The most recent edition of Christianity Today has an article by Simon Gathercole on the so called "new perspective" on Paul. We're in a phase right now of strong reaction to Sanders, Dunn, and Wright, as I've mentioned before. The Presbyterian Church of America is actually disciplining any of its ministers who are sympathetic to it, and thus the politics of religion are alive and well in the twenty-first century.
Gathercole is not as rabidly against the "new perspective" as some others. For a more detailed explanation of it, see the series that Scot McKnight is doing on his blog: http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=2688. To be honest, there is a good deal of variety even within the new perspective camp. I disagree with Dunn and Wright on a number of issues, but would generally be sympathetic to the trend.
Gathercole begins by saying what it is and what it isn't. It isn't a rethinking of everything about Paul. It basically has two parts: first, a rethinking of Judaism and then a rethinking of Paul in that light. The rethinking of Judaism is an acknowledgement that Luther interpreted the Judaism with which Paul sparred far too much in the light of the Roman Catholicism of his day, that Judaism was not a works religion.
Gathercole and others have pointed out that works were a significant element in Jewish religion in relation to ultimate acceptance before God. So we have this dialog:
1. Bultmann--the Jews believed they could earn their salvation by good works.
2. Sanders--the Jews did good works in response to the gracious election of God. It was about "staying in," not "getting in."
3. Gathercole--OK, Bultmann and friends completely missed that grace and election were important to the Jews, but Sanders also underestimates the role that works played in Judaism.
4. Schenck--Who cares? Judaism involved both election and works in the mix of salvation... Paul does too!
That brings us to the second part, the application of the new perspective on Judaism to Paul himself. Here we have significant diversity.
Sanders: Paul is arguing from solution to problem. He knows the Gentiles are in. His theology is his attempt to explain how that can be the case without denying God's faithfulness to His covenant with Israel. His arguments over justification by faith are all about showing that the Gentiles are in--it is not the centerpiece of his theology but a result of his arguments with opponents.
Dunn: When Paul talks about works, he is primarily talking about works of Jewish law. Not on justification by works in general. The "works of law" that do not justify are things like circumcision, sabbath observance, food laws, etc...
Wright: The problem was that Israel boasted in national righteousness and thus withheld God's grace from the Gentiles, a grace God always intended for everyone. So Paul is not talking about individual works but about national works of righteousness. Faith is a badge of covenant identity, not a means of justification. Faith shows you are in. It doesn't get you in.
Gathercole critiques six tendencies of the "new perspective":
1. Works were a part of final salvation for Judaism and Jews talked about them as if a person could do them on their own. Paul believes only the mighty acts of God make salvation possible.
Fair enough. The New Testament does exactly the same thing, Paul included. The empowerment of the Spirit for works is the unique element in Paul's theology, as Simon indicates elsewhere. But basically this is a big fuss because of the Pelagian controversy of Augustine and the Reformation arguments. Paul himself, on the other hand, doesn't care nearly as much about dotting these i's as everyone else does.
2. Gathercole disagrees with Dunn's assessment that "works of law" primarily refer to boundary issues like circumcision and so forth (Westerholm is also a significant contender here as well). He thinks works of law refers to works of the whole Jewish law. So when Paul tells the Romans they are not justified by works of law, he means they cannot be justified by doing those parts of the law that are particular to Jews.
I personally think Dunn comes closer to the right balance on this issue. Dunn has recently made it clear that he was not restricting the phrase just to Jewish boundary works like circumcision (in The New Perspective). But I agree with Dunn that this is primarily what Paul has in mind.
What did we find that Paul was thinking about in Galatians 5:3 when he was talking about being justified by the law? Circumcision! They are observing sabbaths and other festivals (4:10). And in Romans, what example does Paul focus on in regard to not being justified by works? It's circumcision again (Rom. 4:10).
So while Paul can and does broaden his argument to say that works of any kind cannot result in justification (e.g., Rom. 9:6), the boundary issues are clearly what he is picturing in his mind in all these cases.
3. Simon disagrees with the move to talk about corporate righteousness among new perspective advocates like Wright. Individual and corporate are not at odds with one another.
I also think that Wright goes overboard with some of his corporate stuff, particularly his signature "Christ=Israel" motif. I suspect Gathercole errs just a tad on the individualistic side, but not too much. The ancient world thought of individuals through the lens of the groups to which they belonged. I believe this is the appropriate language through which to read Paul as well.
4. Gathercole argues that some new perspective scholars confuse the consequences of justification with justification itself. In particular, justification becomes inclusion in the people of God to the exclusion of justification being about how believers can be considered righteous before God. Thus,
5. It can lead to a downplaying of the sin of Israel. Some extreme new perspective scholars see Paul as only added another house to the house of God, not modifying Israel's part of the house at all (Stendahl, Gager).
6. So Romans can become a politically correct commentary on mutual acceptance and ecumenism between Jew and Gentile.
On these last three points I substantially agree with Simon. I continue to understand justification to be about the legal acquittal of a person, whether Jew or Gentile. I remain unconvinced of Wright's sense of justification as a word referring to inclusion within God's people. It results in that, of course, but I remain unconvinced that the word itself means this.
Showing posts with label Gathercole. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gathercole. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Book Review: Where is Boasting? (chapter 3)
I need to clean up my book list to the right. I've had the key chapters of Gathercole's book Where is Boasting? read for some time, but just haven't got around to summarizing and reviewing it here. Here chapters 3, 7, and 8 are of greatest interest. In chapter 1 Simon scans the lay of the land on boasting and establishes his primary debate partners (i.e., Dunn, Wright, and Sanders). In 2 and 4 he scans background Jewish literature on the topic of boasting. I may look at some of this material later in the summer if I have time in preparation for an intertestamental course I'm teaching this Fall at IWU. The real grist for me is in 3, 7, and 8, however.
Chapter 3: Jewish Soteriology in the New Testament
In this chapter Simon easily shows what is obviously the case: a good deal of the NT sees deeds as an element in the equation of final justification.
Matthew 16:27--"The Son of Man... will give back each person according to what he has done."
Gathercole remarks, "The recompense cannot be for individual deeds within the future kingdom" (113) and "election and grace are prominent in Matthew's gospel... Matthew still believed that salvation was God's gift."
John 5:29--"...those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation."
Gathercole: "the criterion for whether one is punished or receives life at the eschaton is the 'doing' of good or evil" (114).
John 6:29--"The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
Gathercole: "The 'work' required for eternal life... has been reconfigured and reinterpreted as believing in Jesus" (115).
James 2:14--"Can faith save you?" (final salvation) etc...
Gathercole: "works have a genuine instrumental role in eschatological justification for the believers James is addressing" (118).
Revelation 20:11--"The dead were judged according to what they had done."
Gathercole: "All are judged according to deeds without distinction... this is held together with a strong emphasis on election in the book" (119).
Parables in the Gospels
Simon points out here that the argument between the father and elder brother in the Prodigal Son or between day laborers in that parable is rooted in a "theology of recompense" (121). In other words, the categories of the debate are whether one should be rewarded strictly on the basis of what one does or not. Gathercole's point seems to be to show that the older perspective on Judaism is not completely wrong--at point is at least in part the question of works righteousness.
Commonality between NT and Early Judaism on obedience-based final salvation
A teacher of the Law comes to Jesus and asks, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" The man suggests that keeping the two great commandments might do it. Jesus agrees!
