Four Perspectives on Paul Review Michael Bird Academiaedu

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Abstract

This rejoinder to Michael Bird'southward critique of our argument in Joel Kaminsky and Mark Reasoner, "The Significant and Telos of State of israel's Election: An Interfaith Response to N. T. Wright's Reading of Paul," HTR 112 (2019) 421–46, acknowledges that Wright recognizes a dimension of intrinsic value in God'southward ballot of Israel, while it shows how Wright'southward metanarrative is not only unduly skewed toward an instrumental view of State of israel's ballot but also, in effect, totally redefines Israel. Our rebuttal beginning reiterates some of our original claims and also presents new arguments against an exegesis of Second Isaiah that portrays State of israel as divinely called to bring low-cal or Torah to the nations. Later Second Temple sources also did not sympathise Israel equally declining to fulfill a divine telephone call to missionize the gentiles. Bird'southward own inconsistency on the mission orientation of Israel weakens his defence of Wright here. Wright's exegesis of Rom 5:20–21 as teaching that God intentionally gave Torah to describe the earth'due south sins onto Israel and Bird's defense of this on the basis of Isaiah 53 are anomalous and untenable in the calorie-free of other scholars' readings of Romans and the rest of the New Attestation. Finally, against Bird, Wright does indeed read non-Christ-confessing Jews out of Israel in a highly problematic way. Bird's agreement with united states of america against Wright that "all Israel" in Rom 11:26 refers to corporeal Israel strengthens our original critique of Wright's redefinition of Israel in Rom ix–eleven.

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© President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2020

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1 Joel Kaminsky and Mark Reasoner, "The Meaning and Telos of State of israel's Election: An Interfaith Response to N. T. Wright's Reading of Paul," HTR 112 (2019) 421–46.

2 Both at the first of Bird'due south introductory comments and in the opening of the following department, "Israel's Election: Israel-for-the-Sake-of-the-World," he claims that we criticized Wright considering he reads "State of israel's election as instrumental rather than based on divine love" (499) or for our supposedly saying that Wright's "insistence that Israel's election is instrumental and based upon a vocation to be a 'lite to the gentiles' (Isa 42:6; 49:six)" (500) is an idea we think has no validity.

iii Robert Martin-Achard, A Low-cal to the Nations: A Study of the One-time Attestation Conception of State of israel's Mission to the Earth (trans. J. Penney Smith; Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1962 [French original, 1959]) 75.

4 Charles H. H. Scobie, "Israel and the Nations: An Essay in Biblical Theology," TynBul 43 (1992) 283–305, here at 286 and n. 11. Christopher J. H. Wright represents Bird'due south position in the way he insists on Israel'due south phone call to bring the noesis of God to the nations, without specifying how this was to be done, except through the observance of Torah (The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Thou Narrative [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2006] 330–33).

5 Michael F. Bird, "'A Calorie-free to the Nations' (Isaiah 42:6 and 49:half dozen): Inter-textuality and Mission Theology in the Early Church building," RTR 65.iii (2006) 122–31, esp. 126.

vi Scot McKnight, A Light among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Menstruum (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 116–17.

7 Michael F. Bird, Crossing over Country and Sea: Jewish Missionary Activity in the 2d Temple Period (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010) 151 (Bird'southward emphasis).

8 See, e.g., J. Ross Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul "in Concert" in the Letter to the Romans (NovTSup 101; Leiden: Brill, 2002); Florian Wilk, Dice Bedeutung des Jesajabuches für Paulus (FRLANT 179; Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1998).

9 Arland Hultgren, Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011) 129. The "stunning misreading" quotation is from Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 45.

10 Wagner, Heralds of the Good News, 177–78; N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013) 811–12 (hereafter abbreviated PFG).

11 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans (AB 33; New York: Doubleday, 1993) 315.

12 Jeffrey S. Siker, Disinheriting the Jews: Abraham in Early Christian Controversy (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991) 195.

