The Rhetorical Functions of Scriptural Quotations in Romans


Book Description

Quotations from Jewish scriptures play a crucial role in the Letter to the Romans. The Rhetorical Functions of Scriptural Quotations in Romans explores their rhetorical functions in Paul’s argumentation. It offers a careful text-critical analysis of the 51 quotations in Romans, and asks questions such as: does Paul quote accurately according to a wording known to him or does he adapt it himself? Moreover, to what extent does Paul strive to preserve the sense that the quoted words have in their original context? Katja Kujanpää’s approach of combining rhetorical matters with close textual study results in a more comprehensive picture of quotations in Romans than has been previously seen. Thus, the book opens new perspectives on Paul’s argumentation, rhetoric and theological agenda.




An Intertextual Commentary on Romans, Volume 1


Book Description

An Intertextual Commentary on Romans is an exhaustive treatment of the hundreds of Old Testament citations, allusions, and echoes embedded in Paul’s most famous epistle. As many scholars have acknowledged, to understand Paul’s engagement with Israel’s Scriptures is to understand Romans. Despite this acknowledgment, there is a dearth of reference works in which the primary focus is how the Old Testament impacts Paul’s argument from Romans 1:1 to 16:27. This four-volume commentary aims to provide just such a reference. The interplay between Romans and its vast sea of Old Testament pre-texts produces unstated points of resonance that illuminate Paul’s rhetorical argument from the letter’s opening to its closing doxology. Volume 1 examines the Old Testament pre-texts in Romans 1:1–4:25. Although the citations of Habakkuk 2:4 and Genesis 15:6 in this section of the letter often dominate intertextual discussions, several other Old Testament pre-texts, though often overlooked, support the intertextual subtext of the letter and thereby illuminate various features of Paul’s argument. In this commentary, each of these pre-texts is examined from a variety of perspectives. The overarching aim of the commentary is to provide scholars, interpreters, and students with verse by verse analysis of how Israel’s Scriptures impact almost every clause of Paul’s most famous letter.




Review of Biblical Literature, 2021


Book Description

The annual Review of Biblical Literature presents a selection of reviews of the most recent books in biblical studies and related fields, including topical monographs, multi-author volumes, reference works, commentaries, and dictionaries. RBL reviews German, French, Italian, and English books and offers reviews in those languages.




An Intertextual Commentary on Romans, Volume 3


Book Description

An Intertextual Commentary on Romans is an exhaustive treatment of the hundreds of Old Testament citations, allusions, and echoes embedded in Paul’s most famous epistle. As many scholars have acknowledged, to understand Paul’s engagement with Israel’s Scriptures is to understand Romans. Despite this acknowledgment, there is a dearth of reference works in which the primary focus is how the Old Testament impacts Paul’s argument from Romans 1:1 to 16:27. This four-volume commentary aims to provide just such a reference. The interplay between Romans and its vast sea of Old Testament pre-texts produces unstated points of resonance that illuminate Paul’s rhetorical argument from the letter’s opening to its closing doxology. Volume 3 examines the scriptural pre-texts in Romans 9:1—11:36. This section of the letter is the most intertextually dense section of the New Testament and the most theologically controversial section in the entire Pauline corpus. If interpreters hope to navigate these exegetical and theological challenges, they must carefully analyze the intertextual subtext of these chapters where Paul engages Israel’s Scriptures at every rhetorical turn. This volume provides such an analysis. In this way, it also contributes to the commentary’s overarching aim, which is to provide scholars, interpreters, and students with verse by verse analysis of how Israel’s Scriptures impact almost every clause of Paul’s most famous letter.




Israel's Scriptures in Early Christian Writings


Book Description

How did New Testament authors use Israel’s Scriptures? Use, misuse, appropriation, citation, allusion, inspiration—how do we characterize the manifold images, paraphrases, and quotations of the Jewish Scriptures that pervade the New Testament? Over the past few decades, scholars have tackled the question with a variety of methodologies. New Testament authors were part of a broader landscape of Jewish readers interpreting Scripture. Recent studies have sought to understand the various compositional techniques of the early Christians who composed the New Testament in this context and on the authors’ own terms. In this landmark collection of essays, Matthias Henze and David Lincicum marshal an international group of renowned scholars to analyze the New Testament, text-by-text, aiming to better understand what roles Israel’s Scriptures play therein. In addition to explicating each book, the essayists also cut across texts to chart the most important central concepts, such as the messiah, covenants, and the end times. Carefully constructed reception history of both testaments rounds out the volume. Comprehensive and foundational, Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christian Writings will serve as an essential resource for biblical scholars for years to come. Contributors: Garrick V. Allen, Michael Avioz, Martin Bauspiess, Richard J. Bautch, Ian K. Boxall, Marc Zvi Brettler, Jaime Clark-Soles, Michael B. Cover, A. Andrew Das, Susan Docherty, Paul Foster, Jörg Frey, Alexandria Frisch, Edmon L. Gallagher, Gabriella Gelardini, Jennie Grillo, Gerd Häfner, Matthias Henze, J. Thomas Hewitt, Robin M. Jensen, Martin Karrer, Matthias Konradt, Katja Kujanpää, John R. Levison, David Lincicum, Grant Macaskill, Tobias Nicklas, Valérie Nicolet, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, George Parsenios, Benjamin E. Reynolds, Dieter T. Roth, Dietrich Rusam, Jens Schröter, Claudia Setzer, Elizabeth Evans Shively, Michael Karl-Heinz Sommer, Angela Standhartinger, Gert J. Steyn, Todd D. Still, Rodney A. Werline, Benjamin Wold, Archie T. Wright




