Reading Romans in Context: Paul and Second Temple Judaism
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Reading Romans in Context: Paul and Second Temple Judaism
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Overview
Readers of Paul today are more than ever aware of the importance of interpreting Paul’s letters in their Jewish context. In Reading Romans in Context a team of Pauline scholars go beyond a general introduction that surveys historical events and theological themes and explore Paul’s letter to the Romans in light of Second Temple Jewish literature.
In this non-technical collection of short essays, beginning and intermediate students are given a chance to see firsthand what makes Paul a distinctive thinker in relation to his Jewish contemporaries. Following the narrative progression of Romans, each chapter pairs a major unit of the letter with one or more thematically related Jewish text, introduces and explores the theological nuances of the comparative text, and shows how these ideas illuminate our understanding of the book of Romans.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780310517962 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Zondervan Academic |
| Publication date: | 07/28/2015 |
| Sold by: | HarperCollins Publishing |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Ben C. Blackwell (PhD, University of Durham) is associate professor of early Christianity at Houston Baptist University. He has authored a number of essays and articles related to Historical Theology and the New Testament, including Christosis: Engaging Pauline Soteriology with His Patristic Interpreters. He is currently working on new monograph: Participating in the Righteousness of God: Justification in Pauline Theology. He also served as a co-editor for several volumes: Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination; Reading Romans in Context: Paul and Second Temple Judaism; and Reading Mark in Context: Jesus and Second Temple Judaism.
Jason Maston (PhD, University of Durham) is Lecturer in New Testament at Highland Theological College UHI (UK). He is the author of Divine and Human Agency in Second Temple Judaism and Paul: A Comparative Approach and contributor to and co-editor (with Michael F. Bird) of Earliest Christian History: History, Literature and Theology. Essays from the Tyndale Fellowship in Honor of Martin Hengel.
Read an Excerpt
Reading Romans in Context
Paul and Second Temple Judaism
By Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, Jason Maston
ZONDERVAN
Copyright © 2015 Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and Jason MastonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-310-51795-5
INTRODUCTION
Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston
The text lives only by coming into contact with another text (with context). Only at the point of this contact between texts does a light flash, illuminating both the posterior and anterior, joining a given text to a dialogue.
M. M. Bakhtin
Paul's letter to the Romans is widely celebrated as the apostle's clearest and fullest exposition of the good news concerning Jesus Christ. As William Tyndale lauded, "[It] is the principal and most excellent part of the New Testament, and the most pure Euangelion, that is to say glad tidings and that we call gospel."
Writing from Corinth toward the end of his third missionary journey in AD 57, Paul wrote Romans in part to win support for his anticipated mission to Spain. To that end, he aimed in the letter to introduce himself to the believers in Rome, to summarize his theology, and to offer pastoral wisdom to troubled Christians and divided house churches. Over the course of sixteen chapters, Paul incorporates many of his favorite theological themes, including sin, death, law, justification, participation ("in/with Christ"), the Spirit, and ethnic reconciliation. Given its careful argumentation and nearly comprehensive coverage, it is easy to see why Romans has remained at the center of Christian discourse throughout church history and continues to be cherished by believers the world over. As Martin Luther memorably wrote, "It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well."
Not all readings of Romans, however, are equally insightful. Romans, like the rest of the Bible, was written at a time and in a culture quite different from our own. Accordingly, reading Scripture well, as most biblical studies students will know, requires careful consideration of a passage's historical-cultural context. The study of Romans is no different. And although it is true that some contextual awareness is better than none, it is also true that not every contextual observation has equal bearing on determining the meaning of a passage.
The History of Religions School of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, exposed an array of parallels between the religious beliefs and practices of various ancient Mediterranean societies and those of the earliest Christian communities. Yet subsequent scholarship has demonstrated the irrelevance of many of those parallels for NT studies in general and the study of Romans in particular, especially relative to the Jewish context of early Christianity. Most notably, Albert Schweitzer argued that Pauline theology—specifically the Pauline doctrine of Christ-mysticism (being "in Christ")—rather than being a product of Hellenism, should be studied within the worldview of Jewish apocalyptic. Many of Schweitzer's contributions would fail to be accepted in his own day; in fact, most now would agree that he too easily separated Judaism from Hellenism. Nevertheless, influential scholars such as W. D. Davies, Ernst Käsemann, and E. P. Sanders later stood on Schweitzer's shoulders by offering thorough readings of Paul in the light of his Jewish theological context.
