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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
We are in a better position to write a theology of Paul than the theology of anyone else for the first hundred years of Christianity. In contrast, though a theology of Jesus would be the more fascinating, we have nothing first-hand from Jesus which can provide such a secure starting point. The theologies of the Evangelists are almost equally problematic, since their focus on the ministry and teaching of Jesus makes their own theology that much more allusive. Moreover, in two at least of the four cases we have only one document to use; we can speak with some confidence of the theology of that document, but the theology of its anonymous author remains tantalisingly intangible. So too with the other NT letters: either we have only one letter from a particular pen, or the author is unknown, or the letter is too short for us to get much of a handle on its theology, or all three; a theology of 1 Peter is never going to have the depth and breadth of a theology of Paul. Within the first century of Christianity the closest parallel is Ignatius, where, arguably, there are as many genuine letters; but even so we are talking about seven letters written over a very short period, all but one to a relatively small area, in similar circumstances and on a limited range of themes.
1 See Schoedel, W. R., Ignatius of Antioch (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985).Google Scholar
2 I refer of course to Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians (2 or more letters?), Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon. There is a roughly even split among critical commentators on Colossians and 2 Thessalonians, while the majority regard Ephesians and the Pastorals as definitely post-Pauline. But the last two groups should not be wholly disregarded when the attempt is made to describe the theology of the apostle whose name they bear. Here weight can be properly given to B. S. Child's plea for a canonical reading of the individual texts (The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985]).Google Scholar
3 The key extract from Gabler's De iusto discrimine theologiae biblicae et dogmaticae regundisque recte utriusque finibus may conveniently be consulted in Kümmel, W. G., The New Testament. The History of the Investigation of Its Problems (London: SCM, 1973) 98–100.Google Scholar
4 Wrede, W., ‘The Task and Methods of “New Testament Theology”’, in Morgan, R., The Nature of New Testament Theology (London: SCM, 1973) 68–116Google Scholar; Stendahl, K., ‘Biblical Theology’, IDB 1.418–32Google Scholar; Räisänen, H., Beyond New Testament Theology (London: SCM/Phila-delphia: TPI, 1990).Google Scholar
5 A. Schlatter, ‘The Theology of the New Testament and Dogmatics’, in Morgan (n. 4) 117–66.
6 Barth, K, Romans (London: Oxford, 1933)Google Scholar, Preface to the second edition (2–15); Bult-mann, R., ‘The New Testament and Mythology’, in Bartsch, H.-W., ed., Kerygma and Myth 1 (London: SPCK, 1953) 1–44Google Scholar; also The Theology of the New Testament 2 (London: SCM, 1955) 251.Google Scholar
7 Hübner, H., Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments: 1. Prolegomena; 2. Die Theologie des Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1990, 1993)Google Scholar; Stuhlmacher, P., Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments: 1. Grundlegung von Jesus zu Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1992).Google Scholar
8 The word is Gadamer's; see particularly Thiselton, A. C., The Two Horizons (Exeter: Paternoster, 1980) 15–16.Google Scholar
9 I have attempted a brief elaboration of what I mean by this model of hermeneutical dialogue in New Testament Theology in Dialogue (with J. P. Mackey; London: SPCK/Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987)Google Scholar ch. 1.
10 I allude of course to Steiner, G., Real Presences (London: Faber and Faber, 1989).Google Scholar
11 Such personal involvement will normally include personal involvement with (or reaction against!) a particular faith (Christian) tradition and worshipping community, an important aspect which time does not permit me to elaborate here.
12 For the wider issues here, more appropriately discussed under the heading of ‘New Testament Theology’, see now Morgan, R., ‘Theology (NT)’, ABD 6.473–83Google Scholar, particularly 480–3; and Jeanrond, W. G., ‘After Hermeneutics: The Relationship between Theology and Biblical Studies’, The Open Text: New Directions for Biblical Studies (ed. Watson, F.; London: SCM, 1993) 85–102Google Scholar, particularly 92–8.
