When I started my studies at Wesley Theological Seminary, several upperclassmen warned me about taking courses offered by George Wesley Buchanan, a no-nonsense professor who demanded excellence from his students and graded them accordingly. One faculty member derisively charged Buchanan with interpreting Scripture in accordance with Judaism moderately than Christianity. Since I used to be young, impressionable, and desired to reach my first yr of studies, I avoided Dr. B. just like the plague.
Forty-five years later, I stumbled upon George Buchanan’s autobiography, which recounts his difficult years at Wesley and the way his colleagues often misunderstood his research and, at times, maligned him. His book is titled An Academic Hound Dog Off the Leash, and Buchanan—now in his 90s—desired to set the record straight before heading off to glory.
His memoir captured my imagination, and I finally got here to respect the person I once shunned. I discovered Buchanan earned a repute in wider academic circles as a first-rate scholar, especially amongst elected members of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, a prestigious biblical society whose past presidents included venerated figures like C. H. Dodd, Rudolf Bultmann, Joachim Jeremias, C. K. Barrett, Oscar Cullmann, and John Barclay.
Using metaphorical language, Buchanan likened his fellow faculty members to “collie dogs” who spent their time keeping the sheep throughout the fold and rounding them up every time they strayed. Their important job was to guard the theological borders of their institutional pasture. By comparison, Buchanan identified himself as a “hound dog” who followed the scent of biblical truth wherever its trail might lead.
After reading Buchanan’s story, I spotted on the time that I used to be a border collie. As a pastor, professor, apologist, and cult-buster, I drew thick lines around conventional interpretations of biblical theology and warned people of the risks lurking beyond those acceptable boundaries. The problem is that, in Protestantism especially, there are more borders than there are even denominations—and every border acts as an enclosure to enfold its sheep, and requires collies to guard it.
On one occasion, the conservative Christian college where I taught invited Richard Bauckham, a distinguished British biblical scholar, to present a lecture for the scholar body. During the Q&A session, a colleague of mine asked him a matter about his views on eschatology, and Bauckham’s response didn’t fully align with the institution’s position. Afterward, there was an unspoken expectation of us professors to deal with this issue when the scholars returned to class. This is what border collies do!
In 2005, I used to be granted a sabbatical and started working on a second PhD. My first doctorate was from a faculty that majored in training border collies, so to talk, however the University of Wales (UK) was different. Bill Campbell, my supervisor, had the patience of a saint. Having worked with other American evangelical students, he suggested I expand my academic horizons, read outside my comfort zone, and enter conversations with other scholars in my field.
With anxiety and trepidation, I took the primary steps beyond my comfortable ecclesiastical borders to find an enormous latest world. It was frightening, exciting, and enlightening. I started reading Second Temple literature and ancient primary sources coping with the Roman world. Before long, I met gracious academics who took interest in my studies and offered me constructive criticism. And by the point I accomplished my PhD thesis, I used to be a full-fledged hound dog!
I used to be desirous to bring my newfound knowledge into the classroom and teach my students the right way to similarly think outside the box. And yet, like George Wesley Buchanan, I soon found this raised eyebrows amongst a few of my colleagues.
For instance, there was concern after I taught that Jesus spoke in Aramaic and that the gospel authors translated Jesus’ sayings into Greek. Some thought I used to be arguing that there was a “text behind the Greek text,” although I assured them that this was not the case. I explained that there are some Aramaic sayings which the gospel writers needed to translate and spell out for audiences who didn’t know Aramaic. Yet the educational dean of the varsity still called me into his office to ask me, and I needed to reassure him that I held true to the historical creeds of the church. All this controversy began because I used to be simply attempting to use all resources at my disposal to assist students interpret the Scriptures more appropriately.
As a biblical theologian, I’m trained to check each book of the Bible by itself—to look at it in its unique literary, historical, and social contexts. Bible scholars don’t attempt to harmonize the Gospels, for instance, because we all know that every book is exclusive. Their authors wrote at different times to different audiences positioned in several parts of the empire, lived under different leaders, and experienced different levels of persecution. The authors wrote for distinct reasons and had distinct goals in mind, choosing only the stories about Jesus and his teachings that were helpful and pertinent to their respective audiences.
Biblical theologians also utilize supplementary materials resembling ancient Roman and Jewish literature, epigrams, and cultural practices. And contrary to what some might think, this “outside” information isn’t considered a source of “extra-biblical revelation,” but it surely helps us to interpret the Scriptures with greater accuracy. The more familiar we’re with ancient customs, the higher our understanding of the biblical text.
For example, in my book Subversive Meals, I explain that Roman banquets in the primary century included the meal proper in addition to symposium activities (after-meal entertainment, discussion, music, speeches, etc.), which were linked by a drink offering (pouring a cup of wine out to the emperor and the gods as an indication of loyalty to the empire). The Lord’s Supper followed the identical pattern—meal and symposium—but believers raised a cup in honor of Christ and his kingdom. Hence, back then, the Christian Communion meal was seen as an anti-imperial act of subversion.
Knowing this helps us higher understand the historical context of the Christian meal and the associated fee some first-century believers paid to participate. Each bit of latest data helps us to catch up with to a text’s original meaning in its first-century setting—and since getting the text right is the secret, we must use every tool at our disposal.
Occasionally, a single latest historical insight can lead us to rethink long-held interpretations of certain biblical concepts and passages, which might ultimately shift our established theological understanding of a given doctrine.
We saw this process in motion when E. P. Sanders, after studying the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered that almost all first-century Jews didn’t, in actual fact, consider in a works-based salvation, as many scholars had previously thought. Rather, most Jews understood salvation to be the results of divine election—that God selected them and established a covenant with them, and keeping the Law was merely seen as evidence that they were God’s covenant people.
This groundbreaking biblical insight modified the way in which many interpreted Paul’s relation to Judaism—in addition to his letter to Galatians and his theological arguments on the doctrine of salvation. Scholars like N. T. Wright, James D. G. Dunn, and Scot McKnight, amongst others, gravitated toward this latest perspective, which led to an argument over the character of justification that continues even now. As a results of this discovery, some systematic theologians and others are raising issues about abandoning traditional reformation theology altogether.
That isn’t to say traditional understandings of certain doctrines must be put aside on a whim. But neither should we hesitate, based on solid research, to hunt further light on any given subject. After all, it was the re-examining of Scripture—as compared with established Catholic creeds—that ultimately led to the Protestant Reformation and its widespread distribution of the Bible to the common believer.
Some systematic theologians deal with church councils and the historical development of creeds, lots of which were formulated in response to specific heresies (resembling Docetism and adoptionism) and have been upheld and defended for hundreds of years. And while biblical scholars can repeat and affirm the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds without reservation—standing in unity with the church universal—our task is different from systematic theologians.
The important query we’re concerned with is, What did the text mean to the unique audience? We deal with the first-century text and seek to accumulate more historical and cultural insights. Otherwise, all the field of biblical studies would remain static, and no fresh readings or analyses would emerge. In other words, our primary job as biblical scholars is to interpret the text rightly; and we are sometimes blissful to go away the doctrinal implications within the hands of systematic theologians.
That said, even the very best hound dogs can occasionally find themselves barking up a incorrect tree. But we must not allow that possibility to hinder us from our overall task. So, I urge my fellow hound dogs to maintain their noses to the bottom and follow the trail of biblical truth. Amazing and exciting discoveries—resulting in a greater understanding of Scripture—are only beyond the horizon.
R. Alan Streett is the senior professor emeritus of biblical theology at Criswell College in Dallas.
