Biblical Theology
Biblical Theology is a discipline within
Christian theology which studies the
Bible from the perspective of understanding the
progressive history of God revealing himself to Man following the
Fall and throughout the
Old Testament and
New Testament. It particularly focuses on the epochs of the
Old Testament in order to understand how each part of the it ultimately points forward to fulfillment in the life mission of
Jesus Christ.
Biblical theology seeks to understand a certain passage in the Bible in light of all of the Biblical history leading up to it. It asks questions of the text such as:
How much does this person or group know about the attributes of God?To what extent has God revealed his future plans of sending Jesus as the Messiah?How have Israel responded to God's interactions with them up to this point?Biblical Theology puts individual texts in their
historical context since what came before them is the foundation on which they are laid and what comes after is what they anticipate. Biblical Theology is sometimes called the "History of Special Revelation" since it deals with the unfolding and expanding nature of
revelation as
history progresses through the Bible.
The motivation for this branch of theology comes from such passages as
Luke 24.27: "And beginning with
Moses and all the
Prophets, (
Jesus) explained to (the disciples) what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." The assumption of this text seems to be that the
Old Testament anticipated the
Messiah and that Jesus fulfilled those prophecies. Thus, Biblical Theologians suggest that, in order to understand the intended meaning of a Biblical text, one must understand what the text points toward or back to. For instance, when reading about the
sacrificial system in the Old Testament, Biblical Theologians follow the trajectory the Bible lays out for that system (namely, pointing to Jesus as the true sacrifice), and likewise, when a
New Testament text refers back to the Old Testament (for example, Jesus being the son of
David and heir of his
covenant), they try to understand that text against its proper, specified background.
Biblical theology can be compared with and is complemented by
Systematic theology in that the former focuses on
historical progression through out the Bible while the later focuses on
thematic progression through out the Bible. Systematic theology might jump around the Bible to different sections all related to a central topic where as Biblical theology focuses on understanding the flow of
redemptive narrative as God relates to mankind.
An important note should be made in relation to the concept of
Progressive revelation in that the Christian Biblical concept differs from the
Islamic understanding in which successive revelations of God might annul former revelations completely replacing them with a new truth. The Christian model within Biblical Theology sees the concept of progressive revelation as progressive revelation of new truth which supports, expands and stands upon former revelations of God's truth like brick laying. This progressive revelation ultimately climaxes in Christ, and ends with the New Testament acts of the
Apostles under the direction of the
Holy spirit awaiting the
second coming of
Christ.
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Covenant theology*
Christian eschatology*
Dispensationalism*
Biblical hermeneutics*
Grammatical-historical hermeneutics
*
Biblical Theology Briefings - essays and articles by various scholars on Biblical Theology
*
BiblicalTheology.org - writings of
Geerhardus Vos, who is sometimes called "the father of
Reformed Biblical Theology"
*
Kerux: The Journal of Northwest Theological Seminary - has been printing biblical-theological material in the
Calvinistic tradition since
1986*
The Reemergence of Biblical Theology: What is Going On? from
Catalyst (
United Methodist perspective)
*
WWW Biblical Theology Index