The impact of Sanders's Paul and Palestinian Judaism has been especially long-standing. While Sanders conceded that identifying parallel motifs in Paul and his Jewish contemporaries can be illuminating, he has been influential in challenging students of Paul to go beyond detecting surface-level similarities to conducting close comparative readings of Jewish and Pauline texts. "What is needed," Sanders insisted, "is a comparison which takes account of both the numerous agreements and the disagreements—not only the disagreements as stated by Paul, but those evident from the Jewish side, the discrepancy between Paul's depiction of Judaism and Judaism as reflected in Jewish sources." Sanders's own approach was to conduct a large-scale comparison between early Judaism and Pauline Christianity, tracing especially how Paul and his contemporaries understood "getting in" and "staying in" the people of God. Sanders studied numerous types of Jewish literature and argued that there was a common "pattern of religion" shared by most branches of Second Temple Judaism—a pattern that Sanders labeled "covenantal nomism" and believed should be differentiated from Paul's own theological framework. Not all of the details of Sanders's readings of Jewish and Pauline texts have been accepted. Nevertheless, as a result of his work, Pauline scholars today are more aware than ever of the importance of interpreting Paul's letters in their Second Temple Jewish context and in close relation to contemporary Jewish literature.
Even so, many Christians, especially in the evangelical tradition, remain suspicious of extracanonical literature and its value for biblical interpretation. For some, this is simply a matter of canonicity—those books lying outside of Scripture should not be allowed to influence Christian, especially post-Reformation, theology. For others, it is a matter of utility. John Piper is a case in point. In his widely publicized critique of N. T. Wright's understanding of Pauline theology, Piper directs his initial criticism toward Wright's biblical-theological methodology—namely, his extensive reliance on extra-biblical sources. Rather than encouraging Christians to explore the Bible's theological claims by reading them in the light of early Jewish literature, Piper cautions that "not all biblical-theological methods and categories are illuminating," for "first-century ideas can be used (inadvertently) to distort and silence what the New Testament writers intended to say." According to Piper, such exegetical distortion can occur in at least three ways: "misunderstanding the sources," "assuming agreement with a source when there is no agreement," and "misapplying the meaning of a source." He concludes, "It will be salutary, therefore, for scholars and pastors and laypeople who do not spend much of their time reading first-century literature to have a modest skepticism when an overarching concept or worldview from the first century is used to give 'new' or 'fresh' interpretations to biblical texts that in their own context do not naturally give rise to these interpretations."
While we share Piper's desire to interpret the NT accurately in the service of the church, much contemporary scholarship demonstrates that Piper's misgivings fail to appreciate the many advantages of utilizing Second Temple Jewish literature for illuminating the meaning of the NT. Obviously, misreadings and misapplications of ancient texts remain real dangers in biblical studies; over half a century ago Samuel Sandmel warned the academy against illegitimate uses of background material, such as "parallelomania." Accordingly, the appropriate solution to the misuse of comparative literature is not its outright dismissal, but its responsible handling by students of Scripture. As Wright asserts in response to Piper, "Of course literature like the Dead Sea Scrolls, being only recently discovered, has not been so extensively discussed, and its context remains highly controversial. But to say that we already have 'contextual awareness' of the Bible while screening out the literature or culture of the time can only mean that we are going to rely on the 'contextual awareness' of earlier days." Bruce Metzger similarly assessed the importance of early Jewish literature (esp. the Apocrypha) for biblical studies over a half century ago:
Though it would be altogether extravagant to call the Apocrypha the keystone of the two Testaments, it is not too much to regard these intertestamental books as an historical hyphen that serves a useful function in bridging what to most readers of the Bible is a blank of several hundred years. To neglect what the Apocrypha have to tell us about the development of Jewish life and thought during those critical times is as foolish as to imagine that one can understand the civilization and culture of America today by passing from colonial days to the twentieth century without taking into account the industrial and social revolution of the intervening centuries.
Piper seems particularly anxious about the illegitimate imposition of external meaning onto the biblical text. That is a fair concern. What he fails to realize, however, is that many comparative studies are interested just as much, if not more, in exposing the theological differences between texts as observing their similarities. To interpret his letters rightly, then, students of Paul must not ignore Second Temple Jewish literature, but must engage it with frequency, precision, and a willingness to acknowledge theological continuity and discontinuity.
But while monographs that situate Paul within Judaism abound, there exist virtually no nontechnical resources for beginning and intermediate students to assist them in seeing firsthand how Paul is similar to and yet different from his Jewish contemporaries. This volume seeks to investigate Paul's relationship with Second Temple Judaism by bringing together a series of accessible essays that compare and contrast the perspectives and hermeneutical practices of Paul and his various kinsmen. Going beyond an introduction that merely surveys historical events and theological themes, this book examines select passages in Second Temple Jewish literature to illuminate the context of Paul's theology and the nuances of his thinking.
To provide focus, the volume concentrates on Paul's letter to the Romans, a suitable target text on numerous counts. As noted above, Romans is Paul's most comprehensive letter, addressing nearly all of the issues that arise elsewhere in the Pauline corpus. Following, then, the progression of Romans, each chapter in the volume (1) pairs a major unit of the letter with one or more sections of a thematically related Jewish text, (2) introduces and explores the theological nuances of the comparator text, and (3) shows how the ideas in the comparator text illuminate those expressed in Romans. The end of each chapter also contains a short list of other thematically relevant Second Temple Jewish texts recommended for additional study and a focused bibliography pointing students to critical editions and higher-level discussions in scholarly literature. Finally, at the end of the book is a glossary where readers will find definitions of important terms. Whether one reads the entire book or only a few essays, it is our hope that readers will gain a new appreciation for extrabiblical Jewish texts, begin to see the many benefits of studying the NT alongside its contemporary literature, and acquire a better understanding of Paul and his letter to the Romans.
