[ { "key": "V82EH8W4", "version": 79, "library": { "type": "group", "id": 14585, "name": "Paul", "links": { "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/groups/paul", "type": "text/html" } } }, "links": { "self": { "href": "https://api.zotero.org/groups/14585/items/V82EH8W4", "type": "application/json" }, "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/groups/paul/items/V82EH8W4", "type": "text/html" } }, "meta": { "createdByUser": { "id": 4239, "username": "benbyerly", "name": "Ben Byerly, PhD", "links": { "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/benbyerly", "type": "text/html" } } }, "creatorSummary": "Worthington", "parsedDate": "2013-06-01", "numChildren": 0 }, "data": { "key": "V82EH8W4", "version": 79, "itemType": "journalArticle", "title": "Alternative Perspectives beyond the Perspectives: A Summary of Pauline Studies that has Nothing to Do with Piper or Wright", "creators": [ { "creatorType": "author", "firstName": "Bruce", "lastName": "Worthington" } ], "abstractNote": "Given the overwhelming scholarly attention directed towards the Old and New Perspectives within the Pauline Studies guild, much worthwhile Pauline scholarship continues to float beneath or beyond our interpretive radar. Recent post-colonial, ecotheological and philosophical reappraisals of Paul are changing the way we do business—with some interesting alternative conclusions. As a ‘state of play’ synopsis, this article seeks to summarize ways in which alternative discourses like (1) continental philosophy, (2) ecological hermeneutics, (3) post-colonial/gender reconstructions, and (4) social-scientific theory can shed a necessary, nuanced light on Paul and his continued relevance beyond the duelling perspectives. However, I conclude by suggesting that most alternative ‘reconstructions’ significantly rely on the notion of early Christian egalitarian purity, and thus only confirm a modern liberal inclination to establish original, untainted, pure, Christian origins.", "publicationTitle": "Currents in Biblical Research", "publisher": "", "place": "", "date": "2013-06-01", "volume": "11", "issue": "3", "section": "", "partNumber": "", "partTitle": "", "pages": "366-387", "series": "", "seriesTitle": "", "seriesText": "", "journalAbbreviation": "CBR", "DOI": "10.1177/1476993X12473407", "citationKey": "", "url": "http://cbi.sagepub.com/content/11/3/366", "accessDate": "2013-06-15T14:15:15Z", "PMID": "", "PMCID": "", "ISSN": "1476-993X, 1745-5200", "archive": "", "archiveLocation": "", "shortTitle": "Alternative Perspectives beyond the Perspectives", "language": "en", "libraryCatalog": "cbi.sagepub.com", "callNumber": "", "rights": "", "extra": "", "tags": [ { "tag": "Badiou", "type": 1 }, { "tag": "Marxist", "type": 1 }, { "tag": "Paul", "type": 1 }, { "tag": "ecological", "type": 1 }, { "tag": "post-colonial", "type": 1 }, { "tag": "Žižek", "type": 1 } ], "collections": [], "relations": {}, "dateAdded": "2014-02-07T12:58:01Z", "dateModified": "2014-02-07T14:25:44Z" } }, { "key": "RUJJEP94", "version": 78, "library": { "type": "group", "id": 14585, "name": "Paul", "links": { "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/groups/paul", "type": "text/html" } } }, "links": { "self": { "href": "https://api.zotero.org/groups/14585/items/RUJJEP94", "type": "application/json" }, "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/groups/paul/items/RUJJEP94", "type": "text/html" }, "up": { "href": "https://api.zotero.org/groups/14585/items/6PACH5M7", "type": "application/json" } }, "meta": { "createdByUser": { "id": 4239, "username": "benbyerly", "name": "Ben Byerly, PhD", "links": { "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/benbyerly", "type": "text/html" } } }, "numChildren": 0 }, "data": { "key": "RUJJEP94", "version": 78, "parentItem": "6PACH5M7", "itemType": "note", "note": "

A revision of the author's thesis (doctoral--Eberhard Karl University, 1991) presented (and published) under title: Die Frühzeit des Apostels Paulus

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Contents

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Ekkehard W. Stegemann. Robert Jewett. Neil Elliott. Mark D. Nanos. Ian E. Rock. Kathy Ehrensperger -- Calvin J. Roetzel. Robert L. Brawley. Jerry L. Sumney. J. Brian Tucker. Kar Yong Lim -- Daniel Patte. Terence L. Donaldson. Magnus Zetterholm Exploring theologizing, politics, and identity in Romans. Coexistence and transformation : reading the politics of identity in Romans in an imperial context / The anthropological implications of the revelation of wrath in Romans / Paul's political Christology : samples from Romans / 'Callused', not 'hardened' : Paul's revelation of temporary protection until all Israel can be healed / Another reason for Romans : a pastoral response to Augustan imperial theology : Paul's use of the Song of Moses in Romans 9-11 and 14-15 / 'Called to be saints' : the identity-shaping dimension of Paul's priestly discourse in Romans / Pauline themes in context. Paul and nomos in the Messianic age / From reflex to reflection? : identity in Philippians 2.6-11 and its context / 'Christ died for us' : interpretation of Jesus' death as a central element of the identity of the earliest church / Baths, baptism, and patronage : the continuing role of Roman social identity in Corinth / Paul's use of temple imagery in the Corinthian correspondence : the creation of Christian identity / Discourses of interpretation in context. Three types of identity formation for Paul as servant of Christ Jesus in Romans / The juridical, the participatory and the 'new perspective' on Paul / Jews, Christians, and Gentiles : rethinking the categorization within the early Jesus movement

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Moo Themelios Review (Dec. 2012)

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http://thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/review/jesus_have_i_loved_but_paul_a_narrative_approach_to_the_problem_of_pau

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J. R. Daniel Kirk, assistant professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, thinks that too many Christians view the teaching of the Apostle Paul as he himself once did: full of rigid theological prescriptions, focused on the internal transformation of individuals at the expense of communal concerns, endorsing an authoritarian status quo at the expense of liberation. In response, Kirk invites readers to follow in his own footsteps by embracing an alternative reading of Paul. Our understanding of Paul (not Paul himself, Kirk stresses) must be \"deconstructed\" (p. 6). The means of this deconstruction is a narrative reading of Paul that sets his teaching within the story of Israel and maintains close contact with the teaching of Jesus.

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In the first four chapters of the book, Kirk develops his approach. In a move that typifies the entire book, Kirk begins with the Gospels, which, he argues, stand in strong continuity with the story of Israel in the OT. The vision of holistic redemption that affects the entire creation in the Gospel narratives demands that evangelicals move beyond a concern with forgiveness of sins and the salvation of the individual to embrace a bigger understanding of \"gospel\" that includes establishing Christ's lordship over the entire earth and the redeemed community that Christ seeks to create. Read through a narrative lens, Paul's letters can be understood to fall into line closely with these Gospel-emphases.

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In the next five chapters, Kirk applies this approach to four matters. Inclusion is a fundamental Pauline emphasis, one to which Paul's teaching on justification, properly interpreted, contributes significantly (note here Kirk's earlier book, Unlocking Romans [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008]). [Editor's note: Jason Meyerreviewed this book in Themelios 35.1.] The hierarchical view of gender roles often attributed to Paul can be modified and brought into line with other \"liberative\" texts in Paul and, importantly, with the testimony of the Gospels, when the concern to avoid undue offense in the first-century culture is factored into our interpretation. The same concern explains the apparent endorsement of social hierarchy in some Pauline texts. Fundamental to Paul's vision of redemption is a community of equals that actively pursues social justice-a vision that continues the strong emphasis on social justice in the teaching of Jesus. Finally, Kirk outlines Paul's sexual ethics from the standpoint of his narrative reading. Paul, as Jesus, is fundamentally concerned with faithfulness within marriage.

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The arguments of Kirk's book will be familiar to those who have followed the writings of N. T. Wright, Scot McKnight, and John Franke (all quoted favorably). And, of course, there is much to be said for a movement that seeks to connect more effectively Paul with Jesus and both with their Jewish world. There is no doubt, also, that the problems all these scholars are trying to rectify-a preoccupation with the individual, a simplistic reading of Scripture that misses its larger themes, a focus on correct thinking to the neglect of faithful living-are genuine problems (even if not so widespread or blatant as Kirk's caricatures would suggest). Looked at in this light, Kirk's book is a useful corrective to certain unfortunate tendencies in some pockets of evangelicalism-a corrective that, by the way, is to be commended for its accessibility to a wide audience.

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However, Kirk's attempt to rescue Paul from a certain imbalance creates an imbalance of its own. Arguing for a \"narrative dynamic\" in Paul is popular these days, and no doubt justified to the extent that a grand narrative underlies Paul's thinking about the significance of Christ. But Paul does not write narratives; he composes arguments that take up the stuff of this narrative. Kirk gives too little attention to specific statements (yes, even \"propositions\") in which Paul claims to provide definitive interpretation of this narrative and to specific commands and prohibitions by which Paul seeks to frame the way believers are to live out this narrative. To his credit, Kirk is well aware that his interpretive method-and especially, perhaps, the issues he chooses to emphasize-is open to the charge that he is reading certain contemporary cultural emphases into the letters of Paul (see pp. 138-39, 202). But his awareness of the problem does not mean he escapes it.

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I am especially puzzled by his treatment of homosexuality at the end of the book. He accurately notes the clear condemnation of homosexuality in Paul, dismisses the claim that Jesus's silence on the issue should be determinative for us, notes that Paul is at this point running against his culture (in contrast to his apparent endorsement of patriarchy and slavery), and admits that we have no evidence of a Pauline endorsement of homosexuality. Clear enough, I would have thought. And yet Kirk then opens the door to the possibility that faithful homosexual unions may, after all, find a place within authentic Christian living. Faced with the pretty clear evidence that Kirk himself amasses, I found general and vague appeal to biblical principles to suggest that we might reconsider \"the finality of the biblical depiction of heterosexual marriage as the only viable Christian option\" (p. 185) to be quite unconvincing.

