554 - The New Testament: A Thematic Introduction

The New Testament: A Thematic Introduction
By J. Christiaan Beker
Minneapolis, Fortress, 1994. 152 pp. $10.00.

In this volume, J. Christiaan Beker, Professor of New Testament Theology Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, makes available lectures that have grown out of more than twenty years of teaching an introductory course in New Testament. The lectures survey the sixteen books of the New Testament deemed, 'most significant" by the author and focus primarily on literary and theological questions rather than on the standard "introductory" ones (for example, author­ship, place, date). Beker attends closely to the relation of coherence and contingency in each book: "By coherence, I mean the abiding normative dimen­sion of the text; by contingency, its historical and situational dimension that addresses the particular historical time of the text." In Beker's view, the interac­tion between coherence and contingency "constitutes the heart of the gospel" and is, thus, essential both to our grasp of the New Testament as a whole and to the proclamation of the gospel today.

The lectures-on the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline letters are splendid-as-one might expect from one of the leading Pauline scholars of our day. The remaining lectures are also well worth reading, though the discussion of the historical Jesus and the synoptic Gospels is incomplete at points. One wishes, for example, for closer attention to Matthew's christology. Moreover, the chapter on Luke-Acts concerns itself largely with Acts' portrait of Paul and does not provide as much discussion of the Gospel of Luke's distinctive vision of Jesus and the Christian life. It is apparent that the Pauline perspective dominates Beker's reading of the New Testament; he devalues books that run counter to Paul's "genuine Christian apocalyptic theology" or that fail to exhibit the appropriate relation between coherence and contingency that constitutes the unity of Paul's gospel and the genius of his letters.

In his concluding chapter, Beker presents stimulating reflections on the unity, diversity, and authority of the New Testament. The question may be raised as to whether Beker has himself obscured the diversity of the New Testament wit­ness-by omitting ten books from consideration (including all of the catholic epistles, except I Peter) and by privileging the Pauline perspective. Still, students of the New Testament, especially those who preach, will benefit from the availability of a clear, concise, and accessible discussion of the theological witness of sixteen New Testament books.

Frances Taylor Gench
Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary
Gettysburg, PA.