13 The classic statement was by Wrede (above n. 4).
14 I am thinking particularly of Theissen, G., The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress/Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1982)Google Scholar; Holmberg, B., Paul and Power: The Structure of Authority in the Primitive Church as Reflected in the Pauline Epistles (ConBib NTS 11; Lund: Gleerup, 1978)Google Scholar; Meeks, W. A., The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale, 1983)Google Scholar; Petersen, N. R., Rediscovering Paul. Philemon and the Sociology of Paul's Narrative World (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985)Google Scholar; and Neyrey, J. H., Paul in Other Words: A Cultural Reading of His Letters (Louisville: Westminster, 1990).Google Scholar
15 See the recent reviews by Garrett, S. R., ‘Sociology (Early Christianity)’, ABD 6.89–99Google Scholar and Barton, S. C., ‘Social-Scientific Approaches to Paul’, Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (ed. Martin, R. P.et al.; Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP, 1993) 892–900.Google Scholar
16 This became particularly clear to me in recent work on Galatians; see my The Theology of Galatians (Cambridge University, 1993) 1–6.Google Scholar
17 See further Schütz, J. H., Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority (SNTSMS 26; Cambridge University, 1975)Google Scholar; Lyons, G., Pauline Autobiography. Towards a New Understanding (SBLDS 73; Atlanta: Scholars, 1985)Google Scholar; Gaventa, B. R., ‘Galatians 1 and 2: Autobiography as Paradigm’, NouT 28 (1986) 309–26.Google Scholar
18 See e.g. J. P. Sampley, ‘From Text to Thought World’ in Bassler (below n. 21): ‘Because Paul focuses so frequently on the position of his opponents our capacity to understand Paul is directly proportionate to our ability to understand Paul's opponents’ (7).
19 In Chicago how could one fail to mention the names of Betz, H. D., particularly his Galatians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979)Google Scholar, and White, J. L., Light from Ancient Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986)Google Scholar? On the diatribe note particularly Stowers, S. K., The Diatribe and Paul's Letter to the Romans (SBLDS 57; Chico: Scholars, 1981)Google Scholar. See also the essays by H. D. Betz, ‘The Problem of Rhetoric and Theology according to the Apostle Paul’, and Wuellner, W., ‘Paul as Pastor. The Function of Rhetorical Questions in First Corinthians’, in L'Apôtre Paul (ed. Vanhoye, A.; BETL 73; Leuven University, 1986) 16–48, 49–77.Google Scholar
20 See e.g. the critique of Betz (n. 19) by Longenecker, R. N., Galatians (WBC 41; Dallas: Word, 1990) cxi–cxiii.Google Scholar
21 The first fruits of the Group have already appeared in Bassler, J. M., ed., Pauline Theology 1: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991)Google Scholar and Hay, D. M., ed., Pauline Theology 2:1 and 2 Corinthians (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).Google Scholar
22 The evidence of Acts can never be more than secondary and supportive.
23 On the importance and recognition of such allusions or ‘intertextual echoes’ see R. B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale, 1989) ch. 1.
24 See e.g. Donfried, K. P., ed., The Romans Debate (revised; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991)Google Scholar and Barclay, J. M. G., ‘Mirror Reading a Polemical Letter: Galatians as a Test Case’, JSNT 31 (1987) 73–93.Google Scholar
25 I remain strongly of the opinion that the main body of initial Gentile converts came into Christianity via the synagogue, as proselytes or God-fearers; see e.g. my The Partings of the Ways between Christianity and Judaism (London: SCM/Philadelphia: TPI, 1991) 125–6. The fact that the LXX was unknown to wider Greco-Roman circles confirms that such familiarity as Paul clearly assumes must have come in many cases at least from lengthy exposure to the scriptures in a synagogue context.
