Since the canon consists of a disparate collection of writings, with both the Old Testament and New Testament forming the Christian Bible, it resists reduction to any single unifying principle imposed from without as much as it lacks any explicit unifying principle within. If it excludes by its nature any “canon within the canon,” it certainly also resists any conceptual mold that either relativizes or removes the texts themselves in all their hard particularity. The resistance applies as well to any “biblical theology.” In all its forms, biblical theology is simply another attempt to reduce the many to one by means of some abstract unifying principle, whether it is denominated salvation history or justification or liberation or kerygma or regula fidei or narrativity or existential decision. All such principles demand the selection of some texts as a priori more central and governing than others. All fit the writings themselves to frames of greater or lesser abstraction. The canon resists such attempts precisely because it is made up of multiple and irreducible writings which cannot without distortion be shaped into a static symbolic system.

Luke Timothy Johnson, Scripture and Discernment: Decision Making in the Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 37.

George Bradford Caird (1917-1984) published six major monographs and commentaries in his lifetime. The most notable of his publications were his commentary on Revelation (London, 1966) and his book on The Language and Imagery of the Bible (Essex and London, 1980). Caird also embarked on what would have been his magnum opus, his New Testament Theology, yet its publication was never realized during Caird’s life; he passed away with the book less than halfway complete. Lincoln D. Hurst (1946-2008), Caird’s literary executor and former student, took on the task of finishing the volume. In order to carry out his completion of the book in Frankenstein-like fashion, Hurst used Caird’s unpublished papers, published articles, lectures, private conversations between Caird and Hurst, Hurst’s own contributions, and sections from Caird’s books. His role, therefore, was somewhere between coauthor and editor. The book was finally published in 1994, ten years after Caird’s death.

There are countless books in the New Testament theology genre, so what made Caird’s approach stand apart from the rest? Caird identified the nature of New Testament theology as being historical; it is a descriptive endeavor which is void of both dogmatics and apologetics (1). He is optimistic about the historian’s ability to move beyond the subjectivity of their own time and attain some level of historical accuracy, which is “the product of free discussion, honest criticism, and constant revision” (4). Nevertheless, despite his appeal for New Testament theologians to be historians, Caird also argues that this person is also accountable to the church: “the ultimate test of a New Testament theology rests not in intellectual criteria but in the contribution it makes to the life of the Christian community” (22).

Though there is no such thing as a platonic form of New Testament theology, many have undertaken the task of writing such books. Yet the attempts have been flawed, which brings about the need for a new approach—Caird’s approach. But before he describes what his own attempt looks like, Caird discusses four other ways of doing New Testament theology, all of which fall short in one way or another. These include the dogmatic approach, the chronological approach, the kerygmatic approach, and the author-by-author approach.

Caird refers to his own method as the conference table approach. To write a New Testament theology is to sit at a conference table with all of the contributors to the New Testament present. Every voice will be given the opportunity to speak, as long as they have something to contribute to the discussion. The presider is the New Testament theologian. Since the person presiding is from an entirely different culture and era (i.e., sitting at a table with a bunch of dead guys) he or she must traverse “a descent into the world of the dead” (19). Not only does Caird have in mind some metaphorical visit to the underworld, but he draws on the stories of Odysseus and Aeneas with the result of convoluting the various images he uses to present his method. Adding an underworld descent to the conference table image is one thing, but developing it further with the blood sacrifices and gates of truth is another. The way he presents his argument is not necessarily confusing, but it does come off as stylistically confused.

Caird bases his method on the model of the first apostolic conference in Jerusalem. According to Galatians 2.1-10, the apostles agreed to disagree with Paul. They did not declare any sort of common creed or statement of faith. Though difference of opinion persisted, there was not a radical division between Paul and the Jerusalem apostles. Given this information, Caird argues that “the New Testament itself provides a criterion for judging its own unity” (24). When we put all the independent voices of the New Testament in dialogue with one other, we should expect differences, but they all testify of the same Jesus.

