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Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Craig G. Bartholomew, Daniel J. Treier & N.T.Wright, eds., Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005, 896 pp.
This is a publication with almost 300 articles on the theological interpretation of the Bible. They are written by 180 evangelical scholars mainly from North America and Europe, the only obvious Latino is Samuel Escobar. The interdisciplinary nature of the publication is indicated with subjects such as: Culture and Hermeneutics, Irony, the Bible and Art, Augustine, Canonical approach, covenant, Mary, Gnosticism, Paul Ricoeur and the book of Revelation.
To take a typical example of the kind of content, the article on John’s gospel looks at the history of interpretation of the gospel, describes its content in terms of the development of its thought, looks at the relation of John to the rest of the Bible and then it’s theology.
There are about 50 articles dealing directly with contemporary hermeneutics, for example, narrative criticism and genre. In these the history of the discipline is described, an analysis made of its approach and the debates it has produced.
The largest individual section concerns Bible doctrines and themes, such as angels, grace, hope and justice. Many Old Testament and New Testament books are individually dealt with, as well as general biblical issues such as archaeology, canon and textual criticism.
There are 11 articles on the theme of Christianity and Judaism with such topics as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish exegesis and Messiah.
A further section deals with interpreters and interpretative communities. This is quite broad and includes work on individuals such as Calvin and Aquinas, on different interpretative schools such as the current one at Yale University or the Tübingen one in the 19th century. Finally there are sections on themes such as Science and the Bible, and Catholic biblical interpretation.
One disappointing feature is that although African biblical interpretation and Asian biblical interpretation feature. Under “Latin American biblical interpretation” the reader is referred to Liberation Theologies and Hermeneutics. Admittedly liberation theology has dominated Latin America for about 25 years, but the church has existed here for 500 years.
This is a most useful publication for students and pastors providing succinct introductions to most of the themes which influence the interpretation of the Biblical text written from an evangelical perspective.
David E. C. Ford, Profesor del Nuevo Testamento, Fundación Universitaria Seminario Bíblico de Colombia, Medellín, Colombia.