Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 23:2 (Summer 2019)
Article: Staurology, Ontology, And The Travail Of Biblical Narrative: Once More Unto The Biblical Theological Breach
Author: Kevin J. Vanhoozer

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Staurology, Ontology, And The Travail Of Biblical Narrative: Once More Unto The Biblical Theological Breach1

Kevin J. Vanhoozer

Kevin J. Vanhoozer is Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, IL. He earned his PhD from Cambridge University. He is author of such books as The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Westminster John Knox, 2005); Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (Cambridge University Press, 2010); Biblical Authority after Babel: Retrieving the Solas in the Spirit of Mere Protestant Christianity (Brazos, 2016); Pictures at a Theological Exhibition: Scenes of the Church’s Worship, Witness, and Wisdom (IVP, 2016) and, most recently, Hearers and Doers: A Pastor’s Guide to Making Disciples through Scripture and Doctrine (Lexham, 2019).

Introduction: The Role Of Theology In Reading The Bible Rightly

What does it mean to read the Bible rightly and what role, if any, should theology have in this endeavor? Everyone agrees that the Bible speaks of God and, for that reason, may be deemed “theological.” By way of contrast, the “theological” interpretation of the Bible remains an essentially contested notion, not least because it is not clear what “theologically” means in this context. For instance, does it mean setting forth the theology of the biblical authors themselves, using the Bible to defend a particular theological

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tradition (e.g., Lutheran), or deploying theological categories to describe the process of reading the Bible? It is not always clear which of these three possibilities is in view when people refer to reading Scripture theologically.

That there is widespread disagreement about how rightly to interpret the Bible may be the only thing all biblical interpreters agree on. William Blake expresses this poignantly in his poem, “The Vision of Christ,” which concludes with a disheartening couplet:

“Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read’st black where I read white.”

In our present pluralistic post/modern context, there are of course many more than two reading perspectives: not only black and white, but all the colors that make up the denominational and social spectrum, including, to name but a few, various kinds of Presbyterians, Latino and Latina, African, and Palestinian Christians, as well as the various interpretive communities located somewhere under the rainbow flag of LGBTQ. The conflict of interpretations is nothing new, but today’s readers have also to deal w...