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More generally, and more seriously, Kirk's approach to this issue may manifest his fundamental approach to biblical authority. Without minimizing the very real issues about our ability \"objectively\" to read Scripture, well known to all of us by now, I think Kirk's tendency to diminish the authoritative voice of Scripture (p. 7)-or perhaps, in practice, the authority of particular pronouncements within Scripture-may play a role in his rather incoherent treatment of this issue.

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Douglas J. Moo
Wheaton College
Wheaton, Illinois, USA

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J. Brian Tucker Review

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Friday 18 May 2012

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http://identityformation.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/review-of-paul-and-second-century.html

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Review of Paul and the Second Century

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Paul and the Second Century. Edited by Michael F. Bird and Joseph R. Dodson. Library of New Testament Studies 412. London: T & T Clark, 2011, xii+270 pp., $140.00, hardcover.
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Paul and the Second Century, edited by Michael F. Bird and Joseph R. Dodson, provides its readers with key content in order to discern the earliest interpretive trajectories for the Pauline discourse. Joseph R. Dodson, in the “Introduction,” discusses the context of the second century churches. He introduces four convictions that are endemic of proto-orthodoxy and discusses the various ways Paul’s letters and person influenced the development of Christian identity. Paul’s letters were pliable enough to be used in diverse contexts to support divergent viewpoints.
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          Stanley E. Porter supports the theory that the Pauline epistles were gathered together as copies were made when the original letters were written. Since an original collection of thirteen letters is evident from the mid-60s in Rome, the second century was not specifically germane. Carl B. Smith looks at the way Paul’s teaching, not just his life, formed the basis of Ignatius’s theology. Smith recognizes Paul’s influence in four areas: “Christology, Jewish practices among followers of Jesus, the role of the bishop in the Christian church, and suffering and martyrdom” (41). However, in some places Ignatius closely follows the teaching of Paul (e.g., rejecting false teaching that impacts church unity), while in other places he extends his teaching (e.g., by developing a robust doctrine of the role of the bishop in securing church unity). One significant exception to this should be noted; Ignatius sees in Paul a level of discontinuity with Judaism that is not explicit in his original letters (45, 47-48).
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          Michael W. Holmes’s concise essay relies on Daniel Marguerat’s categories to survey Polycarp’s use of Paul and his letters. Drawing from the discursive resources of Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians, he is seen as a significant, early witness to the circulation of Paul’s letters. Paul’s ethical exhortations are recontextualized with a synergistic understanding of salvation not evident in Paul (66). Michael F. Bird’s essay on The Epistle to Diognetus (ED) seeks to advance the work of H. G. Meecham with regard to the rhetorical function of the Pauline parallels in the treatise. Bird uses the standard categories for uncovering intertextures to provide clarity for the way ED uses the existing Pauline discourse. Bird finds only one convincing citation, though Paul’s use is significantly recontextualized in ED (75). In the end, Bird views the author of ED as a Paulinist, though one who, unlike Paul, incorporates platonic discourse and disavows Israel’s continued election (88). His anti-Judaism is not as explicit as Marcion’s, and while approaching proto-orthodoxy at certain points, much of his discourse resonates with what was to become Gnosticism. Bird is correct to note that ED 1.1 is a clear example of the development of Christianity as a tertium quid (75, 83). However, it is not likely that this discourse can be traced to Paul in 1 Cor 10:32, where the ascensive use of kai would result in a definition of Christian identity in the context of existing identities, rather than in their erasure or “negation” (84).
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          Todd Still provides an assessment of Marcion and his reception of the Pauline tradition. Marcion’s theological dualism is not found in Paul, nor is his way of reading Israel’s scriptures comparable. However, there is significant continuity between Paul and Marcion with regard to worship practices and ecclesial structures. Overall, Still views Marcion as one who sought to read Paul closely, though he ultimately misunderstood him significantly (107). Paul Foster argues that Justin was not influenced by Paul to any significant degree. He suggests that Justin and Paul built on the same passages from Israel’s scriptures, though for differing rhetorical purposes. However, it would seem that, contrary to Foster, Justin’s use of ta ethnē is similar to Paul’s (1 Apol. 53) (116). Foster offers a couple of possibilities for the silence of Paul in Justin: (1) Justin may not have known of Paul’s letters; (2) he may have been reacting to Marcion’s use of them; and (3) he may not have considered them authoritative (124). If we only had Justin’s writings extant, then we would have to conclude that Paul had very little impact on the development of Christianity in the second century.
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          Nicolas Perrin shows that Paul is viewed by Valentinus and Theodotus as the “ideal believer” who could function as a bulwark against the emerging proto-orthodoxy of early Christianity (127). So, while other movements within the second century drew widely from the Pauline tradition, “for Valentinus and his followers, Paul was ‘the’ apostle” (139). Joel Willitts provides an important essay on Paul and Jewish Christians in the second century. He begins by drawing the reader’s attention to the difference between “Jewish Christians and Christian judaizers” (167). This distinction is particularly important when addressing the putative rejection of Paul by some Jewish Christ-followers (149). Willitts then considers only texts addressed to groups that are clearly Jewish. What emerges is a view of the reception of Paul in the second century different from the traditional view that affirms widespread animosity between Paul and Jewish Christianities (168). Andrew Gregory shows the way the Acts of Paul is generally consistent with canonical Acts and Paul’s letters. Furthermore, Paul is presented as a pastor seeking to instruct local assemblies, rather than primarily as a miracle-working church planter. In this way, the Acts of Paul aligns more closely to the image of Paul revealed in his letters rather than in canonical Acts (188). 
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          Ben Blackwell shows the way Irenaeus follows Greco-Roman rhetorical conventions as he redeploys Paul’s letters to address the central theological concerns of his time, thus providing “one important voice for understanding Paul within the second century” (206). Andrew M. Bain contends that, while there are numerous Pauline references in Tertullian’s writings, they are relatively sparse when looked at in proportion to his total output. Paul’s writings are used primarily to teach gentile Christians for life within the church and in those contexts Tertullian uses Paul’s writings with felicity. Pauline Nigh Hogan surveys the reception of Paul in the second century with regard to women. Galatians 3:28, 1 Cor 7:34-40, and Eph 4:13 were interpreted to indicate that traditional roles and structures had been set aside. Thecla, Mary, Blandina, and Perpetua are examples of women who were transformed “in Christ” to the degree that existing gender identities were no longer thought to be relevant. Alternately, similar Pauline discourse was redeployed by church leaders to restrict the various expressions of female “in Christ” social identities (cf. Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria). Mark W. Elliott concludes the volume by describing the triumph of Paulinism in the work of Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian, and Origen, each of whom engaged Paul’s writings in different ways, but all of whom sought to bring to the fore ethical requirements for those who claimed to follow Christ.
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          Paul and the Second Century is a work that provides university and seminary students unfamiliar with the first interpreters of Paul with an entrée into early Christian hermeneutics. This material, while often difficult and unfamiliar, provides a roadmap for the various ways Paul was understood in the second century – and beyond. This advanced work provides an up-to-date resource for those studying the church fathers and Pauline reception history. It is a welcome addition to New Testament studies and is recommended particularly for those engaged in the theological interpretation of scripture.
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Scot McKnight

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8 Sept: http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2010/09/08/paul-for-the-perplexed-3

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Tim Gombis’s new book, Paul: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides for the Perplexed)\"\", gives to us the “structure of Paul’s thought” by sketching the “narrative Paul inhabits.” Exactly. And I find that many today misuse (and abuse) Paul because they want him to fit a system instead of letting Paul’s own way of doing things — inhabiting Israel’s Story — shape what he says. I won’t re-sketch Gombis’ sketch but suggest you read it when you get a chance, but here are the elements:
Creation as image of God; designed for shalom; enemy in the serpent and deception; humans surrender their image-bearing duty; election of Abraham/Israel and exodus; design to be a blessing to the nations as kingdom of priests; light to the nations; failure and exile and return; longing for Messiah; awaiting a robust understanding of salvation; Jesus is the true Israelite but he is defeated at the hands of humanity but God overcomes this defeat through resurrection and exaltation and Spirit. Here’s Paul’s “theology.” (Yes, if you want to see things this way, this is a wonderful New Perspective-ish approach to Paul, and one that is nuanced and careful and eminently readable, and one that avoids all those debates that prevent the big picture from being seen.

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Table of Contents

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Introduction: The legacy of Paul in Acts : a 'more complete and inhabitable' New Testament? / the editors -- Part I. Re-figuring Paul. On the \"Paulinism\" of Acts [reprinted] / Philipp vielhauer -- The Paul of Luke : a survey of research / Odile Flichy -- The Paulinism of Acts, intertextually reconsidered / Richard B. Hays -- The development of Pauline Christianity from a 'religion of conversion' to a 'religion of tradition' / Michael Wolter -- Paul after paul : a (hi)story of reception / Daniel Marguerat -- Paul's place in early Christianity / Christopher Mount -- Part II. The figure and legacy of Paul in the book of Acts. Luke's 'witness of witnesses' : Paul as definer and defender of the tradition of the apostles : 'from the beginning' / David P. Moessner -- 'Has God rejected his people? (Romans 11.1) : the salvation of Israel in Acts : narrative claim of a Pauline legacy / Simon Butticaz -- (Not) 'appealing to the emperor' : Acts (and the Acts of Paul) / Richard I. Pervo -- 'In Paul's defence' : the contribution of Cramer's Catena to the early reception of Paul in Acts / Timothy Brookins, Mikeal Parsons and Peter Reynolds -- Part III. The Pauline figure of Acts within the Pauline legacy. Paul the founder of the church : reflections on the reception of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles and the Pastoral Epistles / Jens Schröter -- From the 'least of all the saints' to the 'Apostle of Jesus Christ' : the transformation of Paul in the first century / Gregory E. Sterling -- Appendix 1: The revelation of the mystery -- Auctoritas Pauli according to the Deutero-Pauline literature and the Acts of the Apostles / Andreas Dettwiler -- Rumour : a category for articulating the self-portraits and reception of Paul : 'for they say, \"His letters are weighty ... but his speech is contemptible\"' (2 Corinthians 10.10) / Claire Clivaz -- 'Working with one's hands' : one model, many applications (Acts 20.33; 1 Timothy 5.17; 2 Thessalonians 3.7-10) / Yann Redalié -- 'Be imitators of me, brothers and sisters' (Philippians 3.17) : Paul as an exemplary figure in the Pauline corupus and the Acts of the Apostles / Jean-François Landolt -- Conclusion: 'Mediator, miracle-worker, doctor of the church? : the continuing mystery of Paul in the New Testament and in early Christianity' / the editors

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Contents:

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1. The Puzzle of Pauline Hermeneutics

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Paul as Reader and Misreader of Scripture

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Critical Approaches to Pauline Hermeneutics

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Intertextual Echo in Phil. 1:19

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Hermeneutical Reflections and Constraints

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2. Intertextual Echo in Romans, 34

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Righteousness and Wrath Prefigured

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The Law and the Prophets as Witnesses of God’s Righteousness

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Sheep to Be Slaughtered

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Has the Word of God Fallen?

