G.K. Beale's "A New Testament Biblical Theology" -- 2012 Reading Group discussion

I finished the book (finally) on Feb. 10. Getting ready to write my review.

Anyone have some last thoughts on the book? I know Craig finished it a few months before me. Did everyone else finish it?

Overall the book was great. As everyone has said, it is the most thorough defense of amill eschatology out there. Even though I have not swallowed that pill I found much to benefit from.

Having read his Handbook on the NT use of the OT after this book I wish Baker would have published it first. It would have helped the reader see why he makes some of the exegetical and allegorical/typological connections he does.

There were a lot of parts I felt he overstated his case on and the book could have been better without.

Other than that I liked the book and it gave me much to think about.

I don't agree that the book is a super long defense of amillennial theology. It is much more than that. He shows how eschatology shapes theology from a NT perspective. I think his work is quite persuasive and he is sufficiently nuanced and tentative in some of his assertions, where warranted. His inaugarated eschatology could mesh with historic premil thought fairly nicely in many respects too. But as for a continued hard-and-fast separation between Israel and the church, as put forth by classical and revised dispensationalists, I do think his book puts the nail in the coffin of that view. Progressive dispensationalists, New covenant theology, historical covenant theology, and Beale's own view (somewhere between the last two positions), unite in opposing this classic dispensational credo. I think the weight of Scripture is with them and against the former dispensational view.

I would definitely agree that the book is more than a defense of amill eschatology, though I think it runs throughout. To reduce it to that one would have to ignore so much of the book. I loved his defense of inaugurated eschatology to which I don't think there is a good argument against.

Like I said, I wish his handbook had been released first.