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NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY is often viewed as the culmination and goal of exegesis, a discipline by which exegetes mediate the fruit of their research in a comprehensive manner to a wider audience. From its inception, NT theology has been a Protestant project intended to assist and renew dogmatic theology, though, in recent years, Catholics have contributed to the discipline as well.1 The ideals of reaching a wider audience and of assisting dogmatic theology, however, are seldom realized, in part, because NT theology suffers from something akin to an identity crisis about its task, method, and goal.2 Since there has been a renewed interest in NT theology in recent years, especially in Germany, it seems appropriate (1) to review the history of the discipline, (2) to examine some newer works, and (3) to raise the issue of identity anew.
I. History and Method of New Testament Theology
A. Founding and Refounding the Discipline
Although others were already engaged in the work of biblical theology, Johann Philipp Gabler's inaugural lecture to the faculty of Altdorf in 1787 is usually regarded as the programmatic statement for modern biblical theology.3 Convinced that the Scriptures (especially the NT) were "the one clear source from which all true knowledge of the Christian religion is drawn" (p. 134), Gabler called for a biblical theology, "pure and unmixed with foreign elements" (p. 142), that would provide dogmatic theology with the universal and unchanging truths of Scripture. He distinguished between biblical theology, which is historical in origin, and dogmatic theology, which is didactic in nature, "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" (p. 137). Biblical theology, as befits its historical approach, is "always in accord with itself," even though it may be elaborated in different ways, whereas dogmatic theology is subject to change. The first task of a true biblical theology, then, is to provide an accurate historical description of the ideas found in the sacred writings. The second task is to compare these ideas with each other in order to determine which are universal and enduring. In this way, biblical theology can provide dogmatic theology with the enduring and universal truths of...