THREE MORE BOOKS ON THE BIBLE: A CRITICAL REVIEW*

Trinity Journal, Spring 2006 by Carson, D A

The last few years have witnessed the publication of several books on the Bible, most of which are in some measure innovative. In addition to the three I shall review in this essay, one cannot overlook Peter Jensen's The Revelation of God,1 which makes the gospel central to his development of the theme of revelation; Timothy Ward's Word and Supplement: Speech Acts, Biblical Texts, and the Sufficiency of Scripture,2 which relies rather heavily -a bit too heavily, in my view-on speech-act theory to address the accumulating problems that have arisen in recent decades over the notion of the sufficiency of Scripture; and Kevin Vanhoozer's, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology,3 which in some ways is as much a book about how to read the Bible-though, remarkably, without any need for a Scripture index-as it is a book about an innovative way to form a systematic theology. Reflecting on these three, which I am not going to discuss, makes me wonder if I should have doubled the length of this essay and titled it "Six More Books on the Bible" -but then I'd have to ask myself why I did not include several other recent contributions.4 So I have restricted myself to the following three, all of which are interesting, helpful, and problematic - all three in very different ways. In other words, there may be some gain within the compass of one essay in reflecting on three such different books, for the stance each adopts and the innovations each introduces shed light on the other two.

I. JOHN WEBSTER

A. Content

Webster's book, HoZy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch,5 is the most intellectually demanding of the three. Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Aberdeen and the editor of the International Journal of Systematic Theology, Webster first presented the four chapters of this book as the Scottish Journal of Theology lectures in 2001. The first of the four chapters is the most innovative.

"'Holy Scripture,'" Webster writes, "is a shorthand term for the nature and function of the biblical writings in a set of communicative acts which stretch from God's merciful self-manifestation to the obedient hearing of the community of faith" (p. 5). The definition is important to Webster, not least because it focuses on God himself. Even while his definition speaks of "texts in relation to revelation and reception" (p. 6), the most important thing is that

both the texts and the processes surrounding their reception are subservient to the self-presentation of the triune God, of which the text is a servant and by which readers are accosted, as by a word of supreme dignity, legitimacy and effectiveness, (p. 6)

Otherwise put:

Holy Scripture is dogmatically explicated in terms of its role in God's self-communication, that is, the acts of Father, Son and Spirit which establish and maintain that saving fellowship with humankind in which God makes himself known to us and by us. (p.8)

Webster's first task in unpacking this definition is "to offer an overall sketch of the doctrine of Holy Scripture by examining three primary concepts: revelation, sanctification and inspiration" (p. 9).

1. Revelation

Webster asserts that for a long time the doctrine of revelation has been pummeled and distorted by attempts to formulate it in relation to "dominant modern intellectual and spiritual conventions" (p. 11) and not in relation to the self-disclosing Trinity. Scholars have discussed "revelation" as a feature of a merely "theistic" metaphysical outlook, with scarcely any material reference to such aspects of Christian thought as Christology, pneumatology, soteriology, "and-embracing them all-the doctrine of the Trinity" (p. 12). Ironically, while the doctrine of revelation was thus being eviscerated, more and more demands were placed on it, "to a point where they became insupportable" (p. 12).

Perhaps the most significant symptom of this is the way in which Christian theological talk of revelation migrates to the beginning of the dogmatic corpus, and has to take on the job of furnishing the epistemological warrants for Christian claims. (p. 12)

What we do not need is a still "more effective defense of the viability of Christian talk about revelation before the tribunal of impartial reason" (p. 13). Rather, we must

call into question the idea that the doctrine of revelation is a tract of Christian teaching with quasi-independent status; this will in turn offer the possibility of an orderly exposition of revelation as a corollary of more primary Christian affirmations about the nature, purposes and saving presence of the triune God. (p. 13)

So Webster provides us with his definition:

Revelation is the self-presentation of the triune God, the free work of sovereign mercy in which God wills, establishes and perfects saving fellowship with himself in which humankind comes to know, love and fear him above all things. (p. 13; italics his)

Thus the content of revelation is "God's own proper reality" (p. 14); the agent is God himself; and it follows that revelation "is identical with God's triune being in its active self-presence" (p. 14) -which is precisely why "revelation is mystery, a making known of 'the mystery of God's will' (Eph. 1.9)" (p. 15).