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The Apologists and Paul

In Bloomsbury, Jonathon Lookadoo, Patristic exegesis, Patristics, Paul on January 14, 2025 at 2:48 pm

2025.01.03 | Todd D. Still and David E. Wilhite. The Apologists and Paul. Pauline and Patristic Scholars in Debate. London: T&T Clark, 2024. Pp. xiv + 346. ISBN: 9780567715456.

Review by Jonathon Lookadoo, Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Many thanks to T&T Clark for providing a review copy.

The Apologists and Paul provides a wide-ranging analysis of how Paul’s letters were employed by that loosely defined group of early Christian writers known as the apologists. This volume is the fourth in the series, Pauline and Patristic Scholars in Debate, all of which have been co-edited by Todd Still and David Wilhite. Earlier compilations took up the use of Paul by Tertullian (2013), the Apostolic Fathers (2017), and Irenaeus (2020). While the volumes have not appeared in the same chronological order as the early Christian authors and texts that they study, the respective contributions to the series are characterized by far-reaching coverage of the respective figures in the titles (the Apostolic Fathers, Irenaeus, and Tertullian) as well as depth in the probative explorations of how Paul was utilized by his later interpreters. The most recent book is no exception. Although the composition of some essays was delayed due to restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting collection is marked by breadth in its discussion of the apologists as well as depth in its attention to the details of how Paul was employed. Along the way, several essays shed light on many pre-requisites that must be understood to appreciate each respective apologist.

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The Apostle to the Foreskin: A Review Article

In circumcision, De Gruyter, Galatians, gentiles, Paul, Paul Sloan, Philippians, review article, Romans, Ryan D. Collman on October 18, 2024 at 2:00 pm

2024.10.07 |  Ryan D. Collman. The Apostle to the Foreskin: Circumcision in the Letters of Paul. BZNW 259. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2023.

Review article by Paul T. Sloan, Houston Christian University.

“Foreskin” stretches across Paul’s letters as a part of various discourses concerning proper Law-keeping and the relation of Jews and gentiles to one another, to Abraham, and to God. The topic of circumcision naturally cuts across the same arguments. Often scholars only survey the tip of the iceberg when it comes to these topics, but Ryan Collman has provided a detailed study on the related passages. While Pauline scholars have routinely claimed that Paul “redefined” or “spiritualized” circumcision such that physical circumcision of Jews is made “redundant and obsolete” (p. 6) and that “the circumcision” as a usual metonymy for Jews is instead employed by Paul to refer to the Jew/gentile Christian community, Collman argues that Paul “held none of these views about circumcision” (p. 6). Instead, Paul “upholds the practice and value of circumcision for Jews. He does not redefine it, replace it, declare its irrelevance, or expand its application to non-Jews – metaphorically or otherwise” (p. 6). Collman’s work has much to commend it, and I find much of it persuasive, including, significantly, his overall thesis regarding Paul’s upholding of the practice of circumcision for Jews and the notion that Paul does not redefine it, replace it, or apply it to non-Jews. Disagreements, especially on matters as complex as Paul’s letters, are of course inevitable, though I am eager to clarify that any enumerated below are offered in overall appreciation of Collman’s well-argued and important thesis, which deserves a wide readership. 

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Divination and Philosophy in the Letters of Paul

In divination, Edinburgh University Press, Joshua W. Jipp, Magic, Matthew Sharp, Paul, Philosophy on September 25, 2024 at 8:28 pm

2024.09.06 |  Matthew T. Sharp. Divination and Philosophy in the Letters of Paul. Edinburgh Studies in Religion in Antiquity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023.

Review by Joshua W. Jipp, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

This revised doctoral thesis, completed at the University of Edinburgh, takes as its starting point the question: “if Paul claims to convey the words and will of a deity, how does he believe he has received such knowledge?” (p. 1). While there is an abundance of studies devoted to aspects of this question (e.g., Paul and healing, Paul and prophecy, Paul and religious experience, Paul and signs and wonders, Paul and glossolalia), “Pauline scholarship has so far lacked an adequate analytical category through which to account for all of these methods of divine communication in Paul’s historical context” (p. 2). Sharp proposes, then, to engage in a careful examination of Paul’s letters through the ancient category of “divination” – that is, “the reception and interpretation of knowledge that is believed to have a divine, or superhuman, source” (p. 2). Paul does not use this category himself, but the scholarly use of divination to make sense of Paul’s religious knowledge, Sharp proposes, will enable scholars “to bring together a collection of related practices and ideas in Paul’s letters that existing scholarly categories usually keep apart” (p. 25).