When we look back at the four previous approaches to New Testament theology (i.e., dogmatic, chronological, kerygmatic, and author-by-author) we see that they all have something to contribute to Caird’s program. It is dogmatic in the sense that the presider is responsible for setting the agenda at the conference table. It is chronological since his task involves being an historian. It employs a kerygmatic approach because he finds core theological premises present in all or most of the New Testament writers. Lastly it is like the author-by-author approach since he seeks to let eat author speak at the table.

But is his approach really much more than a slightly nuanced thematic approach, or, by introducing us to this conference table approach, does Caird achieve something truly novel in the way he does New Testament theology? The answer lies somewhere in between the two. He does take us systematically topic by topic through many important themes, yet these themes are discussed within the contexts of traditional historical-critical exegesis. Does the presider dictate the progression of the dialogue (top down) or do the texts speak for themselves and guide the discussion along (bottom up). It is not always clear.

The middle chapters (2—8) address various topics of New Testament theology as they relate to “salvation.” The second chapter outlines “The Divine Plan” which is mostly concerned with how the New Testament reads its scriptural authorities. Following that is “The Need for Salvation” (Chapter 3), which discusses sin and evil characters and the corruption of what is good. The fourth chapter, “The Three Tenses of Salvation,” explores the nature of salvation as “an accomplished fact, an experience continuing in the present, and a consummation still to come” (118). Caird more narrowly focuses on the three tenses in the following three chapters. “The Fact of Salvation” (Chapter 5) looks at the facets of salvation already accomplished. “The Experience of Salvation” (Chapter 6) pursues the present aspects of salvation. “The Hope of Salvation” (Chapter 7) deals with eschatology. In Chapter 8, Caird/Hurst describe “The Bringer of Salvation” which centers on the figure of Jesus, his humanity, and the Christological titles.

Chapter 9, “The Theology of Jesus,” is where we find Caird’s second great innovation (the first being the apostolic conference). Whereas Bultmann relegates Jesus to a presupposition, Caird reserves a special seat for him at the conference table. One might find it odd that Jesus speaks at an apostolic conference (that surely didn’t happen in Galatians 2 or Acts 15), but Caird justifies this move by arguing that “the historical Jesus is a deeply theological figure in the same sense as Paul, John, and the others” (x). This relies on the presupposition that we can get at Jesus’ historical teaching and that the authors of the New Testament are in dialogue with it. Yet if Caird compares the theology of Jesus with that of Paul or John, why give him his own chapter? Why not place Jesus’ own theology in direct dialogue with the others (i.e., in chapters 2—8)?

In Chapter 10, “Summary and Conclusions: Jesus and the Apostolic Conference,” Hurst gives helpful summaries of the preceding chapters. Then Hurst leaves the reader with six conclusions about New Testament theology drawn from this book: 1) the ‘gospel’ did not start out as a new religion, began as a political challenge to Israel; 2) Jesus saw Israel at a cross-roads and rather than promoting the traditional ideals of a Jewish nationalist Messiah, he came as the Messiah of self-negating sacrifice; 3) the invitation to enter God’s Kingdom meant to put oneself under God’s sovereignty and by doing so, one fulfills the Law of Moses; 4) in addition to expressing interest in the nation of Israel’s preservation, Jesus also cared for the individuals, that is, those who are children of Abraham; 5) Jesus used ambiguous categories to promote his agenda; 6) the notion that Paul obstructed the Jewish Jesus must be done away with and by looking at Paul as a Jew, we might better understand the Jewishness of Jesus.

