Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments by Brevard S. Childs
Essentials in Biblical Theology Series
Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible by Brevard S. Childs[1]
Brevard S. Childs (1923–2007) is best remembered for his sustained focus on biblical theology and his influential articulation of a “canonical approach” to interpreting Scripture. Although he continued publishing in these fields until his death, his Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments remains a significant synthesis and culmination of his scholarship.[2] First published in 1993, this volume is widely regarded as Childs’s magnum opus.
The way Childs structures his book reflects his understanding of the function and task of biblical theology. Each section provides necessary support for his subsequent treatment of biblical theological themes. In his first major section, Childs begins by charting the history of the discipline of biblical theology as it developed in the modern period. He then surveys eight major ways of doing biblical theology in order to situate his own approach within the variety of models currently on offer in contemporary scholarship.
Childs finishes his prolegomena by returning to the history of interpretation in search of a “family resemblance” in interpreters of the premodern era. Among these dialogue partners, Childs finds precursors for his own approach in the thinking of Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin. In their own way, all of these figures “struggled to find models for dealing theologically with both testaments of scripture as a revelation of Jesus Christ” (30).
In section two, Childs outlines his proposal for a “canonical approach to Biblical Theology” (53). First, Childs discusses the “problems” involved in canon formation and determining how and when the canon actually reached a final form. Next, he lays out the various elements involved in approaching both Testaments “canonically” and emphasizes the importance of “canonical shaping” (70ff). The result of this type of investigation is a movement from the “witness” of the biblical text to the “subject matter” or reality to which those texts point, namely, Christ.
In the next two sections, Childs engages the critical issues involved in the study of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Here he is interested in maintaining the “discrete witness” of both Testaments. Thus, he walks through the various traditions that underlie the biblical material and shows how they develop within individual books and within the canon as a whole. In this section, Childs examines the pressing critical issues that are prevalent in the guilds of Old Testament and New Testament studies (e.g., the documentary hypothesis, the messianic secret, etc). These sections seek to analyze the biblical material “in a way which is critically responsible” and draw on his previous work in Introduction to the Old Testament as Christian Scripture and The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction.
In section six, Childs takes ten key theological themes that are prominent in the biblical material and attempts carefully to examine and situate them in their canonical context. This “theological reflection on the Christian Bible” is the centerpiece of the book. Childs begins with the identity of God (351-383), and his method here is indicative of his subsequent chapters. Childs moves from the Old Testament understanding of God, to Early Judaism’s understanding of God, to the New Testament understanding of God. In each of these areas, Childs shifts his focus from the previous forms of the material to the final form of the biblical text. In other words, he is straining to listen to the theme as it is presented in the biblical witness itself. Each Testament has a “special dynamic” that needs to be recognized and respected (369).
Next Childs integrates these various emphases in a biblical theological reflection on the identity of God that highlights the multifaceted nature of God’s self-revelation to his people. The final step, for Childs, is to relate these biblical theological reflections to the discipline of systematic theology, and in this case, Trinitarian theology. For Childs, the church’s later development of the doctrine of the Trinity was not a foreign imposition but rather was “a formulation of the church in its attempt to reflect faithfully on the biblical witness” (375).
After his treatment of the identity of God, Childs continues by examining the themes of God as creator, the covenant and election of the people of God, Christ as Lord, reconciliation with God, Law and Gospel, humanity, biblical faith, God’s kingdom and rule, and finally, the shape of the obedient life. Childs ends his volume with a brief chapter that summarizes the main tenants of his approach and emphasizes again his intent to produce a “holistic reading of Christian Scripture” (719ff).
One distinctive element of Childs’s approach is the way he defines biblical theology. For him, biblical theology is a study of the relationship between the Testaments. Indeed, “at the heart of the problem of Biblical Theology lies the issue of doing full justice to the subtle canonical relationship of the two testaments within the one Christian Bible” (78). In this model, each Testament maintains its distinctive voice, its “discrete witness.” The Old Testament is not flattened out by the interpretation of the New Testament nor is the New Testament simply a commentary or extension of the Old Testament. Rather, both Testaments are to be read and interpreted on their own terms.
