Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 62:1 (Spring 2000)
Article: Review Essay: Paul The Theologian
Author: Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.

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WTJ 62:1 (Spring 2000) p. 121

Review Essay:
Paul The Theologian

Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.i

A combined review of these books1 may seem ill-advised. Wright’s much briefer effort is “an interim report” (apparently toward a large-scale work underway on Paul’s theology, 7). Based on special lectures given at various locations in recent years, he writes in a more popular, less technical vein (there are few footnotes and, somewhat problematically for his readers, no indices); his aim is to orient a wider audience to the study of Paul today. Dunn’s work, in contrast, is massive, by any standard—in its design, execution, and apparatus (replete with lengthy footnotes, voluminous bibliographies and multiple indexes). In his own view, it is “a full restatement of Paul’s theology”; he sees it as the first such effort since Herman Ridderbos’s Paul (the Dutch original) appeared in 1966, “a fresh attempt … made all the more necessary” by the epochal influence of E. P. Sanders and the attendant emergence of the so-called new perspective on Paul (5). Even with these (and other) differences between the two volumes, however, there is value in considering them together. Certain common viewpoints and empha ses come to light that are worth highlighting and assessing. That sort of comparison follows a somewhat selective survey, with some interaction, of each book.

Wright begins with a chapter (“Puzzling Over Paul”) profiling major trends in the scholarly study of Paul in this century. He confines his attention to the mainstream of the historical-critical tradition (though without identifying it as such); Schweitzer, Bultmann, Davies, Kädasemann and Sanders serve as key witnesses. The yield of this exposé for the study of Paul today lies in four areas (20–23): history (Paul is “a very Jewish thinker,” not “a thoroughgoing Hellenist”); theology (“an overarching Pauline theology” is a legitimate quest); exegesis (important but not as a substitute for or at the expense of “theological readings”); application (“how we use Paul today”).

WTJ 62:1 (Spring 2000) p. 122

Chapter Two (“Saul the Persecutor, Paul the Convert”) sets the direction, at least in large measure, for the rest of the book. Recognizing that Paul’s conversion is significant, Wright is nonetheless intent on maximizing continuity with his pre-Christian, specifically, in Wright’s view, his Sham maite Pharisaic past. This emphasis is deemed particularly necessary because of what he perceives to be persistent misunderstanding of Paul throughout church history, especially beginning with the Reformation. The book, it appears, is written primarily to c...

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