New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses:

¶ … New Testament Theology: Many witnesses: One Gospel (2004) by I. Howard Marshall

Within his book New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses: One Gospel (2004), I. Howard Marshall, a Scottish-born Cambridge and Aberdeen-Educated New Testament scholar and a current professor of divinity and religious studies at the University of Aberdeen offers, as his core argument, the premise that all of the authors of the New Testament's various Gospels and Acts - even over time; space; distance, etc. - share in common a single theological focus and missionary drive that serves to unify the text into a (as one other reviewer put it) "common theology"; and that this 'common theology' may indeed be identified, and analyzed, as such throughout the entire New Testament. In New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses: One Gospel, Marshall endeavors to show definitively that a "common, basic theology that can be traced in all [New Testament] witnesses."

Also, as I. Howard Marshall further suggests within New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses: One Gospel (2004), the core and most compelling Christian purpose of New Testament theology overall, for scholars and non-scholars alike, is "to explore the New Testament writers' developing understanding of God and the world, more particularly the world of people and their relationship to one another." This reader and reviewer of Marshall's 2004 book would agree conditionally, i.e., only from a strictly Evangelical Christian (Protestant; conservative) standpoint (as opposed to, for example, perhaps a Catholic or a more liberal Protestant one); and even then, with a few remaining questions and arguably unresolved issues germane to both Marshall's central premise and his (albeit always-well-connected; erudite, and thoroughly-supported) textual arguments.

The key scholarly concern of I Howard Marshall's book New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses: One Gospel (2004) is also one that thematically echoes (but also very much amplifies, in detail) that author's observations, elsewhere, about New Testament study as a whole. As Marshall states within another, more general and far more introductory book of his: A Pocket Guide to New Testament Theology, about the New Testament therein:

The Bible is a doctrinal book...it cannot be studied without some reference to that fact. But the Bible is not a systematic statement of doctrine. Paul, for example, did not set out to write systematic theological treatises when he wrote his epistles (with the possible exception of Romans); he was writing occasional documents, meant to deal with the current problems and needs of particular congregations. But his writings presuppose his understanding of Christian theology, and that understanding is expressed piecemeal in them. The theologian tries to work out from his epistles the systematic character of his thinking [emphasis added].

Toward that same end, then, within his book New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses: One Gospel (2004), especially structurally (but also methodologically and strategically) speaking, Marshall's own narrative order and presentation focuses initially on the four Gospels of Matthew; Mark; Luke, and John, respectively (pp. 51-128); and then subsequently on the Acts by Luke (pp. 129-183), and finally on the unifying theme of "Synoptic Theology" (see Marshall, Table of Contents) of the Gospels and the Acts combined (pp. 184-208).

After that the book moves sequentially to each of the letters of Paul in order and in exquisitely examined and cogently-discussed detail. Of this section of the book in particular, reviewer Craig Blomberg observes that, unlike other New Testament scholars, Marshall "even allows each of the letters attributed to Paul (treating the Pastorals as one unit) to be heard on their own." Subsequently Marshall's book also examines and analyzes the writings of John, or "The Johannine [sic] Literature" (pp. 491-579), also connecting these structurally and thematically to the other New Testament texts already scrutinized. Of this section, Blomberg further notes, obviously here taking into account differences, as well as similarities, among John's own and other New Testament authors' writings, and Marshall's treatment of them here:

John's Gospel remains in contact with the historical Jesus but is much more covered with theological overlay. Jesus is now the exalted Lord who provides eternal life and is fully conscious of his pre-existent relationship with his heavenly Father. The Epistles more directly confront false teachers who may be docetic [sic] but John is more concerned with proper Christian behavior by his readers even than correct doctrine.

Last to be analyzed by Marshall, in Part 5 of the4 book, are the works "Hebrews, James, 1-2 Peter, and Jude" (pp. 605-681).

The "front matter" also included within I Howard Marshall's study New Testament theology: Many witnesses: One Gospel (2004) consists of an Introduction; a Preface in which the author explains his motivations for and intentions within this book, and a list of Abbreviations. The list of Abbreviations is an especially helpful and (this reader soon discovered) necessary feature of this sometimes ponderously detailed text. The book's "back matter" includes an Author Index; a Subject Index; and a Scripture Index. but, also structurally, and in terms of this book's overall narrative/analytical strategy as well, I. Howard Marshall's New Testament theology: Many witnesses: One Gospel (2004) is unevenly divided into six separate sections (Parts 1 through 6; and with some sections being much longer than other ones); with Part 1 being "Introduction"; and Part VI, "Conclusion."

In addition, as reviewer Craig Blomberg further observes, Marshall, within New Testament theology: Many witnesses: One Gospel (2004), convincingly:

explains why it is still meaningful to limit one's study to the canon, why he proceeds according to the divisions and sequence of material that he does, why he has no section on Jesus himself (the main emphases of the Synoptics may be taken to approximate the major contours of the historical

Jesus, as earlier works of his have defended in detail), and why he will review each book, section-by-section, highlighting the theological emphases before itemizing thematic emphases and distinctives [sc], even within each discrete chapter. A somewhat unique emphasis is the missional [sic] context of the New Testament documents, though in the actual unpacking of the theology of each book or group of books.