Very interesting here is Gathercole's suggestion that the wording of the question in Luke 10:25 is an echo of Leviticus 18:5. Paul in Galatians denies that Leviticus 18:5 is the path to (initial) justification. Because of earlier observations Simon has made about Leviticus 18 in the Dead Sea Scrolls, he comes to question Dunn's claim about this verse that Jews at the time of Christ believed that "the law was given primarily to regulate life within the people of God" rather than leading to future life.
Romans 2
The bulk of the rest of the chapter deals with Romans 2, where Simon sketches out an interpretation similar to my own in many respects (and Hays). He disagrees with the idea that the possibility of a Gentile doing the law is merely hypothetical (126)--"some gentiles may even have defending thoughts on the Day of Judgment" (127). Gathercole concludes that Paul "affirmed the importance of final salvation according to works as part of his theology" (131).
However, Gathercole carefully qualifies this comment:
1. "The things of the Law" for Simon must refer to the law as a whole (127), not to those aspects that are specifically Jewish. He is hammering this because he will disagree with Dunn in Romans 3 that "works of law" primarily refer to boundary issues like circumcision and food laws. I'll wait to comment on Romans 3, but for now let me agree that...
2. the content of the Law is redefined (128), at least in Romans 2. In my view, this has to be the case because a Gentile by definition does not keep several aspects of the Jewish Law. Later in the chapter Simon hints at what he thinks this new definition might involve: "We can see a difference from works of Torah, as the obedience is Christocentric" (130). In this comment Simon is discussing Colossians 3:23-25, which speaks of working as if one is working for the Lord. Also Paul speaks of imitating Christ (132).
I would agree more with Dunn than Simon on this issue. Dunn, following a route that fits well with both Reformed and Wesleyan thought, would agree that "the Law continues to be normative for Christian life, though for the Christian it is in some sense divested of its ritual-ceremonial (or for Dunn, its 'boundary-marking') aspects" (131).
3. Fulfillment of the Torah is a by-product rather than the goal of Christian obedience (128).
I agree with Simon on this interpretation of Paul as well. This is the crucial difference between initial and final justification needed to understand Paul. Torah cannot result in initial justification, but keeping a modified Torah after justification is an expected consequence of the Spirit. The absence of such will prevent final justification.
4. To clarify this last point further, Paul has a "theology of divine empowerment" that makes Law fulfillment possible (132).
I might mention that the following comment probably reflects an ignorance of true Arminian belief: "Paul's pneumatology both in his self-representations and in his more programmatic descriptions of the obedience of Christians in general poses a particular challenge, as D. A. Campbell has already noted, to Arminian conceptions of libertarian obedience" (133). This comment, if directed at Arminian theology rather than its common practice, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding. (I'll wait to discuss Simon's understanding of Galatians 5:17.)
Conclusion
I agree with the bulk of what Gathercole has argued in this chapter. Two of his comments form an apt conclusion:
"Except at Qumran, there are no close parallels to Paul's theology of divine empowerment in Second Temple Judaism" (134).
Both traditions of early Christianity and early Judaism "share an elective grace and also assign a determinative role to works at final judgment" (135). The difference is in the framing of those works.
I might quickly mention one thing that Simon's work has reinforced to me. There is really only a hair's breadth between Wesleyan and Calvinist thinking here. Simon might as well have been laying the groundwork for a doctrine of Wesleyan sanctification. The difference is in the optimism of what divine empowerment can actually do in this life.
Chapters 7 and 8 to come...
Chapter 3: Jewish Soteriology in the New Testament
In this chapter Simon easily shows what is obviously the case: a good deal of the NT sees deeds as an element in the equation of final justification.
Matthew 16:27--"The Son of Man... will give back each person according to what he has done."
Gathercole remarks, "The recompense cannot be for individual deeds within the future kingdom" (113) and "election and grace are prominent in Matthew's gospel... Matthew still believed that salvation was God's gift."
John 5:29--"...those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation."
Gathercole: "the criterion for whether one is punished or receives life at the eschaton is the 'doing' of good or evil" (114).
John 6:29--"The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
Gathercole: "The 'work' required for eternal life... has been reconfigured and reinterpreted as believing in Jesus" (115).
James 2:14--"Can faith save you?" (final salvation) etc...
Gathercole: "works have a genuine instrumental role in eschatological justification for the believers James is addressing" (118).
Revelation 20:11--"The dead were judged according to what they had done."
Gathercole: "All are judged according to deeds without distinction... this is held together with a strong emphasis on election in the book" (119).
Parables in the Gospels
Simon points out here that the argument between the father and elder brother in the Prodigal Son or between day laborers in that parable is rooted in a "theology of recompense" (121). In other words, the categories of the debate are whether one should be rewarded strictly on the basis of what one does or not. Gathercole's point seems to be to show that the older perspective on Judaism is not completely wrong--at point is at least in part the question of works righteousness.
Commonality between NT and Early Judaism on obedience-based final salvation
A teacher of the Law comes to Jesus and asks, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" The man suggests that keeping the two great commandments might do it. Jesus agrees!
Very interesting here is Gathercole's suggestion that the wording of the question in Luke 10:25 is an echo of Leviticus 18:5. Paul in Galatians denies that Leviticus 18:5 is the path to (initial) justification. Because of earlier observations Simon has made about Leviticus 18 in the Dead Sea Scrolls, he comes to question Dunn's claim about this verse that Jews at the time of Christ believed that "the law was given primarily to regulate life within the people of God" rather than leading to future life.
Romans 2
The bulk of the rest of the chapter deals with Romans 2, where Simon sketches out an interpretation similar to my own in many respects (and Hays). He disagrees with the idea that the possibility of a Gentile doing the law is merely hypothetical (126)--"some gentiles may even have defending thoughts on the Day of Judgment" (127). Gathercole concludes that Paul "affirmed the importance of final salvation according to works as part of his theology" (131).
However, Gathercole carefully qualifies this comment:
1. "The things of the Law" for Simon must refer to the law as a whole (127), not to those aspects that are specifically Jewish. He is hammering this because he will disagree with Dunn in Romans 3 that "works of law" primarily refer to boundary issues like circumcision and food laws. I'll wait to comment on Romans 3, but for now let me agree that...
2. the content of the Law is redefined (128), at least in Romans 2. In my view, this has to be the case because a Gentile by definition does not keep several aspects of the Jewish Law. Later in the chapter Simon hints at what he thinks this new definition might involve: "We can see a difference from works of Torah, as the obedience is Christocentric" (130). In this comment Simon is discussing Colossians 3:23-25, which speaks of working as if one is working for the Lord. Also Paul speaks of imitating Christ (132).
I would agree more with Dunn than Simon on this issue. Dunn, following a route that fits well with both Reformed and Wesleyan thought, would agree that "the Law continues to be normative for Christian life, though for the Christian it is in some sense divested of its ritual-ceremonial (or for Dunn, its 'boundary-marking') aspects" (131).
3. Fulfillment of the Torah is a by-product rather than the goal of Christian obedience (128).
I agree with Simon on this interpretation of Paul as well. This is the crucial difference between initial and final justification needed to understand Paul. Torah cannot result in initial justification, but keeping a modified Torah after justification is an expected consequence of the Spirit. The absence of such will prevent final justification.
4. To clarify this last point further, Paul has a "theology of divine empowerment" that makes Law fulfillment possible (132).
I might mention that the following comment probably reflects an ignorance of true Arminian belief: "Paul's pneumatology both in his self-representations and in his more programmatic descriptions of the obedience of Christians in general poses a particular challenge, as D. A. Campbell has already noted, to Arminian conceptions of libertarian obedience" (133). This comment, if directed at Arminian theology rather than its common practice, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding. (I'll wait to discuss Simon's understanding of Galatians 5:17.)