Throughout the volume, Caird/Hurst offer a fresh, but sometimes overdone critique of certain scholars and some scholarly methods or fads. In the foreword, Hurst tells us that though Caird admired Rudolf Bultmann, he held him with Adolf Schweitzer and Johannes Weiss responsible “for much that is wrong today with New Testament theology” (viii). He shared no interest in form criticism or redaction criticism. This skepticism is summed up nicely in what is possibly a jab at Conzelmann’s negative reading of Luke:

The question is thus bound to be asked in the name of Redaktionsgeschichte how much we should attribute to Luke, and how much to Jesus. But behind this legitimate question may lie the latent, less legitimate and even sinister assumption that to interpret is to misinterpret. It is a matter of professional prudence on the part of interpreters of literary texts to allow for the possibility that an interpreter may occasionally be right. And it is certainly conceivable that Luke, in interpreting his sources, has shown that he actually understood both the teaching of Jesus and the eschatological language in which it came to him. (416, italics original)

Perhaps more valuable is critical stance of Caird/Hurst against theories of chronological developments in Christology. We must not rely on distinctions such as “late,” “secondary,” and “theological” over against their counterparts “early,” “primitive,” and “historical” when talking about the way the New Testament authors thought of Jesus (281). Developments from a low to a high Christology are not present in the New Testament as one of the highest Christological claims about Jesus’ preexistence appears in one of the earliest writings (cf. Philippians 2.6-7; cf. 343).

We also must ask how well the presider of this dialogue did in engaging everybody who contributed to the New Testament. Certainly some authors were given preference over others. Matthew and Mark remain the shadows of Luke and John. James and Jude had very little to contribute, or perhaps were not called upon as much by the moderator. Yet Caird/Hurst score points for giving the pride of place to Jesus who is so often marginalized in the discussion, even if we might disagree with the avenues that they took to get at Jesus’ teaching.

I think the authors of this volume accomplished the book’s goal insofar as it was conceived by Caird. It was an imaginative effort that could have turned out stylistically tacky, but the authors were able to use the conference table metaphor rather than abuse it.

His discussion of Johannine theology is contained in four chapters. The first chapter, “Orientation,” places the Johannine writings in their historical context. The remaining three chapters explore John’s theology as it relates to “Johannine Dualism,” “The ‘Krisis’ of the World,” and “Faith.”

In placing John in his historical context, Bultmann investigates the relationship of the Johannine writings to the Synoptic Gospels and to the Pauline tradition. John, it seems, is likely familiar with at least some of the Synoptic tradition, yet he forges his own path. The miracle traditions for John function as a starting point for extended narratives on a definite theme. Unlike the Synoptic counterparts, John presents Jesus as a Revealer sent by God, who speaks about his coming and going, who he is, and what he brings to the world. John the Baptist is not a preacher of repentance, but the witness to Jesus as the Son of God. The Gospel reflects a separation from Judaism so that issues related to the law are not at the forefront as they are in the Synoptic Gospels.

John’s relationship to the Pauline tradition cannot be traced out on a linear scheme of development, since the two lines go in different directions. Though John was younger than Paul, he does not use Paul as a link to the earlier church. Both work within the sphere of Hellenism. In both Paul and John Christology is formed after the patterned of the Gnostic Redeemer-myth: the sending of the pre-existent Son of God in the disguise of a man. There are also many other points where they utilize common-Christian terminology, yet specifically Pauline terminology is absent in John, such as Paul’s terminology relating to Heilsgeschichte. Neither is there sacramental piety in John. John is a figure with his own originality, nevertheless there is a deep relatedness in substance that exists between John and Paul—in both of them the eschatological occurrence is understood as already taking place in the present and the new life appears under the mask of death. They both de-mythologize Gnostic cosmological dualism.

The last section of the first chapter asks the question of the author’s identity and place of writing. Both of these are unknown. The thought atmosphere of John and the Epistles is that of “oriental Christianity.” Bultmann identifies a source of Jesus’ sayings and discourses which he calls the Revelation-discourses; these presuppose a basic dualistic view characterized by antithetical terms such as light and darkness, truth and falsehood, above and below, freedom and bondage. The terms “truth” and “life” replace “Reign of God” and “righteousness of God” for John; they signify the eschatological event which for John is a present reality. The figure of Jesus is portrayed in the forms offered by the Gnostic Redeemer-myth—the pre-existent Son of God whom the Father clothed with authority and sent into the world. The Son is an ambassador on behalf of the Father, speaking his words. Bultmann identifies logos as a Gnostic term and locates the author as possibly coming from a Gnosticizing form of Judaism.