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Contesting Languages

In 1 Corinthians, Ekaputra Tupamahu, Heteroglossia, Isaac T. Soon, Oxford University Press, Paul, Spiritual Gifts on March 10, 2023 at 3:00 pm

2023.02.05 | Ekaputra Tupamahu. Contesting Languages: Heteroglossia and the Politics of Language in the Early Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. 

Review by Isaac T. Soon, Crandall University, Moncton, NB.

The author begins the book with three subjects that experience struggle at the site of language: Medea, the Corinthian community, and Tupamahau himself. From its first pages, the reader becomes fully aware that this book is not only a critique of Paul’s handling of a multilingual community in Corinth but of the way that dominant languages, such as English (not least in the study of the New Testament), function as colonizing and suppressive forces. Tupamahu’s book is carefully written, and—more than any other academic monograph I have read in a long while—the distinct voice of the author comes across in its pages. The self-aware inclusion of first-person narratives detail the formation of the study and personal experiences that have shaped the research question and approach provides a refreshing frame for receiving Tupamahu’s work. At times, he even leaves expressions in German (e.g., p. 84) or in Greek untranslated to remind the reader of the way language (and its unintelligibility) can be othering for the person who is not proficient in it. Language is a political struggle, and Tupamahu’s book invites readers to learn about its dynamics in Corinth and to experience it themselves through his study itself. 

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Mark, A Pauline Theologian

In Biblical Criticism, Gospel of Mark, Gregg S. Morrison, Historical Criticism, Mar Pérez i Díaz, Mohr Siebeck, Paul on December 19, 2022 at 3:00 pm

2022.12.12 | Mar Pérez i Díaz, Mark, a Pauline Theologian: A Re-reading of the Traditions of Jesus in the Light of Paul’s Theology. WUNT II 521. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020.

Review by Gregg S. Morrison, Birmingham, Alabama.

Petrine influence on the Gospel of Mark has been a well-attested assertion in Gospel studies for centuries, based primarily on the affirmation attributed to Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Historia ecclesiastica (Hist. Eccl.3.39.15). There it is said that Mark served as Peter’s interpreter (ἑρμηνευτής). This perspective went unchallenged until the early 1900s when scholars began to argue that the evangelist was influenced by the Apostle Paul and his teachings/theology. Some scholars considered the matter resolved with Martin Werner’s 1923 publication, Der Einfluss paulinischer Theologie im Markusevangelium, which held that perceived Pauline elements in the Second Gospel reflected primitive Christianity in general and not a conscious effort on the behalf of the evangelist to put Paul’s imprint on the Gospel. But not all scholars accepted the findings of Werner and the debate over Pauline influence on the Gospel of Mark continued and has picked up steam in the last 30–40 years—especially with the two-volume collection of essays published in 2014 for the Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZNW) series, entitled Paul and Mark and Mark and Paul, respectively. Enter Mar Pérez i Díaz and her fine work, Mark, a Pauline Theologian. 

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Pauline Theology and the Problem of Death

In Death, Isaac T. Soon, Joseph Longarino, Mohr Siebeck, NT Theology, Paul, Sin on November 21, 2022 at 3:00 pm
Cover of book

2022.11.10 | Joseph Longarino, Pauline Theology and the Problem of Death. WUNT II/558 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021).

Review by Isaac T. Soon, Crandall University.

This book is a revised version of the author’s dissertation, completed at Duke University under the supervision of Douglas Campbell in 2019. Longarino’s study focuses on a truly disregarded problem in Pauline theology: given the death-defying work of Jesus of Nazareth, how is it that his followers are still subject to death? Put another way—from the eschatological vantage point of resurrection—to what extent (if at all) is resurrection somehow a part of the present existence of Christ-followers?

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An Apostle in Battle

In 2 Corinthians, Christopher de Stigter, Early Christianity, Himmelreise, Lisa M. BOWENS, New Testament, Paul on October 11, 2021 at 4:14 pm

2021.10.16 | Lisa M. Bowens. An Apostle in Battle: Paul and Spiritual Warfare in 2 Corinthians 12:1–10. WUNT II 433; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017.

Review by Christopher de Stigter, Durham University.

