A New Testament Biblical Theology

The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New

Beale, G. K.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781441238610
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Christianity Today 2013 Book Award Winner 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.

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Introduction

Of the writing of NT theologies there seems to be no end. When I teach a class on NT theology, I distribute a three-page bibliography of only NT theologies, the majority of which were written in the twentieth century. My attempt in this book is not to write a NT theology but rather a NT biblical theology. To some ears this may not sound like much of a distinction. Nevertheless, this introductory chapter and the following body of this book will indicate how different my project is from that of the typical NT theology genre.

The Principles and Definition of a Biblical Theology of the New Testament

The first task is to describe the particular discipline of NT biblical theology to be adopted in this book, which overlaps to some degree not only with whole-Bible biblical theologies but also with OT biblical theologies. The increasing focus will be on the unique aspects of doing NT biblical theology. Some parts of this description will overlap with the task of the NT theology genre, but the differences will increasingly become apparent.

First, many NT theologies spend much time discussing the question of the historical Jesus and whether a theology of the NT can begin with the life and teachings of Jesus. Some scholars conclude negatively about this (e.g., Rudolf Bultmann), whereas more conservative writers base the beginning of their theologies on Jesus as he was portrayed in the Gospels. I will not spend time analyzing this issue, but I will assume the conclusion of conservative scholars, including conservative NT theologians, who decide that the Gospels portray a historically reliable picture of Jesus’s ministry and thus start their study of the NT on that basis.[1]

Second, more recent NT theologies directly address the issue of postmodern hermeneutics, especially with respect to whether it is possible to interpret scriptural texts without one’s theological biases detrimentally affecting the interpretations.[2] This book will not address this issue, but a few comments are appropriate here. In the twentieth century, both liberal historical critics and many conservative scholars believed that readers could interpret texts “objectively,” without their own presuppositions influencing their interpretations. Few, whether conservative or liberal, hold this view today, though some still do. The question now is whether one’s presuppositions result in distorting the original meaning of a text and whether interpreters come away only with interpretative conclusions that reflect their own theological predispositions. Entire books can be, and have been, written on this issue.[3] My assumption in this book is that all interpreters have presuppositions, and that some presuppositions are bad and distort the originally intended meanings of ancient texts, while other presuppositions are good and actually guide one into the truth of texts. The presuppositions of the biblical writers themselves as expressed in Scripture have the power through the Spirit to regrind the presuppositional lenses of its readers.

One such presupposition, for example, is that the Protestant canon of the OT and the NT composes the divinely inspired, authoritative material for doing biblical theology. This differs from some who do not want to limit NT theology to this database and want to include the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, and other early Jewish works as part of the authoritative framework.[4] Although these extracanonical sources do need to be considered in the interpretation of NT texts, I will assume that they are not on the same authoritative level as those texts. I will make the same assumption about the LXX in relation to the OT Hebrew text, the latter of which I take to be authoritative.[5] Of course, there could be much discussion of the thorny issue of canon, but since the scope of this work does not allow for such elaboration, I must simply take the Protestant canon as my presuppositional starting point.

Another such presupposition is a particular definition of “intertextuality.” I will assume that later biblical quotations of and allusions to earlier Scripture unpack the meaning of that earlier Scripture, and yet the earlier passage also sheds light on the later passage.[6] This is my view of the famous dictum “Scripture interprets Scripture.” Or, as Augustine put it, “The New Testament lies concealed in the Old, the Old lies revealed in the New” (Quaest. Hept. 2.73). I do not follow some postmodern understandings of intertextuality, which, for example, contend that later references to earlier texts interact in such a way that new meanings are produced that are completely unlinked and dislodged from the originally intended meaning of the earlier text.[7] In this respect, I will study quotations of earlier Scripture by later Scripture as well as allusions. There has been much discussion about the criteria for validating whether a reference is actually a probable allusion. I have discussed these criteria at numerous points in my writings over the past years.[8] The most important criterion is the recognition of sufficient verbal and thematic parallels, though interpreters will still debate whether such parallels exist in particular cases.

Thus, readers will make different judgments on the basis of the same evidence, some categorizing a reference as “probable,” others viewing the same reference as only “possible” or even so faint as not to merit analysis. I have tried to include for study in this book those OT allusions whose validity are attested by sufficient evidence and that I consider to be probable (this includes not only references made by NT writers but also those made by later OT writers of earlier OT texts). I am sure, however, that some interpreters will still debate the validity of some of the references that I discuss.

