Biblical Theology: Past, Present, and Future (I)
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 55, No. 2 – Spring 2013
Managing Editor: Terry L. Wilder
By Reinhard Feldmeier and Hermann Spieckermann. Translated by Mark E. Biddle. Waco, TX: Baylor University, 2011. 612 + ix pages. Hardcover. $59.95.
God of the Living is a remarkable book. First, the book is a product of close collaboration between an established OT scholar, Spieckermann, and NT scholar, Feldmeier, both at Göttingen. Although the book deals often with the OT and NT distinctly, the work is seamlessly integrated from its overall structure to each individual chapter. This type of collaboration took the better part of a decade, but the work would not be possible without it.
Second, the book was written and published in German at virtually the same time as it was translated and published in English. Again, this amount of collaboration between German authors and English translator is remarkable.
Third, the book synthesizes the complex picture of God presented throughout the entire Christian Bible. The authors have synthesized this picture around Jesus’ proclamation about God: He is the God of the living (Mark 12:27). The authors draw two main points from Jesus’ statement. First, God is the one who makes alive, both in creation and again in resurrection and salvation. Second, God is the one who desires relationship with people. As the authors put it, “This fundamental, without which God would not be God, is his specific desire for relationship with human beings and the world” (12).
In order to arrive at a synthesis of the picture of God in the Bible, the authors have produced a Biblical theology. In other words, their task is theological and corresponds to the intent of the Bible “to transmit knowledge of God reliably” (2). In fact, they go so far as to say, “Scholarly exegesis must adhere to this intention of the biblical documents [to transmit knowledge of God reliably] if it wants to take seriously the true objective of the texts beyond the circumstances in which the texts originated” (2). At the same time, their work “is defined by the convictions that appropriate understanding of the voices of the biblical witnesses without scholarship in the history of literature and religion is deficient” (8). Based on these convictions, the authors discuss the Biblical documents according to the results of historicalcritical methods in explaining the origin and development of the Biblical documents themselves and show great awareness of the religious developments in Ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic-Roman cultures that form the backdrop to Old and New Testaments.
The book consists of two principal parts. The first part addresses God’s being, who he is. The second part addresses God’s activity, what he does. In the first part, each chapter addresses one aspect of God’s being (e.g. as loving one, Almighty, spirit) by tracing the development of the picture of God usually from the earliest OT witnesses to the latest NT ones. In the second part each chapter addresses twin aspects of God’s activity (e.g. Eternity and Time, Covenant and Promise, Salvation and Judgment), again by working from earliest to latest witnesses. By structuring their work in this way, they have intentionally chosen to describe the Biblical doctrine of God “in historical-genetic and systematic fashion” (12).
Let me summarize a couple of discussions in order to provide a sense for what the authors are arguing and how they are doing so. The first sample discussion addresses God’s being as the Almighty, or in other words, his omnipotence. Their starting point is the common theological objection to God’s omnipotence as the absolute power of a tyrant. In contrast they show how the Biblical witness consistently points to God’s power in the context of salvation. They point out that the Gospels repeatedly use the expression “nothing is impossible” and that the “formulaic expression appears exclusively in the context of a promise or a request” (190). This observation, along with others throughout the Bible, lead them to conclude that in the Bible “almightiness is not unbounded omnipotence, but a power expressed in God’s will for the salvation of his people” (197).
The second sample discussion is devoted to Hiddenness and Wrath. As they say, these themes “are deliberately not treated along with their respective positive counterparts, love and revelation” (339). Part of their rationale stems from New Testament language about God: “The New Testament says that God is a God of love (2 Cor 13:11), indeed, that he is love (1 John 4:8, 16), while the contrary statement, that he is a God of wrath, indeed, that he is wrath, is inconceivable” (339). Therefore, wrath and love are not two sides of a coin, but “God’s wrath is his reaction to injustice and defiance” (339), that is, part of his activity, not of his being.
The above examples give a sense to the emphasis that the authors place on God’s desire for salvation. I fear that the emphasis on God’s intent to save may distort parts of the Bible, e.g. the final images recorded in Revelation, so that God’s reckoning of the world, his judgment and wrath, eventually give way to universal redemption.
God of the Living is an ambitious work. For those who study the Bible academically, it stands as a model of collaboration needed for serious study of the Bible. For those interested in the discipline of Biblical theology, it is an example of Biblical theology carried out through historical-critical tools. For those just interested in the Bible’s picture of God, it offers many insightful individual observations and helpful lines for synthesizing the complex portrait of God in the Bible.
