RealApologetics Recommended: Introductory Biblical Theologies

Before giving the grand list of recommend books (actually, it’s only 3), perhaps we had better define what “biblical theology” is.

“Biblical theology” is not “theology that is biblical.” It is one of the more controversial subjects when it comes to the question of how to do theology (and “theological encyclopedia”), simply because it’s hard to establish in practice – if not also in principle. Whatever the case, biblical theology is increasingly important to understand since the nature of apologetic confrontations are not always the same. Some answers require detailed understanding of certain verses – as in the case of exegetical theology. Other questions require broad understandings of general concepts and theological topics – as in the case of systematic theology. Still other questions, require knowledge of how the smaller pictures fit within the context of the larger picture.

This is the task of biblical theology. Biblical theology is the second phase/mode of doing theology, after exegetical theology (detailed, contextual and linguistic analysis) and before systematic/dogmatic theology (topical, logical organization).

But, don’t take my word for it. Below is a wide-range of quotations from various scholars that define biblical theology.

“Biblical theology may be defined as theological interpretation of Scripture in and for the church. It proceeds with historical and literary sensitivity and seeks to analyze and synthesize the Bible’s teaching about God and his relations to the world on its own terms, maintaining sight of the Bible’s overarching narrative and Christocentric focus.” – BS Rosner, New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, 10.

“[Biblical Theology] is that approach to the Scripture which attempts to see Biblical material holistically and to describe this wholeness or synthesis in Biblical categories. Biblical Theology attempts to embrace the message of the Bible and to arrive at an intelligible coherence of the whole despite the great diversity of the parts. Or, put another way: Biblical Theology investigates the themes presented in Scripture and defines their inter-relationships. Biblical Theology is an attempt to get to the theological heart of the Bible.” – Elmer Martens, “Tackling Old Testament Theology,” JETS, 20 (1977): 123.

“Biblical theology, then, is that discipline in the theological curriculum that views the message of the Bible holistically from the perspective of the Bible’s own central theme. It is a call for the unity of the Bible, the continuing ‘promise-plan of God’ as it moves through each main period of time or era (i.e. diachronically), unfolding more and more of the continuing story of God’s person, work, and plan disclosed through Israel and thereby for all the nations of the world.” – Walter Kaiser Jr., Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics, 68-69.

“Biblical theology…offers systematic theology an interpretive bridge to the overarching meaning of the biblical witness and its many theologies and themes.” – Richard Muller, The Study of Theology, 132.

“Biblical theology is a means of looking at one particular even in relation to the whole picture.” – Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, 121.

“Reading canonically means that we will listen for the overarching biblical story as we read the biblical text. We will engage in biblical theology – the theology of the whole Bible.” – Jeannine Brown, Scripture as Communication, 229.

“Responsible exegesis of entire texts (as opposed to a merely mechanical or atomistic approach) is the working material of biblical theology…But exegesis tends to focus on analysis, and may therefore drift to details and specialized interests (source criticism, for instance) of little use to biblical theologians; biblical theology tends toward synthesis: the theology of the book, the corpus, the canon, constructed out of the detailed exegesis of the book, the corpus, the canon. Inevitably, the exegesis largely controls the biblical theology, though not every detail is taken up in the theology…Biblical theology tends to seek out the rationality and communicative genius of each literary genre; systematic theology tends to integrate the diverse rationalities in its pursuit of a large-scale, worldview-forming synthesis.” – DA Carson, “Systematic and Biblical theology,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, 91, 103.

“Biblical Theology [internal structure] occupies a position between Exegesis and Systematic Theology in the encyclopedia of theological disciplines.[1] It differs from Systematic Theology, not in being more Biblical, or adhering more closely to the truths of the Scriptures, but in that its principle of organizing the Biblical material is historical rather than logical.” – Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology, v.