26 See my Jesus, Paul and the Law. Studies in Mark and Galatians (London: SPCK/ Louisville: Westminster, 1990)Google Scholar; also ‘The Justice of God: A Renewed Perspective on Justification by Faith’, JTS 43 (1992) 1–22Google Scholar; also ‘Yet Once More – “The Works of the Law”: a Response’, JSNT 46 (1992) 99–117.Google Scholar
27 See further Kramer, W., Christ, Lord, Son of God (London: SCM, 1966)Google Scholar; Wengst, K., Christologische Formeln und Lieder des Urchristentums (Gütersloh: Gütersloher, 1972)Google Scholar; more generally, Moule, C. F. D., The Birth of the New Testament (London: Black, 3rd ed. 1981).Google Scholar
28 Most commentators on Romans agree that Rom 3.24–5 makes use of preformed material.
29 See further my ‘How Controversial Was Paul's Christology?’, From Jesus to John, Essays on Jesus and New Testament Christology in Honour of Marinus de Jonge (ed. M. de Boer; Sheffield Academic, 1993) 148–67.Google Scholar
30 F. Neirynck, ‘Paul and the Sayings of Jesus’, L'Apôtre Paul (above n. 19) 265–321.
31 This was ever Bultmann's primary concern, still evident in his Der zweite Brief an die Korinther (KEK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1976) 155–7.Google Scholar
32 See further Wedderburn, A. J. M., ed., Paul and Jesus. Collected Essays (JSNTS 37; Sheffield Academic, 1989).Google Scholar
33 Cf. Hays (n. 23): ‘When a literary echo links the text in which it occurs to an earlier text, the figurative effect of the echo can lie in the unstated or suppressed (transumed) points of resonance between the two texts’ (20).
34 Furnish, V. P., Theology and Ethics in Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968) 53–4Google Scholar; see further Allison, D. C., ‘The Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels: the Pattern of Parallels’, NTS 28 (1982) 1–32Google Scholar, who notes the same texts most frequently cited as containing ‘firm echoes’, with 1 Cor 13.2 replacing 1 Thess 5.13 in Furnish's list (p. 10; with bibliography in n. 47).
35 See further my ‘Paul's Knowledge of the Jesus Tradition. The Evidence of Romans’, Christus bezeugen (W. Trilling FS; ed. K. Kertelge et al.; Leipzig: St Benno, 1989) 193–207Google Scholar; also ‘Jesus Tradition in Paul’, Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (ed. B. D. Chilton & C. A. Evans; NTTS; Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).Google Scholar
36 Dodd, C. H., ‘The Mind of Paul’, New Testament Studies (Manchester University, 1953) 108–26Google Scholar; Buck, C. H. & Taylor, G., St Paul: A Study in the Development of His Thought (New York: Scribner, 1969)Google Scholar. On the relation between 1 Cor 15 and 2 Cor 5 in particular see e.g. Martin, R. P., 2 Corinthians (WBC 40; Waco: Word, 1986) 97–9.Google Scholar
37 See e.g. P. J. Achtemeier, ‘Finding the Way to Paul's Theology’, in Bassler (n. 21) 27.
38 Moule, C. F. D., ‘The Influence of Circumstances on the Use of Eschatological Terms’, JTS 15 (1964) 1–15Google Scholar, reprinted in Moule, , Essays in New Testament Interpretation (Cambridge University, 1982) 184–99Google Scholar; see further Lowe, J., ‘An Examination of Attempts to Detect Development in St Paul's Theology’, JTS 42 (1941) 129–42Google Scholar; Furnish, V. P., ‘Developments in Paul's Thought’, JAAR 38 (1970) 289–303Google Scholar; Beker, J. C., ‘Paul's Theology: Consistent or Inconsistent?’, NTS 34 (1988) 364–77Google Scholar, here 366–7.
39 See particularly Segal, A. F., Paul the Convert. The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale, 1990).Google Scholar
40 So e.g. Stuhlmacher, P., ‘“Das Ende des Gesetzes”. Über Ursprung und Ansatz der paulinischen Theologie’, Versöhnung, Gesetz und Gerechtigkeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1981) 166–91Google Scholar; Hengel, M., Between Jesus and Paul (London: SCM, 1983) 23–4.Google Scholar
