NTT: DEVELOPMENT OF NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY

• The Middle Ages and the Reformation Era

Beginning from the period after the apostolic Era throughout the middle ages the church was mostly concerned with dogmatic theology at the detriment of other branches of theology. Dogmatic theology was founded on the Bible and church tradition. Biblical theology was only used as it informed dogmatic theology. It can be concluded that at that time the church had little or no interest in Biblical theology: the church attached greater importance to Tradition than Biblical evidence. No freedom of interpretation was allowed to the individual scholars and the discipline of exegesis was non-existent. No one was allowed to challenge the teachings of the church.

Biblical theology and consequently New Testament theology have their beginnings in the Reformation Era when the reformers begun to challenge the unbiblical character of dogmatic theology. The core tenet of the reformers was Sola Scriptura– the Scripture alone. They made the Bible the sole authority of life and death. They insisted that theology must be based on the Bible alone. This spirit of the reformers led to the study of the languages of the Bible and the role of history in Biblical Theology. The reformers also instituted the literal method of biblical interpretation which led to the beginning of a truly biblical theology. Emphasis was on the historical grammatical method. The study of Greek, Hebrew and the writings of the Church Fathers were given preeminence. No distinction was made between Old and New Testament theology, however, the reformers emphasized the validity of all parts of the Bible and the authority of the Bible over that of the church.

• The Post-Reformation

In the period after the Reformation protestant theologians used the Bible as a mere proof- texts to support the various doctrines of the church. They paid more attention to the contents and less to the context which in this case is the historical background in which Christian theology developed. The Enlightenment movement or the rise of Rationalism had great impact on the development of Biblical theology. Elwell reports that “the beginning of biblical theology came after the Enlightenment within German pietism. The mind replaced faith as a controlling factor, and the historical-critical method is developed” (Elwell 1984:768). Rationalism challenged superstition and viewed the Bible from an objective point. Through the influence of J.P Gabler (1789) biblical theology was severed from dogmatic theology. This led the church to pay more attention to New Testament theology. Another scholar by name William Wrede (1897) made a thorough going attempt and insisted that theology must be studied in its historical context.

A diversion to the correct way of studying New Testament theology was led by Rudolf Bultmann. He is usually called that father of liberation. Bultmann said that the historical Jesus is significantly different from the one portrayed in the Gospel. Historically, Jesus was only a Jewish prophet who preached the imminent end of the world and warned people concerning the impending judgment. Jesus never taught that he was the messiah or son of God. However, he possessed an overwhelming reality of God and was conscious that he was the bearer of God’s word in the end times. Consequently, Bultmann concluded that the Jesus we find in the gospel did not exist in history; he is only a mythological construction of the early church. Therefore, he embarked on removing the myth from Jesus and says Jesus has no theology. The only theology he finds in the New Testament is that of Paul. The process of removing myth is called demythologization. This involves the elimination of miracle and supernatural element in the Bible because these are not compatible with laws fixed by nature to govern the universe.

Bultmann  taught  that  the  Biblical  worldview  and  discussion  of

supernatural activities belongs to the pre-scientific age which is unacceptable to the modern scientific mind. Bultmann insisted that the pre-existence of Christ, his deity, the virgin birth, his sinlessness, atonement, resurrection, ascension, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and his power, the Trinity and original sin must be discarded as myths. When this is done then Christ becomes only an ordinary man like any one of us.

• Biblical Criticism and New Testament Theology

The Greek word from which criticism comes from is krisis. The word simply means “a judgment” Biblical criticism means making intelligent judgment about historical, literary, textual, and philosophical questions that one faces when studying the Bible. In fact, Theology arises from the freedom and responsibility of the Christian community to inquiry about its faith in God. This means that theology is not a mere repetition of traditional doctrines but a persistent search for the truth to which they point and which they only partially and brokenly express.

Anslem defines theology as “Fides quaerens inlellectum”. i.e. ‘faith seeking understanding.’ We know we are saved by the grace of God through faith and we seek to know what this means. Christian faith asks questions about God, ourselves and the world. But we seek provisional answers. True faith keeps on seeking and asking. We are not fideism – no inquiry but simply believing. Theology therefore that grows out of the Christian faith incites reflection, inquiry and pursuit of the truth not yet possessed, or partially possessed. Theology should not aim at asking questions like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or questions that seek to make clever distinctions and win debates, or make elegant arguments, we must desist from detached, insensitive and overly intellectualized theology. Our theology should be a theology that transform hearts, leads us to unqualified acceptance of what the Bible teaches and uncompromising trust in the Holy Spirit. This does not mean we are to be bibliolatry, rather we have to test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Questions and reflections of the theologians

should not replace trust in God but act as critical ingredients that help to distinguish faith from mere illusion or pious evasion. On the whole; theology without praxis is empty, praxis without theory is also blind.

