Tag Archives: Romans

Election and Reversal in Genesis and Romans: Exploring Robert B. Foster’s “Renaming Abraham’s Children”

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Paul’s Letter to the Romans deals with themes central to the Christian faith, which helps explain why, even after being read and reflected upon for nearly two millennia, lively conversations about how to best interpret it continue to take place. In his dissertation on Romans 9, Renaming Abraham’s Children, Robert B. Foster joins the time-honored tradition of “trying to think Paul’s thoughts after him,” to borrow N.T Wright’s turn of phrase (2009, p.x), attempting to show how Paul’s understanding of election was shaped by his prior engagement with the foundational stories of the patriarchs in Genesis (pp. 1-2). By tracing Paul’s interpretation of these narratives, Foster aims to help uncover a level of theological coherence in chapters 9-11 more frequently sought after than actually found (p.3).

The attention Foster gives to Paul’s usage of the Abrahamic narratives places him within a larger school of thought in scholarship, represented by figures like Richard B. Hays and N.T. Wright. These writers emphasize the idea that many of the more puzzling elements in Paul’s letters can be clarified when viewed as being undergirded by a deeper narrative-driven substructure (for an interesting set of essays examining this trend, see Narrative Dynamics in Paul, edited by Bruce Longenecker). Narrative approaches to Paul are often insightful, but they are sometimes criticized for being too subjective, unable to adequately deal with questions like, “when is a passage’s narrative substructure deftly submerged below the surface, and when is it just not there?” To make his proposal compelling, Foster has to show that he isn’t deaf to these concerns in Renaming Paul’s Children. Continue reading →

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Apocalyptic Readings in Romans: Reviewing “Apocalyptic Paul: Cosmos and Anthropos in Romans 5-8”

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What does it mean to read Paul as an apocalyptic theologian? This isn’t exactly an easy question to answer, and for some the term itself can feel a bit off-putting. If nothing else, though, it means contextualizing Paul by placing him in conversation with the many apocalyptic texts produced during the Second Temple period—such as 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra—and looking to see what these writings reveal about the underlying shape of his theological convictions.

In another (related) sense, reading Paul with an apocalyptic lens has to do with highlighting theological emphases such as, among other things, understanding the death and resurrection of Christ to be primarily a redemptive event that marked the overthrow of Sin and Death. In the words of prominent Pauline scholar Martinus C. de Boer, an apocalyptic construal of Paul’s gospel has “everything to do with the invasive action of God in this world to deliver human beings from this present evil age” (2002, p.33).

Pride of place for sparking off this line of scholarship is generally given to the distinguished Lutheran theologian, Ernst Käsemann, who was deeply impacted by his experience of the German church struggle and the Second World War. Following Käsemann, the ranks of those studying Paul’s writings through an apocalyptic lens continued to grow throughout the rest of the 20th century, and currently all signs point to it remaining a lively part Pauline studies in the years to come. The essays that make up Apocalyptic Paul: Cosmos and Anthropos in Romans 5-8 come together to give readers a deeply interesting and well-rounded introduction to most of the major ideas and figures currently shaping this way of reading Paul, with essays by contributors like de Boer himself and Beverly Roberts Gaventa, along with a thoughtful afterward by J. Louis Martyn.   Continue reading →

Getting off the Tourist Path: A Review of Beverly Roberts Gaventa’s “When in Romans”

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when-in-romansFor many Christians, Paul’s letter to the Romans is one of the more intimidating parts of the New Testament. This is both understandable and unfortunate. Romans is, after all, an undeniably complex letter, with both occasional and systematic dimensions. And in case we forget its historic significance, the Pauline scholar Michael Gorman reminds us that “Romans has spawned conversions, doctrines, disputations, and even a few reformations” (2004, p.338).

A feeling of slight trepidation when embarking on a study of Romans might then actually be entirely appropriate. It’s a shame, though, when this causes Christians to shy away from reading the letter at all. “[While] it is clearly a book that challenges the best minds in the community,” Eugene Peterson points out, “The scholars are here to help us read it, not read it for us” (2009, p.261).

Hopefully, these introductory comments can help us better appreciate the usefulness of Beverly Roberts Gaventa’s brief and illuminating book, When in Romans: An Invitation to Linger with the Gospel according to Paul. In it, she reflects theologically on the significance of Paul’s letter for those who might not otherwise know where to start. As Gaventa explains in the preface, “This book on Romans is intended for people who would not normally read a book about Romans” (p.xiii). Continue reading →