OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY IN THE SHADOW OF JOHANN PHILIPP GABLER’S PROGRAM FOR BIBLICAL THEOLOGY

The discipline of Old Testament theology is a subset of the discipline of biblical studies and more specifically of biblical theology, which is commonly traced to Johann Philipp Gabler even if, strictly speaking, it did not begin with him.1 His seminal treatise, De justo discrimine theologiae biblicae et dogmaticae regundisque recte utriusque finibus (1787), concerns “the proper distinction between biblical theology and dogmatic theology.”2 Gabler argues that biblical theology is “of historical origin, conveying what the holy writers felt about divine matters.” Dogmatic (or systematic) theology, on the other hand, is “of didactic origin, teaching what each theologian philosophises rationally about divine things, according to the measure of his ability or of the times, age, place, sect, school, and other similar factors.” Citing examples from the history of theology, Gabler remarks, “Dogmatic theology is subject to a multiplicity of change along with the rest of the humane disciplines. . . . But the sacred writers are surely not so changeable that they should in this fashion be able to assume these different types and forms of theological doctrine.” In his opening comments, Gabler had expressed his more general concern about “those who use the sacred words to tear what pleases them from its context in the sacred Scriptures” and “do not pay attention to the mode of expression peculiar to the sacred writers . . . [and] express something other than the true sense of these authors.” In contrast, biblical theology emphasizes the Bible’s historically situated meaning and is careful “to distinguish among each of the periods in the Old and New Testaments, each of the authors, and each of the manners of speaking which each used as a reflection of time and place, whether these manners are historical or didactic or poetic.” Gabler’s concern with the historical author’s intended meaning appears yet again in his desire to avoid “new dogmas about which the authors themselves never thought.”3

Even as Gabler’s treatise set forth a path for biblical theology, it also revealed the challenge of the task itself, including the classic problem of the unity of the Testaments. He remarks, “The sacred books, especially of the New Testament, are the one clear source from which all true knowledge of the Christian religion is drawn.” While affirming that “all the sacred writers are holy men and are armed with divine authority,” Gabler further asserts that “not all attest to the same form of religion; some are doctors of the Old Testament [i.e., ‘basic elements,’ Gal 4:9] . . . others are of the newer and better Christian Testament.”4 Whereas there is no questioning the importance of the New Testament for Christianity, Gabler thus goes further by his sharp distinction between Old Testament and New Testament forms of religion and what later became Old Testament theology and New Testament theology. Significantly, the role of Old Testament theology within biblical theology is left hanging. If the New Testament is “the newer and better Christian Testament,” what place is there for an older, worse, less-Christian Old Testament?

Gabler’s idea, citing Samuel Morus (a respected theologian of that time), was to search for “universal ideas” (or “notions”) in various parts of the Scriptures, expressed in a way “consistent with its own era, its own testament, its own place of origin, and its own genius.” Comparison of different passages would show “wherein the separate authors agree in a friendly fashion, or differ among themselves; then finally there will be the happy appearance of biblical theology, pure and unmixed with foreign things.” John Sandys-Wunsch and Laurence Eldredge explain that Gabler’s aim was to find those parts of Scripture that are “trans-historical” and to “isolat[e]” and “eliminate” the Bible’s “purely historical characteristics . . . leav[ing] the truth exposed.” An example of something having “purely historical characteristics” is the “Mosaic rites [or law].”5

Even if Gabler’s project were to be followed through, it would set out to demonstrate the theological unity of Scripture without requiring literary and textual unity. By relying on universal ideas, Gabler has given up on any unity based on the authorially intended meaning that he so values elsewhere. In the end, this meaning is important to Gabler and must be respected but is not the direct means by which biblical theology relates to the unity of Scripture. As Loren Stuckenbruck comments, “Biblical theology for Gabler only begins by determining the meaning of the text from the perspective of the biblical authors. . . . Herein lies an ambiguity which Gabler apparently never fully resolved. . . . Historical interpretation does not define the task or goal of biblical theology so much as it involves a necessary starting point to be transcended.” Indeed, Gabler above referred to a “pure” biblical theology ultimately based on universal ideas. Thus, although Gabler’s approach “begins with the application of a historical method, [it] does not retain the historical as a check once a later stage of the analysis has been reached.”6 Robert Morgan relatedly sees “filtering” or “sifting” of biblical data at each step in Gabler’s process, with the initial historical and exegetical step already being “neutraliz[ed]” in the next step, “despite his insistence that this must not happen.”7

Gabler’s use of universal ideas brings with it a certain externality to the biblical text itself. According to Sandys-Wunsch and Eldredge, this concept is “based on the philosophical doctrine that universal truths are more real than the particulars from which they are derived. . . . [Morus] compares the process of eliciting universal truth from Scripture with the process of eliciting universals from particulars in philosophy.”8 To be consistent, Gabler’s rejection of imposing one’s own ideas on the text should be equally applied to the potential imposition of universal ideas as unifying principles for biblical theology. Indeed, Stuckenbruck calls this a “synthetic, reductionary method. . . . From the outset, a value judgment within the biblical canon is operative.”9 Magne Saebø likewise refers to Gabler’s “way of reducing the biblical material . . . to its general theological concepts, whereby the emphasis is now on the latter.” Furthermore, if the New Testament is basically in accord with these ideas, even embodying them, and the Old Testament much less so, how does one avoid imposing New Testament universals onto the Old?10 Is there a substantive difference between biblical theology and New Testament theology (which can also invoke the OT as background) if the universals are the same?11 What is the real value of the historical meaning of the Old Testament for Christians?

Gabler’s aforementioned comments about the vast differences between the Testaments show that he did not believe authorial meaning to be consistent across Scripture. Furthermore, by focusing simply on the views of Moses, David, Solomon, the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles, Gabler does not clearly distinguish between the meaning of a character’s words in specific parts of a biblical book and the authorial meaning of the book as a whole. For example, Jesus’ words are of greatest importance to Christians, but methodologically speaking, he was not an author and must be distinguished from the respective authors of the Gospels. Even if a character within a book is also taken as the author of the whole book (e.g., Moses and the Pentateuch), the meaning of this character’s words in a particular passage and the author’s meaning as expressed through the whole book cannot simply be equated. The many examples of direct speech uttered by Moses in the Pentateuch, each with their own context and emphasis, are not equivalent to the meaning of the Pentateuch. Indeed, based on Gabler’s comments, there does not seem to be a clear category for the authorial meaning of a biblical book. Such confusion also relates to confusion of the categories of text and event (e.g., a person’s spoken words at a specific time in history but included in a biblical book that itself bears meaning), as discussed in the introduction.

Gabler’s lower view of inspiration reveals what is likely a contributing...