\n

“The Righteousness from Faith Says”

\n

 

\n

3. Children of Promise

\n

Ecclesiocentric Hermeneutics

\n

Israel in the Wilderness

\n

The Israel/Church Typology

\n

Scripture Prefigures the Blessing of Gentiles

\n

 

\n

4. A Letter from Christ, 122

\n

New Covenant Hermeneutics?

\n

2 Cor. 3:1–4:6—A Reading

\n

The Text Transfigured

\n

 

\n

5. “The Word Is Near You”: Hermeneutics in the Eschatological Community, 154

\n

Paul’s Readings of Scripture

\n

Paul’s Letters as Hermeneutical Model.

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Endorsements: Wipf & Stock

\n

 

\n

\"A valuable and illuminating addition to the literature on Colossians! Using a variety of sociological models and methods, Tidball attempts to ground the message
of this letter in the ordinary lives of its recipients and the challenges they faced. Building particularly on the earlier work of MacDonald and Arnold, he provides an excellent and accessible exposition and application of such topics as conversion, personal and social identity, institutionalization, households and
cultural values. Students of Colossians will appreciate Tidball's ability to show clearly and engagingly the benefits of a sociological approach not only for
understanding the letter in its context but also for reflection on its continuing relevance today.\"

Andrew T. Lincoln, Portland Professor of New Testament, University of Gloucestershire

\"In this helpful volume Derek Tidball describes what Paul's letter to the Colossians would have meant for the day to day realities of Christians in Colossae.
Tidball is not content to list theological beliefs deriving from the letter. Instead he takes us on a panoramic journey that provides insights into how this much neglected letter addressed the social
fabric, cultural context, philosophical ethos, and religious environment of Christian faith in a pagan city. Tidball shows us how Paul attempted to shape
the Colossian believers around the glory and majesty of Jesus Christ in the midst of adversity. Everyone will benefit from reading this book.\"

Michael F. Bird, Crossway College,
Brisbane, Australia

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J. Brian Tucker

\n


\n
\n
\n
\n

\n
\"\"
\n
David J. Rudolph, A Jew to the Jews. (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 304) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,  2011). xii + 290 pp., £69 (sewn paper), ISBN  978-3-16-149293-8.
\n
The chameleon is the quintessential image for a constantly changing individual. Proteus was an early sea-god who would change his shape in order to avoid capture. These images resonate with aspects of the scholarly consensus with regard to Paul’s claim that he became ‘all things to all people’. He remained Torah-observant among Jews but not among the non-Jews. Since the New Testament does not explicitly describe Paul engaging in such diverse practices, scholars fill in the gaps in the textual record with claims that Paul was just such a protean figure, one whose behaviors would change depending on his context. This raises an important interpretive question: is this a valid understanding of Paul and his mission practice among non-Jews? Was Paul a chameleon? 
\n
\n
In A Jew to the Jews, David J. Rudolph sets out to problematize the consensus view with regard to Paul’s lack of continued Torah-observance in his gentile mission. He sets out two parallel research paths for himself: (1) to show that 1 Cor 9.19-23 may not be irrefutable evidence for Paul’s lack of continued Torah-observance; and (2) to provide a constructive reading of this passage that results in understanding Paul as one who continued to be Torah-observant in his mission. This monograph is a revision of Rudolph’s 2007 Cambridge University Ph.D. thesis, which was supervised by Markus Bockmuehl. Revised theses often only account for subsequent scholarship at a minimal level; however, Rudolph’s revisions, when compared to the 2007 thesis version, are substantial and result in a thoroughly up-to-date work that engages scholarship as late as 2010, making this work that much more significant, and a good model for recent Ph.D. graduates who might be tempted not to make important revisions to their work before publication.
\n
Chapter 1 introduces Rudolph’s argument by providing an overview of the case for the traditional reading of 1 Cor 9.19-23. He surveys contemporary scholarship with regard to the intertextual, contextual, and textual arguments that are marshalled in defence of the consensus interpretation. He then points out four areas in which the traditional view reflects interpretive inadequacies with regard to Paul’s context: (1) the practical impossibility of being ‘all things to all people’; (2) the presentation of Jews as ‘simpletons’; (3) the lack of evidence that Paul employed this strategy; and (4) the dismissal of both the Pauline and Lukan texts that present Paul as one who continues to be Torah observant (12-13). This final factor is central to Rudolph’s argument. Next, he briefly notes three other scholars who have read Paul in ways similar to himself: Peter Tomson, Mark Nanos, and Mark Kinzer. Rudolph establishes differences between his approach and theirs and suggests there is sufficient warrant for a reassessment of the scholarly framework with regard to whether 1 Cor 9.19-23 ‘precludes a Torah-observant Paul’ (17). This last phrase is an important qualifier in that Rudolph is not trying to prove that Paul remained Torah-observant; rather, his goal is to point out that scholars overstate their claim when they read 1 Cor 9.19-23 as indisputable evidence that Paul ceased to be Torah observant. The rest of the monograph addresses the intertextual, contextual, and textual arguments alluded to earlier in the introduction, and then it concludes with a proposed interpretation of 1 Cor 9.19-23 that fulfils Rudolph’s secondary goal of providing a reading of this passage that could allow for it to be understood ‘as the discourse of a Torah-observant Jew’ (18).
\n
Chapter 2 surveys the key scriptural texts that are alluded to in the broader debate over the salience of Paul’s Jewish identity. The first part of the chapter addresses whether Paul’s Jewishness is inconsequential now that he is in Christ. Rudolph argues that Timothy’s circumcision, referenced in Acts 16.3, and the controverted phrase dia tous Ioudaious addresses timing issues and not circumcision itself. Next he addresses the putative erasure discourse in Paul’s writings and provides a series of convincing non-erasure readings for the following: (1) ‘circumcision is nothing’ (1 Cor 7.19; Gal 5.6; 6.15); (2) ‘no longer Jew or Greek’ (Gal 3.28); (3) third entity language (1 Cor 10.32); (4) ‘weak in faith’ discourse (Rom 14); (5) ‘former way of life’ and ‘rubbish’ language (Gal 1.13; Phil 3.8); and (6) ‘live like a gentile and not like a Jew’ discourse (Gal 2.14). Rudolph concludes that these verses do not indicate that Paul no longer considered himself a Jew; rather, he understood his Jewish identity as an ongoing calling in Christ. The second half of this chapter provides a constructive reading of Acts 21.17-26; Gal 5.3; Rom 2.25, 4.11-12, 16, 11.29, and 1 Cor 7.17-24 to suggest that Paul remained a Torah-observant Jew (89). Based on chapter 2, though the dominant segment of New Testament scholars would suggest otherwise, the label ‘Paul the Chameleon’ would be entirely inappropriate for the apostle, and Rudolph’s arguments are quite persuasive in this regard, especially his reading of Romans 14, 1 Cor 7.17-24. Those who seek to continue to view Paul as one whose Jewishness ceases to be significant will have to engage Rudolph’s arguments for those two passages.
\n
\n
Chapter 3 focuses more properly on the text of 1 Corinthians. Rudolph provides a contextual analysis of 1 Cor 8.1-11.1 that establishes Paul’s instruction concerning food offered to idols and the way these chapters may be understood as notbeing the teaching of one who has broken the boundaries of pluriform Second Temple Judaism. Rudolph addresses four issues that New Testament scholars have focused on with regard to this section: (1) the compositional unity of the passage; (2) the presence of the strong and the weak in the passage; (3) the situational permission with regard to eating idol food; and (4) the relationship of Paul’s teaching here with the apostolic decree in Acts 15. The most important findings are that, although Christ-followers were not permitted to eat idol food in cultic contexts, indeterminate food waspermitted outside those contexts. However, idol food was still not permitted once it was known to be such, even outside the cultic context. So, Paul’s localized, contextualized teaching here is quite in line with the non-situational apostolic decree (101). This teaching, argues Rudolph, was quite Jewish in its orientation. He provides several reasons for his claim, the most substantial being the use of skandalizōtwo times in 1 Cor 8.13, a term that connects Paul’s teaching with Lev 19.14, thus placing Paul’s discourse within proper ‘Jewish ethical categories of thought and legal traditions surrounding Leviticus 19’ (104). So, rather than seeing Paul in 1 Cor 8.1-11.1 as one arguing in a non-Jewish fashion, he may be seen as one applying the principles of Jewish teaching and learning discourse in a flexible manner for gentiles in Christ. Rudolph concludes his contextual discussion by briefly noting the function of 1 Cor 9 within the literary unit of 1 Cor 8.1-11.1. He rightly sets aside the idea that Paul was defending his apostleship here; rather, ‘the central point of 1 Cor 9 is Paul’s renunciation of all rights (even those rights provided by Mosaic law and the Lord Jesus’ command) for the sake of the gospel’ (107-8).
\n
\n
Chapter 4 focuses in on the textual issues in 1 Cor 9.19-23. Rudolph begins by addressing possible contextual frameworks for Paul’s accommodation discourse. He concludes that there are no explicit references to Greco-Roman philosophical traditions nor any allusions convincing enough to accept the claim that Paul is working within an accepted accommodation topoi. Rudolph then surveys Second Temple texts to see if they provide insight into the adaptation language evident in Paul’s teaching. He concludes that there is evidence for similarities with regard ‘to the mindset of a first-century Jewish guest who seeks to please his host in everything’ (147). Next Rudolph considers whether the gospel traditions provide a proper framework for understanding Paul’s adaptation principle. He affirms Kim’s (2003) overall approach to the presence of animitatio Christi discourse in 1 Cor 9.19-23, though he rightly sets aside Kim’s rather explicit supersessionist understanding of Mark 7.19b. This will be an important part of Rudolph positive reading in chapter 5, a reading that places Rudolph firmly in the post-supersessionist approach to New Testament interpretation. Finally, he concludes chapter 4 with detailed discussions of the semantic variations of the language in 1 Cor 9.19-23. Rudolph’s conclusions here form the basis of his reading that Paul may be understood in these verses to be a Torah-observant Jew. As Part I of A Jew to the Jewscomes to a close, it is now clear that Rudolph does not think that Paul was a chameleon in any sense of the word. He was one who, it could be argued, maintained Torah observance not as missional adaptation, rather as a valid expression of covenant fidelity to the God of Israel.
\n
\n
Chapter 5 provides Rudolph’s understanding of Paul as a Jew who continued to faithfully observe Torah throughout his mission among the nations by ‘imitating Christ’s accommodation and open table-fellowship’ (173). He views the flexibility evident in 1 Cor 9.19-23 as an expression of Paul’s belief that his Jewishness is a calling that continues in Christ, and that this passage can be understood ‘as the discourse of a Jew who remained within the bounds of pluriform Second Temple Judaism’ (173). He reads 1 Cor 9.19-23 as an expression of Paul’s imitation of Jesus’ interchange and accommodation-oriented table-fellowship with all. Rudolph argues that Paul was aware of Jesus’ rule of adaptation evident in the words ‘eat what is set before you’ (Luke 10.7-8). This rule originally focused primarily on ‘clean food of doubtful or defiled status’, but Paul expands it to apply to the questions relating to idol-food in Corinth (190).
\n
\n
Rudolph frames Paul’s statement ‘all things to all people’, not as a claim that Paul ceased to be Torah-observant, rather as an example of the way he applied Jesus’ adaptability rule, Jesus who likewise remained Torah-observant (Mark 5.17-20). Rudolph summarizes his view: ‘As Jesus became all things to all people through eating with ordinary Jews, Pharisees and sinners, Paul became “all things to all people” through eating with ordinary Jews, strict Jews (those “under the law”) and Gentile sinners’ (190). Paul’s halakhah with regard to commensality was flexible, and he adjusted it, as a bi-cultural mediator, based on his context (1 Cor 10.25-30).
\n
\n
Concerning the continued relevance of Paul’s Jewish identity, Rudolph understands Paul to be one who argued for the continuation of Jewish identity within the Christ-movement. He builds his case on 1 Cor 7.17-24, which teaches that Jews ‘in Christ’ should continue Torah observance as a vital expression of their calling from God. With regard to the claim that Jewish identity and Torah observance were inconsequential to Paul since the coming of Christ, Rudolph thinks that Paul kept his ‘rule in all the churches’ as one who ‘was “not without the law of God” (1 Cor 9.21)’ (212). Rudolph’s study is masterful, an argumentative tour de forcethat requires serious engagement by those contending that Jewish identity is no longer relevant for Jews ‘in Christ’. It will most likely be looked at as a seminal work among New Testament scholars engaged in post-supersessionist interpretation.
\n
 
