Well....no....not my opinion. It is a requirement in seminaries (one coukd nit, for example, use John Gill in an academic paper). So not an opinion, just an academic standard (and I know we are not academics).
But, like I said, a lot depends on the topic. A lot also depends on the reason a reference is used.
For example, a lot of the understanding Christians had regarding the 1st century Jewish concept of the law has been proven wrong by the discovery of 1st century writings from Jews concerning the law
Another example would be details about 1st century Jewish sects and their influence that we did nit know about until ancient writings from these sects were discovered.
Also theology develops over time.
You mentioned focusing less on systematic theology and more on biblical theology (focusing in a specific epistles, for examole, rather than doctrine derived using Scripture as a whole).
I think you would also be interested in historical theology as well. This does not realky related to understanding the Bible per se, but it does help in understanding doctrine. When I was younger this was a key study. Now I think people tend to ignore theological development and pretend their theology has always existed.
It is fascinating, to me anyway. We take the Doctrine of the Trinity at face value. But when developing the fuller doctrines they wrestled over using words like "person" and "nature". I think to us (to me, anyway) those words are obvious, but we grew up long after they were chosen and sometimes do not see how they could be an issue when applied to God (we know what they mean in the context of the doctrine).
You and I have talked about the Atonement. Do here is another example that you may appreciate mire:
We hear it occasionally said that John Calviin did not belueve in Limited Atonement. This is true, but it ignores an important truth. The issue of the scope of the Atonement was a question that came up after Calvin's death. It was built from Calvin's theology, but not until Beza systemically placed salvation under divine sovereignty (Calvin did not categorize salvation in that way).
Limited Atonement was never believed until after Calvin had died. BUT only because the question did not exist.
We cannot say where Calvin would stand on the doctrine. Some say since he wrote that Christ is the propitiation for all humanity excluding nobody he would reject the doctrine. I believe Limited Atonement is the necessary conclusion of his theology if the Scope of the Atonement is the topic, and he would probably affirm the doctrine. But we can't really know.
Theology always re-examine the theology that came before and tries to pick out what is true and remove tgat which is false. It has to because "we see now as through a glass, dimly). An unchanging theology is a dead faith.
Calvin did this with Anselm and Aquinas' work. Aquinas did this with Anselm's work. They ate what they saw as meat and spit out the bones.
You can even read about Calvin's development of Penal Substitution Theory in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (pay attention to Anselm's
Cur Deus Homo?). Calvin explains his reasoning.
Anyway, if you like Christian history I think you will enjoy historical theology.
The cool thing is we have the writings of many if these theologians and can see just what they were considering when they developed their doctrines.
