to discern our own place as servants charged to watch expectantly in this time between the times’ (133).