BOOK SUMMARY: WHAT IS BIBLICAL THEOLOGY?: A GUIDE TO THE BIBLE'S STORY, SYMBOLISM, AND PATTERNS - INTRODUCTION - WHAT IS BIBLICAL THEOLOGY?

 

Biblical Theology - the interpretive perspective of the biblical authors

Interpretive Perspective - the framework of assumptions and presuppositions, associations and identifications, truths and symbols that are taken for granted as an author or speaker describes the world and the events that take place with in.

1.    Biblical authors interpret previously written Scripture or God's words and deeds passed on to them directly from God.  

2.    Biblical authors also interpret world history from creation to re-creation.

3.    Biblical authors interpret the events and statements they describe (ie. Moses' account of Balaam surely didn't record every detail, just the details that helped the audience to see what God wanted them to know). 

Biblical theology, then, is the perspective from which Biblical authors present their understanding of earlier Scripture, redemptive history, and the events they experienced. In their understanding they are describing, recounting, celebrating and addressing these situations in a variety of literary genres.  These genres include narrative, poems, proverbs, letter and apocalypses. 

It's their particular way of telling the acts of God in history based on their worldview.

The term biblical theology is not meant to convey the idea that our theology is biblical, that it is orthodox verse heretical or unorthodox. 

Jesus didn't write any books of the Bible but He did teach His disciples how to interpret Scripture, redemptive history and the events they experienced and narrated.  They all lived in the same thought-world and shared its assumptions. They did not live in a premodern, modern or postmodern world. A Darwinian worldview was not present then. So we must try to understand the perspective they used to interpret all the events God had inspired prophets to write about in the OT and inspired the apostles to write about in the NT. 

As we learn to understand the Bible from the biblical author's perspective then we will be able to understand the world from the Bible's perspective, rather than understanding the Bible from the world's perspective.