The New Cambridge Companion to St. Paul


Book Description

St Paul was a pivotal and controversial figure in the fledgling Jesus movement of the first century. The New Cambridge Companion to St Paul provides an invaluable entryway into the study of Paul and his letters. Composed of sixteen essays by an international team of scholars, it explores some of the key issues in the current study of his dynamic and demanding theological discourse. The volume first examines Paul's life and the first-century context in which he and his communities lived. Contributors then analyze particular writings by comparing and contrasting at least two selected letters, while thematic essays examine topics of particular importance, including how Paul read scripture, his relation to Judaism and monotheism, why his message may have been attractive to first-century audiences, how his message was elaborated in various ways in the first four centuries, and how his theological discourse might relate to contemporary theological discourse and ideological analysis today.




Romans


Book Description

In this new contribution to the New Testament Library, renowned New Testament scholar Beverly Roberts Gaventa offers a fresh account of Paul's Letter to the Romans as an event, both in the sense that it reflects a particular historical moment in Paul's labors and in the sense that it reflects the event God brings about in the gospel Paul represents. Attention to that dual sense of event means that Gaventa attends to the literary, historical, and theological features of the letter. Throughout the commentary, Gaventa keeps in view central questions of what Paul hoped the letter might accomplish among its listeners in Rome and how his auditors might have heard it when read by Phoebe. In posing potential answers to these questions, Gaventa touches on vital themes such as the intrusion of the gospel of Jesus Christ that prompts Paul to write in the first place, what that event reveals about the situation of all creation, how it relates to both Israel and the Gentiles, and what its implications are for life in faith. The New Testament Library series offers authoritative commentary on every book and major aspect of the New Testament, providing fresh translations based on the best available ancient manuscripts, critical portrayals of the historical world in which the books were created, careful attention to their literary design, and a theologically perceptive exposition of the biblical text. The contributors are scholars of international standing. The editorial board consists of C. Clifton Black, Princeton Theological Seminary; John T. Carroll, Union Presbyterian Seminary; and Susan E. Hylen, Candler School of Theology, Emory University.




Mercy for All


Book Description

This is a study in the interpretation of Paul with a focus on an interpretation of Romans 9 to 11 as a defense of God’s faithfulness to Israel. The study begins with reviews of three historical approaches to studying Paul’s relationship to the Judiasm of his era, the third anchoring Paul with the Judaism of his time (Second Temple Judaism). It then moves to an interpretation of his writings from a broad framework within that Jewish sociocultural paradigm. The study suggests that Paul’s letter to the Romans provides a defense of Judaism, and Romans 9 to 11 provides an argument for God’s faithfulness to Israel. Romans 11, particularly 11:25–32, presents a picture of Israel’s redemption and how gentiles relate to Israel’s redemption, through the mercy they have received via Israel. Gentiles are seen as instrumental in the redemption of Israel. Romans 11:25–32 should be read as a missional paradigm to Israel.




Understanding the New Testament Use of the Old Testament


Book Description

This up-to-date introduction to the study of the New Testament's use of the Old Testament surveys the current state of the discipline, summarizes the scholarly conversation, illuminates the New Testament writers' respect for Old Testament contexts, proposes advances in classification and terminology, and provides resources for further work in the field. New Testament scholar Douglas Huffman suggests a way beyond the impasse concerning the terminology used by scholars in the discipline. He offers a new approach to identifying and interpreting Old Testament quotations, allusions, and echoes by exploring not just the forms but also the features, framings, and functions of the New Testament use of the Old Testament. Huffman demonstrates the advantages of his approach by analyzing how the Old Testament is used in Luke-Acts and thus provides a model that can be applied to other New Testament authors' use of Old Testament Scripture. Professors and students of the Bible, scholars, and pastors will value this work.




Handbook on Acts and Paul's Letters (Handbooks on the New Testament)


Book Description

Leading biblical scholar Thomas Schreiner provides an easy-to-navigate resource for studying and understanding the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline Letters. This accessibly written volume summarizes the content of each major section of the biblical text to help readers quickly grasp the sense of particular passages. This is the first volume in the Handbooks on the New Testament series, which is modeled after Baker Academic's successful Old Testament handbook series. Series volumes are neither introductions nor commentaries, as they focus primarily on the content of the biblical books without getting bogged down in historical-critical questions or detailed verse-by-verse exegesis. The series will contain three volumes that span the entirety of the New Testament, with future volumes covering the Gospels and Hebrews through Revelation. Written with classroom utility and pastoral application in mind, these books will appeal to students, pastors, and laypeople alike.