Customer Reviews

Out of Egypt: Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation (Scripture and Hermeneutics Series, V. 5

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In my research on the strange thing called "biblical theology" I came across this interesting book. Clearly written in general from an evangelical perspective (which is ok by me), this collection of essays about the task of biblical theology takes on various issues and analyses. There are several issues, from the problem of biblical theology in general to some specific applications of biblical theology; one that I found very helpful was Al Wolter's discussion of an obscure verse in Zachariah. Bauckham contributes a meaty essay on the problem of 'monotheism' as a biblical category (which, in modern terms, is not).

The fantastic essays by John Webster and R.R. Reno both struck me as the one-two punch that, to a certain extent, deconstructed much of the work of the whole first 2/3 of the book. Webster challenges readers to think theologically about the very ontology of the Bible; otherwise any technique or method falls flat. Reno points out that so often biblical theology has a strange effect of veering away from the text itself to develop "theologies" external to the text. These two essays are a wonderful end to a good book that probably would have left me unsatisfied were it not for the contributions of Reno and Webster.