Beale’s Method

February 16, 2012 / Matt Emerson / 2 Comments

Picture from Amazon.com

I’m currently reading through G. K. Beale’s A New Testament Biblical Theology and it is phenomenal. I’ve always loved Beale’s work, particularly because he is one of the few scholars I know that can weave biblical studies and theology together almost seamlessly. He is, in my opinion, the epitome of a biblical theologian. It’s no surprise to me, then, that I love every page I read out of this book.

One thing, though, that I find the most commonality with in Beale’s work is his consistent method. In both The Temple and the Church’s Mission and We Are What We Worship, Beale demonstrates an ability to both see the big picture of the entire Bible and exegete particular texts in their original context. He thus can study the individual trees without losing sight of the forest. Just as importantly, he can look at the whole forest without forgetting it is made up of individual trees.

Beale articulates this method in the following way in his new book (p. 15):

. . . I categorize my biblical-theological approach to be canonical, genetic-progressive (or organically developmental, as a flower develops from a seed and bud), exegetical, and intertextual. This approach could be summarized as a ‘biblical-theological-oriented exegesis.’

What I’ve seen from Beale in previous works is still here (canonical, exegetical, and intertextual), but the genetic-progressive element, while not new to him, is most explicitly articulated and applied here. This to me is an especially helpful addition, both for constructive use in my own understanding and application of biblical theology and also negatively as a counter to the way “progressive revelation” is sometimes articulated. Often I hear proponents of “progressive revelation” arguing that we can only understand texts like Gen. 3:15 as Adam and Eve (or more properly Israel on the plains of Moab) or other original hearers would have heard them. For Gen. 3:15, then, we cannot teach or preach it with the fullness that we might preach Romans 1-5 in terms of the robustness of the gospel. But what Beale is arguing is that although Gen. 3:15 does not explicitly relate the entire gospel, it is like a seed of a flower that will eventually blossom into, and thus implicitly contains, the entire gospel.

Like the rest of the book, I find that particularly helpful.

Monday Mail: Porter and Westfall

July 25, 2011 / Matt Emerson / 5 Comments

I received a copy of Empire in the New Testament, edited by Stanley Porter and Cynthia Westfall, in the mail today for review. I’m excited about this for a number of reasons, among them being that I’m always challenged by Porter’s projects. But after perusing the table of contents, I’m even more ready to dive in to this volume.

The book is organized in a biblical-theological fashion. Each chapter discusses the theme of empire in a particular book or corpus in the New Testament, and these chapters are arranged in canonical order (with the exception of Luke and Acts being combined). There are also two preliminary chapters on empire in the OT, specifically in the life of David and in Isaiah, as well as two concluding ones on Jewish and early church interpretation, which I find very intriguing. This tells me that in a book titled Empire in the New Testament, the editors think it important to include OT and history of interpretation material. In my personal opinion, NT studies so often falters by not paying enough attention to the OT background of NT texts and themes, and so I am glad to see Porter and Westfall at least make the effort to include this vital aspect in their volume. (History of interpretation is pretty important, too.)

We’ll see how I like the rest of the book after I make it past the ToC. 🙂

Teaching the New Testament

July 13, 2011July 13, 2011 / Matt Emerson / Leave a comment

One of the classes I’ll teach this fall at CBU is NT Survey. As I’m prepping for this class, it’s interesting to see how many NT Introductions and Theologies approach teaching through the NT in different ways. Specifically, there are a variety of approaches when it comes to ordering the material. You can find an NT Introduction or Theology organized in a way that mirrors the canonical order of the NT, while others might be organized based off some other criteria like date of the books or common authorship. For instance, NT Introductions are commonly organized in a way that follows the NT canon’s order. Carson and Moo’s Introduction to the New Testament, Guthrie’s NT Introduction, and Elwell and Yarbrough’s Encountering the New Testament all follow the canonical order in their NT Introductions. The exception for Elwell and Yarbrough comes in combining Colossians and Philemon, a standard practice in commentaries, and this is seen also in Green, Achtemeier, and Thompson’s NT Intro. In addition, Green et al combine 2 Peter and Jude, which is again a fairly standard practice in the commentaries. This mirroring of the canonical order, with slight exceptions, is seen in most NT Intros.

That fairly uniform pattern changes with NT Theologies. Frank Thielman’s NT Theology discusses each book of the NT in separate chapters, but these chapters are arranged through consideration of date and common authorship. Tom Schreiner, on the other hand, organizes his NT Theology based on theological themes and then walks through parts or all of the NT canon when discussing those themes. Donald Guthrie follows a similar pattern in that he organizes around themes and then shows where and how those themes are discussed in the NT, but this latter part is ordered in the following manner – The Synoptic Gospels, The Johannine Literature, Acts, Paul, Hebrews, The Rest of the NT. There is some semblance of canonical order here, but the Johannine literature is thrown together and “The Rest of the New Testament” as a category seems to ignore the uniqueness of each of the Catholic Epistles. George Ladd’s NT Theology is one of the few that not only follows the NT order consistently but also uses it as his organizational scheme. Jim Hamilton’s God’s Glory in Salvation Through Judgment, although a whole Bible theology and not just an NT theology, follows the canonical order as well.

Why do we find such a uniformed organization in NT Intros while there is almost no end to different approaches to NT theologies?

Perhaps more importantly, what difference does it make whether one organizes based on the canonical order or based on some other criteria (date, authorship, theological themes, etc.)?

I know how I’d answer these questions, but I’d like to hear your thoughts first. What do you think?