Gerhard Hasel - New Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate

by GERHARD F. HASEL This debate goes on at full force and is at times heated. Deep historical, theological, philosophical, and methodological problems are hidden behind these disparate positions. The issues underlying these positions can be best appreciated and understood on the basis of the historical development of NT studies in general and NT theology in particular. This is the reason for beginning our discussion of the basic issues in the contemporary debate on NT theology with a historical survey of the beginnings and development of NT theology (Chapter I). It is a truism that the present has its roots in the past and cannot be adequately understood without a knowledge of it.

The selection of issues in the current debate in terms of the question of methodology (Chapter II), the various problems associated with the center of the NT (Chapter III), and a variety of aspects related to NT theology and the OT, i.e., the relationship between the Testaments (Chapter IV), do not aim to be exhaustive or complete. They seek to touch on those factors and issues that seem to exercise contemporary scholars of various schools of thought and are major unresolved problems. On the basis of our discussion we attempt to provide some preliminary suggestions for doing NT theology (Chapter V). A fairly comprehensive bibliography seeks to serve as a resource tool for further study and personal research. It is hoped that the reader will be stimulated to engage in informed and creative thinking as he acquaints himself with basic issues in the current debate on NT theology.

have their roots in the past, and often the distant past. New Testament theology is an offshoot from Biblical theology, and thus they must be studied together. The NT OT, as a part of the ecclesiastical tradition, was not read apart from or over against that tradition, but more or less interpreted by that tradition or brought into harmony with it. and became the sources for the subsequent development of Biblical theology.

This means that Biblical theology is emancipated from a role merely subsidiary to dogmatics. Inherent in this new development is the possibility that Biblical theology can become the rival of dogmatics and turn into a completely separate and independent discipline. These possibilities were realized under the influence of rationalism in the age of Enlightenment.

On this basis there is no need to distinguish between the Testaments; they stand in reciprocal relationship to each other. which was realized four years later by G. L. Bauer. Bauer.

Accordingly he treats separately and in sequence (1) the theory of religion of the synoptics, (2) the theory of religion of the gospel of John and the letters of John, (3) the concept of religion of the Apocalypse and (4) of Peter, (5) the epistles of 2 Peter and Jude, and (6) the doctrine of Paul. His historicalcritical reconstruction of the manifoldness of the Biblical witnesses raised, among other problems, the matter of the relationship between the Testaments, a problem under vigorous debate today. Furthermore, the whole issue of Biblical theology's nature as a purely historical discipline as vigorously maintained by Gabler and consequently by Bauer and others is again questioned in the recent debate, as is the question of the nature of the descriptive task. Nevertheless, Gabler and Bauer are the founders of the independent discipline of Biblical and NT theology. published his famous Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670) in which he dealt with the question of the relation of theology to philosophy. He argued that both needed to be carefully separated and suggested that reason is men's guide to truth.

All of these influences were powerful catalysts toward the formation of the full-fledged historical-critical method. In 1728 the Geneva theologian of "rational ortho He stated: Semler's distinction between theology and religion, a distinction which separated the "locally" and "temporally" determined theologoumena from the lasting religion, was realized by F. C. Baur in the nineteenth century and reached its classic formulation by E. Troeltsch in the beginning of the twentieth century.

and NT theology comes to be understood as a phenomenon of the history-of-religions. Everything local and temporal, everything individual and particular, must be peeled off in order to arrive at that which is timeless, general, and lasting. Nevertheless, de Wette's attempt indicates that there is an unresolved methodological problem, because he attempted to combine Biblical theology with dogmatic interests. Here the whole issue of the center and unity of the NT comes to the fore; this remains a key issue to the present day. of Strauss. This question remains a pressing issue today.

The wellknown major defects of Bauer's approach are the application of the Hegelian dialectic and an overemphasis on the influence of Judaism in early Christianity. but argues soberly against the excesses of deism's critique of religion with a view to ward off foreign influences on Biblical theology. He suggests that the unity of the Bible is recognized on the basis of the common theme of the kingdom of God which unites both Testaments. This center of the Bible has supporters today that belong to a non-conservative line of scholarship. These scholars agree that there is unity in diversity, that NT theology is concerned only with the canonical writings, that the proper method is the "historical-critical" one, and that it is proper to present the teaching of the NT under more or less traditional headings from dogmatics. The so-called "modern positive" direction of NT theology has been pioneered by an opponent of the and neither from dogmatic nor philosophical systems nor from so-called parallel texts from Scripture.