This is due, largely, to one professor who is marked by this perspective, and whose approach to the related controversy is something other than what you associate with the school. If you you’d like to talk about that further, I’d be glad to, privately.

Goldsworthy’s “According to Plan” and Dempster’s “Dominion and Dynasty” have both been mentioned, as have Vos and Edwards.

I would also commend Kaiser’s “The Promise Plan of God” as excellent, despite his flat hermeneutic.

The introduction to Sailhammer’s “Pentatuche as Narrative” does a good job of relating the Pentatuche to the “big picture,” although I’ve heard that the ensuing commentary is hit-and-miss.

I haven’t read Dever’s “The Message of the OT” (which is a reworked compilation of his sermons), but, I’m told that it traces the OT in very much the way we’re discussing.

Other holistic approaches that have been recommended to me include the introduction to Waltke’s OT Theology, and Trevor Mcllwain’s “Firm Foundations: Creation to Christ” which is a missional telling of God’s story (often used in tribal missions).

One last recommendation, which is likely to be met with some skepticism, is Blaising and Bock’s “Progressive Dispensationalism.” Do not be turned off by the D-word!–this isn’t your grandpa’s dispensationalism! In fact, in my opinion, this isn’t dispensationalism at all (and I’m not the only one to think so… scholars from all quarters have said that B&B need to drop the d-word). As an ex-dispensationalist (like you, Nathan), I heartily recommend this book as excellent.

One or two hundred years ago, many Premill. Covenantalists treated OT Kingdom passages as Millennial in nature* (without denying the current and spiritual nature of the Kingdom which Jesus inaugurated)… Well, think of this sort of Covenantalist, add a NCT view of Law and Sabbath, throw in Berkoff’s use of the word “dispensation,” and you’ve got PD as presented by B&B.

Anyways, to get to the point, their book is another excellent treatment of the “big picture.”**

*Today, most go the George Ladd route, treating Rev. 20 as the first revelation of the Millennium.

Here is the link. On that page you can click on the name of Poythress’ paper and that will start your email going.

Or copy the link (right click and copy shortcut) and paste it somewhere. The link has the email address and the subject line that they want.

Hopefully that makes sense for you. (Still no response yet, by the way. Not sure if this is an active web page meant for us to use or not.)

What is that link?

If that email request doesn’t work, I’ll email Vern Poythress directly. I do have one book by Goldsworth: According to Plan an introduction to Biblical Theology. I plan on reading it soon.

Again thanks for the discussion.

Thanks for the further info. I’m hearing of more and more exceptions to the “academic elitist” trends in bt, which is very encouraging. I really do need to get my hands on some of Goldsworthy’s stuff, but unfortunately, my current situation does not lend itself to the ready acqusition of theological works.

If anyone finds out in what work Poythress’ article will be published, please let us know — it is a paper which definitely calls for a wider audience.

I agree, Nathan, that what you described has tended to be a problem, these notable exceptions aside. A lot of it, I dare to suggest, is birthed out of a sort of academic elitism, which is fascinated with extrabiblical, reconstructed Ancient Near Eastern worldviews which unlock faddish and almost gnostic but ultimately trivial “insights” into texts and go no further. In the mileu of this elitism, to lean on the Spirit and take Christ at His Word when He speaks of Himself as summative revelation — His own hermeneutic for the rest of Scripture — is not going to win a lot of points for creativity. But I believe we run into trouble and belittle the weightiness of the Word wherever Christian theologians and preachers do not take their little themes, little insights, little connections and blow them up so that they bear the weight of all of God’s revelation to us, especially the revelation of Christ, and place us in the sweep of God’s redemptive purposes from Eden to the New Earth so that our lives take on meaning and purpose. In practical terms, let’s wear Nathan’s words as a challenge not to write theological or exegetical papers which are (of necessity) nuanced and narrow without at some point backing up and helping readers take in the bigger picture…

I have the unpleasant task of informing you that I went to find that article by Poythress, and was informed on his site that it was “withdrawn for publication”. I’m glad that it will be published, but that still really sucks for you — it was absolutely phenomenal. I’ll try to give you a little comfort with the fact that he had a couple dozen other articles on the topic still on the page. You should write him a tear-stained e-mail, begging and pleading with him to grace you with a copy…

I just heard from Baylor that a guy named Yarbrough (I believe from TEDS) wrote a book called The Redemptive Historical Fallacy? on biblical theology, in which he addresses objections to redemptive-historical hermeneutics. I don’t know anything about the guy, but it sounds really good. I’ve also been hearing good things about Graeme Goldsworthy, but I have not read him either.

Just on the topic of hermeneutics, not necessarily biblical theology, Vern Poythress has some phenomenal articles on frame-poythress.org. Many of them are excellent, but the one that currently stands out in my memory has something to do with “the presence of God qualifying our notions of a literal interpretation”. I’m sure the article is not called precisely that, but look for an article in which “the presence of God” appears, in some way connected with the idea of qualification.

Thanks

Fabulous post. Absolutely loved it. It really explained how the redemptive history approach differs from other non-dispensational hermeneutic approaches. Again allowing God to be the actual Author does much for helping one accept the intentional foreshadowings in the OT.

Thanks much for this. God bless you brother,

Bob Hayton

Glad to hear your perspective, especially on the “big-picture” conception of biblical theology. Maybe I just had a different perspective because of where I went to college, etc. Hopefully, there are more people than I realize who think “redemptive history” when they hear “biblical theology”.

Thanks for the feedback — it’s always helpful.

Nathan

I honestly have never thought of “Son of Man” referring to his humanity. Maybe I have done the other extreme and focused to much on the Daniel context.

Also, I thought by nature biblical theology was “macro” in nature. Sure there are themes such as the Kingdom of God or Old Creation/New Creation, but I always thought of it as “big picture” look at the Scriptures.

As always, it was very challenging and edifying.