Beyond the Bible
Marshall, I. Howard. Beyond the Bible: Moving from Scripture to Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academy, 2004.
This book is a collection of three lectures by I. Howard Marshall entitled “Evangelicals and Hermeneutics,” “The Development of Doctrine,” and “The Search for Biblical Principles.” These lectures are followed by two responses by Kevn J. Vanhoozer and Stanley E. Porter. Marshall’s third lecture is where he lays out his arguments of how one goes about finding biblical patterns and principles for going beyond previous Scripture. There are basically three: 1) Christian interpretation of the OT took place in light of the NT, 2) Jesus’ teaching was given “between the times,” and 3) we need to understand apostolic preaching in light of the whole revelation of the gospel. In Vanhoozer’s mind, this comes very close to William Webb’s “redemptive trajectory” approach. I think this is exactly where Howard is heading.
The lectures were all very helpful, and I specially liked the first two since they give you the background to the author’s conclusions. So even if you disagree with Marshall’s proposal, you can glean quite a lot from the first lectures and will be faced with the necessity of going beyond the bible. This does not mean that you are not faithful to the Scriptures but it does recognize that there are sensible hermeneutical principles that we must draw out of the spirit of where Bible is going which are not explicit in its pages (slavery is one example).
I specially liked Vanhoozer’s response. He clarified many things about Marshall’s principles that require careful thinking. Sometimes I think that he dismissed too quickly the contribution of a trajectory theology because of its potential pitfalls, but his points are well taken.
This is a short book by a respected scholar that will help those interested in hermeneutics to think about what it means to go beyond the bible.
