I’ve been reading The New Testament and the People of God for my New Testament Interpretation class. I’ve found the reading to be engaging all around. Wright has a certain style of writing whereby he is able to engage the reader when lesser writers simply bore.

As I was reading today I came across a section where Wright discusses Christian Theology as a worldview. As part of this section, he makes the (in my opinion, rather bold) assertion that Biblical studies and theology need one another. Below, I summarize his arguments (which can be found on pp. 137-138 of the aforementioned title) and in a subsequent post I hope to interact with them to a greater or lesser extent.

Wright’s arguments for why theology and Biblical studies need each other:

1. Biblical studies needs theology because the original authors wrote with a theological worldview in mind. In order to understand this worldview, one must be engaged in the theological discussion.

2. Biblical studies needs theology because one needs to be aware of one’s own presuppositions, and this is only possible through a “theological analysis of contemporary culture.”

3. Theology needs Biblical studies since theology must needs interact with the stories of the Bible. This goes doubly for Christian theology which must include the stories of the Bible or risk falling into “ad hoc use of the Bible,” (ie, proof-texting, etc).