\n
While it is clear that Paul should not be labelled a chameleon, and in this Rudolph’s study remains quite convincing, it is still hard to determine if it is possible to avoid the charges of hypocrisy that would be levelled against Paul for even these adaptable practices. Rudolph’s study rightly focuses on the behaviours evident in the text, but Paul may also be continuing his discussion of the way previous identities are transformed ‘in Christ’. Thus, I would suggest that 1 Cor 9.20-21 may evidence Paul’s principle of social identity adaptation. This is only a slight adjustment to Rudolph, taking into consideration the claims of duplicity mentioned by Nanos (2009) but still follows Rudolph and Tomson (1990) in seeing 1 Cor 9.20-21 as evidence of a relaxed halakhah with regard to the idolatrous intentions of the gentiles. Thus, this passage connects with Paul’s mission among the gentiles and his teaching concerning mission as social identification for those in Corinth (see Tucker 2011).
\n
\n
If we extend the metaphor we began with, Paul is not a chameleon who changes his color, i.e., one who picks up and sets down his Jewish identity (even if that would have been possible) in order to take the gospel to the nations. However, we might describe him as the ‘Chameleon Paul’ if by that we mean one who was comfortable in diverse cultural environments, able to socially identify (but not integrate) with non-Jews as an expression of his theologizing. His focus on the negotiation of the practicalities of life within the Christ-movement would have been familiar to the Jews but new to gentiles in Christ (Ehrensperger 2011: 18). This metaphor is especially apropos since chameleons really cannot change their color in the first place; rather, they react to changing environmental situations and thus only appear to change. Maybe it is time to revisit scholarly misconceptions with regard to Paul’s so-called lifestyle adaptability. Rudolph’s monograph, A Jew to the Jews, provides a helpful starting point for addressing a number of these long-held and deeply-engrained views on Paul, his identity, and his mission.
\n
\n
References:
\n
Ehrensperger, K. 2011. ‘All Things are Lawful but Not All Things are Helpful—All Things are Lawful but not All Things Build Up (1 Cor 10.23)—Identity Formation in the Space Between.’ Paper presented at the SNTS General Meeting, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.
\n
Kim, S. 2003. ‘Imitatio Christi (1 Corinthians 11:1): How Paul Imitates Jesus Christ in Dealing with Idol Food (1 Corinthians 8-10).’ Bulletin for Biblical Research 13.2: 193-206.
\n
Nanos, M. 2009. ‘Paul’s Relationship to Torah in Light of His Strategy “to Become Everything to Everyone” (1 Corinthians 9:19–23).’ Paper presented at New Perspectives on Paul and the Jews: Interdisciplinary Academic Seminary, Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium.
\n
Tomson, P. J. 1990. Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakha in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles. Minneapolis: Fortress.
\n
Tucker, J. B. 2011. Remain in Your Calling: Paul and the Continuation of Social Identities in 1 Corinthians. Eugene, OR: Pickwick.
\n
\n
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\n
\n
\n
(J. Brian Tucker)
\n
\n
\n
\n

