Dominion and Dynasty by Stephen Dempster (Book Recommendation)

Have you ever read a portion of the Old Testament and wondered to yourself, “What does any of this have to do with the larger story of the Bible?” In this book, Stephen Dempster helps us grasp the grand story of the Hebrew Bible by examining the twin themes of genealogy and geography (seed and land). Dempster takes us on a journey through the Old Testament, showing us how it’s not just a random collection of stories but a carefully woven narrative that brings coherence to the Bible’s overall message.

According to Plan by Graeme Goldsworthy (Book Recommendation)

How does the whole Bible, in all its various parts, fit together to tell the story of God’s redemptive plan accomplished by Christ? This month’s book recommendation is According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible by Graeme Goldsworthy.

What is Biblical Theology? (Definition)

Biblical Theology – A discipline of Biblical studies concerned with doing theology according to and stemming from the contours and categories presented within the Bible itself (i.e., attending to scriptures diachronically rather than synchronically, tracing its themes, and considering the unique contributions, perspectives, and voices of particular Biblical authors and corpora).

There then seem to be three major forms of Biblical theology that stem from these general concerns (as defined above):

  1. Systems of redemptive-history — how the Bible fits together (“whole-bible” Biblical theology).
  2. Tracing themes across scripture, e.g., a Biblical theology of temple or land.
  3. Studying the particular theology of a given author, book, or set of books, e.g., a Pauline theology, a theology of Romans, an Old Testament Theology, etc.