13 John Calvin, The Epistle of Paul the Campaigner to the Romans (trans. Ross MacKenzie; 1960; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973) 119.

14 Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns; 1933; repr., London: Oxford University Press, 1980) 185–86.

15 Alain Gignac, L'épître aux Romains (Commentaire biblique. Nouveau Attestation 6; Paris: Cerf, 2014) 228.

16 James D. Chiliad. Dunn, Romans 1–8 (WBC 38A; Dallas: Word, 1988) 299.

17 Rom three:one–2; 7:12, 14; 9:4. We discuss Dunn's scholarship at length in our original essay, and on the whole nosotros detect Dunn'due south approach to Paul judicious and balanced.

18 Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 389.

19 On Marcion's utilise of Paul, come across Judith M. Lieu, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the 2nd Century (New York: Cambridge Academy Press, 2015) 234–69.

23 Douglas Harink, Paul among the Postliberals: Pauline Theology beyond Christendom and Modernity (K Rapids: Brazos, 2003) 159, citing N. T. Wright, "Paul's Gospel and Caesar's Empire," in Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Imperium, Interpretation. Essays in Honor of Krister Stendahl (ed. Richard Horsley; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Printing International, 2000) 160–83, here at 182.

24 Wright, PFG, 838 (Wright's italics). Similarly, run across PFG, 814, where Wright states: "The failure of God's people as a whole has not thwarted the divine plan to relieve the world through Abraham's family, to lighten the nations through State of israel" (Wright's accent).

25 Ibid., 922 (quotation) and 923 (fulfillment of prophets, citing Jer 31:33; 32:39–40; Ezek 11:19; 36:26–28).

26 Ibid., 842 (Wright's italics).

27 Run into our original essay (430 north. 25) for supporting quotations and bibliography.

28 Harink, Paul amongst the Postliberals, 168 (emphasis his).

29 In this respect, Wright's utilise of the New Perspective on Paul takes a plow never envisioned past Due west. D. Davies or his pupil E. P. Sanders.

thirty The biblical exegeses and theological constructs that enabled Christians to eyebrow the Shoah are traced in: Robert P. Ericksen, Theologians nether Hitler: Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emanuel Hirsch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985); Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton: Princeton Academy Press, 2008); Wayne A. Meeks, "A Nazi New Testament Professor Reads His Bible: The Strange Case of Gerhard Kittel," in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Award of James L. Kugel (ed. Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 513–44; Lenore Siegele-Wenschkewitz, Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft vor der Judenfrage. Gerhard Kittels theologische Arbeit im Wandel deutscher Geschichte (Theologische Existenz heute 208; Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1980). The Church of England seems alert to the high stakes of any theology regarding Israel (Faith and Order Committee, God'due south Unfailing Discussion: Theological and Practical Perspectives on Christian-Jewish Relations [London: Church building Business firm Publishing, 2019] 13–15).

31 See Nils Dahl, "The Crucified Messiah and the Endangered Promises," in Dahl, Jesus the Christ: The Historical Origins of the Christological Doctrine (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 65–81, here at 77.

33 The Vatican 2 sources are Nostra Aetate §4 (663–67); Ad Gentes §viii (594–95); and Lumen Gentium §§1, 9, 48 (xiv–15, 24–26, 78–lxxx). Page numbers in parentheses follow The Documents of Vatican 2 (ed. Walter M. Abbott, SJ; New York: America Printing, 1966). The catechism source is Canon of the Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday, 1994) §840 (242).

34 Bruce D. Marshall, "Christ and Israel: An Unsolved Problem in Catholic Theology," in The Call of Israel: Essays on the Election of Israel in Honor of Jon D. Levenson (ed. Gary A. Anderson and Joel S. Kaminsky; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013) 335–47.

35 Ephraim Mirvis, afterword to God's Unfailing Word, 101–5.

36 For other New Perspective scholars' critiques of Wright, encounter Kaminsky and Reasoner, "Meaning and Telos," 440–42.

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