\n
\"\"
\n
David J. Rudolph, A Jew to the Jews. (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 304) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,  2011). xii + 290 pp., £69 (sewn paper), ISBN  978-3-16-149293-8.
\n
\n
The chameleon is the quintessential image for a constantly changing individual. Proteus was an early sea-god who would change his shape in order to avoid capture. These images resonate with aspects of the scholarly consensus with regard to Paul’s claim that he became ‘all things to all people’. He remained Torah-observant among Jews but not among the non-Jews. Since the New Testament does not explicitly describe Paul engaging in such diverse practices, scholars fill in the gaps in the textual record with claims that Paul was just such a protean figure, one whose behaviors would change depending on his context. This raises an important interpretive question: is this a valid understanding of Paul and his mission practice among non-Jews? Was Paul a chameleon? 
\n
\n
In A Jew to the Jews, David J. Rudolph sets out to problematize the consensus view with regard to Paul’s lack of continued Torah-observance in his gentile mission. He sets out two parallel research paths for himself: (1) to show that 1 Cor 9.19-23 may not be irrefutable evidence for Paul’s lack of continued Torah-observance; and (2) to provide a constructive reading of this passage that results in understanding Paul as one who continued to be Torah-observant in his mission. This monograph is a revision of Rudolph’s 2007 Cambridge University Ph.D. thesis, which was supervised by Markus Bockmuehl. Revised theses often only account for subsequent scholarship at a minimal level; however, Rudolph’s revisions, when compared to the 2007 thesis version, are substantial and result in a thoroughly up-to-date work that engages scholarship as late as 2010, making this work that much more significant, and a good model for recent Ph.D. graduates who might be tempted not to make important revisions to their work before publication.
\n
\n
Chapter 1 introduces Rudolph’s argument by providing an overview of the case for the traditional reading of 1 Cor 9.19-23. He surveys contemporary scholarship with regard to the intertextual, contextual, and textual arguments that are marshalled in defence of the consensus interpretation. He then points out four areas in which the traditional view reflects interpretive inadequacies with regard to Paul’s context: (1) the practical impossibility of being ‘all things to all people’; (2) the presentation of Jews as ‘simpletons’; (3) the lack of evidence that Paul employed this strategy; and (4) the dismissal of both the Pauline and Lukan texts that present Paul as one who continues to be Torah observant (12-13). This final factor is central to Rudolph’s argument. Next, he briefly notes three other scholars who have read Paul in ways similar to himself: Peter Tomson, Mark Nanos, and Mark Kinzer. Rudolph establishes differences between his approach and theirs and suggests there is sufficient warrant for a reassessment of the scholarly framework with regard to whether 1 Cor 9.19-23 ‘precludes a Torah-observant Paul’ (17). This last phrase is an important qualifier in that Rudolph is not trying to prove that Paul remained Torah-observant; rather, his goal is to point out that scholars overstate their claim when they read 1 Cor 9.19-23 as indisputable evidence that Paul ceased to be Torah observant. The rest of the monograph addresses the intertextual, contextual, and textual arguments alluded to earlier in the introduction, and then it concludes with a proposed interpretation of 1 Cor 9.19-23 that fulfils Rudolph’s secondary goal of providing a reading of this passage that could allow for it to be understood ‘as the discourse of a Torah-observant Jew’ (18).
\n
\n
Chapter 2 surveys the key scriptural texts that are alluded to in the broader debate over the salience of Paul’s Jewish identity. The first part of the chapter addresses whether Paul’s Jewishness is inconsequential now that he is in Christ. Rudolph argues that Timothy’s circumcision, referenced in Acts 16.3, and the controverted phrase dia tous Ioudaious addresses timing issues and not circumcision itself. Next he addresses the putative erasure discourse in Paul’s writings and provides a series of convincing non-erasure readings for the following: (1) ‘circumcision is nothing’ (1 Cor 7.19; Gal 5.6; 6.15); (2) ‘no longer Jew or Greek’ (Gal 3.28); (3) third entity language (1 Cor 10.32); (4) ‘weak in faith’ discourse (Rom 14); (5) ‘former way of life’ and ‘rubbish’ language (Gal 1.13; Phil 3.8); and (6) ‘live like a gentile and not like a Jew’ discourse (Gal 2.14). Rudolph concludes that these verses do not indicate that Paul no longer considered himself a Jew; rather, he understood his Jewish identity as an ongoing calling in Christ. The second half of this chapter provides a constructive reading of Acts 21.17-26; Gal 5.3; Rom 2.25, 4.11-12, 16, 11.29, and 1 Cor 7.17-24 to suggest that Paul remained a Torah-observant Jew (89). Based on chapter 2, though the dominant segment of New Testament scholars would suggest otherwise, the label ‘Paul the Chameleon’ would be entirely inappropriate for the apostle, and Rudolph’s arguments are quite persuasive in this regard, especially his reading of Romans 14, 1 Cor 7.17-24. Those who seek to continue to view Paul as one whose Jewishness ceases to be significant will have to engage Rudolph’s arguments for those two passages.
\n
\n
Chapter 3 focuses more properly on the text of 1 Corinthians. Rudolph provides a contextual analysis of 1 Cor 8.1-11.1 that establishes Paul’s instruction concerning food offered to idols and the way these chapters may be understood as notbeing the teaching of one who has broken the boundaries of pluriform Second Temple Judaism. Rudolph addresses four issues that New Testament scholars have focused on with regard to this section: (1) the compositional unity of the passage; (2) the presence of the strong and the weak in the passage; (3) the situational permission with regard to eating idol food; and (4) the relationship of Paul’s teaching here with the apostolic decree in Acts 15. The most important findings are that, although Christ-followers were not permitted to eat idol food in cultic contexts, indeterminate food waspermitted outside those contexts. However, idol food was still not permitted once it was known to be such, even outside the cultic context. So, Paul’s localized, contextualized teaching here is quite in line with the non-situational apostolic decree (101). This teaching, argues Rudolph, was quite Jewish in its orientation. He provides several reasons for his claim, the most substantial being the use of skandalizōtwo times in 1 Cor 8.13, a term that connects Paul’s teaching with Lev 19.14, thus placing Paul’s discourse within proper ‘Jewish ethical categories of thought and legal traditions surrounding Leviticus 19’ (104). So, rather than seeing Paul in 1 Cor 8.1-11.1 as one arguing in a non-Jewish fashion, he may be seen as one applying the principles of Jewish teaching and learning discourse in a flexible manner for gentiles in Christ. Rudolph concludes his contextual discussion by briefly noting the function of 1 Cor 9 within the literary unit of 1 Cor 8.1-11.1. He rightly sets aside the idea that Paul was defending his apostleship here; rather, ‘the central point of 1 Cor 9 is Paul’s renunciation of all rights (even those rights provided by Mosaic law and the Lord Jesus’ command) for the sake of the gospel’ (107-8).
\n
\n
Chapter 4 focuses in on the textual issues in 1 Cor 9.19-23. Rudolph begins by addressing possible contextual frameworks for Paul’s accommodation discourse. He concludes that there are no explicit references to Greco-Roman philosophical traditions nor any allusions convincing enough to accept the claim that Paul is working within an accepted accommodation topoi. Rudolph then surveys Second Temple texts to see if they provide insight into the adaptation language evident in Paul’s teaching. He concludes that there is evidence for similarities with regard ‘to the mindset of a first-century Jewish guest who seeks to please his host in everything’ (147). Next Rudolph considers whether the gospel traditions provide a proper framework for understanding Paul’s adaptation principle. He affirms Kim’s (2003) overall approach to the presence of animitatio Christi discourse in 1 Cor 9.19-23, though he rightly sets aside Kim’s rather explicit supersessionist understanding of Mark 7.19b. This will be an important part of Rudolph positive reading in chapter 5, a reading that places Rudolph firmly in the post-supersessionist approach to New Testament interpretation. Finally, he concludes chapter 4 with detailed discussions of the semantic variations of the language in 1 Cor 9.19-23. Rudolph’s conclusions here form the basis of his reading that Paul may be understood in these verses to be a Torah-observant Jew. As Part I of A Jew to the Jewscomes to a close, it is now clear that Rudolph does not think that Paul was a chameleon in any sense of the word. He was one who, it could be argued, maintained Torah observance not as missional adaptation, rather as a valid expression of covenant fidelity to the God of Israel.
\n
\n
Chapter 5 provides Rudolph’s understanding of Paul as a Jew who continued to faithfully observe Torah throughout his mission among the nations by ‘imitating Christ’s accommodation and open table-fellowship’ (173). He views the flexibility evident in 1 Cor 9.19-23 as an expression of Paul’s belief that his Jewishness is a calling that continues in Christ, and that this passage can be understood ‘as the discourse of a Jew who remained within the bounds of pluriform Second Temple Judaism’ (173). He reads 1 Cor 9.19-23 as an expression of Paul’s imitation of Jesus’ interchange and accommodation-oriented table-fellowship with all. Rudolph argues that Paul was aware of Jesus’ rule of adaptation evident in the words ‘eat what is set before you’ (Luke 10.7-8). This rule originally focused primarily on ‘clean food of doubtful or defiled status’, but Paul expands it to apply to the questions relating to idol-food in Corinth (190).
\n
\n
Rudolph frames Paul’s statement ‘all things to all people’, not as a claim that Paul ceased to be Torah-observant, rather as an example of the way he applied Jesus’ adaptability rule, Jesus who likewise remained Torah-observant (Mark 5.17-20). Rudolph summarizes his view: ‘As Jesus became all things to all people through eating with ordinary Jews, Pharisees and sinners, Paul became “all things to all people” through eating with ordinary Jews, strict Jews (those “under the law”) and Gentile sinners’ (190). Paul’s halakhah with regard to commensality was flexible, and he adjusted it, as a bi-cultural mediator, based on his context (1 Cor 10.25-30).
\n
\n
Concerning the continued relevance of Paul’s Jewish identity, Rudolph understands Paul to be one who argued for the continuation of Jewish identity within the Christ-movement. He builds his case on 1 Cor 7.17-24, which teaches that Jews ‘in Christ’ should continue Torah observance as a vital expression of their calling from God. With regard to the claim that Jewish identity and Torah observance were inconsequential to Paul since the coming of Christ, Rudolph thinks that Paul kept his ‘rule in all the churches’ as one who ‘was “not without the law of God” (1 Cor 9.21)’ (212). Rudolph’s study is masterful, an argumentative tour de forcethat requires serious engagement by those contending that Jewish identity is no longer relevant for Jews ‘in Christ’. It will most likely be looked at as a seminal work among New Testament scholars engaged in post-supersessionist interpretation.
\n
\n
 
\n
While it is clear that Paul should not be labelled a chameleon, and in this Rudolph’s study remains quite convincing, it is still hard to determine if it is possible to avoid the charges of hypocrisy that would be levelled against Paul for even these adaptable practices. Rudolph’s study rightly focuses on the behaviours evident in the text, but Paul may also be continuing his discussion of the way previous identities are transformed ‘in Christ’. Thus, I would suggest that 1 Cor 9.20-21 may evidence Paul’s principle of social identity adaptation. This is only a slight adjustment to Rudolph, taking into consideration the claims of duplicity mentioned by Nanos (2009) but still follows Rudolph and Tomson (1990) in seeing 1 Cor 9.20-21 as evidence of a relaxed halakhah with regard to the idolatrous intentions of the gentiles. Thus, this passage connects with Paul’s mission among the gentiles and his teaching concerning mission as social identification for those in Corinth (see Tucker 2011).
\n
\n
If we extend the metaphor we began with, Paul is not a chameleon who changes his color, i.e., one who picks up and sets down his Jewish identity (even if that would have been possible) in order to take the gospel to the nations. However, we might describe him as the ‘Chameleon Paul’ if by that we mean one who was comfortable in diverse cultural environments, able to socially identify (but not integrate) with non-Jews as an expression of his theologizing. His focus on the negotiation of the practicalities of life within the Christ-movement would have been familiar to the Jews but new to gentiles in Christ (Ehrensperger 2011: 18). This metaphor is especially apropos since chameleons really cannot change their color in the first place; rather, they react to changing environmental situations and thus only appear to change. Maybe it is time to revisit scholarly misconceptions with regard to Paul’s so-called lifestyle adaptability. Rudolph’s monograph, A Jew to the Jews, provides a helpful starting point for addressing a number of these long-held and deeply-engrained views on Paul, his identity, and his mission.
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References:
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Ehrensperger, K. 2011. ‘All Things are Lawful but Not All Things are Helpful—All Things are Lawful but not All Things Build Up (1 Cor 10.23)—Identity Formation in the Space Between.’ Paper presented at the SNTS General Meeting, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.
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Kim, S. 2003. ‘Imitatio Christi (1 Corinthians 11:1): How Paul Imitates Jesus Christ in Dealing with Idol Food (1 Corinthians 8-10).’ Bulletin for Biblical Research 13.2: 193-206.
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Nanos, M. 2009. ‘Paul’s Relationship to Torah in Light of His Strategy “to Become Everything to Everyone” (1 Corinthians 9:19–23).’ Paper presented at New Perspectives on Paul and the Jews: Interdisciplinary Academic Seminary, Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium.
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Tomson, P. J. 1990. Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakha in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles. Minneapolis: Fortress.
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Tucker, J. B. 2011. Remain in Your Calling: Paul and the Continuation of Social Identities in 1 Corinthians. Eugene, OR: Pickwick.
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Willits

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http://www.patheos.com/community/euangelion/2011/10/09/tim-gombis-the-drama-of-ephesians/

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....The book combines excellent exegetical insight with relevant thinking about incorporating Paul’s teaching into our lives today.\n

Tim’s section on the “powers and authorities” is especially good and it is a bit of NT teaching that is not often explained in a way that lay folks can easily grasp or have an appreciate for. This book will not only revolutionize the way you read Ephesians, but also the way you read Paul. And it will do more. It will transform the way you think about what it means to be a Christian in our contemporary world.