Conclusion
I agree with the bulk of what Gathercole has argued in this chapter. Two of his comments form an apt conclusion:
"Except at Qumran, there are no close parallels to Paul's theology of divine empowerment in Second Temple Judaism" (134).
Both traditions of early Christianity and early Judaism "share an elective grace and also assign a determinative role to works at final judgment" (135). The difference is in the framing of those works.
I might quickly mention one thing that Simon's work has reinforced to me. There is really only a hair's breadth between Wesleyan and Calvinist thinking here. Simon might as well have been laying the groundwork for a doctrine of Wesleyan sanctification. The difference is in the optimism of what divine empowerment can actually do in this life.
Chapters 7 and 8 to come...
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Book Review: Where is Boasting? 1
The topic of Paul and the Law is a torturous one. It is torturous not only for someone trying to sort out all the different ways Paul uses the word nomos, but it is torturous to try to sort out all the different interpretations that scholars have made of Paul.
A book of some significance in Pauline studies in this area is Simon Gathercole's, Where Is Boasting?: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's Response in Romans 1-5. It has been on my book list to the right for some time. Gathercole is somewhat critical of the so called "new perspective on Paul," including the doctoral supervisor of this his dissertation and thus of this book, James Dunn. Yet he does not simply reiterate an "old" perspective either. He thus is a kind of "synthesis" in the grand dialectic that is scholarship.
In this post, I merely want to summarize and evaluate one chapter of this book, chapter 6: "Paul's Assessment of Jewish Boasting in Romans 1:18-3:20." This is the first chapter of the second part of the book. In the first part, he runs through Jewish literature to evaluate some of the ideas of the new perspective on "salvation" in Judaism. Now in this chapter, he begins to dialog with Paul.
Summary
The argument of this chapter is as follows:
1. The Jew in Romans 2:17-20 is not a specific "Jewish Christian" in the Roman congregation to which Paul is writing (197).
Now if you call yourself a Jew and rest in the Law and boast in God, and you know [His] will and you approve of those things that are excellent because you are instructed from the Law, and you are convinced that you are a leader of the blind, a light to those in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes since you have the form of knowledge and of the truth in the Law...
2. Rather, this person is a hypothetical dialog partner (interlocutor) who represents the nation of Israel vis-a-vis the Gentile nations (199). We might add further that this person is an unbelieving Jew (200).
3. The boast of this person, of the unbelieving nation, has to do with the eschaton, when all stand before God in the final judgment (201-2). Israel boasts that it will be vindicated over and against the Gentiles by God on the Day of Judgment.
4. Now Simon gets down to the real point of debate in the chapter: What is the basis of this boast? He in effect covers three options:
a. the traditional view (e.g., Bultmann): The boast is the boast of Jews who are faithful in their keeping of the Law. They are boasting in their merit before God. They think they have earned God's favor.
b. the new perspective (e.g., N. T. Wright): The boast is in the very possession of the Law, a kind of ethnic eternal security. We're the elect and you aren't no matter what we do.
c. Gathercole's perspective: The boast is "a Jewish confidence at the final judgment that is based on election in conjunction with obedient fulfillment of Torah" (215, italics mine).
Key for Simon is that Israel has not recognized just how sinful it is. Thus they are not repentant:
"Or do you despise the wealth of [God's] goodness and forebearance and patience because you do not know that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in keeping with your hardness and [your] unrepentant heart you are storing up for yourself wrath on the Day of Wrath and of the revelation of God's righteous judgment, who will repay to each according to his work" (Rom. 2:4-6).
Simon also plausibly connects this indictment of non-believing Israel with 9:30-31:
Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness obtained righteousness, even a righteousness on the basis of faith, but Israel who pursued a law of righteousness did not attain [that] law.
In short, Israel is not nearly as righteous as it thinks it is. It was trying to establish its own righteousness (10:3), but failed.
But if I am understanding Simon correctly, the problem with the traditional and new perspective approaches is that they make the question one of whether the boast is in works (traditional) or election (new perspective) while for Paul it is both.
Evaluation
If I have understood Gathercole correctly, I am with him on the bulk of this chapter, although I am not sure exactly where he is taking the overall argument from here.
Some points where I might differ with him some or want to give some caveats:
1. While I agree that the person pictured throughout this chapter is a non-believing Jew, I fear the kinds of assumptions that we might import into the conversation when we begin to speak of this chapter as referencing the nation of Israel. Some will forget that Paul himself is a true Jew (Rom. 2:28-29) and that there is for him a remnant of ethnic Israel that is the true Israel (9:27). Simon does not seem to fall into these paradigmatic traps, but I fear what will go on in the minds of others.
2. I would say that Paul not only talks about the sinfulness of his hypothetical interlocutor but also this person's hypocrisy (the person indicts the Gentile sinner in Romans 1 without fully realizing the extent of their own sinfulness). I think Simon might agree with this comment, but he clearly de-emphasizes the element of "judgmentalism" in the passage (contra Kasemann), which I would rather call hypocrisy (cf. Gal. 2:13).
3. Simon criticizes the new perspective for its affirmation that devout first century Jews knew that they were sinners. Here I would try to steer a path between Simon and Wright. If you were to ask a first century Jew, "Is God obligated to honor and reward you because of your own merit in keeping the law?" surely they would say no. On the other hand there is the question, "Do you think you have kept the law well enough for God to accept you on that basis?" I think many Jews here would have said yes.
The New Perspective focuses on the answer to the first question without at times recognizing the answer to the second. Traditional views (and it would seem Simon at least in this chapter) focus on the answer to the second without recognizing the compatibility of the answer to the first.
4. Related to this issue, I agree that Philippians 3 is largely Paul's pre-Christian perspective, but I don't think we can therefore dismiss the force of 3:6: according to the righteousness in the law, I was blameless. This statement does not connect well with Romans 7 as autobiography, even as past reminiscences. Nor does it fit well with Romans 2 as a description that Paul might have applied to himself before he became a Christian.
To be sure, in Philippians 3 Paul does not think that any of this makes him worthy of the resurrection. Indeed, he considers his present sufferings part of his movement toward worthiness (3:10-11; cf. Rom. 8:17). But it seems highly doubtful, in my estimation, that Paul was thinking of his pre-Christian self either when he penned Romans 2 or 7. Peter might have been a failure at keeping the Law even in its core sense (Galatians 2:14; 6:13, of the Judaizing Christians). But Paul, even though still unworthy, thought he kept the Law quite well.
5. I disagree with Gathercole a bit (he would have to tell me how much) when he says that "There is very little evidence that gentiles were subject to judgment according to Torah in Paul's theology" (213). My issue with this comment has to do with the article I've been toying around with for about a year (with Mike Cline).
It is true that Paul says,
As many as sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and as many as sinned with the Law will be judged through the Law (2:12).
But if the Law has nothing to do with the judgment of the Gentile, then on what basis can Paul say that they have sinned? What standard does Paul have in mind? I'm reminded of 5:14:
Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses even on those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam...
I suppose from Romans 1:21, they sin because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks. They turn to idolatry and God abandons them to all sorts of sins in consequence.
I believe, however, that Paul has two unannounced understandings of Law in Romans (actually he uses the word in more ways than these!): one is a kind of core law that a Gentile might keep even without being a Jew, the other only a Jew could keep because it requires circumcision.
