Theological Diversity In The Letters Of St. Paul -- By: John W. Drane
Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 27:1 (NA 1976)
Article: Theological Diversity In The Letters Of St. Paul
Author: John W. Drane
TynBul 27:1 (1976) p. 3
Theological Diversity In The Letters Of St. Paul
The Tyndale New Testament Lecture, 1975*
* Delivered at Tyndale House, Cambridge, on July 9th, 1975.
In my recent book, Paul: Libertine or Legalist?,1 I have put forward the thesis that on the important themes of the significance of tradition and revelation for Christian belief, and the place of law in the Christian life and ethic, significant variations can be traced in the teaching of the four major Pauline letters, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians (plus or minus chs. 10–13), and Romans. Leading from this observation, I have argued that we can utilise such diversity of theological expression as a valid test to determine not only the direction of Paul’s own thinking but also the nature of the opponents with whom he was dealing during this period of his ministry. Indeed, the nature of these variations is such that we can characterise 1 Corinthians in particular as a kind of proleptic ‘early catholic’ document, used by Paul to deal with his Gnostic opponents in Corinth in much the same way as the later Fathers used similar arguments to oppose the Gnostic threat in the second century. A basic premise of this argument is that 1 Corinthians is dependent on Galatians in such a way that the latter epistle must undoubtedly be dated earlier than any part of the Corinthian correspondence.
Such a view of Pauline theology, not to mention its implications for the relative chronology of the letters, is of course far from being widely accepted, and even on other, more historical grounds it is not often conceded that Galatians could be of early date. The majority of New Testament scholars are
TynBul 27:1 (1976) p. 4
still convinced by the arguments of J. B. Lightfoot2 and feel that, since Galatians appears to have more in common with Romans and 2 Corinthians than it does with admittedly early letters like 1-2 Thessalonians, it cannot therefore be given an early date, no matter how strong the historical evidence on the other side may, be.
In recent years, the historical evidence relative to the origin of the various epistles has been frequently re-examined.3 But the internal evidence of the theology of the epistles themselves has not been subjected to the same kind of enquiry. Rather has it come to be accepted as an unquestionable assumption of Pauline research that Romans and Galatians, being closely related in certain of their most distinctive elements, must stand in a close relationship to each other, ...
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