In the second chapter, Bultmann turns his attention to the dualism of the Johannine literature. God sent his son into the world to save it, though it is deserving of judgment. Kosmos means world of men; its very essence is darkness and falsehood, and it has fallen into bondage. Those under bondage are under the sway of death and the world is at enmity to life. The world is the creation of God, not some gnostically oriented tragic event of primeval time. The dualistic concepts (light and darkness, truth and falsehood, freedom and bondage, life and death) are of Gnostic origin, but they take on their specific Johannine meaning only in their relation to the idea of creation. Light, for example, is the daylight by which one is able to orient himself in his world and find his way. True light, however, is the state of having one’s existence illumined, where a person achieves a self-understanding. Darkness is when the world shuts itself up against the light, thereby God, and thrusts itself into falsehood. The basic meaning of truth in John is God’s reality. Jesus not only tells the truth, but he is the truth; in Jesus, God’s reality encounters men as a gracious gift. Man is determined by his origin and in each present moment does not have himself in hand; he has only one alternative: to exist either from God (reality) or from the world (unreality). Light, truth, life, and freedom (and their opposites) explain each other; they derive their meaning from the search for human existence. The cosmological dualism of Gnosticism has become a dualism of decision in John.

John’s dualism divides humanity into two groups (those of God and those of the devil), but does this suggest that from its outset humanity is determined as to its essence and its fate? No. All share the same position under God’s wrath and Jesus extends to all his invitation and call to decision. This invitation gives the hearer an opportunity of decision, whether or not to remain in the old way. To put it another way, the entire world was in darkness, but with the coming of the Revealer, there now exists the possibility for people to leave the darkness and enter the light.

Human life is pervaded by the quest for reality. The object of the quest is Jesus, the light of the world, whom the world needs. Yet instead of answering their quest properly, people often supply themselves with an answer that give them a false sense of security; they pervert the truth into a lie and thus pervert creation into the “world.” The Jews are no exception to this. They search the scriptures, but they don’t realize that it speaks about Jesus; instead, they use the scriptures against Jesus. Likewise, the Jews also have a hope of their own and miss the fact that Jesus was the expected messiah. The world speaks of honor, love, sin, righteousness, and judgment, but it understands them in its own sense and not as God intended.

Bultmann’s third chapter on John focuses on the ‘Krisis’ of the Word. The Father’s sending of the Son is central to Johannine theology. It represented the deed of God’s love with the underlying purpose being the salvation of the world. “For God so loved the world….” Because Jesus’ appearance forces people to choose between the light and the darkness, he is simultaneously the eschatological bringer of salvation and a judge.
The Revealer appears as a definite human being in history: Jesus of Nazareth. He is both the bringer of the Revelation and the Revelation himself. Yet his work as a whole is both Revelation and offense, offense to those who misunderstand his activities and words. Faith in Jesus is faith in the exalted Jesus, who is at the same time the earthly man Jesus. The ‘glorified one’ is still always he who ‘became flesh’; Jesus’ life on earth does not become an item of the historical past, but constantly remains present reality.

As John develops his picture of Jesus, a clear unity between the Son and the Father emerges. The death of Jesus is not atonement for sins, but it signals his completion of the mission and ultimately leads to his exaltation. The resurrection, however, is minimized by John, since his exaltation occurs at his death. John collapses the entire salvation-drama (incarnation, death, resurrection, Pentecost, and the parousia) into a single event: “the Revelation of God’s ‘reality’ (ἁλήθεια) in the earthly activity of the man Jesus combined with the overcoming of the ‘offense’ in it by man’s accepting it in faith” (58).

