Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old Testament Perspective, The

The Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old Testament Perspective. By James Barr. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999, xvii + 715 pp., $48.00.

Biblical theology is a flowering subject. The multiplicity of books and even scholarly journals devoted to (aspects of) biblical theology that recently have appeared in print testify to this fact. And yet, despite this outward sign of vibrant life, biblical theology is a discipline that is very much in search of its own identity and as such has a contested character. The massive and learned work of James Barr illustrates this quandary skillfully with special attention to the OT.

Barr's monumental publication, which was "written as a sort of textbook" (p. xiiv) is not intended to be a biblical theology. It is rather a discussion of the whole idea of biblical theology with its possibilities and prospects (p. xiiv). While its primary goal is neither to provide a survey nor a history of a discipline of biblical theology, Barr has nevertheless furnished the scholarly community with a tour de force of the discipline. The bibliography spans some 31 pages (pp. 610-40), covering most of the relevant literature up to the cutoff date for the book sometime in 1997. The bibliography is followed by 58 pages of small-print footnotes (pp. 641-98) in which Barr further interacts with other positions and scholars.

Barr begins his book with the question why it has been so difficult to define biblical theology and suggests that this is the case because "`biblical theology'" is an essentially contested notion and "does not have clear independent contours of its own" (p. 5). Its character, Barr submits, changes depending on to what it is contrasted. Barr suggests six different contrasts: (1) the contrast between biblical and doctrinal (systematic, dogmatic, or constructive) theology; (2) the difference between biblical theology and a nontheological study of the Bible; (3) the contrast between biblical theology and the history of religion and corresponding approaches; (4) the relations of biblical theology with philosophy and the question of natural theology; (5) the interpretation of parts of the Bible as distinct from the larger complexes taken as wholes; (6) The hotly debated conflict between biblical theology as an "objective" discipline or as a "faith-committed" discipline. These contrasts are discussed in greater detail in later chapters.

When the term "biblical theology" is used for the construction of one single theology of the entire Christian Bible, in contrast to individual theologies of the OT or NT, Barr has chosen to use the term "pan-biblical theology" (p. 1). Chapter 2 provides a concise overview of the origins of modern OT theology. Chapter 3 presents five main types of doing biblical theology: (1) collection of ideas and doctrines following the pattern of traditional systematic theology (Kohler); (2) a synthetic, comprehensive view of the OT world of faith (Eichrodt); (3) an explicit Christian approach with a Christian view of revelation (Vriezen); (4) the unfolding of the development of various traditions, with their own inner reinterpretations and actualizations (von Rad); and (5) a canonical approach (Childs). Other chapters deal with the relationship between the OT and the NT (chap. 11), the Christianization of the OT (chap. 16), the evaluation of postbiblical Judaism (chap. 17), the possible prospects for a Jewish biblical theology (chap. 18), and the question of apocryphal and other noncanonical books (chap. 32). Barr also takes up the old problem of the relationship between "committed" and "objective" approaches in biblical theology (chap. 12) and suggests that "historical theology" offers helpful analogies to biblical theology (chap. 13). He also deals with objections to the very possibility of biblical theology (chaps. 14 and 15) and addresses the problem of a system and the question of a "center" (chap. 20).

In chap. 19 he looks at some newer-style theologies that spread in the 1970s (Zimmerli, Westermann, Fohrer, Terrien, Schmid). Barr also deals with recent approaches, especially the canonical approach (chap. 23). He is interacting especially with Brevard Childs, who has been the stimulus without whom Barr "would not have come to many of the perceptions ... that are in this book" (p. 378), even though Barr admits that he has "come to disagree with almost everything in [Childs's] proposal about the subject and in the values with which he has approached it" (p. 378). One has to thank Barr for introducing some important German proposals by Gese, Oeming, and Mildenberger, among others, who are perhaps less known in the English-speaking world.

In a significant way The Concept of Biblical Theology is the continuation of his earlier volume Old and New in Interpretation (1966) and is a descendant of his Cadbury Lectures, delivered at the University of Birmingham in 1968. Barr masterfully interacts with major recent proposals and positions. In doing so he seems to thrive in pointing out perceived deficiencies in other approaches. Barr is not shy in criticizing long-held and cherished positions and almost never seems to be satisfied with the way things have been done. All this makes interesting and profitable reading. Yet one misses his own constructive proposal that would significantly advance the discussion by providing better alternatives.