Wildernesses appear throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and play a major role in the narratives of Israel and Jesus. Wilderness is also an effective way of conceiving of the lives of believers in both testaments as a sojourn between our past redemption and final rest. Yet, especially compared with that other pivotal moment in the history of biblical Israel, namely, exile, the theme of wilderness is neglected in the study of biblical theology. To redress this neglect, this paper seeks to answer seven questions: (1) What is biblical theology? (2) What is a theme? (3) What associations does the image of wilderness evoke in the Bible? (4) How does wilderness function as a liminal space? (5) How do the themes of wilderness and exile relate to each other? (6) What is the purpose of Israel’s archetypal wilderness wandering? And (7) what are the contours of wilderness as a theme in biblical theology?
There are several reasons that support the full flowering of wilderness in the Bible. First, wilderness in the Bible is both a foundational event in the formation of the nation Israel – narrated at length, memorialized and internalized – and also an image; as an image it carries a wide range of both negative and positive associations and is capable of many and varied applications. Secondly, wilderness in the Bible is part of the social imaginary of the people of God. Social imaginary, a term coined by Charles Taylor, refers to the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations. Thirdly, wilderness in the Bible informs the narrative identity of the people of God. Israel’s archetypal wilderness experience was imprinted on the nation’s collective memory and was part of the shared story of both Israel and the church. The strength of wilderness as a theme in biblical theology can be seen in the way it contributes to a comprehensive answer to the question of the identity of the people of God.
The biblical-theological theme of wilderness provides a thick description of the Christian life and has connections to many standard biblical motifs and topoi, including redemption, testing, disobedience, judgment, discipline, perseverance, following Jesus, obedience, faith, hardship, provision, renewal, sonship, and hope.