41 See particularly those cited below (nn. 59, 60).
42 Particularly Kim, S., The Origin of Paul's Gospel (WUNT 2.4; Tübingen: Mohr, 1981).Google Scholar
43 Sanders, E. P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London: SCM, 1977) 442–7.Google Scholar In response, Thielman, F., From Plight to Solution. A Jewish Framework for Understanding Paul's View of the Law in Galatians and Romans (Leiden: Brill, 1989).Google Scholar
44 Bultmann, Theology, 187–9; Davies, W. D., Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (London: SPCK, 1948; Philadelphia: Fortress, 4th ed. 1981) 1–16.Google Scholar
45 See also Furnish, V. P., ‘Pauline Studies’, The New Testament and Its Modern Interpreters (ed. Epp, E. J. & MacRae, G. W.; Atlanta: Scholars, 1980) 333–6Google Scholar; for the larger debate on a centre in New Testament Theology, see Hasel, G. F., New Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978)Google Scholar ch. 3.
46 As is well known, ‘justification by faith’ was the theological basis for Bultmann's demythologizing programme (Jesus Christ and Mythology [London: SCM, 1960] 70)Google Scholar; and for Käsemann, E. it was the ‘canon within the canon’ (Das Neue Testament als Kanon [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1970]) 405–8.Google Scholar
47 Schweitzer, A., The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (London: Black, 1931)Google Scholar; see also Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 453–63, 502–8.
48 Wilckens, U., Der Brief an die Römer (EKK 6; Zürich: Benziger, 1978–82)Google Scholar index ‘Sühnetod (Christi)’. Becker, Paulus. Der Apostel der Völker (Tübingen: Mohr, 1989)Google Scholar, has attempted to combine a developmental schema with a search for the centre, arguing in effect for three principal phases in Paul's theological writing: first, his theology of election (Erwählungs-theologie -1 Thessalonians); second, a theology of the cross (Kreuzestheologie – Corinthians); and third, his message of justification (Rechtfertigungsbotschaft – already in Galatians). Of these three the second is the centre: the theology of the cross is the ‘canon’ by which the theology of election is defined; the message of justification is the language in which the theology of the cross is clothed.
49 As Braun, H., ‘The Problem of a New Testament Theology’, JThCh 1 (1965) 169–85.Google Scholar
50 The reference here, of course, is to Cullmann, O., Christ and Time (London: SCM, 3rd ed. 1962).Google Scholar
51 Hays, R. B., The Faith of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3.1–4.11 (SBLDS; Chico: Scholars, 1983)Google Scholar; Wright, N. T., The Climax of the Covenant (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991)Google Scholar; also The New Testament and the People of God (London: SPCK, 1992).Google Scholar
52 Räisänen, H., Paul and the Law (WUNT 29; Tübingen: Mohr, 1983)Google Scholar. See also Boers, H. W., ‘The Foundation of Paul's Thought: A Methodological Investigation: The Problem of a Coherent Center of Paul's Thought’, StTh 42 (1988) 55–68.Google Scholar
53 J. C. Beker, ‘Paul's Theology’, 364–77; also ‘Recasting Pauline Theology’, in Bassler (n. 21) 18, reflecting on his earlier Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980).Google Scholar
54 Beker, ‘Paul's Theology’, 368; also ‘Recasting’, 15.
55 Childs' criticism of Beker (Introduction, 310) seems to misunderstand Beker's agenda; where the canon preserves the contingency of the letters, it bears testimony to the same tension between contingency and coherence and necessitates the same dialogue between historical inquiry into each letter's allusive character and the themes deemed to be of continuing importance on a canonical reading.
56 Paul and Palestinian Judaism (above n. 43).
57 Goppelt, L., Theology of the New Testament 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982) 40–6Google Scholar, showed himself more attuned to the dynamics of all this than most of his contemporaries.
58 See my Christology in the Making (London: SCM, 2nd ed. 1980) 179.Google Scholar
59 See my Partings, 119–22.
60 Otherwise Taylor, N., Paul, Antioch and Jerusalem (Sheffield Academic, 1992).Google Scholar
61 This is the thesis of Watson, F., Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles (SNTSMS 56; Cambridge University, 1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
62 See further my Partings, 125–35; also with detailed exegesis, my Galatians (Black's NT Comm.; London: Black, 1993).Google Scholar
63 Lightfoot, J. B., Galatians (London: Macmillan, 1865) 349–50.Google Scholar