Five Things Biblical Scholars Wish Theologians Knew

Scot McKnight

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780830849352
• eBook ISBN: 9780830855179
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The disciplines of biblical studies and theology should serve each other, and they should serve both the church and the academy together. But the relationship between them is often marked by misunderstandings, methodological differences, and cross-discipline tension.

New Testament scholar Scot McKnight here highlights five things he wishes theologians knew about biblical studies. In a companion volume, theologian Hans Boersma reflects on five things he wishes biblical scholars knew about theology.

With an irenic spirit as well as honesty about differences that remain, McKnight and Boersma seek to foster understanding between their disciplines through these books so they might once again collaborate with one another.

Theology Needs a Constant Return to Scripture

I BEGAN WITH THE OBSERVATION that biblical scholarship and systematic theology differ from each other. We differ at perhaps the deepest level in method. Put in starkly contrasting terms, the former begins with the Bible, and the latter somewhere else. This, from long experience, is a common complaint I have heard among biblical scholars. We think systematicians often impose on the text, while we think we don’t, truth be told, or at least we admit we try not to. This is an overstatement, but I want to begin here because this is how we Bible folks (sometimes) talk about systematicians, especially when they are not present.

Bible scholars study books in the Bible, and they do so with some kind of method.1 Some focus so much on history that the biblical author and the divine Author disappear behind a reconstruction of what happened, while others seek to set the Bible in its historical context in order to elucidate the text itself more accurately. Some are less concerned with history and context and devote themselves to a reconstructed narrative of the Bible as the contextual clue for reading, say, Mark’s Gospel. Others are so intent on the grammar and syntax of the text itself that context and narrative are rarely brought into play. These, and no doubt nuances could be added, are all part of what we mean by biblical scholarship.2

The recent shift for some toward what A. C. Thiselton comprehensively described as socio-pragmatics (but which today often goes by political or liberation theology) deserves mention for two reasons: (1) it has penetrating value, and (2) it replaces classic systematic theology for its practitioners.3 Liberationist readings of the Bible, whether from African Americans, Latin Americans, Korean Americans, American Indians, Asians, feminists and womanists and Marxists, take a stand in a given location and read the Bible out of that location and for that location.4 The singular point so well made by such readings is that each of us stands in a location when we read the Bible. There is no escaping such a feet-in-the-mud approach to Bible reading, nor is there an escape for the sharp angles drawn by such an approach to the Bible. But when one reads the most candid of such approaches—say, what one finds in Gustavo Gutiérrez or Brian Blount or Elsa Támez—one has to ask at times whether the Bible itself is being used more than being read, or whether at times such approaches overwhelm what the Bible says, or whether important elements of what the Bible says are being ignored. Once again, we all have contexts and we are all located, but what Bible scholars often want to emphasize is that the Bible needs to challenge our locations if the Bible is going to do its own work. This is all a matter of lovingly listening to the text, about which I will say more.5

But how does one listen to the text in a loving manner?6 How does one acquire a reliable, accurate reading of the Bible’s own text? How does a biblical scholar contest the approach of the systematician or a political approach to reading the Bible? I suggest two impulses in models for doing theology, simplified in order to draw out of each its distinctive contributions: the retrieval model and the expansive model.7 These two models are on either end of a spectrum from Bible to greater expansions in theology. The retrieval model tends to resist both systematics and socio-pragmatics, while the expansive model tends to embrace both in unequal measure. When we are finished sketching these two models, I will propose an integrative model that takes what is best from each of the other two models.8 I can think of very few whose method is not a nuanced combination of both of these impulses. Mary Veeneman’s fine textbook on theological method makes this altogether clear.9

Following the discussion of models, I will turn to two significant issues in all biblical and theological interpretation: (1) the primacy of turning to Scripture first and (2) the charge of biblicism by those who believe theology must stick to the Bible.

MODELS, IMPULSES, AND INTEGRATION

The two models may be briefly stated this way: the retrieval model believes everything done in systematics or constructive theology must be rooted in explicit biblical exegesis and texts, while the expansive model believes systematics begins with the Bible but over time has expanded considerably as our knowledge of God and truth and theology has progressed. The first wants to go back, and the second wants to explore for more. The first speaks more often about biblical theology and the second more often in terms of creedal, dogmatic, confessional, and systematic categories.10

Each model has to tangle with five separable but integrated and interrelated dimensions of theological truth claims:

1. 1. the Bible
2. 2. the creed
3. 3. denominational confessions and doctrinal statements
4. 4. major theologians forming a systematic theology
5. 5. the multitude of theological explorations constantly at work in the history of the church in very specific locations and times

So, we have the (1) Bible and (2) the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, with (for one example) (3) the Augsburg Confession, with (4) Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics, and with (5) Miroslav Volf’s wonderful Exclusion and Embrace or (to give a second example of this fifth type) some decision made by the Anglican Church of North America to form its own catechism and Book of Common Prayer (both of which were shaped by specific theologians carrying weight).11 Theology always has and always will be entangled in this web of five dimensions.