A book of some significance in Pauline studies in this area is Simon Gathercole's, Where Is Boasting?: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's Response in Romans 1-5. It has been on my book list to the right for some time. Gathercole is somewhat critical of the so called "new perspective on Paul," including the doctoral supervisor of this his dissertation and thus of this book, James Dunn. Yet he does not simply reiterate an "old" perspective either. He thus is a kind of "synthesis" in the grand dialectic that is scholarship.
In this post, I merely want to summarize and evaluate one chapter of this book, chapter 6: "Paul's Assessment of Jewish Boasting in Romans 1:18-3:20." This is the first chapter of the second part of the book. In the first part, he runs through Jewish literature to evaluate some of the ideas of the new perspective on "salvation" in Judaism. Now in this chapter, he begins to dialog with Paul.
Summary
The argument of this chapter is as follows:
1. The Jew in Romans 2:17-20 is not a specific "Jewish Christian" in the Roman congregation to which Paul is writing (197).
Now if you call yourself a Jew and rest in the Law and boast in God, and you know [His] will and you approve of those things that are excellent because you are instructed from the Law, and you are convinced that you are a leader of the blind, a light to those in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes since you have the form of knowledge and of the truth in the Law...
2. Rather, this person is a hypothetical dialog partner (interlocutor) who represents the nation of Israel vis-a-vis the Gentile nations (199). We might add further that this person is an unbelieving Jew (200).
3. The boast of this person, of the unbelieving nation, has to do with the eschaton, when all stand before God in the final judgment (201-2). Israel boasts that it will be vindicated over and against the Gentiles by God on the Day of Judgment.
4. Now Simon gets down to the real point of debate in the chapter: What is the basis of this boast? He in effect covers three options:
a. the traditional view (e.g., Bultmann): The boast is the boast of Jews who are faithful in their keeping of the Law. They are boasting in their merit before God. They think they have earned God's favor.
b. the new perspective (e.g., N. T. Wright): The boast is in the very possession of the Law, a kind of ethnic eternal security. We're the elect and you aren't no matter what we do.
c. Gathercole's perspective: The boast is "a Jewish confidence at the final judgment that is based on election in conjunction with obedient fulfillment of Torah" (215, italics mine).
Key for Simon is that Israel has not recognized just how sinful it is. Thus they are not repentant:
"Or do you despise the wealth of [God's] goodness and forebearance and patience because you do not know that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in keeping with your hardness and [your] unrepentant heart you are storing up for yourself wrath on the Day of Wrath and of the revelation of God's righteous judgment, who will repay to each according to his work" (Rom. 2:4-6).
Simon also plausibly connects this indictment of non-believing Israel with 9:30-31:
Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness obtained righteousness, even a righteousness on the basis of faith, but Israel who pursued a law of righteousness did not attain [that] law.
In short, Israel is not nearly as righteous as it thinks it is. It was trying to establish its own righteousness (10:3), but failed.
But if I am understanding Simon correctly, the problem with the traditional and new perspective approaches is that they make the question one of whether the boast is in works (traditional) or election (new perspective) while for Paul it is both.
Evaluation
If I have understood Gathercole correctly, I am with him on the bulk of this chapter, although I am not sure exactly where he is taking the overall argument from here.
Some points where I might differ with him some or want to give some caveats:
1. While I agree that the person pictured throughout this chapter is a non-believing Jew, I fear the kinds of assumptions that we might import into the conversation when we begin to speak of this chapter as referencing the nation of Israel. Some will forget that Paul himself is a true Jew (Rom. 2:28-29) and that there is for him a remnant of ethnic Israel that is the true Israel (9:27). Simon does not seem to fall into these paradigmatic traps, but I fear what will go on in the minds of others.
2. I would say that Paul not only talks about the sinfulness of his hypothetical interlocutor but also this person's hypocrisy (the person indicts the Gentile sinner in Romans 1 without fully realizing the extent of their own sinfulness). I think Simon might agree with this comment, but he clearly de-emphasizes the element of "judgmentalism" in the passage (contra Kasemann), which I would rather call hypocrisy (cf. Gal. 2:13).
3. Simon criticizes the new perspective for its affirmation that devout first century Jews knew that they were sinners. Here I would try to steer a path between Simon and Wright. If you were to ask a first century Jew, "Is God obligated to honor and reward you because of your own merit in keeping the law?" surely they would say no. On the other hand there is the question, "Do you think you have kept the law well enough for God to accept you on that basis?" I think many Jews here would have said yes.
The New Perspective focuses on the answer to the first question without at times recognizing the answer to the second. Traditional views (and it would seem Simon at least in this chapter) focus on the answer to the second without recognizing the compatibility of the answer to the first.
4. Related to this issue, I agree that Philippians 3 is largely Paul's pre-Christian perspective, but I don't think we can therefore dismiss the force of 3:6: according to the righteousness in the law, I was blameless. This statement does not connect well with Romans 7 as autobiography, even as past reminiscences. Nor does it fit well with Romans 2 as a description that Paul might have applied to himself before he became a Christian.
To be sure, in Philippians 3 Paul does not think that any of this makes him worthy of the resurrection. Indeed, he considers his present sufferings part of his movement toward worthiness (3:10-11; cf. Rom. 8:17). But it seems highly doubtful, in my estimation, that Paul was thinking of his pre-Christian self either when he penned Romans 2 or 7. Peter might have been a failure at keeping the Law even in its core sense (Galatians 2:14; 6:13, of the Judaizing Christians). But Paul, even though still unworthy, thought he kept the Law quite well.
5. I disagree with Gathercole a bit (he would have to tell me how much) when he says that "There is very little evidence that gentiles were subject to judgment according to Torah in Paul's theology" (213). My issue with this comment has to do with the article I've been toying around with for about a year (with Mike Cline).
It is true that Paul says,
As many as sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and as many as sinned with the Law will be judged through the Law (2:12).
But if the Law has nothing to do with the judgment of the Gentile, then on what basis can Paul say that they have sinned? What standard does Paul have in mind? I'm reminded of 5:14:
Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses even on those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam...
I suppose from Romans 1:21, they sin because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks. They turn to idolatry and God abandons them to all sorts of sins in consequence.
I believe, however, that Paul has two unannounced understandings of Law in Romans (actually he uses the word in more ways than these!): one is a kind of core law that a Gentile might keep even without being a Jew, the other only a Jew could keep because it requires circumcision.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Book Review: The Pre-existent Son
I have finally finished reading Simon Gathercole's new book, The Pre-existent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. First, let me summarize Gathercole's argument in the book. It basically proceeds in the following orderly fashion:
His Argument
1. In chapter 1, he reviews the majority position of biblical scholarship that Paul's writings and Hebrews already believe in Christ's pre-existence. He extends the discussion into Jude.
2. In chapter 2, he shows how exalted and how much power and authority Jesus has in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Here he is not arguing that this authority proves Jesus' pre-existence, only that it certainly fits with a heavenly background for Jesus. It does not prove pre-existence but fits with it.
3. In chapters 3 through 7, Gathercole gives his signature argument for the book, namely, that the "I have come" statements in the synoptic gospels are best understood as statements of movement from x to y for a purpose. Further, that the only really appropriate location of x is in heaven, meaning that Jesus is saying that he has come from heaven for the purposes he sets out. The train of thought basically amounts to this:
a. Previous explanations for the "I have come" statements don't work (chapter 4).
b. The closest background parallels are when angels say they have come from heaven for some particular purpose (chapter 5).
c. Signature chapter: I have come from heaven... (chapter 6).
d. Chapter seven then suggests that if this is true, then comments about Jesus being sent would have the same connotation, even though in themselves they don't prove pre-existence.