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Witherington

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Margaret Mitchell’s Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics

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September 22, 2012 By Ben Witherington Leave a Comment
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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2012/09/22/margaret-mitchells-paul-the-corinthians-and-the-birth-of-christian-hermeneutics/

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Some books are rather like coal mines. There’s lots of stuff but its dirty, and yes it can be used as fuel for the fire (not to be confused with grist for the mill) and occasionally, though rarely you will find a diamond worth keeping forever…. but it’s rare.

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On the other hand there are books that are like gold mines— you have to labor hard with them, but what you extract is pure gold, always gold. Margaret Mitchell’s new book is one of the latter. Don’t let the slender size of the volume fool you (only 115 pages of text, with reams of scholia, otherwise known as detailed footnotes). Consuming this book is rather like eating marzipan— its rich, and it needs to be taken in in small doses, otherwise you go into a insight coma (not to be confused with a sugar coma). There is nothing slight about this book. You can’t just the merit or importance of a book by it’s size. Some are doorstops, which deserve to be used as such. Some by contrast are vital visionary texts and they cry out like the words Augustine once heard ‘tolle et lege’— pick it up and read. And you are in luck…. the paperback edition has just come out, which will take less of your hard won ‘argent’ to purchase.

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My basic complaint about Margaret’s books is— there are too few of them (but see her wonderful Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation and also her The Heavenly Trumpet). But then she is Dean at U. of Chicago looking after a brace of students including our Yuliya and her own two daughters, so it is what it is. We must be content with what she is able to do. What we have in this book is six lectures she gave in Oxford in Trinity term in 2008 to which she has added copious notes, which are often as insightful as the text itself.

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So what is this book about? She explains on p. 106– “My first purpose has been to demonstrate that in the Corinthian correspondence we have a dynamic process of negotiated meaning between Paul and the Corinthians, through the series of letters interpreting and reinterpreting what is written, stated and visually presented. Paul inaugurated the ‘agonistic paradigm of interpretation’ strategically arguing for the meaning of his letters (and his body, his spoken word and conduct, with which they were inextricably linked) that was most essential to his wider purposes and ongoing relationship with the Corinthians. This meant operating on a ‘veil’ scale’ sometimes insisting on the utter clarity of his utterances, and at other times urging his readers to move beyond the bare letter to the deeper sense held within.”

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This paragraph of course requires some unpacking. What she is intimating, among other things, is that Paul’s discourse ranges from deliberately literal at times to highly figurative at the other end of the spectrum, and importantly she wants to stress that this very Corinthian correspondence (which we know as 1 and 2 Corinthians, but in the case of the latter she thinks involves several letter fragments) was the font of many later hermeneutical moves and battles in early Christian interpretations of the Bible, especially for the Greek Fathers. She wants to insist that both the more literalist Anthiochians and the more figurative and allegorical Alexandrians were indebted to Paul’s Corinthians correspondences, because Paul, baby, could play the meaning tune all kinds of ways— ranging from rap to jazz to classical to rock.

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You may not be all that keen on patristic exegesis and hermeneutics based on Paul’s letters, or at least not to the degree Margaret is, but the study of the early use of Paul is enlightening, not least because we all still have the same battles between the ‘literalist’ sorts of interpreters of the Biblical text, and those who want more flexibility or finesse. Margaret’s point is of course that Paul didn’t always play the literal interpretation card. Consider for instance the very interesting and odd exegesis of ‘don’t muzzle the ox whilst it tread out the grain’ in 1 Cor. 9.8-11, where Paul: 1) draws analogy between oxen and apostles, and suggests 2) both have a write to benefit from their own hard work, and 3) anyway what Moses wrote was not primarily for the ASPCA types in OT times but for us Christians and Christian leaders. If you want to see just how far Paul was willing to go down the road of allegorizing a non-allegorical text, then read Gal. 4.21-31. This is not your basic historical critical exegesis of the Pentateuch! In other words, Margaret has a point— Paul the hermeneut could play the literal card, and he had other cards in his deck as well, and he didn’t consider them jokers either. Especially for Evangelical Protestants who keep insisting on the ‘literal’ meaning of the text, and its general perspicuity these things should cause at least a reboot and a rethink about the range of interpretative options.

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Having said all this, I have to say, that sometimes I think Margaret pushes the envelope too far, but not without patristic precedent. Take for example her exegesis of the very interesting 2 Cor. 3.4-18. Along with various patristic fathers, Margaret thinks Paul is talking about hermeneutics here— the letter of the text kills, but the spirit or deeper meaning or sensus plenior etc. gives life. Yes, this is how some patristic fathers took this passage. No, I am afraid that is not what Paul is on about here. He is not talking about the levels of the text or various ways to interpret the text. He is offering a tale of two covenants, much like what we have in Gal. 4. He is contrasting the new covenant with the old, the covenant inaugurated and applied by the Spirit as opposed to the covenant which has as its heart and soul the law, in particular the ten commandments which Paul quite specifically alludes to. As Paul says elsewhere, while the Law is good, its effect on fallen human beings is is death-dealing not life giving, whereas the effect of the Holy Spirit is life-giving. The issue here is not Biblical interpretation but rather spiritual experience. It is a tale of the effects of two covenants and two ministries (that of Moses vs. that of Paul), not two ways of reading the Biblical text. So, as for this linchpin in Margaret’s argument, I have to say— good try, no cigar. Paul didn’t mean in this text what he was taken to mean by Origen and others. Here, I am prepared to say that the patristic readers simply got Paul wrong.

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We will continue this conversation with Margaret’s book in another post, but here I must say– it is the measure of an excellent book that it tests the logic of your most cherished interpretations of Scripture, and sometimes they are found wanting, and sometimes not. The fact that a book disagrees with your view does not make it a bad book. Indeed, it could be a classic, and does you a good service to come up with better reasons for your views. This is a very good book…. it should be read by all those who are serious about the interpretation of Paul’s letters, and the legacy of Paul amongst later interpreters of Paul.

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TOC: The Corinthian diolkos: passageway to early Christian biblical interpretation -- The agôn of Pauline interpretation -- Anthropological hermeneutics between rhetoric and philosophy -- The mirror and the veil: hermeneutics of occlusion -- Visible signs, multiple witnesses: interpretative criteria in the agonistic paradigm -- Hermeneutical exhaustion and the end(s) of interpretation

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\"In a series of exchanges with the Corinthians in the mid-50s AD, Paul continually sought to define the meaning of his message, his body and his letters, at times insisting upon a literal understanding, at others urging the reader to move beyond the words to a deeper sense within. Proposing a fresh approach to early Christian exegesis, Margaret M. Mitchell shows how in the Corinthian letters Paul was fashioning the very principles that later authors would use to interpret all scripture. Originally delivered as The Speaker's Lectures in Biblical Studies at Oxford University, this volume recreates the dynamism of the Pauline letters in their immediate historical context and beyond it in their later use by patristic exegetes. An engagingly written, insightful demonstration of the hermeneutical impact of Paul's Corinthian correspondence on early Christian exegetes, it also illustrates a new way to think about the history of reception of biblical texts\"-- \"In a series of exchanges with the Corinthians in the mid-50s ad, Paul continually sought to define the meaning of his message, his body and his letters, at times insisting upon a literal understanding, at others urging the reader to move beyond the words to a deeper sense within. Proposing a fresh approach to early Christian exegesis, Margaret M. Mitchell shows how in the Corinthian letters Paul was fashioning the very principles that later authors would use to interpret all scripture. Originally delivered as the Speaker's Lectures in Biblical Studies at Oxford University, this volume re-creates the dynamism of the Pauline letters in their immediate historical context and beyond it in their later use by patristic exegetes. An engagingly written, insightful demonstration of the hermeneutical impact of Paul's Corinthian correspondence on early Christian exegetes, it also illustrates a new way to think about the history of reception of biblical texts\"--

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Bryn Mawr Classical Review

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Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics.   Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2010.  Pp. xiv, 178.  ISBN 9780521197953.  $85.00.  

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Reviewed by Catherine Conybeare, Bryn Mawr College (cconybea@brynmawr.edu)

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Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2011.09.23

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http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2011/2011-09-23.html

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Preview

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The charm of this book—the text of the Speaker's Lectures in Biblical Studies, delivered at Oxford in 2008—lies in the sense of freshness and urgency which it imparts. Through Margaret Mitchell's perspicacious eyes, we seem to see a foundational text of Christianity and Christian interpretation in the very moment of its creation. Mitchell argues that Paul's letters to the Corinthians are of special importance in the history of biblical hermeneutics because of the vivid way in which we see the hermeneutic enterprise played out between the correspondents in repeated attempts at interpretation and re-interpretation. She reads these letters not as a lapidary set of precepts and admonitions, but as a collection of specific responses, grounded in the competitive mores of ancient rhetoric, to specific circumstances and misunderstandings.

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The consequences of this reading are both vertiginous and delightfully subversive, for they show how the mightiest of interpretive structures may be built on moments of minor antagonism. Mitchell steadily sets the specificity of Paul's expostulations against their legacy in the early development of Christian biblical interpretation, with its twin and contrary pressures simultaneously to produce general hermeneutic principles and to address contemporary particularities of church or doctrine. By the time she turns her attention, in a sort of coda to her final chapter, to a couple of our own contemporaries and their wrangling over the legitimacy of contrasting modes of biblical criticism, they seem on slippery ground indeed.1

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Chapter One, \"The Corinthian diolkos\", lays down the fundamental notions of the enquiry: above all, that Paul's letters to the Corinthians are occasional in nature, forming \"a kind of epistolary novel\" (6), and that they \"do not and never did have a single, unambiguous meaning\" (10). (Mitchell reads 1 Cor. as a single letter, 2 Cor. as a composite of five; she says that following the \"composite\" notion is not necessary for her argument, but it certainly makes some of her points more cogent if we imagine a multiple, fractured, somewhat irritable exchange.) \"Hermeneutics is born in misunderstanding\" (11); its characteristic traits are dynamism, expediency, and a sliding scale from clarity to opacity (later called by Mitchell, without euphony, the \"veil scale\"). These are the terms elucidated in the remainder of the work, with early Christian readings—especially those of Origen, John Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nyssa—counterposed against Mitchell's own close readings of Paul.