Along these lines, Richard Hays touches on the problematic issue of how much a NT author (and I would include OT authors) can develop an earlier OT text and whether such creative developments still remain within the original conceptual contours of the OT context. He speaks about “the power of texts to engender unforeseen interpretations that may transcend the original authorial intention and historical setting.”[9] This is to be seen not as an argument for a radical reader-response approach (where there is lack of concern for original authorial intention) but rather as a reading whereby one continues to see how an OT text keeps imposing its original sense on the later text’s author (albeit sometimes subliminally), even as that author is creatively developing that original sense beyond what may appear to be the “surface meaning” of the OT text.[10] The notion of whether NT writers refer to OT texts with their broader context in mind is debated in the academic guild. My own assessment is in line with Hays’s approach and the earlier approach of C. H. Dodd.[11]

Thus, Paul or later OT writers build on earlier OT texts that they interpret and develop creatively. This creativity is to be seen in understanding such earlier texts in the light of the further developments of the redemptive-historical epoch in which the writer lives. For example, NT writers interpret the OT in the light of the later events of Christ’s coming and work. In this respect, part of the creative interpretative development lies merely in the fact that fulfillment always fleshes out prior prophecy in a way that, to some degree, was unforeseen by earlier OT prophets. Another way to say this is that progressive revelation always reveals things not seen as clearly earlier. Geerhardus Vos’s metaphor for this creative development between the two Testaments is that earlier OT prophecies and texts are like seeds, and later OT texts develop the seeds into roots from which stems and leaves imperceptibly grow, and then in the NT the bud emerges and begins to flower; from one angle the blooming plant may not look like the seed or the root (as in botanical comparisons), but careful exegesis of both OT and NT contexts can show at least some of the organic connections.[12]

Another important presupposition of this book is that the divine authorial intentions communicated through human authors are accessible to contemporary readers. Although no one can exhaustively comprehend these intentions, they can be sufficiently understood, especially for the purposes of salvation, sanctification, and glorification of God.

These three preceding presuppositions about canon, intertextuality, and authorial intention being accessible to modern readers overlap to varying degrees with the approach of more recent classic conservative NT theologies.[13]

In addition, a proper understanding and development of OT and NT theology reveals that theology is not only descriptive but also prescriptive. That is, the mere development of a theology of either Testament is a descriptive task, but the content of that theology manifests an imperative for God’s people to follow and obey. For example, we will see that one of the important biblical-theological ideas formulated in this book entails that believers ought to take part in expanding God’s new-creational kingdom and that they glorify God. This kind of prescriptive element, however, is found to varying degrees in other NT theologies.

The preceding discussion has shown some slight differences but also primarily commonalities between this project and other NT theologies that have been written. However, the following shows the unique traits of my approach to a NT biblical theology in distinction from the usual NT theologies.

(1) The approach of this book overlaps with that of a whole-Bible biblical theology in that it addresses more directly the theological storyline of the OT. I will discuss early in the book precisely what I mean by a “storyline.”[14] In this respect, my work begins formally in the next chapter with a focus only on a thumbnail sketch of the development of the OT storyline beginning in Genesis and developing throughout the OT. This storyline consists of a synthetic formulation about God’s purposes in creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. In contrast, classic NT theologies stay formally only within the bounds of the NT canon. Of course, a long book could be written on the tracing of such an OT storyline, so that I will have to rest content with attempting to discern the main thrusts of such a storyline in two substantive introductory chapters (see chaps. 2–3). Thus, the OT storyline formulated in this book is based on a study of OT theology and especially how the theological threads of Gen. 1–3 are developed throughout the rest of the OT. Many would be skeptical that a unifying storyline of the OT is possible,[15] and others would say that this is difficult to do in one or two chapters (see chaps. 2–3). Nevertheless, the hope here is that the main outline of this kind of study is sufficiently headed in the right direction such that it holds potential to be fleshed out and validated by subsequent substantive research by others.

(2) The main facets of the OT narrative story are then traced into and throughout the NT. The main elements of the OT plotline become the basis for the formulation of the NT storyline. Of course, insofar as the OT plotline is somewhat provisional, so will be its basis for the NT storyline. But this is a problem inherent to any project that focuses on the NT, even a NT biblical theology. A volume longer than the present one would need to be written to validate further both the OT and the NT storylines proposed here.