4. The rest of the book then warms down. Chapters 8 and 9 critique the path that most scholars have taken previously to argue for pre-existence in the synoptics, namely, some identification of Christ with pre-existent wisdom.
a. In chapter 8 Gathercole dismisses most of the arguments that Matthew identifies Jesus with pre-existent wisdom. These commonly made past arguments see Matthew drawing from images in Sirach and editing Q in various ways. Simon questions these commonly made arguments.
b. In chapter 9, then, he does see a strong implication of pre-existence in Matthew 23:37: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... how often have I desired to gather your children..." In order for Jesus to have often tried to gather Jerusalem's children, he would have to have been around throughout Israel's history.
Simon is also sympathetic to the idea that Luke-Acts is well on its way to considering Jesus to be the logos.
5. In the final argument chapters of the book, chapters 10-13, Simon goes through the titles of "Christ," "Anatole" (rising or growth), "Lord," "Son of Man," and "Son of God," to see what light they might or might not shed on the pre-existence question.
a. In chapter 10, Simon rightly looks at a key passage, Mark 12:35-37, where Jesus asks how David can call the Christ "Lord" if in fact the Christ is David's son. He also thinks that when Luke 1:78-79 speaks of the Anatole coming from "on high," this probably means that Jesus came from heaven. Zechariah seems to use the term in a way Luke would have taken messianically.
b. In chapter 11, Gathercole is less certain that the term Lord indicates pre-existence in the synoptics. He does raise a question that has predominantly been raised in German scholarship. When the gospel writers quote conversations like Psalm 110:1 (the LORD said to my Lord) and Isaiah 40 ("Behold I am sending my messenger"), they are picturing conversations between God and Jesus. If so, they would be conversations had before Jesus came to earth and thus pre-existence conversations.
c. In chapter 12, Simon looks at the "Son of Man" title, which of course brings Daniel 7:13 into the discussion, as well as passages from 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra. As elsewhere, Simon believes that the idea of the coming of the Son of Man points to his coming from heaven. Perhaps more significantly, he points to various background literature like the Similitudes of Enoch and 4 Ezra where the Son of Man seems to pre-exist in heaven. Especially in Matthew, this might imply pre-existence.
d. Chapter 13 then finally addresses the "Son of God" title. As before, he finds the sending of the Son as the clearest indication of pre-existence, and particularly brings in the parable of the wicked tenants as an indication of this where the land owner finally sends his only son. But Gathercole does see an incredibly exalted divine identification between Christ and God in the Son title, particularly in Matthew 11:27.
6. In chapter 14 and the conclusion, Gathercole addresses contemporary theological debate, notably Karl-Josef Kuschel's Born Before All Time and Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology. He believes that contrary to the majority opinion, the pre-existence of Jesus is a significant element in the theologies of the synoptic writers.
Evaluation:
1. First, I want to commend Simon thoroughly for his command of the literature, particularly German scholarship. All NT scholars are supposed to be competent in German and French. But probably the majority just skirt by. Not Simon! His mastery of German scholarship is exemplary and runs the gamut.
2. The early argument of the book is that Paul sees Jesus as pre-existent and thus why wouldn't the later gospel writers do so? This is a good argument. I myself don't think the pre-existence of Christ plays as great a role as Simon thinks it does in Paul's writings or Hebrews. It is usually evoked in poetic contexts where the language seems somewhat figurative. But the argument is very strong that Philippians 2:6-7 imply the literal, personal pre-existence of Jesus, so Simon's argument here probably stands.
3. However, I find the "lay of the land" curious in terms of what Simon accepts as pointing to pre-existence and what doesn't. He rejects many of the arguments previously used, only to offer arguments that I find less convincing in many cases.
So I find the idea that Matthew has a wisdom Christology compelling (arguments relating to Sirach, Q, the book of Wisdom, and the Similitudes of Enoch), while Simon seems to downplay this idea. I wonder if the reason is because a wisdom Christology plays fairly easily into a more figurative sense of pre-existence, while Simon is arguing for a strongly literal sense of pre-existence. So I wonder if he downplays this line of argument for this reason.
4. Simon places the bulk of his argumentation in the idea that when Jesus says "I have come," he is using an idiom whose closest background is the visitation of angels and that he implies he is coming from somewhere, with heaven as the best option.
I have several questions about this argument. First, I don't think Simon allows enough (at least in writing) for a mixture of senses for this phrase. So, Jeremias saw an Aramaic idiom behind the phrase. Others see it as Jesus coming from Nazareth or Capernaum. Perhaps these suggestions do not explain all the occurrences, but they might apply to some.
Second, I'm not sure that the statement "I have come" need imply much thought at all about where a person has come from. We would criticize those medieval theologians who asked who the ransom of Christ's death was paid to. This was overreading the metaphor of ransom language. In the same way, I believe Simon has many passages where Jesus says "I have come" because he has asked a question these statements were not meant to answer.
This relates to my fourth point below, namely, that I believe Simon has a literalistic bias that leads him to underestimate the poetic and metaphorical depth of some of this material. I find particularly bizarre that scholarship that sees pre-existence in the way certain OT texts are brought to bear on Jesus' life. To me this takes beautiful and subtle literary allusions and echoes and makes them flatly literal. A. T. Hanson, admired by Gathercole, was in my opinion an English equivalent to those German scholars who have this bizarre line of thinking. Do we really suppose that Paul thought the rock that followed Israel was literally Christ? What does that even mean?
Third, I believe one of the weaknesses of German scholarship has perennially been its tendency to insist we find the meaning of words and phrases in some background corpus--so called "parallelomania." The Kittel generation chronically committed the overload fallacy and I'm not convinced that Simon hasn't caught the disease in a weak form.
Most of the examples of angelic coming that Gathercole mentions post-date the NT. And to compare the "visits" of an angel (a few minutes?) with the visit of Jesus (thirty-three years) seems a bit of a stretch, to say the least.
Fourthly, Simon seems to take the most pertinent "I have come" statements in a strongly realistic way without even considering other possibilities. On the one hand, he claims to be addressing the question of what the synoptic writers believed. For obvious reasons, he does not want to stake any of his argument on what the historical Jesus himself might have thought or said about himself.
Yet the hidden assumption of his "I have come" argument is that even within the narratives of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the "I have come" statements are meant to be statements of physical coming in one way or another. But what if some of the times when the synoptic writers present Jesus as saying, "I have come," the authors are really not making statements of Jesus movement through space but making poetic, theological statements about who Jesus is and of their understanding of Jesus' significance?
Thus Simon assumes that Matthew means us to take "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, ... how often have I wanted to gather you..." as a geo-spatial statement made by Jesus--even if a Matthean rather than historical Jesus. Simon has argued against the conclusion I lean more toward, that Matthew might mean this comment as a picture of Jesus speaking as God's wisdom for Israel. This would make sense if Simon is wrong about Matthew thinking of Jesus as God's wisdom for Israel. I personally am not convinced that Simon has the right understanding of Matthew's intention in such comments. I wonder if he has read some of these statements too narrowly.
