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3 - Like a finger pointing to the moon: exploring the Trinity in/and the New Testament

from Part II - Retrieving the sources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2011

By
Elaine M. Wainwright
Edited by
Peter C. Phan
Elaine M. Wainwright
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
Peter C. Phan
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

Exploring “Trinity in/and the New Testament” is a challenging task. Francis Watson points to some of those challenges when he summarizes certain trends in recent New Testament scholarship in relation to Trinity:

Modern biblical scholarship has no great love for the doctrine of the Trinity. It likes to warn its customers that, if they read a biblical text in the light of what was to become the orthodox Nicene theology of the fourth century, they will inevitably be committing the sin of anachronism. The doctrine of the Trinity should be left to church historians and systematic theologians: it has no place in “our” field.

Addressing the question of Trinity in the New Testament could, therefore, be seen among some biblical scholars as a retrospective act, one which entails a looking back anachronistically at first-century texts through the lens of a fourth-century doctrine. Such an approach can lead to survey articles which gather texts across the New Testament containing or hinting at “trinitarian formulae” or the naming of G*d as Father, Son, and Spirit. Recent scholarship has, however, challenged biblical scholars to undertake a more nuanced approach to the task. In this chapter, I propose to explore and lay out some of the contemporary hermeneutical and interpretive issues involved in the naming of G*d as Trinity and/in the New Testament, leading to an articulation of a multi-layered approach. The limitations of this chapter will, however, allow me the space to explore only the first layer of the approach, and I will do this through the gospel of Matthew. It is my hope that this limited beginning will encourage readers to explore further the rich and complex imaging of G*d in the New Testament, only some of which drew later theologians into naming G*d as triune.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity , pp. 33 - 48
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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