Secondary Literature

Obituaries & Biographies

Some of the more major obituaries and remembrances include:

  • John Ahn, “A Reflection on Brevard Childs,” SBL Forum.
  • Frank Brown, “Brevard S. Childs, an iconic figure in biblical scholarship, dies at 83,” Yale Divinity School news.
  • Stephen Chapman, “How Scripture Speaks,” Christian Century 124/18 (September 4, 2007) 8-9.
  • Rolf Rendtorff, “Brevard S. Childs, 1923-2007,” Kirche und Israel 23 (2008) 99-102.
  • Christopher Seitz, “Brevard S. Childs (1923-2007),” SBL Forum.

I collected many online notices of Childs’ death, and wrote an early tribute of my own. There are a few other biographical pieces available. One for EBR is available on this site.

Festschriften

Christopher R. Seitz and Kathryn Greene-McCreight, eds. Theological Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.

Gene M. Tucker, David L. Petersen, and Robert R. Wilson, eds. Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.

Dissertations, Monographs & Major Treatments

My “Brevard Childs: The Logic of Scripture’s Textual Authority” (PhD thesis, University of St Andrews, 2009) is embargoed until 2012 and will be available online after that. The extensively revised, published edition (Brevard Childs, Biblical Theologian) is much to be preferred.

Xun, Chen. Theological Exegesis in the Canonical Context: Brevard Springs Childs’ Methodology of Biblical Theology. Studies in Biblical Literature 137. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. (I learned of this book’s existence the week after mine went to press.)

Lyons, William John. Canon and Exegesis: Canonical Praxis and the Sodom Narrative. JSOTSupp 352. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002.

Steins, Georg. Die “Bindung Isaaks” im Kanon (Gen 22): Grundlagen und Programm einer Kanonisch-Intertextuellen Lektüre. Herders Biblische Studien 20. Freiburg: Herder, 1999.

Barr, James. The Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old Testament Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999.

Claassen, Gustav Fredrich. “Die kanoniese benadering van B.S. Childs (Afrikaans).” DD thesis, University of Pretoria, 1996. Freely available online, with an English abstract.

Noble, Paul R. The Canonical Approach: A Critical Reconstruction of the Hermeneutics of Brevard S. Childs. Biblical Interpretation Series 16. Leiden: Brill, 1995.

Brett, Mark G. Biblical Criticism in Crisis? The Impact of the Canonical Approach on Old Testament Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Scalise, Charles. “Canonical Hermeneutics: The Theological Basis and Implications of the Thought of Brevard S Childs.” PhD thesis, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1987. For a convenient summary see idem., “Canonical Hermeneutics: Childs and Barth.” Scottish Journal of Theology 47 (1994): 61–88. |doi|

Oeming, Manfred. Gesamtbiblische Theologien der Gegenwart: Das Verhältnis von AT und NT in der hermeneutischen Diskussion seit Gerhard von Rad. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: W Kohlhammer, 1987. Repr. in Das Alte Testament als Teil des christlichen Kanons? Studien zu gesamtbiblischen Theologien der Gegenwart. Zürich: Pano, 2001.

Barton, John. Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1984.

Barr, James. Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Further Bibliography

Walter Moberly’s The Theology of the Book of Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009) contains some interesting perspective from one who has long followed Childs’ work.

Jörg Barthel, “Die kanonhermeneutische Debatte seit Gerhard von Rad: Anmerkungen zu neueren Entwürfen” (pages 1–26 in Kanonhermeneutik: Vom Lesen und Verstehen der christlichen Bibel [Bernd Janowski, ed.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2007]), gives a higly competent overview of Childs’ thought, a few quibbles on my part notwithstanding.

Ian Provan’s still interesting “Canons to the Left of Him: Brevard Childs, His Critics, and the Future of Old Testament Theology,” Scottish Journal of Theology 50 (1997): 1–38 |doi| has been discussed, partly in critique, in Christopher Seitz, The Goodly Fellowship of the Prophets: The Achievement of Association in Canon Formation (Baker Academic, 2009). Among Seitz’s other major works pertaining to Childs, Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture (Westminster John Knox, 2001) should not be missed.

Insufficient attention has been paid to the collection of essays in Ephraim Radner and George Sumner, eds., The Rule of Faith: Scripture, Canon, and Creed in a Critical Age (Harrisburg, Pa.: Morehouse Publishers, 1998).

A crucial German-language collection is: Christoph Dohmen and Thomas Söding, eds., Eine Bibel — zwei Testamente: Positionen biblischer Theologie (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1995).

Rolf Rendtorff wrote the single most important review of Childs’ magnum opus: Review of Brevard Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie 9 (1994): 359–369. And while you’re tracking down JBTh, be sure to note issue 3 (1988), Zum Problem des biblischen Kanons.

Still Further

With a broadly international focus, Charles Conroy’s online bibliography Brevard S. Childs and Biblical Theology is exemplary. See also his list for gesamtbiblische Theologie more generally.

Finally, for those really digging in, try the finding guide for The Brevard S. Childs Manuscript Collection (Special Collections, Princeton Seminary).