4. On the other hand, to me, the strongest arguments for Jesus' literal pre-existence in the synoptics are not the "I have come" statements but a) the "how can the Messiah be David's son" passage, b) the Transfiguration, and c) Son of Man tradition.
a) It is hard to know what Jesus means when he asks how the Messiah can be David's Son when David calls him Lord, that is, unless this is a statement of pre-existence. Jesus could of course just be playing with their minds. But pre-existence is a strong possibility too. We won't want to take Bultmann's suggestion that Jesus really wasn't descended from David and that this was a defense of how he could be Messiah and yet be of Galilean descent.
b) The transfiguration certainly points to a heavenly identity beyond Jesus' earthly appearance. The question is whether it is looking foward to the resurrection or implying something pre-existent as well.
c) Finally, 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra both see the Son of Man as pre-existent, although there might be some debate about whether this is really a personal pre-existence. There is also the question of dating. 4 Ezra post-dates all the gospels. The section of 1 Enoch which strongly parallels Matthew, the Similitudes, are not among the fragments at Qumran and thus probably date either to the first century BC or perhaps are even contemporaneous with early Christianity.
Conclusion
I think that much in Simon's argument does not stand scrutiny, but enough does to support his basic conclusion. I do not think that the pre-existence of Christ plays a significant role in the synoptic gospels. But I think it may very well be peaking out of Mark at the transfiguration and in Jesus' question to his opponents. It seems to peak through even more strongly in Matthew, although with strongly figurative wisdom overtones. I find it personally the weakest in Luke-Acts, where I believe it is only present in material taken over from Mark.
But the conclusion is arguably right: the synoptics seem to believe that Jesus was pre-existent in some way. Assuming that Paul understood Jesus' pre-existence as personal pre-existence, then we should also take such pre-existence in the synoptics to be personal pre-existence.
His Argument
1. In chapter 1, he reviews the majority position of biblical scholarship that Paul's writings and Hebrews already believe in Christ's pre-existence. He extends the discussion into Jude.
2. In chapter 2, he shows how exalted and how much power and authority Jesus has in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Here he is not arguing that this authority proves Jesus' pre-existence, only that it certainly fits with a heavenly background for Jesus. It does not prove pre-existence but fits with it.
3. In chapters 3 through 7, Gathercole gives his signature argument for the book, namely, that the "I have come" statements in the synoptic gospels are best understood as statements of movement from x to y for a purpose. Further, that the only really appropriate location of x is in heaven, meaning that Jesus is saying that he has come from heaven for the purposes he sets out. The train of thought basically amounts to this:
a. Previous explanations for the "I have come" statements don't work (chapter 4).
b. The closest background parallels are when angels say they have come from heaven for some particular purpose (chapter 5).
c. Signature chapter: I have come from heaven... (chapter 6).
d. Chapter seven then suggests that if this is true, then comments about Jesus being sent would have the same connotation, even though in themselves they don't prove pre-existence.
4. The rest of the book then warms down. Chapters 8 and 9 critique the path that most scholars have taken previously to argue for pre-existence in the synoptics, namely, some identification of Christ with pre-existent wisdom.
a. In chapter 8 Gathercole dismisses most of the arguments that Matthew identifies Jesus with pre-existent wisdom. These commonly made past arguments see Matthew drawing from images in Sirach and editing Q in various ways. Simon questions these commonly made arguments.
b. In chapter 9, then, he does see a strong implication of pre-existence in Matthew 23:37: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... how often have I desired to gather your children..." In order for Jesus to have often tried to gather Jerusalem's children, he would have to have been around throughout Israel's history.
Simon is also sympathetic to the idea that Luke-Acts is well on its way to considering Jesus to be the logos.
5. In the final argument chapters of the book, chapters 10-13, Simon goes through the titles of "Christ," "Anatole" (rising or growth), "Lord," "Son of Man," and "Son of God," to see what light they might or might not shed on the pre-existence question.
a. In chapter 10, Simon rightly looks at a key passage, Mark 12:35-37, where Jesus asks how David can call the Christ "Lord" if in fact the Christ is David's son. He also thinks that when Luke 1:78-79 speaks of the Anatole coming from "on high," this probably means that Jesus came from heaven. Zechariah seems to use the term in a way Luke would have taken messianically.
b. In chapter 11, Gathercole is less certain that the term Lord indicates pre-existence in the synoptics. He does raise a question that has predominantly been raised in German scholarship. When the gospel writers quote conversations like Psalm 110:1 (the LORD said to my Lord) and Isaiah 40 ("Behold I am sending my messenger"), they are picturing conversations between God and Jesus. If so, they would be conversations had before Jesus came to earth and thus pre-existence conversations.
c. In chapter 12, Simon looks at the "Son of Man" title, which of course brings Daniel 7:13 into the discussion, as well as passages from 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra. As elsewhere, Simon believes that the idea of the coming of the Son of Man points to his coming from heaven. Perhaps more significantly, he points to various background literature like the Similitudes of Enoch and 4 Ezra where the Son of Man seems to pre-exist in heaven. Especially in Matthew, this might imply pre-existence.
d. Chapter 13 then finally addresses the "Son of God" title. As before, he finds the sending of the Son as the clearest indication of pre-existence, and particularly brings in the parable of the wicked tenants as an indication of this where the land owner finally sends his only son. But Gathercole does see an incredibly exalted divine identification between Christ and God in the Son title, particularly in Matthew 11:27.
6. In chapter 14 and the conclusion, Gathercole addresses contemporary theological debate, notably Karl-Josef Kuschel's Born Before All Time and Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology. He believes that contrary to the majority opinion, the pre-existence of Jesus is a significant element in the theologies of the synoptic writers.
Evaluation:
1. First, I want to commend Simon thoroughly for his command of the literature, particularly German scholarship. All NT scholars are supposed to be competent in German and French. But probably the majority just skirt by. Not Simon! His mastery of German scholarship is exemplary and runs the gamut.
2. The early argument of the book is that Paul sees Jesus as pre-existent and thus why wouldn't the later gospel writers do so? This is a good argument. I myself don't think the pre-existence of Christ plays as great a role as Simon thinks it does in Paul's writings or Hebrews. It is usually evoked in poetic contexts where the language seems somewhat figurative. But the argument is very strong that Philippians 2:6-7 imply the literal, personal pre-existence of Jesus, so Simon's argument here probably stands.
3. However, I find the "lay of the land" curious in terms of what Simon accepts as pointing to pre-existence and what doesn't. He rejects many of the arguments previously used, only to offer arguments that I find less convincing in many cases.
So I find the idea that Matthew has a wisdom Christology compelling (arguments relating to Sirach, Q, the book of Wisdom, and the Similitudes of Enoch), while Simon seems to downplay this idea. I wonder if the reason is because a wisdom Christology plays fairly easily into a more figurative sense of pre-existence, while Simon is arguing for a strongly literal sense of pre-existence. So I wonder if he downplays this line of argument for this reason.
4. Simon places the bulk of his argumentation in the idea that when Jesus says "I have come," he is using an idiom whose closest background is the visitation of angels and that he implies he is coming from somewhere, with heaven as the best option.
I have several questions about this argument. First, I don't think Simon allows enough (at least in writing) for a mixture of senses for this phrase. So, Jeremias saw an Aramaic idiom behind the phrase. Others see it as Jesus coming from Nazareth or Capernaum. Perhaps these suggestions do not explain all the occurrences, but they might apply to some.
Second, I'm not sure that the statement "I have come" need imply much thought at all about where a person has come from. We would criticize those medieval theologians who asked who the ransom of Christ's death was paid to. This was overreading the metaphor of ransom language. In the same way, I believe Simon has many passages where Jesus says "I have come" because he has asked a question these statements were not meant to answer.
This relates to my fourth point below, namely, that I believe Simon has a literalistic bias that leads him to underestimate the poetic and metaphorical depth of some of this material. I find particularly bizarre that scholarship that sees pre-existence in the way certain OT texts are brought to bear on Jesus' life. To me this takes beautiful and subtle literary allusions and echoes and makes them flatly literal. A. T. Hanson, admired by Gathercole, was in my opinion an English equivalent to those German scholars who have this bizarre line of thinking. Do we really suppose that Paul thought the rock that followed Israel was literally Christ? What does that even mean?
Third, I believe one of the weaknesses of German scholarship has perennially been its tendency to insist we find the meaning of words and phrases in some background corpus--so called "parallelomania." The Kittel generation chronically committed the overload fallacy and I'm not convinced that Simon hasn't caught the disease in a weak form.
Most of the examples of angelic coming that Gathercole mentions post-date the NT. And to compare the "visits" of an angel (a few minutes?) with the visit of Jesus (thirty-three years) seems a bit of a stretch, to say the least.
Fourthly, Simon seems to take the most pertinent "I have come" statements in a strongly realistic way without even considering other possibilities. On the one hand, he claims to be addressing the question of what the synoptic writers believed. For obvious reasons, he does not want to stake any of his argument on what the historical Jesus himself might have thought or said about himself.
Yet the hidden assumption of his "I have come" argument is that even within the narratives of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the "I have come" statements are meant to be statements of physical coming in one way or another. But what if some of the times when the synoptic writers present Jesus as saying, "I have come," the authors are really not making statements of Jesus movement through space but making poetic, theological statements about who Jesus is and of their understanding of Jesus' significance?
Thus Simon assumes that Matthew means us to take "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, ... how often have I wanted to gather you..." as a geo-spatial statement made by Jesus--even if a Matthean rather than historical Jesus. Simon has argued against the conclusion I lean more toward, that Matthew might mean this comment as a picture of Jesus speaking as God's wisdom for Israel. This would make sense if Simon is wrong about Matthew thinking of Jesus as God's wisdom for Israel. I personally am not convinced that Simon has the right understanding of Matthew's intention in such comments. I wonder if he has read some of these statements too narrowly.
4. On the other hand, to me, the strongest arguments for Jesus' literal pre-existence in the synoptics are not the "I have come" statements but a) the "how can the Messiah be David's son" passage, b) the Transfiguration, and c) Son of Man tradition.
a) It is hard to know what Jesus means when he asks how the Messiah can be David's Son when David calls him Lord, that is, unless this is a statement of pre-existence. Jesus could of course just be playing with their minds. But pre-existence is a strong possibility too. We won't want to take Bultmann's suggestion that Jesus really wasn't descended from David and that this was a defense of how he could be Messiah and yet be of Galilean descent.
b) The transfiguration certainly points to a heavenly identity beyond Jesus' earthly appearance. The question is whether it is looking foward to the resurrection or implying something pre-existent as well.
c) Finally, 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra both see the Son of Man as pre-existent, although there might be some debate about whether this is really a personal pre-existence. There is also the question of dating. 4 Ezra post-dates all the gospels. The section of 1 Enoch which strongly parallels Matthew, the Similitudes, are not among the fragments at Qumran and thus probably date either to the first century BC or perhaps are even contemporaneous with early Christianity.
Conclusion
I think that much in Simon's argument does not stand scrutiny, but enough does to support his basic conclusion. I do not think that the pre-existence of Christ plays a significant role in the synoptic gospels. But I think it may very well be peaking out of Mark at the transfiguration and in Jesus' question to his opponents. It seems to peak through even more strongly in Matthew, although with strongly figurative wisdom overtones. I find it personally the weakest in Luke-Acts, where I believe it is only present in material taken over from Mark.
But the conclusion is arguably right: the synoptics seem to believe that Jesus was pre-existent in some way. Assuming that Paul understood Jesus' pre-existence as personal pre-existence, then we should also take such pre-existence in the synoptics to be personal pre-existence.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Book Review: The Pre-existent Son 1
I'm basically through the first two chapters of Simon Gathercole's new book. I've met Simon casually but I wasn't exactly sure what scholarly flavor he had. This book has helped me locate him within my categories.
Some impressions:
1. Simon is well read, including good interaction with German literature. With this book he is venturing into new territory that was not really his focus previously, so I sympathize with some material that reminds me of me when I'm writing in areas that aren't my specialty.
2. Simon has an apologist flare. He would fit in the N. T. Wright, Richard Bauckham vein, although perhaps a little more conservative in flavor even than them (with a Reformed bent?). Occasionally I feel hints of the conservative vanquishing the perverse liberal (especially in his Jude section).
3. I found his aquaintance with Tom Schreiner particularly interesting (vii). Schreiner to me is a good example of a recent hard core Calvinist resurgence that I might dubb, "it is hard for you to kick against the pricks of recent developments in Pauline studies." To be fair, Simon's first book on boasting in Romans seems pretty good (ironically written with Dunn as an advisor). I would categorize it as part of the current wave of backlash from the new perspective on Paul.
So much for personal impressions... now for discussion of chapter 2, "Pre-existence in Earliest Christianity."
I personally believe that Simon's second chapter takes too much for granted. He rides on the near consensus that Philippians 2:6 and 1 Corinthians 8:6 are about the pre-existent Christ and then sees pre-existence everywhere in Paul. By the end of the chapter he concludes that "references to preexistence would have been frequent in Paul's teaching" (42).
I found this movement staggering. Largely on the basis of two passages he assumes other marginal passages are about pre-existence and then finally extrapolates to conclude that Paul must have talked about Christ's preexistence all the time wherever he went! And so an idea that rarely pops up in Paul's letters (in fact I would argue only in somewhat poetic contexts) becomes something that was a major part of Paul's oral teaching!
Now I certainly believe that Christ was pre-existent, but I've worked real hard to try to let the text say what it says and not read later theology into it. This is one of my big things--let the text be the text and then work out any problems in your theology, not in your exegesis. I studied with Dunn because he seems to me a model of this sort of attempt at objectivity. That's not to say that I always agree with him--I actually disagree with him on a number of things. And no one is completely objective to be sure. But to me he is one of the best models of someone who lets the text say what he thinks it's saying come what may.
So what is particularly nerve racking to me is the fact that the "educated middle" will absolutely eat Simon's stuff up. By this I mean the hoards of intelligent non-Bibleheads, pastors, and "middle scholars" like me who really want Simon to be right. We are the ones who have made Tom Wright and Ben Witherington wealthy. We're groupies of a sort.
But to me, there is at times in these authors a tinge of special pleading, while to me Dunn is more Spock-like, more "follow the evidence wherever it seems to lead."
Let me give you an example where I think Dunn's exegesis is far superior to Simon's: 1 Corinthians 15:47--"the first man was from the earth; the second man from heaven." Simon reads this as a straightforward instance of Paul referring to Christ's pre-existence, of Christ "having come down from heaven." He dismisses the opposition with the simple phrase, "Despite attempts to argue to the contrary" (26). Later in the paragraph he dismisses without argument two suggestions for what he says the verse is not saying. Since the loyal following he will develop want to hear this, he is able to say such things without hardly any justification.
Now consider Dunn's more scrupulous argument on this verse in Christology in the Making. He notes the order of Paul's argument: "the spiritual is not first, but the natural (psychikos) then the spiritual" (1 Cor. 15:46). Adam first, then Christ. The natural first, then the spiritual. So far so good for either case really. For Dunn it's Adam, then the resurrected Christ. For Gathercole it would have to be Adam, then the incarnated Christ (although I'm making his argument for him here).
