There are a lot of parts to theology, and although over-specialization is always bad, some division of labor makes a lot of sense unless you’re personally interested in earning degrees in everything from Hittite to Herodias to Haplography to Heidegger’s Hermeneutics of Hegel’s Historicism. Here’s how I see the labor divided.

While the various theological disciplines are peers, each operating with their own independent and valid methodologies, there is also a kind of normative order to them which is dictated by the one object which they study in common. Because Christianity is based on scriptural revelation, the biblical disciplines have a decisive priority when it comes to engaging the content of the faith. As Scripture is absolutely primary, the disciplines which engage it directly are at the front of the line: exegesis and the field which calls itself biblical theology.
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