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Chapter Two demonstrates, with help from Cicero's De Inventione and Kathy Eden's book on ancient hermeneutics,2 that Paul's hermeneutic practices were grounded in the agonistic conventions of antiquity. \"Strategic variablility in the use of textual evidence is built into ancient training on literacy\" (27); Paul, as latter-day epistolary orator, naturally used a piecemeal strategy of (self)interpretation - even, at times, resorting to \"resurrecting\" his own earlier authorial identity as a guarantee of current meaning.

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The next chapter, \"Anthropological hermeneutics\", leads us into the morass of ambiguity in Paul's language of the spirit and the flesh—often characterized, not as a dyad, but as the triad of pneuma, psuche, and sarx—and its subsequent freewheeling use by Pauline interpreters, notably Ignatius and Origen. Mitchell shows us, once again, how the demands of the rhetorical moment may trump a philosophical concept; she shows us how wilfully unsystematic the results can be. She also traces the extension of the notions of spirit, soul, and flesh (in Origen's Peri Archon, drawing on 1 Cor. 2) outwards from the divisions within a single being to describe instead both different types of reader and different types—or hermeneutic levels—of scripture.

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This sets up Chapter Four, on the \"hermeneutics of occlusion\", showing how Paul set up a hermeneutics that played simultaneously with clarity and obscurity: \"Paul continually and strategically adjusted the focus between clarity and obscurity ... depending upon the hermeneutical, rhetorical and theological needs of the case at hand\" (77, Mitchell's emphasis). Mitchell traces the contradictory claims that Paul makes about his own knowledge, and suggests that he is in fact caught between \"agonistic and apocalyptic\" paradigms (63) —in other words, between clarity and veiling. She even refers to the \"reusable veil of 2 Corinthians 3\" (73), and makes its afterlife a cardinal example of how ancient authors commented with, not just on a text. (James Zetzel's wonderful study of this very phenomenon could have provided context for this argument.3)

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This and the following chapter, \"Visible signs, multiple witnesses\", are at the thematic heart of the book. With the constantly shifting hermeneutic poles mapped in Chapter Four, the basic question arises: how does Paul get, and hold on to, his spiritual authority? (As Mitchell points out, \"This is ... the fundamental problem of religious authority and authorization: from where can attestation come?\" 82) Mitchell focuses on a close reading of 2 Corinthians 10-13, in which Paul defends his hikanotes, his adequacy to the task at hand, on three grounds: his status as a sort of holy fool (which obviates the charge of self-aggrandizement), his observed weakness as a proof of his apostolic status, and his status as God's own witness. Further, she shows how texts, rather than people, come to be adduced as legitimate witnesses.

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The final chapter is aptly entitled \"Hermeneutical exhaustion and the end(s) of interpretation\". I have already mentioned its coda, a reproof to simplistic self-positioning in contemporary biblical scholarship. The ground is laid by emphasizing (through Gregory of Nyssa) the difficulty of preparing scripture for \"digestion\" and by noting Paul's ultimate displacement of meaning into an eschatological frame—deferring ultimate interpretation into an unknowable future. On the way, Mitchell points out the irony of 2 Cor. 1:13, which seems to contradict the entire history of the Corinthian correspondence—certainly as mapped out in these pages: \"we do not write to you [the Corinthians] anything but what you read and understand\". Both the second person plural verbs are in the present indicative.

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In the end, Mitchell leaves us in a hermeneutical hall of mirrors. It is not that individual utterances are meaningless, but that each act of reading-and-writing is so specific to its context that the recovery of meaning is a fraught, indeed a near-impossible, endeavour.4 In any case, as she shows us, early readers of Paul were not invested in recovering meaning but in manufacturing their own—and they found in Paul a wealth of strategies (even strategems) for doing so. Mitchell illuminates a complex process not unique to Christianity: the process by which occasional pieces acquire authoritative status; by which ad hoc texts become \"scripture\".

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I loved reading this book, and it has refreshed and enlivened the way I read Paul: I kept reaching for my Greek New Testament to pore over the passages that Mitchell was discussing. At the same time, the book mimetically enacts the \"both-and\" hermeneutic that Mitchell is describing in Paul and his first interpreters, which makes it fiendishly difficult to summarize. As befits its subject, nothing will replace a close reading of the book itself.

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Notes:

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1.   The wrangling is contained in Wayne Meeks, Christ is the Question (Louisville KY, 2006), and John Barton, The Nature of Biblical Criticism (Louisville KY, 2007).
2.   Kathy Eden, Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and its Humanist Reception (New Haven, 1997); I mention this because, in a book that concentrates firmly on the ancient sources as a guide to reading, the frequent citation of Eden's work makes a rare exception.
3.   James E. G. Zetzel, \"Religion, rhetoric, and editorial technique: reconstructing the classics\", in G. Bornstein and R. Williams (edd.), Palimpsest: editorial theory in the humanities (Ann Arbor, 1993), 99-120.
4.   Mitchell's focus is almost uniquely confined to the Greek patristic tradition; but by using the phrase \"reading-and- writing\", I specifically invoke Mark Vessey's sophisticated work on the development of textual hermeneutics in the Latin tradition—which is, if anything, even more cautious and nuanced in tracing the construction of meaning.

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REVIEW by Matthew R. Malcolm

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24 Aug 2011

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http://cryptotheology.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/the-corinthian-question-a-review-part-one/

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Here is a review of the first half of Paul Barnett’s recent book The Corinthian Question. If you’re the type of person who just wants to cut to the chase, here’s the chase: It’s a very worthwhile read, and has helped me to gain a better understanding of the evolution of Paul’s relationship with the Christians in Corinth. Now, here’s part one of the review, which covers the period up to the writing of 1 Corinthians. I’ll post the other half of the review soon…

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Paul W. Barnett, The Corinthian Question: Why did the Church Oppose Paul?

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In this book, Barnett tries to discern what happened after Paul left Corinth that raised the issues of 1 & 2 Corinthians. The same question has been engaged by Bruce Winter, who focuses on socio-historical issues of Roman Corinth in seeking an answer. Barnett, rather, focuses on developing a timeline that tracks the evolving relationship between Paul and Corinthian Christians, involving visits, delegates, and letters.

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Chapter 1 elucidates the key question: “Why is it that the church, having been successfully founded by Paul, later opposed him almost to the point of rejecting him?” (p15).

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Chapter 2 begins developing a timeline by considering Paul’s initial visit to Corinth, noting the specific people and events involved at this stage.

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Chapter 3 focuses on the content of the message that Paul first brought to Corinth. Barnett argues (rightly, I think) that Paul’s gospel was decisively shaped and illuminated by his Damascus Road experience.

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Chapter 4 ponders why Paul wanted to come to Corinth, and concludes that he wanted to use Corinth as a firm base from which to go to Rome: “It was during the ‘Corinthian’ years (AD 50-57) that Paul yearned to go to Rome.” (p55) As it happened, this took much longer than expected – Claudius’ decree that Jews should leave Rome hampered things, as did the difficulties associated with the collection for Jerusalem, which Paul wanted to complete before the Roman venture.

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Chapter 5 considers what happened “after Paul left Corinth.” Barnett does not disagree with the factors Winter elucidates (see his After Paul Left Corinth), but pays more attention to the visit of external leaders to Corinth in the years 52-54 – most notably, Apollos and Cephas.

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Chapter 6 leads on from this to consider why this resulted in such crisis in Corinth by the time of 1 Corinthians. Barnett thinks that following from the visits of the high profile leaders, the increased numbers in the Corinthian church who had not personally benefited from Paul’s ministry (“it is possible that the church numbers had reached several hundred” p81) no longer recognised his authority. A series of social problems ensued, especially involving social elitism and condescension toward “have-nots” such as Paul.

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Although there is much of use in this chapter, as a whole I find it the weakest in the book. It doesn’t seem to detect an ordered flow of topics in the letter, other than seeing them as moving from most important to less important: “The scepticism Paul addresses in chapter 15 is more likely to
have arisen from Greek soul-based eschatology than from a Christian super-spirituality that downplayed a future resurrection of the body…. Accordingly, I view chapter 15 as dealing with an important but isolated matter, which means that the early chapters assume great significance for the understanding of the whole letter.” (p85) I find this unpersuasive, both in terms of the issue underlying chapter 15, and in terms of the overall priority of material. But, as I say, this doesn’t mean that there are no useful insights in this chapter.

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Chapter 7 pauses to examine the importance of eschatology in 1 Corinthians, suggesting that there was a variety of faulty eschatologies operative in the Corinthian church, and Paul wants to “maintain the balance between the twin realities that the coming age was not yet, while affirming that God has already intervened in the present age in Christ and by the Spirit.” (p103). I am in agreement with this, although I would say that Paul perceives a general orientation of premature triumphalism in Corinth, regardless of their ostensible “eschatologies.”

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Chapter 8 then seeks to evaluate Paul’s approach to the crisis in Corinth in 1 Corinthians – how does he respond to their divisive condescension? Barnett’s answer is that Paul reasserts his apostleship, as an apostle of Christ crucified. Here is a great quote: “Is there a teaching in the letter that predominates? Indeed, there is and it is the apostle’s instruction about ‘Christ crucified.’ The ‘cross of Christ’ permeates the entire letter in two aspects. It was that message that ‘saved’ the members and is the ‘foundation’ on which the church ‘stands’ (1 Cor. 15:1). Equally, that sublime ‘others-centred’ gospel is to be the template for all social relationships within the church in which that church had repeatedly failed.” (p122).

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After this, the book moves on to consider what happened in between 1 & 2 Corinthians, and then to consider 2 Corinthians & beyond. I’ll do the rest of the review later.

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Introduction -- The ideological challenge of church leadership studies -- The social identity model of leadership -- Realigning emerging leadership with Christian social identity in 1 Corinthians -- Reestablishing Paul's leadership as model in 2 Corinthians -- Leadership legitimation and empowerment in Ephesians -- Structuring leadership and group participation in 1 Timothy -- Correcting leadership misconceptions and establishing succession in 2 Timothy -- Conclusions and implications : emerging leadership in the Pauline mission

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Introduction -- Paul and the imperial gospel at Thessalonica -- 'The ultimate sinner' : Paul and the anti-Christ in political context -- Imperial conceptions of rule and Paul's reign of grace -- Paul's 'dishonoured benefactor' in Augustan and Neronian context -- Paul and the Roman ideal of glory in the Epistle to the Romans -- Did Paul found a new concept of state? -- Conclusion

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Abasciano's response to Moises's RBL Critique

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http://www.amazon.com/Pauls-Use-Old-Testament-Romans/forum/Fx2AKEKEPN8E7XV/TxQ6YWQYI17B0J/1/ref=cm_cd_dp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=0567031039%20.

