Frank Viola
It takes a good bit of research. We do have some anchors, certain events that did happen historically during the first century that we’re certain of. And so those anchors serve as certainties. But then scholars will have a consensus on certain letters say that Paul wrote, and then they’ll have debates over others. What I’ve done is I’ve read it all, and I cite all the scholars in the footnotes when I make a determination.
For example, I believe with N.T. Wright and Craig Keener and some others that Paul’s first letter was Galatians. Well, I make a case for that. I give my reasoning. I cite the scholars who believe that, but then also I will share alternatives. I will cite those who disagree and give the reasons for that, so the reader is really going to be educated if they want to get into the weeds on some of this stuff. They can look at the notes and see why I’ve made certain conclusions and what other scholars say about it, both for and against.
But the difficult part is doing all the research and then looking at it and weighing what seems to be the most plausible. There’s a consensus on most of it among scholars, particularly evangelical scholars. There’s some room for debate. And again, I cite the scholars who may disagree, and I gave their reasoning so that people get a whole, full orbed understanding of the debates. But that doesn’t affect the actual reading of the narrative. A person can ignore the footnotes and just read the narrative, and it’s very easy to read, and it reads almost like a novel, because you’re right there watching it unfold.
You’re there with Paul, you’re there with Peter, you’re there with James. You’re feeling what they’re feeling, but it’s all rooted in New Testament scholarship and very solid history.
David Capes
It sounds like this is something that could be made into a movie. It’s so well written and so well put together that you could do a screenplay from this. Show everybody how it works. That wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. When you wrote this, what kind of audience were you thinking about? Were you thinking about a scholarly audience? Were you thinking about lay people, or people in the pew? What was your thought?
Frank Viola
No, I was not thinking about scholars. My target audience are every single Christian who wants to understand the New Testament in a new, fresh and powerful way, and to really understand accurately, what really happened. Who were the Galatians? Where was Paul when he wrote it? What was he feeling? And then, after he sent that letter, where did he go next, and what happened. When we get to 1 Thessalonians, what was going on in that particular fellowship where he had to write that letter. Where was he? What was he going through? All these things are so necessary to understand what the New Testament is saying.
For example, when Paul entered Corinth, he said, I came to you in fear and trembling, Well, unless you know the story, (the background of that which I tell, because I give it all in chronological order), you really don’t understand what he was feeling, what he was being tempted with, the problems that he faced in Corinth right before it happened. All of this is so important and so vital, and that’s my main target now. I also have in mind scholars and pastors and intelligent readers who are asking questions like, where are you getting this from, Viola? How are you concluding this? You know, what are you basing this on? And that’s what the footnotes are for. They’re for the readers who have the questions.
Because the fact is, David, most of the time when we hear the New Testament being taught, we don’t know the story, we don’t know the background. We may get a little bit of it, but often times it’s incorrect. For example, I did a whole series on 1 Thessalonians, and as I was preparing for that, I began to look at what some other well-known teachers were saying about it. And they all basically made this fundamental mistake, and that is, they thought Paul was in Thessalonica for three weeks only because the book of Acts said he went to the synagogue for three Sabbath days. Well he was in Thessalonica a lot longer than that. That might be a minor thing, but it’s an example of how we have to be very careful to put what’s in the Epistles together with the book of Acts.
Because Luke, when he writes Acts, he compresses the narrative. He doesn’t tell you the whole story, but you have a lot of it in the epistles. When you piece it together, you have this beautiful saga that emerges. And what happens is, it unlocks the New Testament. You begin to read the New Testament, and say now I understand what Paul was saying. This makes sense now. I get it now. And so it’s really helped a lot of people. Including people who are in in the field of scholarship, because this is very rarely done. As you said when we were offline, that you’re not aware of any work that has done this. Well, two first rate scholars made the same comment, which I find very humbling. Personally, I wrote it because this is the book I want to read, but that doesn’t exist. And I felt like, since it doesn’t exist, I’ll put my hand to it and do the best I can. And that’s what has emerged, the untold story of the New Testament church.
David Capes
So how long did this project take you start to finish?
Frank Viola
Believe it or not, I started this whole field of research, trying to understand what happened in the first century, and putting the story together chronologically in 1998. I’ve been working on it since then. So three decades. When I got down to the part of the project of actually sitting down and writing and footnoting and telling the story. Virtually every day I was working on this book. So, it’s been a major lift. But I’m so thankful it’s over, and I just want the Lord’s people to be blessed by it. I was riveted by the story. It revolutionized my understanding of the New Testament, and I want God’s people to have the same experience.