The works that Jesus accomplishes are his words. John gives him the appropriate title Logos. The content of his words is that he speaks whatever he saw or heard with the Father, yet he does not speak about the Father in specific or concrete terms. Jesus’ words are assertions about himself. His word is identical with himself (e.g., his words are life, truth), and so to reject Jesus is the same as not accepting his words.
Interestingly enough, Jesus as the Revealer of God reveals nothing except that he is the Revealer! John only presents the fact of the Revelation and does not describe its content. Yet the Revelation is meaningful as it is the affirmation and fulfillment of human longing for life, for true reality. Since God’s will demands nothing more or less than faith, the meaning of the Revelation can be further clarified by showing what happens with faith.

The fourth chapter addresses the role of faith in Johannine theology. The Gospel was written “that you may believe” (20.31). Since Jesus and his word are identical, his word is also an object of faith and the same goes for his works. Faith proceeds from hearing, and for John the concepts of hearing, seeing, and believing are very similar. Faith is genuine insofar as it is a knowing faith, since knowledge is also a part of faith.
In the last section, Bultmann outlines aspects of faith as eschatological existence. It is the way to salvation; it is overcoming the offense that life meets man only in the word addressed to him by a mere man, Jesus. Faith is a desecularization—a transition into eschatological existence, thus it is not a once-for-all event, but a overcoming of the world which must be done over and over again. For John, eschatology as a time-perspective has dropped out because he has collapsed the eschatological occurrence into the present. This eschatological existence fosters love, peace, and joy. Believers participate in the Revealer and he in them in such a way that they are bound together into a unity among themselves with him, and thus unity with the Father. The believer’s access to Jesus or to God is only through faith. Lastly, this existence is accompanied with the possession of the Spirit, an eschatological gift. The Spirit is the power within the Church which brings forth both knowledge and proclamation of the Word.

But this brings us to Bultmann’s last point about John. The various aspects of the eschatological existence has somewhat described John’s notion of the Church. Yet the Church itself is not a theme for John as it is for Paul. John’s church is “the Church of the Word—the Word from which it lives, the Word which is also its commission to the world” (92). And it is through the Spirit that the Church receives knowledge and proclamation of the Word.

Bultmann’s treatment of John’s theology is a sophisticated analysis which seeks to let the primary texts speak for themselves while trying to make sense of John’s ancient historical setting. In the Johannine writings, Bultmann finds a Jesus who is not an uninteresting historical figure, but a Revealer of the Divine who makes it possible to move from death to life. The arrival of the Son of God presents humanity with an ongoing decision, whether to choose darkness or light, condemnation or salvation. Although we might rightly criticize some of Bultmann’s history-of-religions reconstructions, his redactional theories of the Fourth Gospel, or his overdependence on existentialism, his analysis of John’s theology has been more influential than any other exegete on the subject and cannot be quickly dismissed.

Phil 510 — Plato

Cynthia Patterson and Richard Patterson (Wednesday 6:00-9:00pm)

Plato subjected all aspects of traditional Greek culture in general, and Athenian society in particular, to philosophical criticism. But he also tried to devise religious practices and institutions, and new myths that would genuinely serve the naturally good ends of individuals and their communities. The course will focus especially on Plato’s treatment of Greek religion and myth (with some of their inevitable connections to politics, tragedy, et al.) and his attempts to forge a new, moral, vision of the cosmos, human society and the human soul.

RLNT 760 — New Testament and Theology

Luke Timothy Johnson (Friday 9:00-12:00pm)

We will examine the relationship between the New Testament and theology in three distinct ways. First, we will ask what it means to speak of the “theological voice” of a New Testament composition. Does the expression, “the theology of John,” make sense, and if so, how? Second, we will consider several classic examples of the intellectual experiment called “New Testament Theology,” and by analysis of the several outstanding examples of the genre, discover the possibilities and limits of the exercise. Third, we will give some attention to the “use of the New Testament in theology,” by interacting with some examples of contemporary theological discourse.

RLNT 721G — The Writings of Paul: Romans

Michael J. Brown (Thursday 2:00-5:00pm)

No Description, but the title says it all.

