Biblical Theology

Biblical theology is the discipline that traces the progressive revelation of God's redemptive purposes across the canon of Scripture, attending to the historical development and unfolding of theological themes within their own historical and literary contexts. It is distinguished from systematic theology (which organizes biblical teaching topically and systematically across all of Scripture simultaneously) and from historical theology (which traces the church's doctrinal development). Biblical theology as a distinct academic discipline was pioneered in J.P. Gabler's inaugural lecture at Altdorf (1787), which distinguished "biblical theology" (descriptive, historically conditioned) from "dogmatic theology" (normative, philosophical). Within evangelical scholarship, biblical theology pursues the unified redemptive-historical story of Scripture: creation, fall, promise (to Abraham), the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic kingdom, the exile, the prophetic hope, and the fulfillment in Christ's first and second comings, with the church as the eschatological community between the ages. Key figures include Geerhardus Vos (Biblical Theology, 1948), who established the discipline's theological rigor in Reformed circles; D.A. Carson and Frank Thielman in NT biblical theology; and W. Dyrness and Bruce Waltke in OT biblical theology. Biblical theology illuminates how earlier texts are taken up, deepened, and transformed in later texts (typology, promise-fulfillment, intertextuality).