In this sense a sound theology of the New Testament must involve Biblical criticism. According to F.F Bruce, criticism is a term that refers to “a number of techniques employed in the study of written documents in order to establish as far as possible their original text, the literary categories to which they are assigned, their sources, purpose, and so forth.” (Bromiley 1979: 817 Vol.1). These techniques are helpful in the study of the Bible.

It most be noted also that Biblical Criticism has also displayed negative attitudes to the study of the Bible, especially to the doctrine and history of the Bible. Extreme position destroys the trustworthiness of the historical records. The implication of this is that one must be careful with the application of the techniques of Bible criticism.

The Bible is the word of God communicated to us through human words. The negative side of Biblical criticism does not realize this. It insists that the Bible must only be viewed as words of men and not the word of God. Biblical criticism is not to criticize the word of God but to understand it better. One thing to note about biblical criticism is that it started as a reaction to non-critical and supernaturalistic attitude to the study of the Bible. George Ladd said, “The Bible can be rightly understood only by those who accept its basic message, and this requires the response of faith as well as a historical scientific methodology”. (The New Testament Criticism 51). Biblical criticism embraces many critical disciplines that will be considered briefly here

Textual Criticism

Textual criticism is also called lower criticism. This critical discipline seeks to determine the original wording of the New Testament, what the authors really meant their original words and original form. Basically, it is an effort to recover the original text.

It is helpful in producing sound explanation of the Bible passages

Biblical explanation is technically known as exegesis. Biblical theology is based on sound exegesis and a sound exegesis is based on a reliable text. In essence textual criticism helps to establish or arrive at an accurate text. This is real and true biblical theology

2  Linguistic criticism

Linguistic criticism seeks to understand the meaning of words in their original language. In the case of New Testament theology, the study and understanding of Greek is very important. The New Testament was written in Greek. It was a Greek that was different from the contemporary Greek used at that time. It was a colloquial, common Greek known as Koine. It has its own distinct vocabulary, syntax, style, form of words and idioms. Because of its distinctive nature, some scholars call it “the language of the Holy Ghost”.

A critical study of the New Testament using these scientific tools shed more light and enlightened our understanding on the meaning of the word of God and the nature of the New Testament language.

Form Criticism

Form criticism assumes that the material, especially the stories in the gospels; the life, death, resurrection, parables other teachings were first passed on orally before they were written. Form criticism therefore studies the various literary forms which the oral tradition assumed as it was passed from mouth to mouth. It helps to determine the oral pre-history of written document or source and classify the materials according to various forms or categories of narrations or discourse.

Historical Criticism

This is the aspect of biblical studies that is usually misleading and when wrongly used leads to a destruction of the truthfulness of the word of God. Historical criticism tests the historical worth of the documents which set forth the religion of the Bible. The objective here is to discover the religious life operative at the time the New Testament was written. It gives insight into the essence of religion and the essence of historical facts.

It is important to understand that the word of God was given to men through historical events, personages and processes. This very fact demands a historical criticism. Historical criticism helps one familiarize with the historical context such as the cultural, social and religious environments. While engaging in historical criticism one must understand that history include divine intervention. God has created the world and the world is still under his control. He has created the world with the possibility of miracles. Miracles are not accidents. They are part of his eternal decrees. Real history must not be against miracles

Literary Criticism

This is also known as higher criticism. It is the studying of the authorship, state or mode of the writer, place of writing, the recipients, style, sources, integrity and the purpose of the Bible passages. All of these contribute greatly to the understanding of the Bible and the development of a sound New Testament Theology.

4  Methods of New Testament Theology

Scholars are not in agreement with the method of studying New Testament theology. Scholars take different approaches to achieve their goals. It should be noted that each method has its weakness and strength. We shall consider a few of these methods

The Synthetic Method

Scholars using this method trace basic theological themes through the records of the Bible in order to know their development throughout the Biblical period. The strength of this method is that it preserves the unity of the Bible. The weakness is that one can force an artificial pattern upon the NT materials.

The Analytical Method

Here scholars study the theology of individual sections of the Bible and notes the unique presentation of each section. By sections, we are referring to blocks like the Synoptic Gospels, Acts, Pastoral Epistles, Captivity Epistles, etc. The strength here is that the meaning or theological understanding of individual authors of the Bible is made known. The weakness of this method is that there is radical diversity and no cohesion

3  Historical Method

This method studies the development of religious ideas in the life of the people of God. Its strength is to show that there is a community of believers behind the Bible while its weakness is that it is subject to artificial reconstruction by the scholar.

Christological Method

Under this method, Christ is made the centre or hermeneutical key of the Old and New Testaments. The value of this method is the recognition of the true and key figures of the Bible. The problem is the tendency to spiritualize passages and force interpretations which are foreign to them. For instance, one may fall into the danger of seeing too many types of Christ in the Old or New Testament