Part 2 (pp. 51-184) of Marshall's New Testament theology: Many witnesses: One Gospel (2004) is given the title "Jesus the Synoptic Gospels and Acts." Part 3 (pp. 209-470), which is also by far the longest; the most detailed, and most exhaustively analyzed section is titled "The Pauline Letters." This latter portion of Marshall's text focuses considerable (and unusual, especially for Christian theology studies this one) explanatory and analytical attention on each of the letters of Paul, and subsequent to that, often other very lengthy and extremely illuminating discussions of various related topics. These include, for instance, topics such as "The Pastoral Epistles" (pp. 397-419); and "The Theology of the Pauline Letters," pp. 420-469) near the end of Marshall's comprehensive analysis (Part 3) of Paul's letters. There are also useful and current (for 2004) bibliographies at the ends of each of Marshall's book's twenty-eight chapters. Various other editorial and customer reviewsof New Testament theology: Many witnesses: One Gospel point out the usefulness of this book as a sort of concordance to the New Testament, based on the clarity, detail and thoroughness of its analysis and interpretation of all parts of the New Testament.

New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses: One Gospel (2004) consists, within its six separate Parts, 1 through 6, of twenty-eight chapters in all, although almost paralleling (although not at all very neatly, and definitely not exactly) the twenty-seven books of the New Testament itself. The greatest number of Marshall's own twenty-eight chapters focus, unevenly in terms of length, on the identifying, analyzing, and structurally, thematically, and logically connecting common aspects of New Testament theology to be found, based on I. Howard Marshall's premise about unifying material to be discovered in each of the New Testament's twenty-seven separate books.

As Marshall stated in an interview subsequent to this book's publication in 2004:.".. A book on New Testament theology must exhibit the individual thinking of the various authors (and Jesus), show whether and how there is harmony between them, and bring out the particular nuances that may be peculiar to different writers." and, as Marshall also opines about the meaning and religious importance of Christian doctrine generally:

Christian doctrine is a statement of what Christians believe. Such statements might be found in the creeds and confessions of the church which were drawn up to express the beliefs of those who framed them. The task of theology is to state what Christians believe in a systematic and orderly fashion.

We may look at the matter from another point-of-view. We have just been speaking about what Christians believe, as if Christian faith were a matter of believing certain things in our heads, statements that can be expressed in propositional form. But the simplest Christian knows that Christian faith is primarily a matter of trusting in God through Jesus Christ. Theology, therefore, asks the question, What does it mean to have a personal trust in God? We can say that theology is an expression of what it means to trust in God, and this way of putting the matter does justice to the fact that Christian belief is more than simply assenting to certain statements...

In terms of content, then, and also in terms of the overall consistency of both content and structure within and between most chapters, all twenty-seven books of the New Testament, for example, are discussed first from the viewpoint of 'theological story', that is, how its actual narrative content unfolds and advances itself; and second, from the perspective of various, frequently although not always or immediately compared 'theological themes', i.e., key themes that emerge, holistically, from each book on its own and later, implicitly and explicitly, in combination. The cumulative effect is one of carefully, steadily pointing out to the reader "stories" and themes that appear and reappear in common throughout the books of the New Testament.

However, that said, a nagging question underlying the whole book lingers for this reader - that of rather or not a unified Christian theology had already been fully formed and solidified, i.e., that is, prior to the writing of any parts of the New Testament (this would likely mean, it seems, that it would have been formed during Jesus' own lifetime and ministry, and/or at least in the early aftermath of his crucifixion); or if that eventual theology instead gradually emerged, piecemeal, as the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles were being written over about a century. or, as a third possibility, the unified Christian New Testament theology to which Marshall points - from both within and across New Testament books themselves - could only, finally, be recognized for what it is by springing fully-formed from the complete New Testament. Marshall never raises these issues.

However, especially if the latter of the possibilities above is not the one that best explains the unified New Testament theology Marshall identifies, how, then, was a mature Christian theology known to each of the different New Testament authors; over 100 years' time; in a way flexible enough to allow each to echo and reinforce, in his own distinct authorial voice that already-unified theology? A reader (or at least this reader) is left with (at best) ambiguous understandings of several key underlying issues necessarily related to Marshall's otherwise well-worked-out premise and arguments. To this writer, the most important of these unaddressed issues is that of how, exactly, the intrinsically unified, implicitly connected New Testament theology to which Marshall refers, based on a New Testament that was entirely finished only by the start of the first century, was actually formed in the first place.

Further; and connected to that unresolved issue, is a related one, i.e.: that of the (in truth unfathomable) identity or identities of who or whom, exactly, actually began and/or helped to form, and/or then continually reinforced, the original and/or then-existing (for those New Testament authors who did not themselves create it) already mature theology of the New Testament? Similarly, and also inevitably, then, Marshall's New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses: One Gospel (2004) leaves unexplored the seminal matter of what key understandings must have existed, and would have had to exist, across impossible-to-determine space and time, among New Testament authors: i.e., over times of individual writing - perhaps continuous, perhaps interrupted; across geographical areas within which texts, or portions of them, were composed and perhaps interrupted and/or re-composed by the original or different authors; within and between Gospels, and within and among all New Testament texts and parts of texts.

Perhaps as an answer (in advance) to "extra-textual" questions like this, Marshall states early on, in his "Preface" to New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses: One Gospel (2004) that the various documents of which the New Testament consists are, after all, and indisputably:

the work of the earliest followers of Jesus, who themselves were, or stood in some close relationship to, some of the original actors in the birth and growth of the church, and they all belong to the first century. There is thus a basis for seeing a possible unity in the very limited area and time in which they were composed.

While it seems true that, at least according to what Marshall describes in his Preface to New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses: One Gospel (2004), there is indeed a likely basis for seeing a "possible unity," in terms of shared structures and themes of different parts of the New Testament; it is also true that 100 years, even by today's standards, in which human beings tend to live much longer, overall, than in Jesus' day, is still a very long time. Moreover, typical human memory; and intra-personal/generational discourses (and full or partial recollections of them) were and are less-than-perfect: therefore, imperfectly reliable. This was and is true of human memory and also of second and/or-third-hand accounts (or even personal recollections, over time) of human accounts and of any person-to-person discourses, by, about, and for humans.