Perdue’s Chapter, “The Present Status of Old Testament Theology”, can be viewed as

a post-modern approach to studying and understanding the Old Testament. In this

Chapter, Perdue discusses schools of thought which mark a distinct shift from the
traditional, historical ways of studying the Old Testament which gene Merrill
discusses in the Chapter, “The Origins, Nature and Present State of Old Testament
Theology. This paper will discuss the two distinct views which the two theologians
discuss in their respective chapters then attempt to synthesize with approaches in
understanding the present task of Old Testament Theology.
According to Perdue, it is important in recognizing the new approaches and
discoveries made by theologians in analyzing the Old Testament text, as he explains
that, “new approaches and discoveries of the intensity and opulence of other
cultures and ways of being have challenged the once unrivalled epistemologies and
subsequent philosophies and theologies of the Enlightenment…” Perdue, recognizes
the emergence of the multiplicity of biblical interpretations which emerged as a
result of previously silenced voices contributing to shape what he understands to
be previously Eurocentric interpretations of the biblical texts. He argues that,
“Biblical theology has moved from the dominance of historical positivism, at one
time cultivated and honoured on the halls of the European and North American
Academie, into other types of discourse grounded in different philosophies as
varied as structuralism to net-marxism to deconstruction.”
Perdue, in this sense, adheres to the notion that uniformity has been
replaced with pluralism, because consequently the diversity in factors such as
culture, disciplines and methodologies have opened doors for the Old Testament to
be interpreted in diverse ways. He affirms that, “We have been awakened to the fact
that the subjective knower is heavily involved in shaping meaning and subsequently
the proposed interpretation.” In other words, his understanding of the the term
‘history’ is also largely shaped by those who historically shaped knowledge and the
personal agendas those in power had while shaping ‘history’. The Biblical text,
hence for him is one which now has moved from its historical, ‘dogmatic’ and one-
sided approach, to include perspectives which he asserts could be of help in aiding
one’s interpretation of the Old Testament text.
Perdue, however, does not deny the issues which accompany post-modern thinking. He
admits that Post-modern thinner, usually do away with historical understandings of
the Old Testament which makes it hard to formulate a critical representation of
Biblical theology. He admits that some post-modern thinkers have abandoned God,
while focussing their theories on anthropological and social deconstructions of the
Biblical text.
He upholds, nonetheless, that there has been an active revolt against “the
domination of history and the historical method in accessing the meaning of the
Hebrew Bible, and the birthing of Old Testament theology”.

Eugene Merrill, on the other hand, is unapologetic in embracing, what could be

argued as a more traditional conception of the Old Testament text.He argues in his
chapter, that “we must take the witness of the Old Testament test seriously both in
terms of its self-validating testimony as to its true nature as divine revelation.”
Merrill adheres to the concept of ‘presuppositional hermeneutics’ where he
presupposes that 1) God exists, and 2) God has revealed Himself through His Word.
Merrill asserts that, “we should not apologize for presupposing the very truths
that theology is supposed to demonstrate”.
Furthermore, Merrill takes a contrary approach to Perdue, in regards to the
Biblical text vis-a-vis its interaction with history. Whereas Perdue upholds the
view that history is subjective, Merrill on the other hand agrees that 1) History
provides a time line against which the progress of defined revelation can be
plotted, and 2) It supplies instances of events which the interpreting word
contribute to a fuller understanding of the nature of the Lord and of his workings
among mankind.
In other words, to completely do away with the traditional importance of
history within the text, according to Merrill is to do a way with an integral, and
perhaps more central understanding of how God is reveals Himself throughout
scripture. According to Merrill, the study of the biblical narrative is imperative
in understanding God’s Nature in the Hebrew text.
Merrill, hence, upholds to the integrity and authority of the biblical text and
questions the validity of the post-modern theological approaches to studying the
Old Testament text. He argues that ‘evangelical theologians’ are not adequate, one
of the reasons is that their forms of systemizing is one through which they face
the biblical materials in a mode for which they were never intended, and another is
that some theologies leave large parts of the cannon out because their centres
cannot accommodate them.