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Initial post: May 11, 2012 9:59:10 AM PDT
Last edited by the author on May 14, 2012 12:50:20 PM PDT
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Brian Abasciano says:
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Steve Moyise recently reviewed my book (Brian J. Abasciano, Paul's Use of the Old Testament in Romans 9.10-18: An Intertextual and Theological Exegesis [Library of New Testament Studies 317; New York: T&T Clark, 2011]) for the Review of Biblical Literature (http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=8334). I have to say that I am quite disappointed in this review because of its unfair criticism based on misrepresentation of what I actually say and argue in the book. I would not normally seek to respond to a book review in this fashion (i.e., posting a reply online as the beginning of an Amazon discussion of the book). One expects book reviews to be critical in varying degrees, and interaction can be taken up in further published work if appropriate. But I think that this review deserves a prompt and direct response in this manner because it actually misrepresents me and the argument of the book. I will not address all of the criticisms Moyise leveled at my book, but try to remain brief and take up those that are based on misrepresentation rather than simple difference of perspective or approach.

In Moyise's first main criticism, he gives the impression that I argue that Paul largely derived his view that ethnic Israel's hardening is temporary from what is said about Edom and Pharaoh, and that everything can be deduced from the local context of Paul's Old Testament quotations. But that is simply false. My argument is far more nuanced, arguing that one of those texts contributed to Paul's view of the hardening as temporary (not that it is the main text contributing to Paul's conception nor even one of the main texts) and that the other gives some subtle support for the idea in our assessment of Paul's intention. With regard to the former, I wrote, \"It would appear that Mal. 1.2-3 provides *some* of the scriptural basis for Paul's conviction that God's judgment of unbelieving ethnic Israel would bring Gentiles to faith and that his merciful treatment of the Gentiles would bring Jews to faith, summed up in 11:30-31\" (72-73; emphasis added). With regard to the Pharaoh text, I said that it \"gives *some support* to the reversibility of the hardening of 9.18\" (212; emphasis added), and then later, on the same page, specify the nature of this support as hinting and subtle. Nowhere do I say that everything can be deduced about Paul's argument from the local context of Pauls' Old Testament quotations. However, if Paul was drawing his arguments from the Old Testament texts, as he seems to claim and I believe I have shown, then we should expect a great deal of his argumentation to be elucidated by examination of the Old Testament texts he quotes or alludes to. Moreover, I do examine the original contexts of Paul's Old Testament quotations and compare them to Paul's argument. If that yields many striking correspondences, then it behooves us to acknowledge that. Indeed, we should follow the evidence wherever it leads. Moyise himself concedes that I \"provide a significant challenge to those who think that Paul had little interest in the original context of his quotations.\"

Moyise's other major criticism is that I assume Paul's readers would be able to follow Paul's exegetical moves. But he again misrepresents what I actually say (unintentionally I am sure). Moyise claims that I argue that Paul's readers would take ἐξήγει`1;ά σε in the sense of \"I have spared you\" because they would know that the Hebrew uses the hiphil of עמד (\"to stand\"), which was rendered by the LXX with διετηρή;θης (\"you were spared\"). I neither say nor imply any such a thing. I do point out that the both the Hebrew and the LXX (i.e., the original context of Paul's quotation in both language versions) carry the sense of \"I have spared you,\" and that this accords with Paul's only other usage of the verb ἐξεγεί`1;ω, as well as with his dominant usage of the cognate verb ἐγείρω. These are standard types of exegetical observations for scholarly biblical literature, and it is surprising if Moyise would find it objectionable for them to be cited as support for construing Paul's intention. But even if he does, they do not make the sort of claim that Moyise claims I make. He has simply misrepresented me here.

I believe that Moyise and I have sharp differences in our approaches to Paul's use of the Old Testament, differences that reflect major debates in the field of Old Testament in the New studies. These differences come out in his review, and I have intentionally not addressed them much in this format since such criticisms are par for the course in book reviews. However, Moyise's two main criticisms of my book are grounded in misrepresentation of what I actually say and argue. That is not par for the course for scholarly book reviews and calls for correction. We should represent others' views rightly before we criticize them.
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Udoh Review - Theological Review 2007

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THE EMERGENCE OF CHRISTIAN IDENTITY IN PAUL'S LETTER TO THE GALATIANS: A SOCIAL-SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION INTO THE ROOT CAUSES FOR THE PARTING OF THE WAY BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. By Bernard O. Ukwuegbu. Arbeiten zur Interkulturalitat 4. Bonn: Borengasser, 2003. Pp. xvi + 480. 42 [euro]. 

Focused on Galatians, Ukwuegbu wants to shift the \"close relation between contemporary historical and social situations to textual interpretation,\" as found in contemporary Pauline scholarship, away from \"Eurocentric\" concerns (e.g., the Holocaust and Jewish-Christian dialogue), in order \"to discover.., information relevant to some of the social and cultural questions facing the church today\" (37, 2). His special concern resides with the relationship between the \"domineering\" European and American churches and the churches in \"the once upon a time mission lands\" of Africa (37, 41,413-21). To effect the shift, he places Galatians (\"the most Pauline of the Pauline writings\" [9]), at the center of Pauline theology and early Christian history. In the process, however, he ends up \"galatianizing\" both that theology and history, despite his counterclaims (see 400, 407, 3). 

To establish his argument, U. reconstructs a \"common Judaism\" (chap. 3), characterized by ethnic-defining \"ancestral customs\": monotheism, election, Torah, and Temple, together withcircumcision and the \"purity law prohibiting table fellowship between Jews and Gentiles\" (112-13, 139-49). He proposes that Judaism's flaw was in its exclusion of Gentiles and thus in the \"spatial limits it sets to the presence of God\" (342). The \"qualitatively-otherness\" of Paul's gospel (109), U. claims, consists in his rejection of this \"common Judaism,\" its ethnic identity markers and symbolic universe, as constitutive of the Christian gospel and identity. At his conversion Paul broke with other \"zealous Israelites\" who fought to preserve \"the purity and holiness of Israel's ethnic identity\" (232, 202) because he came to believe that the messianic age had arrived and that God had fundamentally changed the structure of salvation: salvation occurs through the supernatural intervention of God's grace by faith in Christ, excluding \"any practices of law that differentiates Jews and Gentiles\" (203-6). Paul, in other words, was converted to the \"Paulinism\" of Galatians. 

Paul's universalist gospel of freedom and emancipation from ethnocentric Judaism constituted a singular and \"innovative break\" from Judaism and from Jewish Christianity. He considered faith in the Christ event to be both necessary and sufficient for salvation and for Christian identity. Jews and Jewish Christians preached a non-gospel (223, 287, 172-73) in that they continued to affirm the validity of the law and the Jewish \"symbolic universe,\" and sought to restrain salvation \"within the larger context of ethnocentric covenantal theology\" (168, 202, 222, 400-403). 

In chapters 4 through 6, U. works out his thesis, reading Galatians as Paul's attempt to \"legitimize\" his gospel (Gal 1:6-2:14) and to construct and legitimize an alternative Christian \"symbolic universe\" (2:15-3:29) with an alternative ethic (4:1-6:16). Here U.'s analysis is detailed and well documented, challenging those who seek in Paul's polemical writings a Christian gospel allegedly going back to \"the historical Jesus and his radical interpretation of the law\" (162)--a reading in which Paul is both the paradigmatic Jew and, anachronistically, the paradigmatic Christian. Although U. struggles with the problem of the \"anti-Jewishness\" of Galatians, he insists that Paul's theology was supersessionist: Paul preached a \"new-age\" universalist gospel of freedom against the slavery of Judaism's old and \"outmoded\" ethnic covenant theology. 

Being also Nigerian and Catholic, I share U.'s frustration with an African (Catholic) Church dominated by the \"protectoral service\" of Western hegemony, and I look for tolerance and mutual respect. However, U.'s search in Galatians for a pristine gospel raises unanswered questions. He brilliantly demonstrates that Galatians is a sectarian document. The stridency of Galatians, in fact, derives from Paul's insistence, not that Gentiles must not be Judaized, but that Jews must be \"Gentilized\"; in Galatians one cannot be fully Jewish and Christian. If covenantal Judaism is the Jews' \"God-given cultural milieu,\" it cannot be argued, as U. does, that in Galatians \"Paul provided ground.., for mutual tolerance and respect between Jews and Gentile Christian\" (sic; 37). It is, therefore, hard to see how Galatians can serve as \"valuable resources in the struggle to fashion harmonious but multicultural society\" (37, 415). 

Again, U. argues that Paul was not expunging ethnic, social, and gender differences; he relativized them by locating salvation at the level of personal choice. Yet, one may ask, does the Christ event ever exist without being already incarnated in and expressed through the particularities of a culture? If, on the Galatians model, the acceptance of the Christ event must lead to a qualitatively different self-understanding and a new community with an independent social identity, is Christianity bound to be a series of \"sectarian\" movements? 

Finally, this book could have used an editor capable of transforming it from a German dissertation to a monograph for an English-speaking readership. Redundant material, typographical errors, chaotic use of quotation marks, and bibliographical references and citations in German where English was possible, make the book tedious to read and difficult to understand. 

FABIAN E. UDOH 

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Table of Contents:

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1. Reading Galatians (1)

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2. Social Identity and the epistle to the Galatians (29)

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3. Context and rhetoric in Galatians (58)

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4. The problem with mixed table-fellowship (93)

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5. Paul, Jerusalem and Antioch (117)

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6. Righteousness as privileged identity (141)

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7. Paul and the law (178)

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8. Freedom, the Spirit and community life (Gal. 4.21–6.10)

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Epilogue: the intercultural promise of Galatians (235)

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Appendix: Paul’s attitude to the law in Rom. 5.20–21 (240)

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