Out of Egypt: Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation

Zondervan, Craig Bartholomew, Mary Healy, Karl Möller, Robin Parry, Anthony C. Thiselton

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780310873495
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Studi biblici

Biblical theology attempts to explore the theological coherence of the canonical witnesses; no serious Christian theology can overlook this issue. The essays in the present volume illustrate the complexity and richness of the conversation that results from attentive consideration of the question. In a time when some voices are calling for a moratorium on biblical theology or pronouncing its concerns obsolete, this collection of meaty essays demonstrates the continuing vitality and necessity of the enterprise. Richard B. Hays, George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament, The Divinity School, Duke University, USA This volume on biblical theology jumps into the fray and poses the right kind of questions. It does not offer a single way forward. Several of the essays are quite fresh and provocative, breaking new ground (Bray, Reno); others set out the issues with clarity and grace (Bartholomew); others offer programmatic analysis (Webster; Bauckham); others offer a fresh angle of view (Chapman, Martin). The success of this series is in facing the challenge of disarray in biblical studies head-on and then modeling a variety of approaches to stimulate our reflection. Christopher Seitz, Professor of Old Testament and Theological Studies, St. Andrews University, UK

Approaches to Biblical Theology

1

The Church Fathers and Biblical Theology

Gerald Bray

Defining our Terms

Where do the church fathers stand in relation to biblical theology? In one sense, this is an extremely easy question to answer, because if we define the ‘church fathers’ as those Christian writers who expounded the faith in the centuries when the dominant Greco-Roman culture was still pagan, then it is clear that they all believed that the Judeo-Christian Scriptures were the only acceptable source of Christian theology, and in that sense they could all be called ‘biblical theologians’ virtually without exception. The difficulty comes when we turn to consider the meaning of the term ‘biblical theology’. If we believe that ‘biblical theology’ is the attempt to grasp Scripture in its totality, according to its own categories and inner dynamic, can the claim of the Fathers to have been ‘biblical theologians’ be allowed to stand, even if we have to make some reservations when it comes to the phrase ‘according to its own categories’.

Problems with the assertion that patristic theology was simply ‘biblical theology’ inevitably arise when we try to impose modern understandings of what biblical theology is (or ought to be) on the ancient texts. Even allowing for the fact that modern interpreters are by no means always agreed about how the term ‘biblical theology’ ought to be defined,¹ it is clear that there are some things which are now included in it which would not have occurred to the Fathers. Likewise, there are other things, including some of the basic presuppositions of modern theological thought, which make establishing a genuine relationship between what the Fathers thought of as ‘biblical theology’ and what we now understand by that term somewhat problematic.

Modern scholars think of ‘biblical theology’ primarily in analytical terms. They start with what they regard as the theology of Paul, or of the wisdom literature (or whatever), and then they try to situate this in relation to the rest of the canonical scriptural tradition. To take only the most familiar instance, modern scholars all believe that it is possible to discern peculiarly Pauline themes in his writings and to present a generally coherent picture of them, though by no means all of them would claim that Paul’s theology is either comprehensive or entirely consistent. They may assert that he developed his ideas over time, and even that he tailored his arguments to fit his different audiences, with the result that discrepancies can be detected when one compares different writings. Furthermore, many of them divide the Pauline corpus into ‘authentic’ and ‘deutero-Pauline’ writings, using theological content as one of the criteria for deciding which is which. What is true of Paul is even more true when his writings are set alongside the rest of the Bible. Broadly speaking, most modern students of biblical theology are prepared to believe that it developed over time, and that the later a document was written, the more sophisticated the theology it contains is likely to be. Loose ends and contradictions are an almost inevitable consequence of this pattern of development, so that we must not expect ‘biblical theology’ to offer us the kind of coherent picture that systematic theology demands.

The analytical principles and practices associated with this modern form of biblical theology are certainly not beyond questioning, and even when they are accepted they can lead to some surprisingly varied conclusions, but it can safely be said that the Fathers would have found them alien and unacceptable. They approached the Bible as pagans who had been converted to the Christian gospel, and Scripture presented them with a mental and spiritual universe that struck them as entirely different from what they had grown up with. Some of them were prepared to grant that certain pagan philosophers, like Plato, had discovered elements of the truth–but this was either because those philosophers had read the Old Testament and adapted it to their own purposes or because they had stumbled upon some aspect of reality, rather like blind men in the dark, and had correctly guessed what it was they had encountered.² What we now call ‘natural’ and ‘philosophical’ theology was acceptable to the Fathers only in so far as it was validated by Scripture itself. Passages like Psalm 19, for example (‘The heavens declare the glory of God’), provided a basis on which they could recognize the validity of some pagan insights. The Apostle Paul’s appeal to the philosophers of Athens in Acts 17 showed that it was sometimes possible to quote pagan authors in support of Christian beliefs. But, for the Fathers, the true locus of authority was never in doubt. Pagan testimonies were valid only to the extent that they agreed with the biblical witness, and such agreement was likely to be haphazard and partial at best.

