Paul and the Economy of Salvation , livre ebook

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252 pages

English

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This major contribution to Pauline scholarship by a widely-respected New Testament scholar is the culmination of over forty years of teaching on Paul. Brendan Byrne demonstrates that topics often discussed in Pauline studies and Christian theology go astray when the significance of the last judgment falls from view. Offering a fresh Catholic perspective that engages with centuries of Protestant interpretation, this book recaptures the significance of the motif of the last judgment for the interpretation of Paul.

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

New Testament

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	17 août 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781493430673
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1080€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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© 2021 by Brendan Byrne
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4934-3067-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture translations are the author’s own.
Scripture quotations labeled JB are from THE JERUSALEM BIBLE, copyright © 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission.
Scripture quotations labeled NABRE are from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, DC, and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ® , NIV ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations labeled NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam
Contents
Cover
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Apocalyptic Background to Paul
2. “Righteousness” in Paul
3. The Last Judgment in the Letters of Paul aside from Romans
4. The Last Judgment in Romans 1:1–3:20
5. The Last Judgment in Romans 3:21–4:25
6. The Last Judgment in Romans 9–11
7. The Last Judgment in Romans 12–15
8. The Last Judgment in Romans 5–8
9. The Universal Need for Salvation: Moment 1
10. The Sending of the Son: Moment 2a
11. The Divine Act of Reconciliation: Moment 2b
12. Living in Hope of Glory Revealed: Moment 3
13. Paul and the Economy of Salvation: Theological Reflection
Bibliography
Index of Modern Authors
Index of Subjects
Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Sources
Cover Flap
Back Cover
Preface
T his work draws together four decades of study, teaching, and research on the writings of Paul the apostle. The question that emerged for me from my first engagement with Paul concerned how he understood the death of Jesus to be salvific for other human beings. What was the connection? In the 1970s I went to Oxford to pursue this issue under the able direction of Morna D. Hooker, later Lady Margaret’s Professor at the University of Cambridge. What drew me from my antipodean locale were her early writing on the motif of “interchange in Christ” and Paul’s view of Christ as the last Adam. In the event, my doctoral research on Paul went in a different direction. 1 However, the original question has not ceased to accompany my reflection and teaching in the years since. The present work represents an attempt to draw together some conclusions on this matter, while necessarily placing Paul’s understanding of Christ’s death within the wider context of other significant trajectories of his theology.
My academic study of Paul was preceded by an MA at Melbourne University devoted to building and temple imagery in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Later, I spent a semester away from Oxford in the library of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome, immersing myself in the biblical and postbiblical apocalyptic literature of Second Temple Judaism. My study in both these areas led to a firm conviction that apocalyptic Judaism formed the essential background for understanding Paul and the theology to be culled from his letters. Within that wider conviction, I have become further convinced of the role played by the apocalyptic motif of the last judgment in his theology and commitment to the proclamation of the gospel. Topics in Christian theology that have traditionally owed much to Paul, such as justification and redemption, have to be understood, at least as regards their origins, within the pressing horizon of the last judgment.
More particularly, I have continued to find in Paul, especially in the sequence comprising chapters 5–8 of Romans, a causal connection between the way believers live out the righteous status they have received on the basis of faith and their receiving a positive verdict at the judgment. Traditional Protestant interpretation of Paul has always experienced difficulty in this area. I hope to show, however, that, rightly understood, recognizing that human living in the power of the Spirit really does contribute to the gaining of salvation is not incompatible with preserving the initiative of divine grace.
I write as a Catholic scholar within a Pauline guild that, for obvious reasons, has largely been and continues to be a strongly Protestant preserve. For decades, however, my teaching and research have been as a member of the ecumenical United Faculty of Theology, Parkville, Victoria, within the equally ecumenical Melbourne College of Divinity, now the University of Divinity. My understanding of Paul has, accordingly, developed in a milieu of continual interchange with colleagues and students of all Christian traditions. It is widely acknowledged that ecumenical understanding and collaboration have flourished to a unique degree in Melbourne since the middle of the last century. The Fellowship for Biblical Studies, which meets regularly for fellowship and congenial scholarly exchange, is a notable instance of this, for which I am truly grateful.
In this connection let me mention with gratitude New Testament colleagues now gone to the Lord who greatly contributed to the fostering of that fellowship: Davis McCaughey (later governor of the State of Victoria), Eric Osborn, and Nigel Watson. I am privileged to have as colleagues and friends three members of an outstanding “Johannine School” that flourishes in Melbourne: Dorothy Lee, Mary Coloe, and Francis Moloney. The last named I have to single out for particular mention in connection with this present work. Frank and I, two Catholic priests of similar age from Melbourne, first met in the office of Morna Hooker, our common supervisor, in Oxford in 1972. Since then, Frank has been an inestimable friend and support, not least in the encouragement to go ahead with this work and in facilitating my approach to Baker Academic as publishers.
In terms of more immediate community, I have to single out my first teacher in Paul, Bill Dalton, SJ, who in the years both before and after the Second Vatican Council breathed a spirit of Pauline freedom into the church in Australia and many places overseas. I owe an incomparable debt to Morna Hooker, who, thankfully, displays the longevity that seems to be a particular feature of British New Testament scholars. I am grateful to the provincials of the Australian Province of the Society of Jesus, who have always encouraged my work and given me the leisure to pursue work of this kind. My colleagues and fellow community members Gerald O’Collins, SJ, and Justin Glyn, SJ, have greatly helped with theological guidance, reading the manuscript and providing helpful comments.
Finally, returning to a more academic note, I single out the work of Douglas Moo, whose commentary on Romans from the evangelical tradition has been my constant dialogue partner on Paul’s greatest letter over several decades. The commentary is not only a monument of scholarship but also, in every way, a testament to the fair-mindedness and openness of spirit that make scholarly interaction fruitful.
The immediate stimulus for the present work came from participation in a conference, “Romans and the Legacy of St Paul,” hosted by the Sydney College of Divinity at Macquarie Park, Sydney, Australia, in 2016. My two contributions, “The Apocalyptic Motif of the Last Judgment: The Essential Horizon of Paul’s Argument in Romans,” and “Justification and Last Judgement in Romans: The Place of Chapters 5–8,” have now appeared in the publication of the conference papers. 2 I am grateful to Associate Professor Peter G. Bolt and Professor James R. Harrison for permission to use content from these papers in the present work. I am also grateful for agreement from the Liturgical Press to use translations and other content from my commentary on Romans published in the Sacra Pagina series (6) in 1996.
My final remarks have to be ones of gratitude to the staff of Baker Academic, dealing with whom as this work approached publication has been a pleasure from beginning to end. Among many names I could mention, I single out three with whom interaction has been most constant: Bryan Dyer, for the warmth of his welcome to the press and his oversight of the process in the early stages; Paula Gibson, for her patience and understanding as we worked to arrive at a suitable cover; James Korsmo, whose editing of the manuscript has been a model of professional competence, sensitivity, and respect.
Brendan Byrne, SJ Melbourne, October 2020

1 . The thesis was published in 1979 as ‘ Sons of God ’—‘ Seed of Abraham ’: A Study of the Idea of the Sonship of God of All Christians in Paul against the Jewish Background .

2 . Harrison and Bolt, Romans and the Legacy of St Paul , 19–50, 51–70.
Abbreviations
Bible Texts and Versions ESV English Standard Version JB Jerusalem Bible LXX Septuagint MT Masoretic Text NAB New American Bible nabre New American Bible, Revised Edition NEB New English Bible NIV New International Version nrsv New Revised Standard Version rsv Revised Standard Version
Deuterocanonical Works and Septuagi