Drama of Scripture – The Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story

Drama of Scripture The Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story

The story of the Bible and its account of God's action in the world give meaning to our lives and provide us with the foundation for our actions. The Drama of Scripture is an introduction to the basic story line and theology of the Bible. In considering the biblical story, the authors emphasize the unity of the whole, viewing the Bible as a drama in six acts–creation, sin, Israel, Christ, church, and new creation. Two overarching themes tie the biblical story together–covenant in the Old Testament and kingdom in the New Testament. Throughout, the authors suggest, God is revealed through the story and calls us to participate in his drama.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Excellent introduction…
This little volume provides an excellent overview of the biblical narrative for those who have not yet been exposed to the cosmic-redemptive style reading of men like N.T. Wright. The authors offer a way of viewing the Bible as one continuous narrative from start to finish.

The book essentially tells the story of Scripture from beginning to end, emphasizing the idea of God redeeming all of creation through acts in history. This telling provides a helpful context for understanding the place of believers in world history, past and future.

The only downside is that the authors do not appropriately address the many judgement passages in Scripture. They briefly mention judgement at the end of time (only one sentence!) but focus almost exclusively on the more "positive" aspects of redemption. This is certainly not a fatal flaw, but in a book that attempts to lay out the entire narrative of Scripture, you would expect more explanation of the many judgement passages found in the prophets, apocalypses, and gospels.

Despite its neglect of the issue of judgement, this book is an excellent introduction to reading the Bible as one continuous story. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about how to read the Bible… especially if he/she intends to go to seminary or Bible college.

5 Stars Solid book on biblical theology
The Drama of Scripture is a solid book on biblical theology that traces the main themes of Covenant and Kingdom throughout Scripture. The six act structure made the book easy to follow and the writing was a straightforward read following the Biblical story line. If you are new to reading Biblical theology this book would be a great place to begin. It is not overly technical and provides the reader with a good understanding of the metanarrative (big picture) to help you understand the whole of Scripture. The believers place in God's story was touched upon to some degree, but was easily seen through deduction in other sections. The last emphasis was on missions and the future hope was of great encouragement.

3 Stars Covenant and Kingdom? What about Covenant and Christ?
The book begins by claiming to tell the "biblical story of redemption as a unified, coherent narrative of God's ongoing work within his kingdom" (pg 11). Telling the story of the Bible as such requires unifying themes from which each subsequent story can be told, lest God's story appear fragmented and purposeless. The themes posited by Bartholomew and Goheen are thus "covenant" (Old Testament) and "the kingdom of God" (New Testament) (pg 24). The biblical portrait they develop is therefore theme specific, told in relative terms to what they consider "the main door through which we can begin to enter the Bible and to see it as one whole and vast structure" (pg 24). In this review, at risk of failing to adequately summarize the book, I will argue that these themes are at least in need of more qualification, and perhaps even misleading, considering the fact that they serve as the basic premise to most the book's conclusions.

Bartholomew and Goheen seem to do little to qualify their position other than cite a few passages of scripture (all within one paragraph, pg 24) and briefly disqualify other themes as side entrances (within the same paragraph!). The very foundation of the book thus bears very little propositional qualification. The theme of "covenant" for the Old Testament seems more self-evident than does the "kingdom of God" theme for the New Testament. Though the ministry of Jesus was clearly focused on the theme of the kingdom of God, yet eighty-three of the ninety-seven occurrences of the phrase / (kingdom of God/heaven) occur in the Gospel narratives. That includes all the occurrences that could be eliminated as unoriginal through a synopsis of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Considering also that the Church has largely relied on Paul for its Christology and Soteriology–its interpretation of the Gospel–quickly disqualifying the "presence" theme of the New Testament seems precarious: "…entrances such as `promise' and `presence'…are helpful, but they are a bit like side chapels or side entrances rather than the main entrance" (pg 24). In fact, Paul uses the phrase "kingdom of God" a total of nine times in the New Testament, whereas his use of the phrase "in Christ" occurs an overwhelming eighty-eight times, which is indeed a strong case for the "presence" theme that Bartholomew and Goheen so readily dismiss.