Now to describe the models.

The retrieval model. The retrieval model’s impulse is back to the Bible. Sola Scriptura here might not mean only the Bible, but it will certainly mean prima Scriptura, first the Bible.12 All creeds, every denominational confession or statement of faith, all theologians, and every exploration that makes theological truth claims—it is argued in this model—have to justify their claims by appeal to the Bible. Even more: appeal here can mean “must be something the Bible is actually teaching” rather than something that can be hooked to a verse (however loosely).13

The retrieval model contends that the fundamental form of theology is commentary on Scripture and the exposition of Scripture in preaching. If God has chosen to speak to us in Scripture, then the Bible becomes the sure foundation for all redemptive truths. Once one admits this or something close to it, theology becomes exegesis, commentary, and exposition of Scripture in light of the fullness of the Bible’s gospel. One of the fundamental forms of doing theology, then, becomes preaching and teaching the people of God from Scripture. Which means that the retrieval model doesn’t see whether the theologian has a few references to Scripture scattered here and there but looks for exegesis that is both aware of scholarship and oriented toward theological questions once it has probed the text in its own integrity. Some theologians claim this but don’t do their theology this way. Some theologians claim their theology is Bible-only but are denominationalists and read everything through their denominational theology.

Figure 1.1. The retrieval model

The retrieval model contends that theology is always in need of reformation and that biblical studies are also in need of constant reworking. This is the Protestant principle of semper reformanda applied to both theological and biblical studies. Hence, the need always to go back to the sources (ad fontes). What drives this impulse to go back to the sources to rethink what we think is the confronting reality that God’s truth is always bigger and better and greater than we can grasp. No one ever got it absolutely right. Everything in theology is a grasping but never the final grip. Hence, the retrieval model knows that biblical studies subvert by nature: they subvert what we think by confronting what we think with the gospel. The Bible, like Melchizedek, still speaks.

The retrieval model operates with movement within the Bible so that the New Testament’s revelation of God in Christ has paradigmatic clarity for comprehending the Bible’s own message. For some this will be a covenant-theology approach, for others a dispensational approach, while for others a redemptive-movement (or incremental) approach.14 That is, God reveals the truth in a developmental way from the days of Moses to Jesus through the apostles. In the broadest sense, we can call this a narrative approach to the Bible.

The retrieval model knows the diversity of the Bible’s own time-bound expressions. What Moses said is not what David said is not what Isaiah said is not what Jesus said is not what Mark said is not what Luke said is not what John said is not what Paul said is not what Peter said is not what James said. Yet, what each later author says is somehow connected to what the predecessors said, and for many what the later authors say coheres with what the predecessors said. Furthermore, each brings to expression the truth of God in a given location for a given audience and expresses the thoughts of a given author. Many in the retrieval model dwell in peace with the Bible’s own diversity and can preach Isaiah in his terms and then preach Hebrews in Hebrews’ terms and not worry much about blending them into a systematic form. Such an approach forms Christian Bible readers into those who can appreciate diverse voices talking about great topics. At the same time, others will prefer one voice (Jesus, Paul, and John are the major voices that become dominant) over the others and either ignore the others or coerce the others into the shape of their preferred voice. I see this especially today with how people use the theology of Jesus or Paul.

There is something vital here that we biblical folks want to emphasize: the diversity of biblical authors, shaped as they are by context, requires that a single-minded approach to systematics often blunts the diversity of the Bible, and this silences alternative voices in the Bible itself. Very few theologians I read do well at combining or even articulating the kingdom vision of Jesus with the soteriological and ecclesiological vision of the apostle Paul, and that ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Foreword by Hans Boersma
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Theology Needs a Constant Return to Scripture
• 2 Theology Needs to Know Its Impact On Biblical Studies
• 3 Theology Needs Historically Shaped Biblical Studies
• 4 Theology Needs More Narrative
• 5 Theology Needs To Be Lived Theology
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Name Index
• Scripture Index
• Also Available
• Notes
• Praise for Five Things Biblical Scholars Wish Theologians Knew
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright