Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the SBL

I am pleased to announce that I will be presenting a paper entitled "Psalms of Solomon and Pauline Studies" at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in November of this year. The paper will be presented in a joint session sponsored by six different Paul-related program units including the Pauline Epistles section and the Paul and Judaism section. In addition to the presentation, my paper will benefit from a formal response by N. T. Wright, Pamela Eisenbaum, and Ward Blanton.

In this paper I provide a brief overview of how the Psalms of Solomon have been used (or marginalized) in recent scholarship that attempts to situate Paul within his historical and cultural contexts. In this overview I will highlight the treatments of Psalms of Solomon in the two largest monographs on Paul ever written (N. T. Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God and Douglas Campbell's The Deliverance of God). I then explore one avenue in which further research on the Psalms of Solomon might allow for a more nuanced understanding of Paul and his engagement with Roman imperial ideology.

Playdough Locomotives and the Study of Paul

My graduate seminar, "Paul and Early Judaism," has just about reached the mid-point of the semester and we have also just now finished reading the first volume of N. T. Wright's two-volume Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Fortress Press, 2013). Among our more serious discussions of Wright's book, my students and I have also taken time to appreciate the many metaphors that Wright uses to illuminate his views and the views of others. Whether it is tracking the path of insects in the bark of a particular tree instead of appreciating the forest, or carrying water a long distance in a leaky bucket to water a garden that lies next to a stream, Wright's prose is punctuated by picturesque language and imagery. Today, I came across Wright's depiction of a "Playdough locomotive," and for some inexplicable reason (childhood nostalgia?) this image tipped the scale for me to the point where I needed to note it here.

In his introduction to Part III (pp. 609-618), Wright introduces a diagram of a box that incorporates Wright's conception of three major themes of Jewish "theology" (monotheism, election, eschatology) on one side, includes the notion that these are redefined and reworked in light of the Messiah and the Spirit (on another side), has its base on the "Jewish Bible," and has as its top, the “pagan world." I am not sure I love the box diagram (maybe I'm just not really a diagram kind of person), but I do appreciate the attempt to bring together this wide range of perspectives--theological, historical, cultural, scriptural--and keep them together as part of our understanding of Paul.

Wright then explains: “All of this is complex, but necessarily so. Attempts to reduce that complexity in the pursuit of an easier comprehensibility are the equivalent of trying to make a model railway locomotive out of Playdough. Some parts may look familiar, but the train won’t run down the track.” (616)

Well, for my part, I've invested my fair share of time playing with Playdough and I can say with confidence that here is a point on which Wright and I strongly agree. But the point of the metaphor is a warning against oversimplifying what is, in reality, a complex picture. Nothing against Playdough, I take it, but without the gears, motor, screws, wires, wheels, and small plastic and metal parts--and all of these in the right place--one does not end up with a working model. Fun to create? Yes. Non-toxic? Maybe. Working? No. Wright continues:

The necessary complexity in question corresponds to the complexity of (a) the world(s) in which Paul lived, (b) the vocation he believed himself to have and particularly (c) the beliefs about the creator God and his purposes that formed the central material of his thinking. When we get these more or less right, the model locomotive will now work. We will find that Paul’s various letters, our primary material, can be located comprehensibly and coherently somewhere in this box. (616-617)

Having read this far in the book, it is clear to me that Wright has very many of the right pieces in place. He is certainly working with the right components and not simply playing with Playdough. Knowing Wright's earlier work, I expect his locomotive will run, in the end. But I also suspect that, given the complexity of Paul's worlds, his self-understanding, and his beliefs, some fine tuning of the parts that Wright has assembled will certainly be helpful.

Paul in the eyes of the Greeks and Romans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle

My graduate seminar on Paul and Early Judaism has just worked through three important chapters from N. T. Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God on the philosophical, religious, and imperial contexts of the Greco-Roman world. Students were impressed (and rightly so) with the way in which Wright presented this material in an engaging style which provided both an overview as well as some more detailed analysis of themes and issues relevant for the study of Paul. For my part, I was very pleased with these chapters as well as with the discussion they engendered in class. Students were brought face to face with problems of terminology and anachronism in discussing these ancient cultural phenomena with modern categories, and were challenged to grapple with ancient texts and practices on their own terms.

For example, the generic and seemingly straightforward term "religion" means something quite different today than when we consider the religious world of antiquity. Wright takes pains to show that religion penetrated every aspect of ancient life: home, city, calendar, affairs of state, architecture, art, and so on. Wright explains, “We cannot begin to understand how ordinary people in the first century thought, imagined, reasoned, believed, prayed and acted unless we try to get inside their myth-soaked culture” (255). And while Wright notes that "religion was everywhere because the gods were everywhere” (274), nevertheless this level of understanding about the omnipresence of the gods did not lead to a great concern about morality, doctrine, or even belief (as we might expect of religions today); rather ancient religion was primarily about proper performance of sacrifice or other rituals for the sake of the welfare of the polis. Fulfilling obligations to the gods through sacrifice and ritual was the way to ensure divine favor and to avoid divine displeasure for the sake of the well-being of the city. This is something far different than modern conceptions of religion, particularly in the West. And just as importing our notions of "religion" into the study of ancient religious practices is problematic, so it is with our notion of "philosophy" as well. Rather than being an exercise in academic reflection and theoretical speculation, philosophy in the first-century CE was much more of a "street-level" activity that was concerned with promoting a particular way of life, the good life. Philosophy also had a good deal to say about the nature of the gods and appropriate human responses to them, as well as offering a critique of some religious practices. By raising these kinds of issues, and inviting readers to consider the beliefs, practices, cultures, and customs of the ancients on their own terms, Wright has gone a long way toward setting the stage for a richer understanding of Paul and how he fit into his world. 

One question which this material raises is, "How would Paul and his work of forming communities of disciples have appeared to outside observers? What would your average Corinthian or Ephesian (assuming for a moment there was such an average person) have thought Paul was up to?"

As the comments above about the religious and cultural context of the Greco-Roman world suggest, whatever such a person might have thought, they would probably not have thought that Paul was introducing a new religion. He founded no temple, initiated no sacrificial rites, and was just not concerned with the kinds of things that Greco-Roman religious practice was concerned with. Rather, by traveling throughout the large cities of the mediterranean world, gathering students about himself, gaining the support of wealthy patrons, writing letters of teaching and instruction to his students, exhorting his communities to live their lives in a particular way based on a particular view of ultimate reality, refuting opposing views, critiquing pagan religious practices, and spending his time expounding the meaning of ancient writings and the teachings of Jesus, Paul might have looked much more like a popular philosopher.

Taking this line of thought, E. A. Judge, in a classic essay from 1961, articulated the thesis that Paul may be viewed as a "sophist," not in the pejorative sense of the term as a pseudo-intellectual windbag but in the sense that he adopted the practices of the intellectual, sophistic teachers of the first and second centuries. He explains that he considers Paul a sophist “without prejudice to the value or sincerity of his thought, nor to its independence of other philosophical schools” (539) and that "the term ‘sophist’ has been chosen for lack of a better, and is meant to include many scholars (quite apart from St. Paul!) who would have hotly rejected it” (539). These individuals were learned in rhetoric and also philosophy more broadly, and, because of their influence among the wealthy, and even among the Caesars, at their best “they were intellectual leaders of great eminence, not only in preserving the classical heritage but in guiding public policy and private morality in their own day” (540). Based on his adopting many of the practices of the sophists (by his own reporting in his letters with regard to sponsorship by wealthy patrons; development of a retinue of followers; and so forth) as well as with his emphasis on logos, reason, revealed secrets, gnosis, and his concern for ethics, Judge argues that “the Christian faith, therefore, as Paul expounds it, belongs with the doctrines of the philosophical schools rather than with the esoteric rituals of the mystery religions” (551).

Whether one accepts Judge's view or not, looking at Paul from this perspective of what his practices would have communicated to outside observers can help us to view Paul and his letters in fresh ways, and even open up aspects of Paul's teaching and practice that may otherwise be obscured by our modern reading lenses.

For anyone interested in exploring this issue further, Judge's essay has been reprinted in a collection of his essays, The First Christians in the Roman World (2008), many of which are excellent in their contribution to understanding the Greco-Roman world on its own terms.

Kugel on early Jewish biblical interpretation, with help from Jesus and Paul

Since reading his Traditions of the Bible, I have been fascinated by Kugel's articulation of the four assumptions about the Bible made by Second Temple Jewish interpreters. Part of what shook me initially was the extent to which such assumptions were part of the Christian tradition in which I was raised. These assumptions were, to greater or lesser degrees, taken for granted without any critical examination. But what surprised me was that I was reading the Bible through the same lens as the ancients. Yet their assumptions were based on some perceptions about the Bible that did not necessarily hold up for me given the richer and fuller understanding of the nature and origins of Scripture as understood by contemporary theologians. In fact, the uncritical embrace of some of these assumptions has led to some rather unhealthy, even harmful, ways of reading the Bible today. For example, seeing the Bible merely as a handbook or instruction manual for life. While the impulse behind this way of reading can be defended (Christians do indeed believe that God's word is relevant in all times and places, and it has something to say to us today), the extension of that to reading the Bible as a handbook-for-living-today has the potential to set up the well-intentioned reader for some exegetical and hermeneutical disasters. Especially so when one seeks to discern the 5 biblical steps to financial independence or 7 Bible secrets to a happy marriage or the biblical way to eat healthy. Sadly, such an approach not only goes off track but it can end up missing the point of what the Bible actually does have to say about what it means to live a good and whole life in the world today.

So here are the four assumptions Kugel lists (taken from his chapter in Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview). These are assumptions that seem to be made by ancient interpreters as they read and interpreted what came to be known as the Hebrew Bible or TaNaK (the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings).

1. Scriptural texts were basically cryptic; while the text may say A, often what it really means is B.
2. The basic purpose of Scripture was to guide people nowadays; although it talked about the past, it was really aimed at the present.
3. Scripture contained a single, unitary message; it was altogether harmonious in all its details and altogether true. Everything was perfect.
4. All of Scripture was of divine origin: God had caused the ancient sages or historians or psalmists to write what they wrote. Therefore all of it was sacred. (Kugel, "Early Jewish Biblical Interpretation," pp. 151-178 in Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview [Collins and Harlow, eds; Eerdmans, 2012], here pp. 165-166)

Once one is attuned to such assumptions, it becomes an engaging exercise to begin to spot when they are at play in the New Testament as people like Jesus and Paul provide their interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel. Two examples:

In Mt 22:23-33 Jesus is described as giving a striking instance of the assumption that the Scriptures do not just describe the works and words of God in the past, but that they can be understood as God's words spoken directly to the reader or hearer. In this instance, the Sadducees sought to paint Jesus into a corner where he must either deny the resurrection or the relevance of the commands of the Torah (their assumption even in coming to him is that the laws of the Torah applied in their day and forever). They brought to him what I imagine was their stock example: seven ill-fated brothers who, in sequence, marry one woman, then die, leaving the next brother to obey the law of Moses and marry the woman. The issue then is, in the resurrection, if indeed there is a resurrection (the Sadduccees denied it), whose wife will she be. The response of Jesus is itself rich with exciting interpretive challenges (in short, no marriage in heaven, "they will be like the angels"...) Jesus went on to address the real point of their question, the reality of the resurrection. He cited Exod 3:6 where God was speaking directly to Moses. And here is where it gets VERY interesting for our purposes of looking at assumptions about Scripture. In citing this verse, Jesus says, "Have you not read what was said to you by God?" Here Jesus explicitly states that what God said to Moses, and what was later written down as part of the book of Exodus, is in reality a word that God spoke directly "to you" the contemporary listener or reader. And thus here are several of Kugel's assumptions, illustrated for us in one passage. God's words in the past have contemporary relevance, and often communicate something more than just the surface meaning.

The second example is from Paul. In 1 Cor 10:1-11 Paul discusses the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites and draws an interesting conclusion: "These things happened to them to serve as an example (Greek: tupos; German: ein Vorbild), and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come" (v. 11). Clear as day, the historical account given in Exodus is history, yes, but it is also more than history: it has contemporary relevance as an example. In fact, it was written down "for us." Further, this passage contains the interesting extra-biblical tradition that the rock (from which the Israelites drew water) followed the Israelites around the wilderness. And Paul's interpretation is that this was a spiritual rock, and that that rock was Christ. This illustrates the notion that the meaning of the Bible is below the surface, cryptic, but that it can be discovered with the right reading lens. For Paul this lens was christological, and the Scriptures were now to be read in light of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, as pointing to the redemptive work that God would accomplish through him.

Jesus and Paul shared a set of interpretive assumptions with their fellow Jews of antiquity. First, in speaking and acting among the Israelites of old as recorded in the Scriptures, God was speaking a message to them. Second, this message was relevant for their day and so should be heeded. Third, that message was, to a certain extent, cryptic: it was hidden below the surface until the right teacher with the right tools could bring it to light.

The New Testament thus includes and holds up a way of reading Scripture that was strongly culturally and historically conditioned but one that would become normative for Christians of all times, taking root in and even shaping the reading practices of later times and subsequent cultures. Contemporary readers of Scripture do well to examine these ancient assumptions about reading the Bible, and to consider how they contribute to our own assumptions about reading the Bible.

A great discussion on "Paul and Early Judaism"

Earlier this week my "Paul and Early Judaism" graduate seminar took a whirlwind tour of early Jewish writings with the aid of several chapters in John Collins and Daniel Harlow, eds, Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview (Eerdmans, 2012). We looked at James Kugel's chapter on "Early Jewish Biblical Interpretation," Loren Stuckenbruck's contribution on "Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha," Eibert Tigchelaar's chapter on "The Dead Sea Scrolls," and Katell Berthelot's review of "Early Jewish Literature Written in Greek." Though some students had also prepared the chapters on Philo and on Josephus, we (not surprisingly) ended up having to put those on hold until next week. In between student presentations and summaries of this material, we looked at a few examples that illustrated some of the dynamics of each corpus that were relevant to our course on Paul. For example, a look at columns 7-8 of 1QpHab (Pesher Habakkuk) allowed a glimpse at Qumran biblical interpretation, an introduction to the Teacher of Righteousness, and whetted our appetite for examining Paul's interpretation of Hab 2:4 in comparison with the Jewish interpreters at Qumran. At the end of the three-hour session, we took stock of the ground we had covered and looked for common themes that ran throughout some or all of the bodies of writing we had surveyed. The class came up with what to me was an impressive list of features.

First, students were struck by the diversity of this early Jewish literature, particularly when faced with it all at once. Even students with a strong background in this area were surprised to see the scope and extent of this literature. They noted diversity of genre and of language, diversity of provenance and purpose, diversity of topics these writings covered, and the diversity of views represented on those topics. Second, they noted a surprising number of "connections within the chaos"; commonalities within the diversity. Despite the differences, these disparate writings all showed some kind of engagement with religious and cultural ideas that were important to Jews of antiquity. Thus, they were truly Jewish writings and not merely writings by Jewish authors. Third, they noted a "critical undercurrent" which flowed through many but not all of the texts, as the authors wrestled with finding acceptable ways to appropriate the traditions of the fathers in the tumultuous times of the Second Temple Period. Fourth, and related to the critical undercurrent, my class noted a particular emphasis on attention to the Law (the Torah) and its proper interpretation. Finally, it was noted that nearly every text was, to some extent, interpreting earlier traditions. And interpretation itself took on diverse forms: from the pesher commentaries of Qumran to the philosophical treatises of Philo to the apocalyptic visions of Enoch. In these diverse ways, this literature demonstrated the authors' concerns for seeing themselves as participants within the continuing narrative that begins in the Hebrew Bible and continues throughout the Second Temple Period.

What did this session do for our understanding of Paul? This discussion set the stage for us to be able to read Paul more closely as a writer, theologian, and person of faith who was squarely situated within this world of early Judaism. A quick look at pp. 105-108 in Lars Kierspel's charts of Pauline allusions to inter-testamental writings (compiled from the appendices of Nestle-Aland 27) helped to bring this point home. Whether Paul had read many of these texts or was only familiar with some of their contents as stock themes of Jewish diaspora synagogue teaching, Paul was a participant in the dynamics noted above: a movement containing diverse Jewish writings, interconnected in spite of the chaos, offering particular views of the Scriptures of Israel in contrast to other views, and ultimately interpreting those Scriptures--and in Paul's case the events surrounding Jesus--as part of the ongoing narrative of God's creative and redemptive work in the world.

In the end, I applaud my students for their high level of preparation this week which allowed a potentially dry class session to come to life with animated discussion. I am already looking forward to next week's class. 

New Film on the Apostle Paul

An interesting new movie on the Apostle Paul will be screened next week in New York City with showings in other cities planned for 2014. See the press release here and comments by New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado here. Something to put on my "to see" list in the New Year!

Lecture: The Gospel According to Paul

My colleague at the School of Divinity, Graham Twelftree, will give a lecture entitled “The Gospel According to Paul” on Tuesday, Nov. 5 from 4 to 5:30 pm. This lecture is the inaugural lecture for the Charles L. Holman Professorship of New Testament and Early Christianity. Details of the event are available here, and a live video feed of the lecture is available at this link beginning at 4pm (EST) on Nov. 5. The lecture will draw from Graham’s research on Paul for his latest book just released by Baker, Paul and the Miraculous: A Historical Reconstruction*, in which he claims “the more we distance Paul from the miraculous, the less we understand him, his theology, and his mission” (6). Along these lines, Graham summarizes:

The proposal of this project is that, despite scholarly interest being almost entirely in him as a thinker and theologian, the historical Paul is to be understood not only in terms of his theological enterprise but also through taking into account his life and work, which includes his understanding and experience of the miraculous and the place of miracle working in his mission. (26)

Originally from Australia, Graham did his doctoral work with James D. G. Dunn. Between his scholarly erudition, his Australian accent, and his topic, this promises to be a stimulating lecture.

*The preface and chapter one of Graham's book are available for download here.

Some comments on N. T. Wright's “Paul and the Faithfulness of God”

The preface and first chapter of Paul and the Faithfulness of God (now available on the Fortress Press website prior to the release of the book on Nov 1) provide a helpful glimpse at the scope and approach of N. T. Wright’s impressive new volume. While we await the full volume, here is a brief assessment of the preface and introductory chapter.

Those familiar with the approach and style of N. T. Wright will find few surprises, as this work is the culmination of years of research and writing on the letters of Paul. Wright continues working with the concept of worldview and mindset, maintains the critical-realist approach of the earlier volumes in the series, and seeks to situate Paul firmly within his Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts. Those new to his work will find in these pages a helpful introduction to the larger field of Pauline studies, particularly in his overview of the history of scholarship on Paul (pp. 37-43), which is condensed from his forthcoming companion volume on the history of interpretation of Paul.

Using a familiar analogy, Wright lays out the “puzzle pieces” with which any reconstruction of Paul’s thought-world and theology must deal. Among the pieces of the puzzle: being in Christ; the cross; justification; christology; apocalyptic; salvation history; the spirit; covenant; the law; monotheism; and resurrection. (41)

In each of these areas, in order to assess their importance for Paul, we will need to have some sense of their significance within the broader world of early Judaism, as well as how Paul may have adapted or developed his own new perspectives on these topics in light of his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Given the complexity of first-century Judaism, as well as the limitations of our sources, this kind of work requires a good deal of caution to avoid imaginary constructs and generalizations against which Paul might be compared. Whether Wright’s picture is ultimately persuasive will require some significant engagement with the evidence he provides through the texts he exegetes throughout the remainder of the volume.

Wright, who is of course aware of these challenges, offers the following:

The main proposal of this book, then, which is advanced in Part III, is that there is indeed a way of analyzing and understanding Paul in which these several multi-layered dichotomies can be resolved, not indeed in a flat or simplistic way, but in that kind of harmony which often characterizes profound thinkers whose work not only touches on different topics but does so in different contexts and a variety of styles and tones of voice. (45)

The hypothesis I offer in this book is that we can find just such a vantage point when we begin by assuming that Paul remained a deeply Jewish theologian who had rethought and reworked every aspect of his native Jewish theology in the light of the Messiah and the spirit, resulting in his own vocational self-understanding as the apostle to the pagans. (46)

Using Paul's letter to Philemon as an example and a test case, Wright argues that messianic reconciliation across national, ethnic, social, and cultural lines is central to Paul:

The heart of it all, as already suggested, is koinōnia, a ‘partnership’ or ‘fellowship’ which is not static, but which enables the community of those who believe to grow together into a unity across the traditional divisions of the human race. This is a unity which is nothing other than the unity of Jesus Christ and his people – the unity, indeed, which Jesus Christ has won for his people precisely by his identifying with them and so, through his death and resurrection, effecting reconciliation between them and God. (16)

At this point one can readily applaud Wright for his efforts to situate Paul firmly within his Jewish context, as well as to consider how his location and mission within the context of the Roman Empire is significant for the development of his thought. The worldview/mindset approach allows for consideration of both of these facets in what I expect will be a deep and compelling way. Further, Wright’s concern to bring to the fore the challenging interrelationship between history and theology is to be affirmed as well.

While we should hesitate to offer any substantive critique of this volume based only on the first chapter, some of Wright’s comments cause me to wonder if he may underestimate the contribution that postmodern approaches to the study of Paul can make. I expect that Wright would agree that the kinds of questions raised by postcolonial, rhetorical, and feminist-critical methodologies can be useful tools even for those pursuing a more historical-critical and/or theological approach to Paul. Even so, it remains to be seen the extent to which Wright does or does not engage with the findings of newer critical methodologies as he examines Paul’s writings more closely in the chapters that follow.

In any event, readers can expect a challenging and rewarding experience looking at Paul through the lens of N. T. Wright’s massive volume.

Textbooks for "Paul and Early Judaism"

Though not yet available on the university bookstore website, textbooks for my spring 2014 class, BNTB 685 Paul and Early Judaism, are now decided. There are many excellent books we could have used, but I have decided to take advantage of the timing of the release of N. T. Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God next month to help shape our discussion. Thus, we will be working through the following two texts as we consider the letters of Paul within their Jewish contexts:

• N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Fortress Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780800626839
• John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow, eds., Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview. Eerdmans, 2012. ISBN: 978-0-8028-6922-7

PhD students who are taking this seminar at the doctoral level will read the texts listed above, but will also be required to read and report on an additional text:

• E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Fortress, 1977. ISBN: 978-0800618995

In addition, I am recommending the following text for a general introduction to the variety of ways Paul is being read these days:

• Michael Bird, ed. Four Views on the Apostle Paul. Zondervan, 2012. ISBN: 9780310326953.

With these authors as our conversation partners, I am confident that it will be a challenging and fruitful spring for those of us who will be in this seminar together.

Sarah Ruden's "Paul among the People"

I recently read Sarah Ruden’s Paul among the People (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010). In this volume Ruden, a trained classicist, examines several aspects of Paul’s writings by comparing them with ancient Greco-Roman writings. The topics she covers include perspectives on sin and sinful behavior, sex, homosexuality, marriage, slavery, and submission to rulers. In each case she brings clarity to Greek and Roman perspectives on these topics, and sheds light on Paul’s meaning by reading Paul against the Greco-Roman backdrop. In some cases, her readings are very plausible and provide much needed correctives to contemporary mis-readings of such passages (chapters 2, 4, 6, for example). In other cases, in spite of creative effort, the results are not as persuasive (chapter 5, on Paul and the state). Even in cases where her readings do not convince, she offers a rich treasury of primary source materials for contemporary readers of Paul to consider.

In this regard, Ruden is to be commended for her fresh approach to reading Paul in his Greco-Roman context. She seeks to defend Paul from negative interpretations and views such as she herself had previously had. As she began reading Paul in context, she writes,

It seemed to me that many reactions to him across the centuries had been distorted or incomplete in ways that would not have survived a look at his main contemporary and near-contemporary audiences through their own books. For every implausible reading of Paul, there were Greco-Roman works through the lens of which he showed more plausibly (4)

Ruden, in spite of having been what she refers to as a “knee-jerk anti-Paulist” (5), has a high view of Paul and his contributions to the history of Western thought. She credits Paul with foundational ideas that shape all of Western history: “no other intellect contributed as much to making us who we are” (xix). Nevertheless, she still seems to maintain some commonplace stereotypes of Paul: “His faults are obvious enough: his bad temper, his self-righteousness, his anxiety” (4-5). And “he never overcame his touchiness, his fussiness, or his arrogance” (26). On the buildup to 1 Cor 13 in 1 Cor 12:29-30, she writes, “The lecture is showing typical irritability” (171).  She seems to cast events and conflicts in Paul’s life in the worst light: “Paul is just not a nice guy” (183).

It seems to me that greater attention to another aspect of Paul’s Greco-Roman context might have helped Ruden position Paul even a little more sympathetically. Specifically, attention to the context of ancient rhetoric and debate, particularly the agonistic paradigm in which Paul wrote, could perhaps help to reframe those otherwise stereotypical ways of reading Paul. It may be that his apparent arrogance, bad temper, and so forth, as Ruden (and others) have perceived them, were simply reflections of how an educated person wrote to persuade others in antiquity (cf. the work of Margaret Mitchell). Sensibilities about how to persuade others in the first century were indeed quite different than our own.

Regardless of this omission about the significance of Pauline rhetoric, overall Ruden rightly appraises Paul’s approach: “The first efforts at setting Paul’s words against the words of polytheistic authors helped explain why early Christianity was so compelling, growing as no popular movement ever had before” (7). In coming to grips with the essence of Paul's message to his communities of believers, Ruden explains: “To those asking, ‘But how do we live, right here, right now?’ his answer was always in essence the same: ‘In a way worthy of God’s infinite love for each of you” (7). Ruden's volume provides some new perspectives on how contemporary readers of Paul can ask and answer that same question.

