This monumental work is the first comprehensive biblical theology to appear in many years and is the culmination of Brevard Childs’ lifelong commitment to constructing a biblical theology that surmounts objections to the discipline raised over the past generation.

Childs rejects any approaches that overstress either the continuity or discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments. He refuses to follow the common pattern in Christian thought of identifying biblical theology with the New Testament’s interest in the Old. Rather, Childs maps out an approach that reflects on the whole Christian Bible with its two very different voices, each of which retains continuing integrity and is heard on its own terms.

The problems that arise for such an approach can only, he argues, be resolved by theological reflection that moves from a description of the biblical witnesses to the reality toward which they point. This leads him to deal with complex theological and philosophical issues that have often been neglected in biblical theology and that give this book its exceptional richness.

After introductory chapters outlining the history of biblical theology and the search for a new approach, Childs examines in detail the witnesses of both Old and New Testaments. He then offers examples of exegesis in the context of biblical theology from both Testaments before presenting an extended theological reflection on the major themes of the Christian Bible: the identity of God, God the Creator, the covenant, Christ the Lord, reconciliation, law and gospel, humanity old and new, biblical faith, God’s kingdom and rule, and ethics. The volume ends with an account of a holistic reading of Christian Scripture.