Psalms of Solomon and Pauline Studies

This weekend I’ll be presenting my paper on “Psalms of Solomon and Pauline Studies” at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. The session occurs on Sunday from 1 to 3:30pm at the Hilton Bayfront (Sapphire Ballroom M). I’ll make a case that the Psalms of Solomon have more to offer the study of Paul than has been realized. By reading the Psalms of Solomon as a kind of poetry of resistance we can be more attuned to the ways that these psalms functioned for their readers in helping them maintain their deuteronomic and covenantal perspective in the face of current events that might otherwise have led to despair and even abandonment of their cultural and religious traditions. We can also recognize that Paul would have been familiar not just with the theological content within the Psalms of Solomon but more so with the praxis of poetic resistance which they represented--a tradition with deep roots in the Hebrew Scriptures (see the work of Hugh Page along these lines). Thus when Paul uses bits of early Christian psalms or hymns about Christ, we can consider that these may likewise be instances of Paul’s own poetic practice of resistance as he offers his readers an alternative vision of reality from that which was on offer in the world around them.

In addition to the papers of my fellow presenters, prepared responses to my paper are to be given by Pamela Eisenbaum, Iliff School of Theology, Ward Blanton, University of Kent at Canterbury, and N. T. Wright, University of St. Andrews.

Forthcoming Article on Paul and Rhetoric

I just received word that an article of mine will appear in the Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters this fall or early winter. My article "Galatians and the Progymnasmata on Refuting a Law: A Neglected Aspect of Pauline Rhetoric" examines the ancient classroom exercise on how to introduce a law or refute one, and then considers the extent to which Paul utilized the kinds of arguments that this exercise promoted. This is a topic that was originally suggested to me by professor Jerry Neyrey in a doctoral seminar at the University of Notre Dame in 2003 and that I finally began working on a few years ago.  I am grateful to Jerry for the suggestion, and also to David Aune for taking the time to read and comment on a draft of this article. The abstract is below, and when the issue is published I'll post the link.

The structure, flow, and logic of Paul’s argumentation in Galatians continues to be a subject of debate as scholars seek to read Paul’s statements about the law, works of the law, and other aspects of Judaism within a framework which appreciates both the diverse nature of first-century Judaism as well as Paul’s appropriation of his own Jewish heritage. Scholars have also sought to read Paul’s letter to the Galatians in light of first-century Greco-Roman rhetorical strategies and conventions. This essay contributes to these discussions by looking at Galatians from an angle that has not yet been considered: the first-century CE progymnasmata exercise on the introduction and refutation of a law (νόμου εἰσφορά). This specific compositional exercise drew on the skills mastered in earlier exercises as students utilized compositional and rhetorical skills to persuade the reader (an imaginary audience) to enact or abandon a particular law based on the topics of legality, possibility, advantage, and appropriateness. By reading Galatians through the lens of this particular exercise, it is possible to appreciate the extent to which Paul utilized conventional forms of argumentation about the application of existing laws. Such a reading contributes to a thicker description of Paul’s utilization of elements of ancient rhetoric.

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.

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.

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.

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.

David Aune on Galatians 3:28 and the Problem of Equality

New Testament scholars in a variety of specialties will be pleased to see that a second collection of the essays of David Aune has been released this year by Mohr Siebeck: Jesus, Gospel Tradition and Paul in the Context of Jewish and Greco-Roman Antiquity. I will say more about this rich volume as a whole in a later post. For now I focus on the final essay of this volume, “Galatians 3:28 and the Problem of Equality in the Church and Society” (pp. 524-549), in which David Aune provides some important context for understanding the notion of equality in Christ that Paul outlines in Gal 3:28. The real heart of the issue is the extent to which Paul was only advocating a kind of equality coram deo (before God) in which all have equal access to the possibility of being “in Christ” but which has no significant impact in concrete social relationships; or whether Paul was suggesting that this equality before God must also be somehow physically manifested in concrete social relationships between males and females, slaves and free, Jews and Gentiles, within the churches.

To shed light on Paul’s views, Aune reviews the teaching and example of Jesus with regard to equality and the erasing of hierarchical distinctions. He also reviews contemporary Jewish and Greco-Roman views on each of the relationships of the Gal 3:28 triad: Jew/Gentile, slave/free, male/female.

Most illuminating is comparing Gal 3:28 with what Paul says elsewhere about these distinctions. Notably, in 1 Cor 7 Paul addresses each of the three elements of this triad of conventional hierarchies. Further, by reading Gal 3:28 in light of Paul’s conflict with Peter over table fellowship between Jews and Gentiles (Gal 2:11-14), Aune suggests that Paul fully expected that the abolishment “in Christ” of these conventional social hierarchies would be played out in practice in the real relationships of believers with one another. 

“The very fact that Paul thought national differences were irrelevant for those who belonged to the new people of God suggests that the two other areas of equality, ‘neither slave nor free’ and ‘neither male nor female,’ not only reflect equal status before God, they also signal changed attitudes toward others that ought to prevail in the life of the Church” (549)

Paul’s letter to Philemon offers another concrete instance of Paul’s expectation that being “in Christ” would have concrete implications in the relationships of Christians with one another. How the tensions this expectation created would be resolved is not so clearly addressed by Paul (at least not in the case of Onesimus and Philemon). Aune explains,

“While Paul does not resolve the tension that would have existed between those two quite different roles [i.e. being a slave in the flesh vs. being a spiritual brother in Christ], a transformation of social relationships is surely in view” (549).

Aune thus provides a helpful way of positioning Paul within his first-century context and within the context of early Christian writers. Paul, though surely influenced by the conventions of his day, points to a new way of relating to one another within the community of believers. The dynamic tensions inherent within these new ways of relating will, it seems, need to be addressed in the day to day lives of each new generation of believers who live within the social structures of the world but also find themselves “one in Christ Jesus.”

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.