I hope this volume will also encourage its readers toward additional efforts to read Paul more fully within his Greco-Roman context.

The Earliest Written Example of Interpreting a Pauline Letter

Those of us who find ourselves struggling to draw out the meaning of Paul’s letters may be encouraged to know that the problem of interpreting Paul was an early one. Those familiar with the New Testament likely know the reference in 2 Peter to the challenge of understanding Paul’s letters (2 Pet 3:15-16). But there is an earlier recorded instance of Pauline interpretation. It is found in 1 Cor 5:9-12 where Paul himself realized that he needed to interpret and clarify what he had written previously to the Corinthians:

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons—not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging those outside? Is it not those inside that you are to judge? (NRSV)

Margaret M. Mitchell (Dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School), in her Paul, the Corinthians, and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics (Cambridge University Press, 2010), provides a spectacular reading of this passage within the context of ancient approaches to interpreting texts (see esp. pp. 18-33). Mitchell notes a variety of techniques that Paul used in interpreting his earlier letter, and makes a strong case that Paul’s approach to interpretation followed standard topoi of ancient rhetorical discourse about how to interpret written texts whose meaning may be in question. Drawing on Cicero’s discussions of interpretatio scripti Mitchell suggests that Paul used several common topics, including literal reading, together with an appeal to the intent of the lawgiver (which in this case was Paul).  

Regardless of where Paul learned the techniques, it is clear that Paul addressed three things as he interpreted what he had written earlier: which specific persons were the focus of the prohibition (“not the immoral of this world” but “anyone who bears the name of brother or sister”); what he meant by “not to associate” (he expanded this to include not even eating with such a one); and what the unacceptable behavior was (he expanded the scope to include other attitudes and practices such as being a reviler or a drunkard).

Notice that, though Paul gave a literal interpretation (i.e. according to the letter), he also ruled out certain overly literal readings as being impossible. According to v. 11, Paul noted that if his readers took his earlier statement too literally, then they would have had to go out of the world entirely—a literal impossibility. Further, his rhetorical questions in v. 13 suggest that he expected they already knew that Paul was not one to judge those outside of the faith community. Thus, Paul wanted the Corinthians to interpret what he said in accordance with his intent as the original writer.

In this instance of interpretation, of course, Paul had a significant advantage over us and any other later readers: he himself was the original writer and so he could easily access what the original writer meant to convey. Our task is much harder, but we can be encouraged to know two things:

First, interpretation is inherent in the act of reading. To read is to interpret. Needing to interpret does not necessarily represent a failure in us or in the original text. Interpret, we must.

Second, the difficult process of attending to the spectrum from literal meaning (the letter) to intended meaning (the spirit of the text) is modeled for us by Paul. When we wrestle through this process, we are in the company of great writers and readers of all ages.

N. T. Wright on Paul and the Faithfulness of God - Interview

Click here to view the video on youtube

A few weeks ago, N. T. Wright sat down with Michael Bird to discuss his forthcoming book, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. In this 24-minute segment Wright discusses how the book came about, how it is structured, and what he believes are its main contributions to the field of pauline studies. Well worth watching for anyone wanting to become better acquainted with Wright's approach to situating Paul within his Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts.

For a concise (and I think correct!) statement about why the study of Paul is significant beyond the world of biblical studies or Christian theology, watch the 45-second segment starting at the 7 minute mark on how Paul ranks with the greatest intellectuals of history.

N. T. Wright’s "Paul and the Faithfulness of God"- Sample Chapter and Table of Contents now available

Pauline scholars and biblical studies students will be pleased to see that Fortress Press has now posted the Table of Contents, Preface, and Chapter 1 for N. T. Wright’s forthcoming Paul and the Faithfulness of God (click here). Thanks to Pamela Johnson of Fortress Press for alerting us!

The 13-page preface and 72-page chapter 1 should give all of us some good material to consider while we await the entire 1696-page volume due out on November 1.

A note to graduate students taking my Spring 2014 Paul and Early Judaism seminar: you can get a good sense for some of the topics we will cover by checking out this preview. Wright’s volume will be one of the main texts for our class.