Text, Community & Mission

I must not have hit the publish button last Monday so you will get a two for one this week.  Below is my summary and take on chapter 1 that I meant to post last week.  Tomorrow I should post on chapter 2.

The first chapter of PJG helps the reader situate themselves in the landscape by giving a summary of Pauline interpretation with special attention paid to the themes of Law, righteousness and justification.  Watson first notes that unlike much of current scholarship the classical reading of Paul’s view of law and justification does not find its origin in the Post-Enlightenment criticism of the 19th century; rather in the Reformation and most specifically Luther’s reading.  Watson notes that for Luther, Paul’s reference to “works of the law” must be understood as general morality and not Jewish ceremonies, contra Jerome.  The treatment of Luther is quite fair and includes a summary of the common Lutheran reading of Paul.  In the same line as Luther, Watson discusses Bultman next, who although sensitive to the a historically situatedness of Paul’s writing, concludes in the same line with Luther. (more…)

Dawn, Marva J. Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.

In Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God, Marva Dawn sets out to present a needed renewal and update of the “powers” language used throughout the text of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.  With this as the foundation of the book, Dawn seeks to explain how the Church has been and is today controlled by the powers, in contrast to embracing its weakness resulting in God’s greatest glory through the need of His church to dwell with Him in the most necessary way.  This book grew out of Dawn’s lecture series on the same topic given at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 2000.  This is evident from Dawn’s constant use of first person pronouns and her appeal to personal examples of weakness and failure when dealing with the traps and snares of the powers.

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A month after I started reading Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles I am actually posting on the Introduction.  I will treat the the ten chapters of PGG on a weekly basis, starting here with the “Introduction to the Revised Edition.”

Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective (PJG hereafter) is a revision of the 1986 monograph Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles: A Sociological Approach in the Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series, which itself came out of Watson’s 1983 dissertation under George Caird at Oxford.  The introduction begins with Watson’s explanation of how the original monograph took shape in contrast to his submitted dissertation.  Watson explains that the unpublished form was closely aligned with Sander’s covenantal nomism, although seeing Paul’s critique as one of the law’s inclusive condemnation as opposed to Sander’s Christology, similar to Dunn and Wright’s formation of the New Perspective on Paul. (more…)

Goodrich, Richard J., and Albert L. Lukaszewski, eds. A Reader’s Greek New Testament. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007.

Brown II, A. Phillip, and Bryan W. Smith, eds. A Reader’s Hebrew Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008.

I would like to thank Nick Norelli of Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth, for sending me this extra copy of RGNT.  You can find his review here.  I would also like to thank Jesse Hillman for sending the RHB volume.  You can also find a review of both the Hebrew and Greek volumes here.  Finally, an excellent review of the Hebrew volume is available here. (more…)

The following links have been added to the Theological Lectures page:

iTunes U pages for: Dallas Theological Seminary, UC Berkley History Classes, and a Stanford class on Hannibal

Christopher Hitchens – The Morals of an Atheist – An interview at Stanford

Bart Ehrman – Misquoting Jesus – Also from Stanford

As always if you know of any other theological, ancient history of philosophy lectures available for free online, let me know so I can share them with everyone.  Thanks!

Ellis, E. Earle. Paul’s Use of the Old Testament. Repr. ed. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2003. 204 pages

E. Earle Ellis is the research professor of theology Emeritus and scholar in residence at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.  His other major works include Prophecy and Hermeneutic, The Old Testament in Early Christianity, The Making of the New Testament Documents and Christ and The Future of New Testament History.  The current work is a reprinting of book that finds its origin in Ellis’ doctoral dissertation from the University of Edinburgh in 1955. The purpose of Paul’s Use of the Old Testament is to introduce the reader to the issues that must be considered when studying the New Testament authors’ use of the Hebrew Scriptures, with special attention paid to the Pauline writing.  Ellis does this through four topics, which become his four chapters: “Paul and His Bible,” “Paul and Judaism,” “Paul and the Apostolic Church,” and “Pauline Exegesis.” (more…)

I apologize for my extended absence.  I have been swamped at church, my second job and home.  Hopefully by the beginning of next week things will settle down and I will be able to continue my regular schedule of posting.  Some upcoming posts include: A review of both Zondervan Reader’s Bibles, the final posts on Robert Webber’s Who Gets to Narrate the World, the beginning of a series on Francis Watson’s Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles, and a summary of the tremendous amount I have already learned from my 1 Corinthians class with Earle Ellis.  Thanks and I hope you will check back here soon.