Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible

Rating:
Summary: Okay...this is a valuable resource
Review: As a conservative evangelical I was afraid to see what Childs had to say regarding the theological role of the Bible. However, after finishing this daunting book, I found many thought-provoking insights and interesting conclusions that may challenge Christians (especially those of the fundamentalist stripe) to re-think how they do biblical theology. Childs book is really divided into two main sections: The first section deals with theological methodology and the canonical shape of both testaments. The second section deals with the theological themes of the Bible. Many will find the first section quite dry and tedious (although his chapters [2 and 3] on models of biblical theology are quite interesting and informative). Here Childs deals with methodological and canonical issues that shaped the Christian bible. He gets into the details of the sources of the beliefs that shaped the religion of Israel and the early church. Depending on what your interests are you may find this section quite useful or useless. The second section is what many may find interesting and illuminating. He deals with major topics of biblical theology like God, covenant, law and gospel, humanity, etc. Many traditional and conservative readers may not like some of the conclusions Childs draws but one cannot ignore them as irrelevant to the church's theological mission. Childs' main sticking argument is the theological and canonical integrity of the OT in light of the revelation of Christ in the NT. How does the Christian understand the OT as a Christian text without doing damage to the textual and theological integrity of the OT? This is a common question Childs like to bring up in the book. Though many evangelicals will not like the way he handles the unity of the bible issue he does an admirable job trying to give the OT a voice of its own without relying on some overarching Christian theological construct (e.g., covenant theology, dispensationalism, salvation-history, etc.). This is a valuable resource for students who want to study more about biblical theology in a more moderate evangelical context.