Before proceeding to our comparisons, however, it is necessary briefly to survey the events of the Second Temple Period and the literature that it produced.
Introducing the Second Temple Period and Early Jewish Literature from the First Temple Period to the Second
In the exodus, a pivotal event in the history of national Israel, Abraham's family was liberated from Pharaoh after nearly four centuries of forced labor. The Israelites were led by God into the desert and given the Mosaic law at Sinai to regulate Hebrew life and religion, with the sacrificial system at the center of their community (Exod 19:1–8). Separated from the nations through their distinctive way of life (Lev 20:22–26), the Israelites were to keep the commandments that God had given them, lest they profane the holy covenant and be exiled from the land of promise (Lev 26:14–39; Deut 28:15–68; 30:15–20).
From the conquest of Canaan to the end of the united monarchy, the nation inhabited the land for almost five hundred years. During that era, King Solomon built the first temple in the mid-tenth century, fulfilling David's original aspiration for the project (1 Kgs 6:1–8:66). After Solomon's death, the kingdom divided and, following a series of evil rulers, Israel's northern ten tribes (the kingdom of Israel/Samaria) were captured and exiled by Assyria in 722 BC (2 Kgs 17:1–23; 18:9–12).The southern two tribes (the kingdom of Judah) ultimately fared no better. By the beginning of the sixth century the Babylonians had waged war on Jerusalem, and in 586 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city, including the first temple, and exiled many of its inhabitants (2 Kgs 24:10–25:21; 2 Chr 36:17–21).
The Babylonian captivity marks a low point in Israel's history. The nation had faced the full brunt of the Deuteronomic curses as a result of their covenant disobedience. Consequently, the Israelites were without a homeland, just as Yahweh had promised would happen through Moses and the prophets.
But even before their captivity, God had also promised he would return his scattered people to the land and fully restore the nation (Lev 26:40–45; Deut 30:1–10; 32:34–43; Isa 40:1–66:24; Jer 30:1–31:40; Ezek 36:8–37:28). Israel was to experience the glory of its former days, and, as it would turn out, they did not remain under Babylonian rule for long. In 539 BC, Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon and famously decreed that all exiles could return to their ancestral homelands (2 Chr 36:22–23; Ezra 1:1–4). Many Israelites therefore gradually returned to and rebuilt Jerusalem. Zerubbabel was instrumental in the rebuilding of the temple, while Nehemiah oversaw the construction of the city walls (Ezra 3:8–6:15; Neh 2:9–6:15). It is the building of this second temple in 516 BC that marks the beginning of the Second Temple Period.
The newly renovated city, however, was not what was promised. When Israel's returnees gazed at the new temple's foundation, some celebrated and others cried over its unimpressive stature (Ezra 3:10–13; Hag 2:3). Israel's promised restoration had not arrived at the hands of Ezra and Nehemiah. As the centuries to follow would demonstrate, the peace and prosperity God swore to his people had yet to be realized in the period immediately following the Babylonian exile. Instead, generation after generation witnessed subjugation and suffering at the hands of still other foreign powers—namely, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome—and these experiences significantly colored the texts these Jews produced.
Israel survived under the rule of the Medo-Persian Empire from 539 to about 332 BC, when the Greek Empire, led by Alexander the Great, conquered the known world. Alexander's rule would not last long. Following his death in 323 BC, Alexander's territories were partitioned among his military generals, who established their own kingdoms (e.g., the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt and the Seleucid Kingdom in Syria) and continued the former emperor's systematic spread of Hellenism, or Greek culture (1 Macc 1:1–9; 2 Macc 4:7–17).These kingdoms, which were often embroiled in war with one another, also created challenges for the Jews, who were positioned geographically between them. The Seleucid Kingdom in particular, under the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 167 BC, raided Jerusalem (1 Macc 1:20–40), desecrated the temple (1:47, 54, 59), outlawed observance of the covenant (1:41–53), and prohibited possession of the Torah (1:56–57). In his pursuit of Hellenization, Antiochus banned the Jews' customs (1:41–44) and violently forced their assimilation (1:50, 57–58, 60–64). But Antiochus's persecution was not passively tolerated. The Jewish resistance that arose in response (the Maccabean Revolt, 167–142 BC) resulted in the Jews' repossession of the land, rededication of the temple, and institution of the festival of Hanukkah (1 Macc 4:36–59; Josephus, Ant. 12.316–325).
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Excerpted from Reading Romans in Context by Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, Jason Maston. Copyright © 2015 Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN.
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