The unity of the Testaments, for Childs, relates to the way they both witness to the same external reality, namely, Christ. The discrete witness of the Old Testament testifies about Christ, and the discrete witness of the New Testament does the same. Further, “the Old is understood by its relation to the New, but the New is incomprehensible apart from the Old” (76). Thus, there is a real continuity between the Testaments, but one that is complex and dialectical and which requires careful theological thinking.
In addition to reflecting on the nature of biblical theology, Childs also thinks through its relation to systematic theology. Though he engages in historical critical study, Childs is quick to say that historical criticism cannot answer all the questions raised by the biblical texts (e.g, 50). Indeed, Childs continually emphasizes the importance of theology for interpreting the Bible. When he surveys church history, he highlights and sources the eras when the dialogue between theology and the Bible was more robust. Childs is surprisingly positive about the role of systematic and dogmatic reflection. In fact, he does not “consider it a serious problem if there is an occasional blurring of the disciplines” (397).
Accordingly, in his main section on various biblical theology themes, “dogmatic reflection” is the culminating area for each topic. In these sections, he seeks to relate the produce of biblical theological reflection to the task of systematic theology. The two types of study are distinct but integrally related. For Childs, “the issue is not simply to establish a bridge from exegesis to dogma which is one important function, but conversely to discover in theological reflection a further tool for illuminating scripture” (403).
In his discussion of Christology, Childs reflects again on the relationship between dogmatic and biblical theology. The two should not attempt to rival one another but rather “the major function of Biblical Theology is to provide a bridge for two-way traffic between biblical exegesis and systematic theology’s reflections on the subject matter” (481). In this sense, biblical theology “serves both a negative and a positive role in relation to the church’s ongoing task of critical reflection on its proclamation in light of the Gospel” (481).
The other major distinctive element of Childs’s work is his development of a canonical approach to biblical theology. In one sense, Childs’s approach to biblical theology is canonical because he constantly engages the question of the relationship of the Testaments and insists on situating theological themes in the context of the entire Christian Bible. However, Childs means much more by “canonical approach” than simply a juxtaposition of the Testaments. Rather, Childs employs the notion of canon as a broad term that includes not only the content of the final form of the canon but also the process by which that final form became a reality.
One of his key assertions in this regard is that “the lengthy process of the development of the literature leading up to the final stage of canonization involved a profoundly hermeneutical activity on the part of the tradents” (70). Childs thus uses the term “canonical” as a “cipher” that encompasses “the various and diverse factors involved in the formation of the literature” (70). Canon is also tied to authority, in that it denotes “the reception and acknowledgment of certain religious traditions as authoritative writings within a faith community” (70). And, of course, the term includes “the process by which the collection arose which led up to its final stage of literary and textual stabilization, that is, canonization proper” (70). This broad notion of canon is a linchpin in the inner workings of Childs’s approach.
One of the consistent criticisms of Childs is that he is inconsistent. On the one hand, he champions a focus on the final form of the text, but on the other he engages in historical criticism in his treatment of biblical material. Many critical biblical scholars would decry a privileging of a final form, which they view as arbitrary, and many evangelical biblical scholars would balk at the use of critical methodology, which they view as dangerous. Though one might surely still take issue with either of these areas, it is important to recognize that for Childs, there is an internal logic to his version of the canonical approach. This “missing link” is the notion of canon consciousness. This type of canonical approach argues that “canon was not a late, ecclesiastical ordering which was basically foreign to the material itself, but that canon-consciousness lay deep within the formation of the literature” (70-71). Thus, Childs sees an integral connection between the “pre-canonical” forms of texts and traditions and the shape they take in the canon as part of the church’s Scripture.
