Countless cases of revelations made to the Patriarchs, Judges, Prophets, and Apostles have not been recorded. Do the contents of the Bible warrant the belief in a history of God’s acts of revealing those contents? In the first place, it may be a dubious assumption that “the actual self-disclosing of God in time and space which lie back of even the first committal to writing of any Biblical document, and which for a long time continued to run alongside of the inscripturation of revealed material.” (p.13) Many revelations were made to our first parents, to Noah, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob before Moses was inspired by the Holy Spirit in writing Genesis. Third, the very enterprise of a history of revelation is questionable. This ‘organic’ expression applied to Biblical Revelation appears to be influenced by the works of Abraham Kuyper, as he appears to inject an element of German Idealism into his defense of Scripture. 19), it is far from clear that the same ‘organic’ process applied to the history of revelation has escaped this influence entirely. 15) While Vos observes “the extent to which, at the present time, the treatment of Biblical Theology is influenced by the philosophy of evolution” (p. What is the nature of the process? The answer is not given, but rather raises further questions by the reference to “the organic nature of the historic process observable in revelation.” (p. Second, the word “process” in the definition gives rise to a question. Such modesty does not usually appear in the present day writers on Biblical Theology. Exegetical Theology, which to be sure is broader than Exegesis proper, including Introduction and Canonics as well as Biblical Theology. First, it is modestly defined as a branch of another, i.e. Some summary observations on this definition might be made. This is now to been seen as Edmund Clowney’s view of Biblical Theology as, “the fruit of exegesis, an essential step in the formulation of summary statements concerning the teaching of the Bible as a whole.” (p. Biblical Theology is defined by Vos as “that branch of Exegetical Theology that deals with the process of the self-revelation of God deposited in the Bible.” (p. But the basic issue remains, whether Exegesis and Systematics are sufficient without a further historical study added in between? In addition to this general question as to the necessity of a special discipline, a question may be raised about the possibility of a Biblical Theology as defined by Vos having as its subject matter the history of Revelation. Considerations discrediting outright Modernist and Pseudo-Orthodox schemes do not apply to Vos’ version. Rather he defined the discipline in terms of Revelation in an orthodox sense. This denial of Revelation was not the presupposition of Vos’ Biblical Theology. Clowney in his book Preaching and Biblical Theology, (Eerdmans, 1961) p.12. Wright, God Who Acts Biblical Theology as Recital (London S.C.M. Wright’s definition of Biblical Theology “as the confessional recital, the acts of God in a particular history… fails to return to the analogy of Scripture.” G.E. The first cases of this special study of Biblical theology were the writings of unbelieving critics of the Bible and it is not surprising that Modernists and the proponents of Neo-Orthodoxy followed their example. Many forms of Biblical Theology make this unsound assumption. A modern assumption that Theology is chiefly, if not only, an historical study is alien to the view that Theology treats with the revelation of God. There seems to be no need for an additional historical discipline. From the distinction of the decrees of God and their execution it follows Systematics treats of the contents of the decree in a logical manner, Exegesis in an historical manner. Is there good reason warranted for a special discipline termed Biblical Theology beyond Exegesis and Systematic Theology? Does Geerhardus Vos’ version provide such? Does the present abuse of that version undermine the witness of the infallible authority of Scripture? I answer the first two questions NO, and the third YES. It is pertinent to raise some questions about Biblical Theology.
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