Lisa Bowens’s published dissertation, An Apostle in Battle, is an ambitious work in conceptual integration. She argues for a mutual dependency of Paul’s cosmology, epistemology, and anthropology in his ascent to the third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:1–10 (see especially pp. 46 & 129). It is in Paul’s Himmelsreise, she argues, that we see the Apostle within a greater cosmic battle: the human pursuit of divine knowledge is under threat from satanic attacks. For Bowens, therefore, a unifying center of all three conceptual spheres—cosmology, epistemology, and anthropology—is their bellicose construal. Her reading emphasizes Paul’s pastoral intentions, for his response to this cosmic battle, boasting in weakness, indicates his hopes for the “problems in Corinth” (p. 1). Against the tide of recent scholarship, Bowens convincingly locates a theological and practical significance in Paul’s disclosure of his ascent to the Corinthians even if this reviewer found certain points less persuasive.

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Dating Acts in Its Jewish and Greco-Roman Contexts

In Bloomsbury, Book of Acts, Daniel B. Glover, Dating NT, Karl L. Armstrong, Luke-Acts, Paul on September 17, 2021 at 3:00 pm

2021.9.15 | Karl L. Armstrong. Dating Acts in Its Jewish and Greco-Roman Contexts. LNTS 637. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2021.

Review by Daniel B. Glover, Lee University.

Karl L. Armstrong’s new monograph, Dating Acts in Its Jewish and Greco-Roman Contexts, presents what he calls a new, historiographic approach to identifying the date of Acts. Bucking both current and longstanding trends in Acts scholarship, Armstrong argues for a precise date of 64 CE, a date during the reign of Nero and preceding the death of Paul, the famed fire of Rome, and the Jewish War (66–70 CE). Armstrong is revivifying an older position in Acts scholarship but also leveling new arguments in its favor. What follows is perhaps the strongest, most comprehensive case yet offered for an early date for the Acts, and, for that reason, deserves a detailed, substantive engagement as is offered later in this review.

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Reading with the Grain of Scripture

In Eerdmans, Gospels, Intertextuality, Nathan Charles Ridlehoover, Paul, Richard HAYS, Scripture, theological Interpretation of Scripture on February 19, 2021 at 3:00 pm

2021.2.6 | Richard B. Hays. Reading with the Grain of Scripture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020. ISBN: 978-0-8028-7845-8.

Review by Charles Nathan Ridlehoover, Columbia Biblical Seminary.

Students and scholars of the New Testament hardly need an introduction to Richard Hays. Hays has written ground-breaking scholarship on the letters of Paul and New Testament ethics, and his latest full-length study examines intertextual echoes in the Gospels and their Christological significance (Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels). Just before his retirement in 2018, Hays assumed the mantle of dean of Duke Divinity School while maintaining his role as the George Washington Ivey Professor Emeritus of New Testament.

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Sharing in the Son’s Inheritance

In Bloomsbury, Esau McCaulley, Galatians, Messianism, Paul, Trey Moss on January 22, 2021 at 3:00 pm
Sharing in the Son's Inheritance: Davidic Messianism and Paul's Worldwide Interpretation of the Abrahamic Land Promise in Galatians: 608 (The Library of New Testament Studies): Amazon.co.uk: McCaulley, Rev. Dr. Esau: 9780567685926: Books

2021.1.4 | Esau McCaulley. Sharing in the Son’s Inheritance: Davidic Messianism and Paul’s Worldwide Interpretation of the Abrahamic Land Promise in Galatians. LNTS 608. London: T&T Clark, 2019. ISBN 9780567700292. 

Review by Trey Moss, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

 In Sharing in the Son’s Inheritance Esau McCaulley explores the connection between Paul’s messianic theology in the context of Jewish messianism and the Abrahamic land promises in Galatians. While the Abrahamic narrative looms large in Galatians (e.g., Gal 3:6–9, 14–18, 26–29; 4:21, 25–31), Pauline scholarship has often identified the Spirit as a replacement for the land in the argument of Galatians (p. 1, n. 2). Furthermore, according to McCaulley, scholarship on Galatians has not emphasized Davidic messianism in Paul’s theology (pp. 1–2). In contrast, McCaulley argues, “rather than abandoning the Abrahamic land promise, Paul expands it to encompass the whole earth because he believes that Jesus as the seed of Abraham and David (Gal 3:16), is entitled to the peoples and territories of the earth as his inheritance and kingdom (Ps 2:7–8)” (p. 2). By neglecting Paul’s theology of a Davidic Messiah, scholars have missed how Paul connects the land promises to the worldwide kingdom of the Davidic Messiah in Galatians (pp. 5–46). 

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