An outgrowth of this commitment to the canon is the distinction Childs makes between understanding the text as a source and understanding it as a witness. If the goal of one’s study is to reconstruct the events that occur in the text or to uncover the life setting of the community who used that text, then the biblical material is usually understood as a source for those inquires. However, if the goal of one’s study is to understand what the texts themselves are saying, then the biblical material is understood as a witness to the message that the biblical writers and those who transmitted their writings intended. In Childs’s words, “by treating the text as ‘source’ the danger is acute of substituting a critical reconstruction for the biblical text’s own witness to God’s activity on Israel’s behalf” (145). For Childs, “the force behind the multilayering of the biblical text is theological in essence and cannot be correctly interpreted by solely cultural and historical terminology” (145). This distinction also seems to be the reason Childs focuses on “tradition history” rather than “form criticism” in his critical discussions.
The enduring value of this volume is that it represents an attempt to formulate a “whole Bible” theology. Childs seeks to bring the entire canonical context to bear on whatever theological issue that he is examining. He is also careful not to flatten out the biblical material by moving too quickly between the Testaments. Anyone interested in the way that biblical texts function in their immediate and canonical context will find here troves of careful and thoughtful insights and observations. In this way, Childs’s work will aid those seeking to do justice both to the diversity within the biblical texts as well as the way they function in projecting a canonical unity.
Evangelicals who are interested in canon will thus find many helpful insights and resources in Childs’s work. However, they will also have a number of serious concerns as well. Though Childs notes the importance of utilizing historical criticism in order to maintain the “depth dimension” of the biblical texts and traditions, many evangelicals will remain uncomfortable with the sweeping critical assumptions made about the way the biblical texts were composed, transmitted, and finalized in the canon formation process. There is an underlying tension between Childs’s sections on the discrete witnesses of the Old and New Testament and his major section on biblical theology in a canonical context.
To give one example, in his discussion of the textual strata in the Genesis creation account, a version of the documentary hypothesis is taken for granted, but in his biblical theological section on creation (351, 384), Childs focuses on the message of the text of Genesis as a composite unity. As noted above, many critical scholars will not see the need to shift focus away from the critical conclusions when studying the final form of Genesis 1–2, and many evangelical scholars will not value the previously developed depth dimension as highly. The lingering question is, How ‘deep’ should this depth dimension go for someone interested in the analysis of the final form?
Another issue is the subsequent redactional activity assumed in Childs’s canonical approach. For Childs, the canonization process involved a lengthy process that involved many hands and many generations. The tradents (the ones handing down the tradition) are the ones who ultimately shape the material for the benefit of later generations. This will seem too open-ended for most evangelicals who will want to tie meaning and intentionality of the shape of the biblical material more closely with the biblical authors themselves.
The above reflections are only a snapshot of the contributions Childs makes and the questions he raises in Biblical Theology. The goal of this review has been to demonstrate the enduring significance of Childs’s approach and its overall goal. Indeed, understanding the relationship between the Testaments, taking the entire canonical context into account, and seeing how the Bible as a whole points to Christ are issues that all biblical readers face and should reflect carefully upon. Accordingly, for the discerning reader, Childs’s work in this volume can serve as a helpful resource and an engaging dialogue partner in this incredibly important task.
Ched Spellman
Cedarville University (October 2025)
TL;DR
Childs insists on reading Scripture in its final canonical form, while also recognizing the formative traditions behind it; canon is both a process and a product that shapes biblical interpretation.
The Old and New Testaments should each retain their own “discrete witness,” yet together they testify to the same reality—Christ—forming a complex unity that resists flattening or reduction.
Biblical theology functions as a “two-way bridge” between exegesis and systematic theology, showing how theological reflection both arises from and illuminates Scripture.
Childs’s synthesis models a “whole Bible” theology attempt to navigate between unity and diversity
[1] Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993).
[2] Childs began his work on biblical theology with a critique of the “Biblical Theology Movement” in Biblical Theology in Crisis (Westminster Press, 1970), and he returned to the issues of canon formation and hermeneutics in his final book on the Pauline corpus, The Church’s Guide for Reading Paul: the Canonical Shaping of the Pauline Corpus (Eerdmans, 2008).
