Words

Well it has been a long semester for me. I had three intense classes, all of which kept me very busy. I wanted to start a short series here on the things I gained from my Old Testament theology class. For this class I wrote a paper that compared how covenant, dispensational, and progressive dispensational theologies looked at the Old Testament covenants (Abrahamic, Davidic, etc). I thought it would be interesting to see the similarities and differences between these systematic theologies, maybe pointing to strengths and/or weaknesses within them. But before I get into the systematics and the covenants, I want to take a quick look at Old Testament Theology itself. What is the purpose of and proper methods for an Old Testament Theology. This post I’ll look at two basic approaches and each of the problems they present. A future post will attempt to find the proper role of Old Testament Theology.

Two Approaches: Historical and Systematic

The Wellhausen School attempted to demonstrate that the religion of Israel was under development and therefore one could rightly speak of multiple theologies. According to John Bright, this history-of-religion approach destroyed any sense of a biblical theology.[1] While this approach has been largely discredited, most post-Wellhausen theologians who advocate a historical or developmental approach do so in order to avoid the trap of placing the text into our own categories and topics (systematical approach). Paul House (who advocates both a cross-sectional, systematic methodology and a “formation of tradition,” developmental methodology) affirms this idea when he says that an Old Testament theology “must explain what the Old Testament itself claims, not what preconceived historical or theological systems impose upon the biblical material.”[2] Gerhard Von Rad argues that “re-telling remains the most legitimate form of theological discourse on the Old Testament,” because he is insistent on the fact that we must be submitted to the sequence of events as Israel saw them and not force the theological categories we hold which have nothing to do with Israel’s own.[3] His re-telling is done through the aid of divisions around focal points of divine action, noting that the most striking of these was the divine covenants.[4]

While this seems plausible and has benefits, Walter Kaiser argues that this methodology became little more than a description and thereby fell into a history-of-religion approach.[5] This approach is also not particularly useful because it is at best only descriptive and at worst destructive to a biblical unity. A purely historical approach to Old Testament theology, then, is to be avoided, but is a systematic approach any better?

Most of those holding to a systematic approach to Old Testament theology were dismayed at the role of the history-of-religion approach in the discipline. Their systematic approach sought to regain theological insight out of the poverty of purely historical description. Walther Eichrodt felt that we must undertake a systematic approach if we are to ever make progress in finding the deepest significance in the religion of the Old Testament. It must incorporate the historical investigations, but not be subjected to working on the basis of developmental analysis.[6] The difference between the history of the religion of Israel and Old Testament theology for Robert Dentan was that the former is chronological or long-cut and the latter is systematic or cross-cut.[7] He then defines Old Testament theology as the discipline that looks at the Old Testament from the structure of its religion (systematic) not from its historical development (chronological), but necessarily gives the historical and ideological relationship of that Old Testament religion to the religion of the NT its proper place.[8] Further, Dentan decides that no greater outline that those used by the systematic theologians can be found, precisely because it answers the basic questions concerning human life.[9] Horst Preuss, in agreement, argued that a systematic approach is more capable of seeing the total picture, while allowing that historical particularities be incorporated into that presentation.[10]

Yet this approach is at odds with Bright and Kaiser: if an Old Testament theology is simply in line with a systematic approach then “one is hard-pressed to discover the real usefulness of its mission other than the heuristic value of seeing what a systematic theology of the Old Testament would look like… [i]n such a case biblical theology has no independent mission and makes a very small contribution if any”.[11] So if neither a purely historical approach seems appropriate, nor does a systematic approach, then how should one find an Old Testament theology?

[1] Bright, John. The Authority of the Old Testament. New York: Abingdon Press, 1967, 116-117.

[2] House, Paul R. Old Testament Theology. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998, 53-55.

[3] Von Rad, Gerhard. Old Testament Theology. The Old Testament Library. Translated by D. M. G. Stalker. Vol. I. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1962, 120-121.

[4] Ibid., 129.

[5] Kaiser, Walter. Towards An Old Testament Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991, 10-11.

[6] Eichrodt, Walther. Theology of the Old Testament. Edited by G. Ernest Wright, John Bright, John Barr and Peter Ackroyd. Translated by J. A. Baker. Vol. I. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961, 27-28.

[7] Dentan, Robert C. Preface To Old Testament Theology. Revised Edition. New York: The Seabury Pres, 1963, 93.

[8] Ibid., 95.

[9] Ibid., 118.

[10] Preuss, Horst Dietrich. Old Testament Theology. The Old Testament Library. Vol. I. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, 19-20.

[11] Kaiser, Walter. Towards An Old Testament Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991, 10.