RLR 700H — First Year Colloquy

William Gilders (Tuesday 11:00-1:00pm)

The purpose of the colloquy is to provide time for discussion about a variety of issues in the academic study of religion and theology, and about life as PhD students in the Graduate Division of Religion (GDR). After a session of introductions, we will learn more about the two academic bodies that co-constitute the GDR faculty, the Department of Religion in Emory College and the Candler School of Theology. Then we will consider various methodological and professional issues that affect your development as scholars/teachers of religion and theology. For each session, except the introductory and concluding sessions, one or two faculty members will attend to make some introductory remarks and to participate in the conversation. Occasionally, there will be some short readings or reviews of websites.

24-110 — Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
11/24/2009
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM

Theme: Hans Dieter Betz’s Commentary on Galatians, 30 Years Later

Troy W. Martin, Saint Xavier University, Presiding
Udo Schnelle, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Panelist (20 min)
Helmut Koester, Harvard University, Panelist (20 min)
Richard N. Longenecker, Wycliffe College, Panelist (20 min)
Margaret M. Mitchell, University of Chicago, Panelist (20 min)
Hans Dieter Betz, University of Chicago, Respondent (20 min)
Discussion (25 min)

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22-403 — New Testament Theology: Status and Prospects
11/22/2009
7:00 PM to 9:30 PM

Pheme Perkins, Boston College, Presiding
James D. G. Dunn, Durham University, Panelist (25 min)
Udo Schnelle, University of Halle, Panelist (25 min)
Frank J. Matera, Catholic University of America, Panelist (25 min)
Donald A. Carson, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Panelist (25 min)

I had just posted on Betz’s Galatians commentary yesterday and was happy to find that there’s a session for it. This just further proves my point of how important the work is. The New Testament theology session is particularly appealing for me since I’ll be taking a seminar on the subject with Luke Johnson this fall. Given the cast of characters, let’s hope they put this session in a large room!

If the New Testament writings emerged in the course of a history and are the witnesses and documentation of this history, then we are faced with a question: why should our discipline be concerned just with these and no other writings? The normal answer is that only these belong to the canon. But that is not a satisfactory answer. Where the doctrine of inspiration has been discarded, it is impossible to continue to maintain the dogmatic conception of the canon.

No New Testament writing was born with the predicate ‘canonical’ attached. The statement that a writing is canonical signifies in the first place only that it was pronounced canonical afterwards by the authorities of the second- to fourth-century church, in some cases only after all kinds of hesitation and disagreement. The history of the canon is sufficiently instructive in this respect.

So anyone who accepts without question the idea of the canon places himself under the authority of the bishops and theologians of those centuries. Anyone who does not recognize their authority in other matters — and no Protestant theologian does — is being consistent if he questions it here, too. (70-71)

That last paragraph is particularly spicy.

Now Wrede is not interested in how the church reads the New Testament; he leaves that task to the dogmatic theologians. Rather Wrede’s interest is in the religion and theology of the first Christians. Since Childs there has been a resurgence of canon criticism and as a result a more nuanced view toward the canon has emerged, so unlike Wrede, I don’t think we should throw the baby out with the bath water. However, I still agree with Wrede’s point that as students we should be as inclusive as possible concerning the early Christian writings. Why not pay significant attention to texts such as the Didache, which actually predate some NT writings?

I could write more on this topic about how many of us approach the Bible from multiple angles. As students or scholars, we want to know as much as possible about the first Christians and find that the canonical restraint is unnecessary. We obviously care about the issues, but we don’t want our biases to interfere with our view of the text because that’s what being a good scholar is all about, right? But then some of us also view the text within the context of our religious history and topics like canon become very important. Of course it sounds like I’m rehearsing the old Jesus-of-history-versus-Christ-of-faith dichotomy, since that is usually where this road leads. This means that there’s not much a reason to traverse it, is there?

• Wrede, William. “The Task and Methods of ‘New Testament Theology.’” Pages 68-116. The Nature of New Testament Theology: The Contribution of William Wrede and Adolf Schlatter. Edited and Translated by R. Morgan. Naperville, IL: Allenson, 1973.