David Capes
We’re talking to Frank Viola. He has written a terrific book called The Untold Story of the New Testament Church, revised and expanded. Now we’ve got to think about the next edition. This is a long-term project. I know that it sounds like something your heart has been into for a long time. I had the great fortune of reading it and endorsing it, but you’ve had other scholars who have read it and endorsed it as well. Who are some of those folks?
Frank Viola
Well, I have been so blessed and so thankful to the Lord that I was able to present this to some of the scholars I respect, and thankfully, most of them had the time to read the manuscript and endorse it. But Craig Keener, who I have the utmost respect for, wrote the forward, and it is simply outstanding. It’s worth the price of the book, in my judgment. Others like Darrell Bock, and Michael Licona. I think you had him on the podcast.
David Capes
Yes, he’s been on. I taught with Mike Licona at Houston Baptist University a number of years ago.
Frank Viola
He endorsed it. Joel B Green, Mark Strauss, Paul Barnett, Constantine Campbell, Eckhard Schnabel, David de Silva, Jeffrey Wyman, and many others.
David Capes
Wow, you’ve got some heavy hitters there.
Frank Viola
Yeah, actually 20 in all.
David Capes
And they’re from various continents. Con Campbell is from Australia. As a lot of people know he’s been on my other podcast called, “Exegetically Speaking.” He is a phenomenal musician. He’s a phenomenal talent.
I want to change gears here a little bit. You’re writing for Christians who are really hungry for this kind of connection and narrative. How does your book relate to theology proper. You’ve done historical work here, putting things together, putting it in chronological order. That’s hard historical work, but there’s a theology at work here too. Tell us about that.
Frank Viola
I think when we look at the issue of theology, two major theologies dominate the Christian world. One of them is systematic theology, which is the most common, but another one is narrative theology. What systematic theology does is attempt to organize religious beliefs into a coherent, logical system of doctrines. It arranges the theological concepts by topic. You’ve got categories like God, humanity, sin, salvation and the church.
By contrast, narrative theology focuses on understanding God and His Kingdom primarily through the story. It seeks to understand His purpose, His work, His ways through the overarching narrative of Scripture. It focuses on the story of the Bible rather than emphasizing doctrinal statements and propositions. Now, given its topical nature, systematic theology relies on reading the Bible through the lens of chapters and verses, while narrative theology looks at the entire saga chronologically. My book is a work of narrative theology.
Let me give an example to listeners to make this concrete. My sainted wife loves puzzles. I can’t do them. I will not do them. They’re too frustrating for me. But she excels in puzzles, and she buys 500-piece puzzles and even 1000-piece puzzles, and she always completes them. Now, her major guide for completing the puzzle is the picture displayed on the box of the completed product. If you try assembling a puzzle, a 500-piece or 1000-piece puzzle without the image on the box, you inevitably are going to force pieces that do not fit with one another. And this is precisely, in my view why reformed systematic theology, Arminian systematic theology, Anglican systematic theology, Baptist systematic theology, charismatic systematic theology, all differ from one another.
In my view, a systematic theology should only be created after a narrative reading of the scripture in chronological order is secured. If not, then the cut and paste approach, where we cut chapters and verses out of different books of the Bible and paste them together, that approach begins to dominate. That’s what we have in the Christian world today, people, teachers, students, cutting and pasting verses from different books of the Bible to build doctrines. But when we learn the chronological order and we see the narrative as a whole, what it does David, is hems us in. It tethers us to the truth, because now we have the picture on the box, and those pieces that you know don’t fit together anymore, now they start to fit. That’s what I have found in my own experience, and I think, and I hope
readers will have that same experience.
David Capes
That’s a great analogy. It honestly is because I think sometimes, we put pieces together that actually don’t work. They don’t fit completely; they don’t fit well. Maybe it’s satisfying at the moment, because it fits our prearranged ideas. We’ve got this bias ahead of time, so it’s got to fit this particular bias. Great, great analogy. I really like that. I might have to keep that in mind. I may steal that.
Frank Viola
That’s okay. You can steal it!
David Capes
You know, I just finished a book a while back called Matthew through Old Testament Eyes. I knew the ideas, the thing I wanted to talk about in the book, but there were a lot of times when I was researching the book and looking into it that I found and discovered things that I didn’t know were there. It’s like there are certain things when you say, Eureka, I found it. I didn’t know this before I started this project, but I’m glad to know it now. Did you have some of those kind of moments as you wrote this book?
Frank Viola
I had so many of those moments that I’ve lost count, but I can share a few, if you’d like.
David Capes
Sure. Absolutely. Yes [in the next podcast].
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
