Summary Chapter 1 Brueggemann

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In chapter 1 Brueggemann reviews the history of Old Testament theology from the Reformation to modern times. His main insight, in the 1st part of the chapter which covers the Reformation and The Critical Enterprise, is that, though the reformers freed the Bible from being read only under the magisterium of Roman Catholic tradition, their ideas quickly hardened into theological systems and dogmas under which the Bible was read. The same became true of the various critical methods. We cannot fully escape our presuppositions and traditions as we formulate our theologies. The next part of chapter 1 discusses the "rescue of biblical theology" from 19th century historical criticism in the 20th century. Brueggemann credits Barth as being the pioneer …show more content…
Their great contribution was to show that Israel's religion was not just an evolutionary development from surrounding religious environment but that it was unique and originated from God. Albright followed this with his work on the historicity of the OT. This period ends with the two great works of OT biblical theology by Eichrodt and Von Rad (read by all OT majors when I was in seminary). Eichrodt saw the theme of the OT as "covenant relatedness" and emphasized the "constant" nature of the revelation of the OT. Von Rad emphasized the mighty acts of God in history that forced Israel to reevaluate their traditions and adapt them to a new generation. Both of these themes are present in the text and must be dealt with as we try to do OT theology today. The rest of chapter 1 discusses developments in Old Testament biblical theology from 1970 to the present. Brueggemann criticizes the tendency in the west to continue to reduce the study of scripture to history only and assume European ideas of historical development and enlightenment dogma. We are now seeing serious biblical theology being done by non-Western scholars who approach the text in new and different ways who need to be listened
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