Thus, the NT storyline will be a transformation of the OT one in the light of how the NT is seen to be an unfolding of the OT, especially through fulfillment of the OT. The main theological categories for the tracing of OT and NT theology therefore arise not first from considering the categories of systematic theology but from attempting to trace the respective canonical storylines in the two Testaments. I will try to determine how the NT develops the OT plotline and then let the major parts of the transformed storyline of the NT form the major subjects to be considered in the biblical theology of the NT.[16]

Consequently, it is the main categories of the NT storyline that then become the main conceptual categories for the organization or outline of the biblical theology of the NT (which this book develops in chaps. 5–28).

(3) The bulk of discussion in this biblical theology of the NT consists of attempts to elaborate on the main plotline categories of thought through surveying the places in the NT where that thought is expressed. Such a survey occurs through studying the use of key words and concepts relevant to the major category of focus. Also, discussion of each category will occur through exegetical analysis of crucial passages and of OT quotations, allusions, and sometimes of discernible themes. Such concentrated studies, especially of the NT’s use of the OT, are not characteristic features of most NT theologies. Although many are doubtful that it is possible to find a theological unity among the NT writings,[17] I am more optimistic and hope that my proposed storyline proves fruitful to others in perceiving more of a unity to the NT.

In contrast, some NT theologies try to place the documents in chronological order and focus on an attempt to trace the historical genealogical development of concepts. This often involves also studying what lies behind these documents, so that the full purported process of historical development can be more precisely reconstructed. This then entails that one also speculate about the theology of the sources behind the written document (e.g., in the Gospels), which of course are no longer extant in any literary form. The weakness of the approach is that it has to speculate about hypothetical sources and becomes too much a study of the theology of such sources instead of focusing on the study of the theology of the NT documents themselves.[18] Furthermore, apart from the problem of hypothetical sources is, among other problems, the difficulty of dating the NT documents with enough certainty that a development among them can be traced chronologically.[19]

NT theologies are organized in a variety of ways,[20] but the habit of a number of classic NT theologies is to conduct a consecutive theological analysis of each NT book,[21] usually in the canonical order of each corpus,[22] and then to draw up a final comparison of each of the theological emphases of each of the books.[23] Such projects sometimes conclude with an attempt to find a major theological thrust in the NT.[24] Others who do NT theologies set up certain major themes for the whole NT and then trace those themes consecutively through its books, usually in the order of the canon.[25] The challenge for these thematic approaches is validating the probability of whether the major themes chosen are in fact the major themes of the NT. The themes chosen according to this approach sometimes are derived from systematic theology.[26] On the one hand, the whole-Bible biblical theology of Charles H. H. Scobie’s work is closest in this respect to my approach, since he is much more synthetic and does not trace themes in the OT or the NT consecutively book by book or corpus by corpus. On the other hand, his work is different in that it is structured by themes and not by the elements of a formally postulated storyline, though I think that he would say that ultimately he has derived these themes from a biblical storyline.[27]

(4) Another unique feature of this biblical theology of the NT in contrast with most other NT theologies is that it is concerned with how important components of the OT storyline are understood and developed in Judaism.[28] This is significant because it is important to see how the major biblical-theological notions in the NT develop these same OT components and whether they do so in dependence on Judaism or in line with Judaism or in contrast to it. The results from such a comparison and contrast should shed interpretative light on the development of the NT. Accordingly, most chapters in this book have discrete sections on how Judaism developed the OT notion under study.[29] Such analysis will also show the historical rootedness of the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• Part 1: The Biblical-Theological Storyline of Scripture
• Part 2: The Story of the Inaugurated End-Time Tribulation
• Part 3: The Story of the Inaugurated End-Time Resurrection and New-Creational Kingdom as a Framework for New Testament Theology
• Part 4: The Story of Idolatry and Restoration of God’s Image in the Inaugurated End-Time New Creation
• Part 5: The Story of Salvation as Inaugurated End-Time New Creation
• Part 6: The Story of the Work of the Spirit in the Inaugurated End-Time New Creation
• Part 7: The Story of the Church as End-Time Israel in the Inaugurated New Creation
• Part 8: The Distinguishing Marks of the Church as Storyline Facets of the End-Time Inaugurated New Creation
• Part 9: The Story of Christian Living as Inaugurated End-Time New-Creational Life
• Part 10: Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Scripture Index
• Ancient Sources Index
• Subject Index
• Notes
• Back Cover