If time and space permitted, it would be a worthy argument to challenge "presence" versus "kingdom of God" in vying for the theme of the New Testament. Suffice it here to address these themes with regard to their ends, for the purpose of, at least, gaining perspective and, at best, sobering the assumption that the "kingdom of God" is indisputably the central theme of the New Testament. Simply put, the argument of the quintessential New Testament theme being "kingdom of God" could very well fall into an "anthropo-centric" focus rather than a "Christo-centric" focus.

First, following the line of the "covenant" theme of the Old Testament, it is Christ himself, not the kingdom of God, who fulfills the Old Covenant and becomes, in effect, the New Covenant (Lk 22:20). The kingdom of God may perhaps be the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant (2 Sam 7), but it is only such insofar as Christ is the King of that fulfillment. Thus the nuance between King and kingdom need be distinguished. If one were to argue for the "presence" theme instead of the "kingdom of God," what might the case look like and what would its end be?

The "presence" as a theme for the New Testament encompasses the presence of God in Jesus Christ–Emmanuel–and the presence of God in the Holy Spirit. The "presence" theme centralizes God in Christ and God in the Holy Spirit not only as the main character, but also the main plot of the New Testament. Paul's tireless usage of "in Christ" (not to mention the author of Acts pressing insistence that everything the early church did was through the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit) further supports the presence theme as the necessary theme around which the New Testament is built. As such, the kingdom of God is a byproduct of the advent of Jesus Christ, and Christians exist in and live by the kingdom of God as a byproduct of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The "presence" theme as primary seems to draw attention "God-ward," whereas the "kingdom of God" theme as primary tends to draw the attention "human-ward," e.g. much of the rhetoric of the kingdom of God today uses language like "do" and "be" the "kingdom," rather than focusing on Christ himself as King, proclaiming the Kingdom through Christ, and following the King's servant example. In the presence theme one must interpret the kingdom of God through the lens of Jesus Christ; in the kingdom of God theme one must interpret Jesus Christ through the kingdom of God. Jesus becomes a means to an end, the King subject to His own kingdom.

This is not to imply that the kingdom of God is not a critically important theme of the New Testament, but rather that it does not seem to readily merit the status of The New Testament theme without proper qualification. Perhaps the safest assumption for The New Testament theme is the theme of "Jesus Christ." Christ Himself as the essential theme of the New Testament may seem like a simplistic treatment of the biblical story, but it is certainly the safest. By focusing on Christ as the theme the biblical story still has a focus on the kingdom of God (with Christ as King), the salvation of man (with Christ as Savior), the aid to the needy (with Christ as exemplar), covenants fulfilled (with Christ as the fulfillment), prophecies fulfilled (with Christ as the fulfillment), the role of the Church (with Christ as the Head), and the coming judgment (with Christ as the Judge). Christ-the-theme ties all the subsequent themes together. The kingdom of God theme does not seem adequate for the task.

(I wonder if their choice of the kingdom of God theme is based more on popular contemporary theology and today's trendiness as regards the kingdom of God than it is an attempt at an unbiased, agenda-less account of the biblical story.)

If you want a good summary of the bible (including the intertestamental period), this book may be good for you. If you already have a good understanding of the biblical time-line, you may find this book redundant. If you have a "kingdom of God" agenda, and are looking for a book to support your opinions, you may also find this book helpful.

5 Stars A Phenomonal Overview of Scripture
A very scholarly yet readable book that was brilliantly crafted to give us a picture of the story of God and where we are in it. I came across this book after reading somewhere that Rob Bell uses it in his church in Michigan.

This book is fantastic and will paint a picture of our role as Christ followers and what we can hope for in Christ's return.

I highly recommend this book.

4 Stars The Drama of Scripture
I enjoyed this book and am currently using it my Biblical Theology course at seminary. It builds largely off N.T. Wright's model of a 5 act play, but adds the 6th act of New Creation. It's a really good book that traces many big themes right throughout the Bible (Covenant and Kingdom are the main two). But at times it does little more than restate the story of the Bible rather than wrestle with the implications of it. There is only so much a book like this can cover without becoming a multivolume academic work. On the whole for some new to the idea of seeing scripture as one coherent story this would be the perfect introduction. But if you have already read the likes of Goldworthy's "According to Plan" or Strom's "Symphony of Scripture" there is little that is new.

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