Abstract
Both of these works come from seasoned scholars who have a commanding knowledge of the field. Eugene Boring is Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University, and Donald Hagner is Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. Both appreciate the importance of history and theology for interpreting the New Testament. Both have written excellent introductions to the New Testament. But their works are very different in terms of their structure and assessment of the writings of the New Testament.
The structure of Hagner’s work is more traditional than that of Boring. After considering the theological meaning of the New Testament, he orders his work according to the following headings: “The Proclamation of the Kingdom” (the message of Jesus, form and redaction criticism, the Synoptic Problem, the four Gospels), “The Earliest Teaching of the Kingdom” (the Acts of the Apostles), “The Interpretation of the Kingdom” (Paul and his epistles), “Extending the Teaching of the Apostles” (the Deutero-Pauline letters), “Non-Pauline Christianity” (Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles), and “The Consummation of the Kingdom” (the book of Revelation). He then concludes his work with a discussion of the text and canon of the New Testament. By following the overall order of the New Testament, this structure provides readers a theological understanding of the New Testament.
The structure of Boring’s work is different. Noting that the New Testament has a bipartite structure, essentially composed of Epistles and Gospels, he orders his work along these generic lines. Accordingly, after considering a number of preliminary issues such as the nature of the New Testament, textual criticism, translations, the Hellenistic and Jewish world, Jesus and Judaism, Jesus and Paul, Boring investigates the epistolary writings of the New Testament (the Pauline letters, Hebrews, and the Catholic Epistles) before considering the Gospel literature. This structure, he maintains, shows students that in addition to relating its message through the story of Jesus, the New Testament has an extensive tradition that expresses the faith in its epistolary writings, the Johannine writings being the sole tradition that combines both forms.
There are other differences between these two works, and the following are the most important. Whereas Boring provides his readers a detailed outline of every book of the New Testament, Hagner does not, claiming that he has never found other people’s outlines very useful. However, I found Boring’s outlines insightful. Again, whereas Boring provides his readers with a mini-commentary on each writing in order to communicate the theology of the New Testament, Hagner highlights particular themes. In this regard I found Boring’s approach tedious at times and Hagner’s more enlightening. Both authors present their readers with current bibliographies and detailed footnotes that deal with more technical matters; Hagner’s bibliographies are more extensive. Both authors spend a great deal of time on the question of authorship, presenting arguments for and against the authorship of disputed writings such as Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, the Pastoral Letters, and the Catholic Epistles. But whereas Hagner is more inclined to leave the door open and say that a writing such as Ephesians is possibly by Paul but more probably by a disciple of Paul, Boring closes the door on Pauline authorship. Likewise, whereas Hagner is inclined to respect and follow early church traditions about the authorship of the Gospels, Boring is not. In a similar vein, whereas Hagner tends to follow Acts in his outline of Paul’s career, Boring does not. It would be a mistake, however, to label Hagner’s work conservative and uncritical and Boring’s liberal and critical. Both authors are astute scholars who make strong and reasoned arguments for their positions. The differences between them, I suspect, are grounded in their understanding of the New Testament as Scripture.
Despite the differences between these two works, there are a number of points on which they agree. For example, both insist on the need for a historical-critical approach to the New Testament, and both defend Markan priority and the two-source theory as the best way to address the Synoptic Problem, given the data at hand. Both works view Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pastorals in a positive light rather than as a retreat from the authentic Pauline tradition represented by the non-disputed letters. And both have helpful and positive discussions about the phenomenon of “early Catholicism” in the New Testament. Both works provide readers helpful accounts of the transmission of the text, textual criticism, and the development of the canon. Finally, and most importantly, both writers value and deal with the theological meaning of the New Testament.
In addition to the differences and similarities I have highlighted, a word needs to be said about the distinctive contribution of each volume. Hagner’s work is the more traditional of the two in terms of format and expectation. The manner in which it orders its material, however, presents a theological understanding of the New Testament that begins with the proclamation of the Kingdom in the Gospels, considers the earliest preaching of the church as recounted in Acts, and then the interpretation of the message of the Kingdom in the epistolary literature of the New Testament. Boring’s work is more creative and daring in its presentation, helping readers to understand the story of the New Testament itself; that is to say, how different traditions coalesced into the book we now call the New Testament. Most interesting to me was Boring’s discussion in chapter seventeen about Rome and the consolidation of traditions, where he argues for the Roman provenance of 1 Peter and Hebrews. In the next chapter he maintains that the letters of James, Jude, and 2 Peter also fall within this Roman orbit. Finally, he suggests that it was Luke’s updating of Mark and issuing it “in combination with Acts that finally made the Gospel form current among Roman Christians” (p. 593). If Boring’s assessment is correct, it would appear that Roman Christianity played a more formative role in early Christianity and the growth of the New Testament than is usually thought.
These are two very good introductions that will serve seminary and graduate students well. Those who come out of an evangelical tradition would do well to spend some time with Boring’s work as well as Hagner’s. Those who study in a university setting would do well to spend some time with Hagner’s work as well as Boring’s. For, while each author covers the same material, they carry out their task in different ways, thereby showing that there are many ways to approach the New Testament and the introductory questions that must be addressed if we are to understand its message today.