Considering
my less than favorable review of G. K. Beale's
Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament,
I felt I should follow it up with his stupendous work,
A New Testament Biblical Theology.
Let me say up
front that I whole-heartedly agree with Thomas Schreiner's review on the back
cover calling this book Beale's "magnum opus."
This work represents years of research from a
fantastic teaching and writing career.
Beale has captured his thoughts from creatively reading Scripture
(especially intertextuality of OT in the NT) and unloaded them into this
tome.
First the good points (to name only a few). Where do I begin? I think Beale has unfolded a method of not
just doing NT theology but rather NT biblical theology, an important
distinction that needs to be emphasized (cf. "Intorduction" for more
details about the distinction). Beale
sees the storyline of kingdom, new creation, covenant and other major themes
carried over, continued, and retold in the NT.
What I appreciated is his emphasis not on a theological or thematic
center throughout the Bible but rather multiple themes that when woven together
make a plotline or storyline of Scripture.
The subtitle of this book states much of Beale's theology
and methodology: "The unfolding of the Old Testament in the
New." What I would call good
biblical theology must be done this way.
Unfortunately, systematic theology lacks in this process, usually
allowing the NT to supersede or unfold the OT.
I think John Sailhamer was dead on the mark when he said, “The Old Testament sheds a great deal
of light on the New Testament. Our primary objective should be to read the New
Testament in light of the Old Testament, not vice versa.” This is exactly what Beale does. Even though this book is called A New
Testament Biblical Theology, it could rightly be considered a
"whole-Bible" approach with more space or emphasis on the NT than the
OT. But he never addressed a biblical
theological theme in the NT without first examining and developing it in light
of the OT storyline (and even in 2nd temple Judaism). And much of the way Beale interacts with the
OT in the NT demonstrates how this unfolding of the OT in the NT is so vital. Thus I stand by my statement that Beale is,
in my opinion, a virtuoso in doing theology and relating the OT in the NT
rather than explaining how to do it or giving his methodology as in his Handbook.
Thirdly,
I think his emphasis on new creation and kingdom brings to light how the NT
picks up and continues the storyline of the OT.
One thing I felt lacking, however, was an appeal to the theme of
covenant in that storyline. For example,
there is one major difference between Beale's OT storyline versus the one he
offers for the NT which is to be a continuation of the OT's plot. The OT storyline is, "The Old Testament
is the story of God, who progressively reestablishes his new-creational kingdom
out of chaos over a sinful people by his word and Spirit through promise,
covenant, and redemption, resulting in worldwide commission to the faithful to
advance this kingdom and judgment (defeat and exile) for the unfaithful, unto
his glory." Then he went on to give
the NT storyline that continues the OT's, "Jesus's life, trials, death for
sinners, and especially resurrection by the Spirit have launched the
fulfillment of the eschatological already—not yet new-creational reign,
bestowed by grace through faith and resulting in worldwide commission to the
faithful to advance this new-creational reign and resulting in judgment for the
unbelieving, unto the triune God's glory" (both definitions found on p.
16). Where is "covenant" in
the NT's "transformation" of the OT plotline??? Also, the latter definition mentions
"unto the triune God's glory," however Beale failed to make this
point in his theology. Why the emphasis
on the "triune God" I wonder?
Nevertheless, Beale does make mention of covenant throughout in the NT
storyline. I just would have liked to
see it in his definition of the NT storyline.
Regardless of these matters, these definitions help to keep the
storyline of the OT and NT in proper focus.
The
other criticism I have is that though he tries to avoid thematic or theological
"centers", he nevertheless falls back on the theme of new creation
and kingdom (linked) repeatedly with the already/not yet thrown in the mix. I would argue that by extension, this is for Beale
the center of the theology of the Bible.
Others, like Schreiner and Craig Blomberg, mention Beale's emphasis on
new creation in their blurbs on the back page.
So others are seeing this as well.
This is not necessarily a big issue, except it seems to be in conflict
with what he explained at the outset (and in ch. 6).
Perhaps
a major inconsistency of a minor issue concerning the outworking of Beale's
theology is his view of the Sabbath changing from Saturday to Sunday (ch. 23)
in contrast with baptism unchanging from circumcision for infants (p. 815-816). If applied to the baptism/circumcision issue,
his arguments for the Sabbath changing days would negate completely his
paedo-baptism view. Nevertheless, this
view of baptism was hardly a focus of the book, and so I cannot be overly
critical here because it was mentioned more or less in passing.
One
final pro and con: parts of this book were fleshing out of Beale's biblical theology
that has never been seen or elaborated on before. Other parts, however, were rehashings and
revisions of many of his previous works.
For example, many occasions the footnotes were references to other works
he had already done in greater detail on the issues. Thus at times I was riveted at Beale's
thoughts. Some chapters were so
outstanding, that I had to re-read them (i.e. chs. 2-6 or Part 1 of this book
was all about Beale's whole-Bible theology).
Other times, I was bored since it was simply a condensed version of what
he has written previously (that I had read).
To demonstrate this further, if you ever need a bibliography for Beale's
writings, you can find it on pg. 964-965, since he cited nearly all of his previous
works in NTBT. Yet at the very
least he is taking all of his research and putting it into a well arranged
theology.
This
book is outstanding and receives 2 thumbs way up! Those wanting to study biblical theology, NT
theology, and/or especially NT biblical theology need to soak this volume up
like a sponge. It is a long book eclipsing
the 1,000 page mark, but it reads rather quickly. Its audience is from the lay person who is
serious about theology or the student on up to the scholar (he stated as much
on p. 25).
