Waltke’s second chapter is concerned with the task of Old Testament theology. I forgot to mention that Waltke begins every chapter of his book with a quote from Pascal. The quote for this chapter is, “Jesus Christ, whom the two Testaments regard, the Old as its hope, the New as its model, and both as their centre” (Pensees, 12.740). This gives the reader direction in their reading as to where Waltke is going in the chapter.
Waltke begins in his first section with some preliminary issues that relate to Old Testament theology. He gives a brief definition of theology as “essentially a self-critical task in light of God’s special revelation. He has the last word, and in response to his Word, the church reflects upon what it should say and do” (49). In regards to OT theology Waltke writes, “an Old Testament theology should seek the answer to the questions: What are major religious concerns and ideas (i.e. what is the message) of the Old Testament, and how did that message develop?” (49).
He then moves onto three challenges of OT theology:
a) Diversity—There are books within the OT that come at certain issues or events from different angles (i.e. Deut-2 Kings and Chronicles-Nehemiah; Proverbs and Ecclesiastes). “Although the Old Testament consists of diverse works, each with is own message(s), the Old Testament corpus contains strands of major themes that wind their way through the texts…Within the progression of that literary corpus, the themes are developed, transformed, and reinterpreted” (50).
b) Relationship to NT theology and Dogmatic Theology—The categories, concerns, themes, and messages of the OT differ from those of the NT and of Dogmatic theology. When approaching the OT, one must do it on its own terms and not force a pre-composed grid (whether composed from the NT or from Dogmatics) upon it.
c) Four Histories—Waltke breaks down the OT into four distinct “histories,” which are really four different ways to view the OT. The first is Ancient Near Eastern History which takes into account the history of the ANE in its understanding of the OT. The second is the Biblical History of Israel which is the salvation history that is presented twice: once in Genesis-2 Kings and again in Chronicles-Nehemiah. The third is “Historical Israel” which is reconstructed using historical criticism and gives more weight to archeology and ANE artifacts than it does to the OT texts. The fourth and final is Compositional History which stresses issues like form criticism and redactional criticism. This can help a student of the OT, but the final canonical shape of the OT should ultimately be preferred.
Waltke then moves onto his second section where he focuses on the major “blocks of writing” found within the OT. “These natural boundaries, not imposed by a scholar seeking to systematize, but present in the text as a reflection of the authors’ intentions, allow us to organize the Old Testament books into blocks of writing and in turn to track the themes of the books both within and among the blocks” (55).
The first block is the primary history, which is told divided between the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) and the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua-2 Kings, minus Ruth). Waltke acknowledges the difficulty in this division because of the book of Deuteronomy which “is both the capstone of the Pentateuch and the foundation stone of the Deuteronomic History” (57).
He then, quite sloppily, lumps the rest of the OT into the category “Other Writings.” He does not give a name to the block of writings in which Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah, Ruth, Esther, or Song of Songs is found. Apparently they are just floating out there somewhere. He places all the prophets into the category “Prophetic Literature”; Psalms into its own category of “Hymnic Literature”; and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job into “Wisdom Literature.” He then closes this section by stressing that all these books share a commonality, which is their inspiration, by classifying the authors of the historical books as prophet-historians.
The third section deals with the task of OT theology. Waltke agrees with Hasel, who wrote that “the task of biblical theology is to provide summary explanations and interpretation to the final form of these blocks of writing, with a view to letting their various themes emerge, to indicate their dynamic interrelationship, including their continuities and discontinuities with one another and to expose the progressive revelation of divine matters” (61). He then makes the comment that the audience of the OT is the Israel of God, of which Christians are members. This drives us not just to understand what the OT meant, but also what it means.
The fourth section contrasts biblical theology with other types of theology. The first theology contrasted is natural theology, which is based on God’s general revelation in creation, nature, and human reason as opposed to Scripture. The second is dogmatic theology. Dogmatic theologians act as logicians who derive their organizational principles from logic and philosophy and look at Scripture synchronically. Biblical theologians act as exegetes who derive their organizational principles from the text and look at Scripture diachronically. The third is History of Religion School, which stresses the human belief as opposed to the divine acts and words.
The fourth section is longer because it explains “other biblical theologies,” such as OT theologies that derive their thinking from systematics, confessions, canonical shapes, or archeological artifacts. He spends much effort in talking about Walter Brueggemann, who he calls “heretical” on several occasions and who he relates to the serpent in the garden on two occasions. I’m not a Brueggemann scholar, but this seemed a little out of order. He then critiques James Barr because Waltke believes Barr “has more faith in human theology than in the Bible and the Spirit’s illumination of it” (73). He wasn’t perfectly clear, however, about why he thinks this way.
The final section presents five different approaches to the Bible.
a) Liberal Theologians Stand Above the Bible—the influence of the enlightenment causes “liberal” theologians to hold their logic and scientific method above Scripture.
b) Neoorthodox Theologians Stand Before the Bible—this relates to Barth’s dictum “the Word written; the Word preached; the Word revealed,” meaning that Scripture becomes the Logos when it is preached.
e) Traditionalists Place Traditions/Confessions Alongside the Bible—many denominations or groups of Christians interpret Scripture through their confession or tradition instead of interpreting and reforming their confession or tradition through Scripture. While Waltke holds to the WCF, he says that he is not against reforming it in light of Scripture. It is always secondary (in fact, it even says it is…I wish the PCA would read that part “literally”).
d) Fundamentalists Stand On the Bible—fundamentalists tend to use the Bible as a science book or a history book, standing on it to preach against modern society. They do not stand under it long enough to correctly understand it.
e) Evangelicals Stand Under the Bible—Evangelicals view Scripture as the final authority in all aspects of life. We “must allow the Bible to dictate how it seeks to reveal God’s truth” (77) and be humble enough to submit to it.
