Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Biblical Theology

Three Views on the NT Use of the OT

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I’m planning to write my second dissertation on the use of the OT in a passage in Romans, so I am particularly grateful that Zondervan is publishing this volume:

Kenneth Berding and Jonathan Lunde, eds. Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Counterpoints. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008. 256 pp.

Structure

(The table of contents and an excerpt from chapter 1 is available as a 10-page PDF here.) [Read more…] about Three Views on the NT Use of the OT

Beale and Carson’s Commentary on the NT’s Use of the OT

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This uniquely useful volume was published in November 2007:

CNTUOT

Beale, G. K. and D. A. Carson, eds. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007.

  1. Last year I spent two or three hundred hours proofing it, so I am fairly familiar with it. It is not always scintillating reading, but it is a thoughtful, first-class reference that I will continue to consult often (especially since I am planning to write my dissertation on the use of the OT in a NT passage). I anticipate that many theological journals will publish reviews of this book that will unanimously praise it as uniquely useful. Many reviews may point out minor areas of disagreement, but this is inevitable given the eclectic theological perspectives of the contributors. (E.g., I. Howard Marshall’s Arminian perspective comes through more than once in his comments on Acts.)
  2. The first paragraph of the preface explains some of this project’s background:
    • “When the two editors of this volume began the project almost a decade ago, neither of us anticipated that it would take this long to bring it to completion. Unrealistic expectations, illness among the contributors and their families, and shifting and competing obligations all conspired to delay the project. We are profoundly grateful for the patience of the contributors who managed to submit their work in a timely manner, some of whom updated their work later, and of Baker Academic, whose editorial staff encouraged and even cajoled editors and contributors alike, but never nagged” (p. vii).
  3. The PDF excerpt here includes the table of contents and introduction.
  4. Craig Blomberg weighed in on a blog post that questioned the volume’s value.
  5. Today Collin Hansen’s bi-weekly “Theology in the News” column at Christianity Today is entitled “Two Testaments, One Story: Top evangelical scholars team up for landmark commentary on New Testament use of Old Testament.” Hansen interview interacts with both Greg Beale and Don Carson.

Review of “Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament,” ed. Porter

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Stanley E. Porter, ed. Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament. McMaster New Testament Studies 8. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.316 pp. $29.00.

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In fall 2006 I reviewed the above book, and the review—now available here—was published in spring 2007:

Review of Stanley E. Porter, ed., Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament. Trinity Journal 28 (2007): 153–54.

Review of Barnabas Lindars’s “New Testament Apologetic”

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[I prepared the following book review for D. A. Carson‘s Ph.D. seminar “The Old Testament in the New” in fall 2006 at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I chose to review this book last year partially because its author, Barnabas Lindars, was Carson’s “doctoral father” or mentor for his Ph.D. at Cambridge University. Willem VanGemeren, the director of the Ph.D. program for theological studies at TEDS, had encouraged Ph.D. students to get to know the professor whom they would like to be their mentor for the Ph.D. program. One important way to do that, he suggested, is to read and become very familiar with that professor’s works as well as the works of that professor’s mentor.]

Lindars, Barnabas. New Testament Apologetic: The Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961. 303 pp. Out of print.

New Testament Apologetic (henceforth NTA) was the first major published work by Barnabas Lindars (1923–91). It was the published version of his B.D. thesis submitted to Cambridge University, where he would later serve as an assistant lecturer (1961–66). (F. F. Bruce adds that Lindars’s B.D. “is not as other B.D.s are; at Cambridge it takes precedence over Ph.D.!” [Review of Barnabas Lindars, New Testament Apologetic, Modern Churchman, n.s., 5 (1962): 170.])

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D. A. Carson on Biblical Theology and “Popular Concerns”

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Wisdom from D. A. Carson, “Current Issues in Biblical Theology: A New Testament Perspective,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 5 (1995): 38-39.

The quotations below fall within the context of a published address to the IBR, addressing issues in biblical theology (BT). With reference to “popular concerns” (e.g., people asking, “What does the Bible say about X?”), Carson suggests that BT is helpful for three reasons:

  1. “Negatively, it will tame the subject, that is, it will help us see the topic in its proper proportion. One of the troubling features about contemporary Christianity is the large number of single-issue types who assume the gospel but rarely articulate it or think about it, while investing extraordinary passion and energy in relatively peripheral subjects–peripheral, that is, from the perspective of Scripture, if not from the current mood.”
  2. BT “will enable us to answer questions about popular concerns with more than proof-texting. It is both amusing and painful to read most contemporary books on, say, worship. Those written by musicians tend to make much of David and his choirs. Charismatics dwell on 1 Corinthians 14. Those in sacramental traditions begin with the eucharist. New Testament specialists tend to extrapolate on what are probably early Christian hymns embedded in the New Testament. Another heritage elevates the ministry of the Word. What almost none of the books in the area has done is trace out the language and themes of worship across the Bible’s story line, dwelling at length on the nature of worship under the old covenant and under the new, and the ties, and differences, between the two and why they are that way. Only then, surely, is it possible to fit the various passages that speak to the question into a coherent framework from which many useful and practical conclusions may be drawn. A remarkable exception to this lack is the recent book by David Peterson.” [fn. 74: “David G. Peterson, Engaging with God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992). Cf. also some of the essays in Worship: Adoration and Action (ed. D. A. Carson; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993).”]
  3. “For some of these ‘hot’ topics, especially those where the Bible does not directly address them at length, biblical theology may help us establish a nonnegotiable framework before we integrate other useful material and venture value judgments.”