Don Garlington provides a healthy review and corrective to the fearful and triumphalist promotion of John Piper’s latest contribution to Reformed and Evangelical factionalism, The Future of Justification.
Great news: I’ve been granted a spot for a seminar paper at the British New Testament Society conference this year! It will be held in early September at the University of Exeter. (more…)
On May 3rd I was treated to a wonderful evening in honor of Professor C.K. Barrett’s 90th birthday. The reception was a treat, as we browsed by and chatted with a number of great New Testament scholars, as well as a host of energetic and very promising postgraduate students. A highlight of the evening was the keynote paper by Professor Morna D. Hooker. Her text was 2 Corinthians 5:21. The title of her paper was, “On Being the Righteousness of God.” With her express permission, the audio of her lecture is available online here (password: letusin). (The file is unedited, so there may be some popping or silent spots, etc.) Following her presentation you will hear interactions from such people as C.K. Barrett, Walter Moberly, N.T. Wright, James Dunn and John Barclay.
I’ve been pondering Paul’s discussion of “the works of the law” in Romans 1-4. I believe that one of the errors often committed when seeking to unravel Paul’s argument here is too quickly importing verses from Paul’s other epistles, as though those verses mollify whatever tension one feels when reading, for instance, Romans 2:13. Rather than, say, pitting Romans 2:13 (“the doers of the law will be justified”) against, say, Galatians 3:21 (“For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law”), as though these necessarily are contrary propositions, I believe we must seek to discern the rhetorical and social contexts for these respective statements. Permit me in this post to mention just a couple observations about circumcision in Romans 1-4. (more…)
I just received a copy of the 3rd edition of Don Garlington’s commentary on Galatians: An Exposition of Galatians: A Reading from the New Perspective. Several years ago, in our home Bible study, Don graciously permitted us to use a manuscript version of the first edition of this commentary. I remember well how we appreciated his work, and how it helped facilitate great discussion and contemplation of the challenging import of this very challenging and probing epistle. I anticipate rereading this volume throughout the summer months.
Often it is assumed that in Romans 1:18ff Paul is working from assumptions of natural theology and natural law (a view from which I demure). C.H. Dodd, in his commentary on Romans, went so far as to argue that the wrath being revealed (v.18) is not God’s personal attitude or action against human unrighteousness and impiety but rather the natural consequences of such immoral human actions.
My suspicion is that some people – perhaps Dodd – want to guard against attributing to God attitudes and actions that might otherwise be deemed unjust. And, of course, throughout Romans, Paul is intent to show that God indeed is not unjust: e.g., “But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath upon us?” (3:5). So, in one sense, such endeavors to guard God’s reputation are laudable. Yet… (more…)
Anyone interested in the contemporary discussion of “the new perspective(s)” on Paul should take time to read Michael Bird’s essay, “When the Dust Finally Settles: Coming to a Post-New Perspective Perspective” (Criswell Theological Review n.s. 2/2 [Spring 2005] 57-69; available only as a downloadable pdf). This essay is an earlier version of the fifth chapter of his recent monograph, The Saving Righteousness of God (which I recently recommended here). In spite of my recent criticisms of some of Bird’s work, I very much appreciate his thoughtful approach and charitable tone. Here is the concluding paragraph of this essay:
In this essay I have urged a dialogical and irenic approach of critiquing and appropriating what the NP has to say. Lamentably, much of what I have read on the NP (particularly on the internet) has not always been insightful or gracious. N. T. Wright in particular has come under some vitriolic criticism. I do not concur with every point he raises; in fact, I find several of his exegetical conclusions unconvincing. All the same, Wright as put Paul into a thoroughly Jewish framework and forced us to look beyond our reformed lenses and to discover a whole new dimension to Paul. Wright’s studies on the historical Jesus, though contestable at points, are equally refreshing. I seriously wish scholars and students of the evangelical tradition would appreciate what a gem we have in Wright who has shown that many of the tenets of historical Christianity are not quite so passé as its detractors have thought.
As I noted in an earlier post, in his recent monograph, Michael Bird argues the thesis that, “There are instances in second-temple Jewish literature which either demand or assume that law-keeping perfection is attainable” (162). He holds that these traditions are foils for Paul’s view of justification. I have already responded to his use of Testament of Abraham 10:13 and Prayer of Manasseh 8 (see, also, my post regarding Daniel Falk’s discussion of this text), showing that neither of these texts actually affirms a sinlessness Abraham in the sense of absolute sinless perfection (as, say, some New Testament writers affirm of Jesus). Bird references several other passages to support his contention (Tob 3:14; Jub 27:18; T Iss 7:1-9; T Levi 10:2; T Zeb 1:4; 2 Bar 9:1). Here we’ll quickly look at each in turn. It is interesting how Bird refers to Testament of Abraham and Prayer of Manasseh within the text of his argument, relegating the following passages to footnote status. This may suggest a certain reluctance in claiming these texts as support.
Tobit 3:14
“You know, O Master, that I am innocent of any defilement with a man.” (NRSV)
Cf. A.A. Di Lella, trans. New English Translation of the Septuagint, available in pdf here, which reads, “…I am pure from all impurity with a man”). (more…)
This evening I decided to glance at the two-volumes of Justification and Variegated Nomism to see what I could find the Prayer of Manasseh. I found a brief discussion in the second chapter (“Psalms and Prayers”) of the first volume, a piece by Daniel Falk. At first I was fearing either that Falk has misread the work, or that I had, when I read, “In contrast to the universality of guilt assumed in Communal Confession, Prayer of Manasseh raises the prospect of sinlessness” (14). Falk elaborates: “Those who do not sin and never need repentance are the true offspring of the patriarchs, and repentance may be read as a concession for those who fail. If the repentant sinner considers himself undeserving of God’s goodness due to his sins (vv. 10, 14), does this imply that the righteous person is deserving of God’s goodness because of his righteous conduct?” (15). (more…)
On the heals of discussing several passages allegedly promoting the “sinlessness” of some people, Simon Gathercole provides the following wise observations:
So, the claims to righteousness, to lifelong obedience, and to abstinence from sin cannot merely be based on intention [here Gathercole is countering E.P. Sanders's assertion]. Of course, they do not presuppose perfection either, nor necessarily a consciousness of having done more good deeds than bad. Yet these claims do consist in concrete deeds lived out in the Jewish community and before God. However, it is extremely difficult to define with any precision what these terms – “blamelessness,” “sinlessness,” and “perfection” – or Torah-fulfillment actually meant in the minds of Jews of the Second Temple period. To answer the problem one has to resort to generalizations because the terms are never discussed at any length (let alone in any systematic way) in the texts themselves. They all relate to behavior that consists in the avoidance of certain sins, but also to positive practice, which means that they are not merely expressions of “status”: the claims expressed in these texts, therefore, are to concrete obedience. (Where Is Boasting?, 188)
I think there is a lot of wisdom here. It is true that such terms as “blameless” and “sinless” and such are not discussed and defined in the literature. This can make it difficult to discern precisely what the authors intend. Nevertheless, quite often there are comparative elements illustrating that those who are “righteous” or “sinless” are designated such vis-à-vis “sinners” or “apostates” and the like. There are discursive boundaries for how such terms are used in these texts. As such, these texts should not be read as promoting abstract sinlessness (at least not without ample warrant for doing so). Unfortunately, this is precisely what Gathercole does when he employs such texts as a foil for his exegesis of Romans 4 (Where Is Boasting?, 238). I discussed his misuse of the Testament of Abraham at some length in my earlier essay on the Testament of Abraham (see, esp., pp.9-11 in the downloadable pdf version).