Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

It may seem odd to readers of this book to include the three Synoptic Evangelists in a companion of theologians. Yes, of course their Gospels include pieces of theology (think, for example, of Matthew 11:25–30, or of the titles they use for Jesus), but from a conventional point of view, their books do not seem to be works of theology. They are narratives, not pieces of abstract thought. They tell what Jesus did and taught. Though these three Gospels overlap and, we believe, the last two both used Mark as their basic source, they all have their underlying format and concern in common: to tell the story of Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection. Of course they differ in the way they tell that story, but is that not because they choose to make use of different items of information, one knowing what the others do not or selecting what they choose to ignore? Two modifications should be made to this picture. First, it assumes that theology can only be presented in abstract terms. True, that is of course how it has chiefly been done over most of the Christian period, though there have also been poetry, music, painting, and sculpture as ways of presenting theological ideas and theological sensibility. But, as the last sentence indicates, the broadly philosophical framework which has been the dominant medium for theology since the second century does not have the field wholly to itself. ... log in or subscribe to read full text