Disciplinary boundaries within the theological curriculum are a necessary concession to the complexity of the subject matter and the inevitable limitations of the individual scholar. It makes good pragmatic sense that one person should be a New Testament scholar, another a systematic theologian, and another an ethicist – so long as the boundaries remain open, ensuring freedom of movement between the disciplines. But where boundaries are closed, they define a subject matter which is now held to be the exclusive preserve of a single group of scholars. Communication between the disciplines is subject to severe restrictions. Thus, the New Testament scholar becomes incapable of serious theological reflection on the New Testament texts. The systematic theologian makes only cursory forays into the fields of the biblical scholar or ethicist, and may even believe that an apology is due for trespassing in someone else's professional domain. The ethicist may seek to develop a Christian ethical refiection that shows scant regard for any theological or biblical foundations. In this way, ‘theology’ becomes a flag of convenience for a number of related but basically autonomous disciplines. All sense that Christian theology is ultimately concerned with a single, simple subject matter disappears.

This book represents my third attempt to develop an interdisciplinary approach to biblical interpretation that refuses to be deterred by the warning notices that biblical scholars have posted at regular intervals along the boundaries of their discipline: notices that warn against allowing contemporary concerns to undermine the integrity of pure scholarship, and that prohibit all serious theological engagement with the biblical texts – on the grounds that such an engagement is inevitably partisan, confessional and divisive.