As far as the influence of Hellenistic philosophy was concerned, the notion that a coherent, Christian theological system could be built up using only the evidence of nature and reason was anathema to the Fathers. It is not that they were unaware of the possibility of doing this–they knew only too well that someone could take a philosophical idea, find it in some biblical text, and erect an entire system on that slender basis. This was actually being done in the late first and early second century by a number of teachers whom we collectively refer to as ‘gnostics’. The first person to attempt a refutation of their methods was Irenaeus of Lyon (d. 202), who attacked their heresies (as he understood them) by claiming that the Bible was the only source of truth, that it spoke primarily of the Christian God and that it could be read and interpreted only according to a ‘rule of faith’ which outlined its fundamental teachings.³

It is not too much to say that it was Scripture, even Scripture alone, which set their theological agenda, and it is noticeable that their apologetic was often strongest precisely at those points where Scripture clashed with what the average pagan believed.⁴ For example, almost all of the major church fathers wrote commentaries on the creation narrative in Genesis, because they understood that the Christian doctrine of creation was antithetical to what most ancient philosophers taught about the origin and nature of matter.⁵ It must be admitted that this sometimes led them to make assertions which most modern theologians, including very conservative ones, prefer to avoid or reject. Augustine, for instance, was quite prepared to argue that the world had been created relatively recently, and in the space of six days–particularly in the face of the standard pagan belief that matter was eternal. Almost no one would now follow him in this but it ought to be recognized that, however much it was stated and believed, it was not really fundamental to the Fathers’ doctrine of creation. Much more important was their belief that created matter was good, not evil (as the majority of pagans believed), and here–where it really matters–the modern reader is more inclined to go along with them.⁶ On a different level, the Fathers were forced by the evidence of Scripture to work out a theology in which traditional Jewish monotheism could be held in tandem–and in tension–with the assertion that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were all equally God. The Trinitarian theology which resulted flew in the face of everything that the Fathers had inherited from their Jewish and pagan backgrounds, and its emergence can only be explained as the result of accepting that the New Testament texts are the uniquely authoritative source of truth. The so-called Athanasian Creed, written sometime in the early sixth century, sums up their position quite succinctly:

Just as we are compelled by the Christian Verity (i.e., the New Testament) to affirm that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all fully God and Lord, so are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion (i.e., the Hebrew and the Christian Verity–the two Testaments–taken together) to say that they are three gods or three lords.⁷

In these few words, we have what may be the earliest conscious statement of what might be called a form of biblical theology–as long as that term is understood to mean the systematic exposition of the teaching of the canonical Scriptures. What the Fathers did not do, and (in fairness to them) could hardly have been expected to do, was to differentiate between the study of the Bible as a historical document and the systematic reflection on its contents which we now think of as ‘theology’. Of course, the Fathers were aware that the Bible had been written by a number of different people over a long period of time, and it was a fundamental part of their belief that the New Testament was a fuller revelation of God than the Old. But they did not understand these things in the same way that most modern interpreters do. Without in any way rejecting the truth of the historical narrative, the Fathers believed that it was necessary to see in it the eternal purpose of God at work, a purpose which was unchanging because it was rooted in his own eternal being.⁸ The main difference between ancient and modern approaches to ‘biblical theology’ is that the ancients thought that the Bible was an objective revelation from (and of) the eternal, unchanging God. Most modern commentators, on the other hand, think more in terms of an essentially subjective spiritual insight or inspiration occurring to the authors of Scripture and so deriving authority from their experience, not from the God of whom they speak.

To the ancients, the God who spoke to Abraham was the same being who later spoke to Moses, David and the Christian apostles. They saw themselves in direct continuity with pre-Christian Israel, and they criticized the Jews of their own time for having rejected their heritage, which pointed to Christ. Nevertheless, the all-but-unanimous testimony of the Fathers is that God still has a purpose for his ancient chosen people, who will one day return to the faith and confess Christ. Thus Theodoret of Cyrrhus, who represents the Antiochene (more literal) tradition of ancient biblical interpretation says, when commenting on Romans 11:25:

Paul insists that only a part of Israel has been hardened, for in fact many of them believe. He thus encourages them not to despair that others will be saved as well. After the Gentiles accepted the gospel, the Jews would believe, when the great Elijah would come to them and bring them the doctrine of faith. The Lord himself said as much: ‘Elijah will come and restore all things’ (Mt. 17:11; Mk. 9:12).⁹

Commenting on the same text, from the rival Alexandrian (or more allegorical) school of thought, Cyril of Alexandria had this to say:

Although it was rejected, Israel will also be saved eventually, a hope which Paul confirms by quoting this text of Scripture. For indeed, Israel will be saved in its own time and will be called at the end, after the calling of the Gent...