"The first man was of dust from the earth, the second man from heaven" (15:27). At this point Gathercole brings his later Christian ears to the text and hears overtones of John and the incarnation. The second man came down from heaven (in the incarnation).
But is this what Paul was really thinking?
What has Paul been talking about in this chapter? "The first man Adam became a living soul (psyche), the last Adam became a life-giving spirit" (15:45). But when, in this line of thought, did Jesus become a life-giving spirit? What is 1 Corinthians 15 about after all????? RESURRECTION!!! Paul has been talking about what the resurrection body will be like and saying it will be of a spiritual sort, a heavenly sort, just like Christ's resurrection body which was spiritual and "from heaven" (cf. Phil. 3:21).
So the context strongly pushes us to think of the "second man from heaven" as a reference to the resurrected Christ, with not a mention of the pre-existent, let alone incarnated Christ! The train of thought thus becomes seamless when we get to 15:48, "Of the same sort as the man of dust, so also are those of dust, and of the same sort as the heavenly (resurrected) man, so also are those of heaven." That is, so are we who will be resurrected one day.
You can see this is a matter of great frustration to me. The precision and correctness of Dunn's interpretation here is exemplary, yet Gathercole's interpretation will be eaten up quickly by the willful. Those like me who dare question the exegesis will be considered perverse for disagreeing even though, in my opinion, we are the ones actually listening to the text rather than shoving later theology down its throat.
In the rest of the chapter Simon deals with Hebrews and Jude, both of which he dates to the time before the destruction of Jerusalem. While I am prone to disagree with him on the dating of both, his thoughts on Jude were particularly interesting. He makes a good case that Jude 5 should read that Jesus destroyed those who left Egypt who did not believe. Very interesting. I haven't decided whether I agree on this but I was impressed with his knowledge of the issue.
More to come. Simon's argument in the overall book is a good one. If Paul believes that Jesus is pre-existent and if the gospels all come later, then wouldn't we be surprised if the gospel writers didn't know Jesus was pre-existent?
Simon is definitely an up and coming and someone to watch!
Some impressions:
1. Simon is well read, including good interaction with German literature. With this book he is venturing into new territory that was not really his focus previously, so I sympathize with some material that reminds me of me when I'm writing in areas that aren't my specialty.
2. Simon has an apologist flare. He would fit in the N. T. Wright, Richard Bauckham vein, although perhaps a little more conservative in flavor even than them (with a Reformed bent?). Occasionally I feel hints of the conservative vanquishing the perverse liberal (especially in his Jude section).
3. I found his aquaintance with Tom Schreiner particularly interesting (vii). Schreiner to me is a good example of a recent hard core Calvinist resurgence that I might dubb, "it is hard for you to kick against the pricks of recent developments in Pauline studies." To be fair, Simon's first book on boasting in Romans seems pretty good (ironically written with Dunn as an advisor). I would categorize it as part of the current wave of backlash from the new perspective on Paul.
So much for personal impressions... now for discussion of chapter 2, "Pre-existence in Earliest Christianity."
I personally believe that Simon's second chapter takes too much for granted. He rides on the near consensus that Philippians 2:6 and 1 Corinthians 8:6 are about the pre-existent Christ and then sees pre-existence everywhere in Paul. By the end of the chapter he concludes that "references to preexistence would have been frequent in Paul's teaching" (42).
I found this movement staggering. Largely on the basis of two passages he assumes other marginal passages are about pre-existence and then finally extrapolates to conclude that Paul must have talked about Christ's preexistence all the time wherever he went! And so an idea that rarely pops up in Paul's letters (in fact I would argue only in somewhat poetic contexts) becomes something that was a major part of Paul's oral teaching!
Now I certainly believe that Christ was pre-existent, but I've worked real hard to try to let the text say what it says and not read later theology into it. This is one of my big things--let the text be the text and then work out any problems in your theology, not in your exegesis. I studied with Dunn because he seems to me a model of this sort of attempt at objectivity. That's not to say that I always agree with him--I actually disagree with him on a number of things. And no one is completely objective to be sure. But to me he is one of the best models of someone who lets the text say what he thinks it's saying come what may.
So what is particularly nerve racking to me is the fact that the "educated middle" will absolutely eat Simon's stuff up. By this I mean the hoards of intelligent non-Bibleheads, pastors, and "middle scholars" like me who really want Simon to be right. We are the ones who have made Tom Wright and Ben Witherington wealthy. We're groupies of a sort.
But to me, there is at times in these authors a tinge of special pleading, while to me Dunn is more Spock-like, more "follow the evidence wherever it seems to lead."
Let me give you an example where I think Dunn's exegesis is far superior to Simon's: 1 Corinthians 15:47--"the first man was from the earth; the second man from heaven." Simon reads this as a straightforward instance of Paul referring to Christ's pre-existence, of Christ "having come down from heaven." He dismisses the opposition with the simple phrase, "Despite attempts to argue to the contrary" (26). Later in the paragraph he dismisses without argument two suggestions for what he says the verse is not saying. Since the loyal following he will develop want to hear this, he is able to say such things without hardly any justification.
Now consider Dunn's more scrupulous argument on this verse in Christology in the Making. He notes the order of Paul's argument: "the spiritual is not first, but the natural (psychikos) then the spiritual" (1 Cor. 15:46). Adam first, then Christ. The natural first, then the spiritual. So far so good for either case really. For Dunn it's Adam, then the resurrected Christ. For Gathercole it would have to be Adam, then the incarnated Christ (although I'm making his argument for him here).
"The first man was of dust from the earth, the second man from heaven" (15:27). At this point Gathercole brings his later Christian ears to the text and hears overtones of John and the incarnation. The second man came down from heaven (in the incarnation).
But is this what Paul was really thinking?
What has Paul been talking about in this chapter? "The first man Adam became a living soul (psyche), the last Adam became a life-giving spirit" (15:45). But when, in this line of thought, did Jesus become a life-giving spirit? What is 1 Corinthians 15 about after all????? RESURRECTION!!! Paul has been talking about what the resurrection body will be like and saying it will be of a spiritual sort, a heavenly sort, just like Christ's resurrection body which was spiritual and "from heaven" (cf. Phil. 3:21).
So the context strongly pushes us to think of the "second man from heaven" as a reference to the resurrected Christ, with not a mention of the pre-existent, let alone incarnated Christ! The train of thought thus becomes seamless when we get to 15:48, "Of the same sort as the man of dust, so also are those of dust, and of the same sort as the heavenly (resurrected) man, so also are those of heaven." That is, so are we who will be resurrected one day.
You can see this is a matter of great frustration to me. The precision and correctness of Dunn's interpretation here is exemplary, yet Gathercole's interpretation will be eaten up quickly by the willful. Those like me who dare question the exegesis will be considered perverse for disagreeing even though, in my opinion, we are the ones actually listening to the text rather than shoving later theology down its throat.
In the rest of the chapter Simon deals with Hebrews and Jude, both of which he dates to the time before the destruction of Jerusalem. While I am prone to disagree with him on the dating of both, his thoughts on Jude were particularly interesting. He makes a good case that Jude 5 should read that Jesus destroyed those who left Egypt who did not believe. Very interesting. I haven't decided whether I agree on this but I was impressed with his knowledge of the issue.
More to come. Simon's argument in the overall book is a good one. If Paul believes that Jesus is pre-existent and if the gospels all come later, then wouldn't we be surprised if the gospel writers didn't know Jesus was pre-existent?
Simon is definitely an up and coming and someone to watch!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
