Everything about Biblical Theology totally explained
Biblical theology is a discipline within
Christian theology which studies the
Bible from the perspective of understanding the
progressive history of God revealing God's self 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.
Biblical theology seeks to understand a certain passage in the Bible in light of all of the biblical history leading up to it. 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?
Biblical theology seeks to put individual texts in their historical context since what came before them is the foundation on which they're 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
Prophets, [Jesus] explained to [thedisciples] 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 through out the Bible while the latter focuses on thematic progression. Systematic theology deals with a single topic in each place it's 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.
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 progressive revelation as progressive revelation of new truth which 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.
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 isn't 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.
The work of
Geerhardus Vos (
Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments),
Herman Ribberbos (
The Coming of the Kingdom),
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)
Further Information
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