Although relatively few in number, the New Testament’s explicit summaries of the Old Testament story (e.g., Acts 7, Rom 9–11, and Heb 11) give readers direct access into the way the earliest Christians told Israel’s story, which is to say, into the way they did biblical theology. These curiously-overlooked summaries are the subject of this study.
The first part focuses on the summaries of Israel’s story in the Synoptic Gospels, the second on Paul, the third on Hebrews, and [tentatively] the fourth on John (Revelation 12). All this, together, suggests just how valuable a lens these summaries provide for a clearer vision of the earliest Christians’ practice of biblical theology.
The authors’ ultimate goal is to move beyond the descriptive to the prescriptive, to show how contemporary readers can and should follow the apostles' example.
