Witness of Jesus, Paul and John: An Exploration in Biblical Theology, The

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Sep 2009 by Johnson, David

The Witness of Jesus, Paul and John: An Exploration in Biblical Theology. By Larry R. Helyer. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2008, 432 pp., $32.00.

This book grows out of twenty-five years of teaching biblical theology to undergraduates at the author's college, Taylor University. The author's intention matches the style and depth with which the authence of the book is addressed (i.e. it is largely for undergraduates in evangelical institutions). Each chapter ends with a set of study/discussion questions and a reading list of twenty or more books and articles. The style is that of a lecture with many first-person references, such as: "In my opinion," "I think," or even "My own tentative conclusions are . . .".

The book's eleven chapters are divided into five parts. Part 1 treats prolegomena. In chapter 1 the book offers defining traits of biblical theology and discusses method. The contrast between evangelical and "liberal protestant" biblical theology is a bit too starkly drawn, as a history of the discipline demonstrates. These days it seems that many of the former distinctions bleed into one another. For example, is Brevard Childs an evangelical or a liberal? It is curious that the book commits itself to doing biblical theology from the whole canon while discussing Jesus (who did not write a book of the Bible) and then only Paul and John. In the end, this book makes it appear as though Paul and John, as authors, sum up biblical, or at least NT, theology. Undergraduates will miss the diversity of the NT witness apparent in Luke and Peter and Hebrews if this book is their main exposure to NT theology. It is surprising that there is no interaction with R�is�nen's Beyond New Testament Theology (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990), since it has had such a wide circulation and influence among NT theologians and sets the stage for discussions of the discipline in the twenty-first century.

Chapter 2 is called "The Problem of the Unity of the Bible." As it turns out the chapter is much more about hermeneutics, ranging in discussion from Origen's allegorical method to James Robinson's New Hermeneutic with many stops in between. The chapter ends with a discussion of an evangelical approach to the relationship between the testaments. Chapter 3 rehearses the century-long debate between covenant and dispensational theologies. This debate was discussed in many places in the previous century, and it appears to be on the wane in the middle of the road evangelical circles toward which this book is aimed. For this reason one might wonder about the value of this chapter in a book on NT theology.

Parts 2, 3, and 4 discuss the theologies of Jesus, Paul, and John. The discussion of the theology of Jesus is divided into chapters on Jesus and the kingdom and dominical ethics. The book does not deal with the problems inherent in producing a theology of Jesus from different Gospels but rather suggests other books that deal with these difficulties. The author claims to recognize that one cannot use a simple red letter edition of the Bible to find the theology of Jesus, but this is how the teaching of Jesus is presented. There are very few times that Matthew's or Mark's or Luke's distinctive approaches to the words and works of Jesus are noted. In my experience, this sort of method proves to be a challenge for university students who take Gospels classes with non-evangelical professors at public universities. To flatten the Synoptic Gospels also tends to lose the rich contribution of each book as it presents dominical teaching. The stance taken in the chapter on Jesus and the kingdom is basically a rehashing of George Ladd's influential teaching among evangelicals of the "now and not yet" approach to eschatology. The chapter on the ethics of Jesus is largely an exposition of the Sermon on the Mount. In this chapter there is also a brief discussion of different approaches to biblical ethics.

The discussion of Paul begins with a chapter on prolegomena. One wonders why a chapter is devoted to methods for discovering Pauline theology but not Jesus' theology. The chapter deals with the sources, background, and methodological problems in Pauline theology. This is important information for undergraduates to know as long as they understand that many people no longer ask these questions in the post-modern world. These debates are often carried on among scholars. Nevertheless, answers to the questions raised can often help solidify people's faith. Paul's gospel is the subject of Chapter 7. After discussing the human plight, the chapter examines different metaphors (sacrifice, redemption, reconciliation, victory, and justification) Paul uses to describe the good news of salvation in Christ. The final chapter on Paul discusses Christology and eschatology. Most of the section on Christology is devoted to "Cosmic Christology," which has been a special project of the author for a number of years. His work is brought together here. This is helpful because cosmic Christology is often not a major subject in biblical theology. After a short section on Pauline eschatology, the chapter ends with a short critique of James Dunn's ideal cosmic Christology.