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Oda Wischmeyer on the “Grandness” of N.T. Wright with a Review of God and the Faithfulness of Paul

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Over the last few weeks I have enjoyed reading through God and the Faithfulness of Paul (edited by Christoph Heilig, J. Thomas Hewitt, and Michael F. Bird), which contains many excellent responses to N.T. Wright‘s Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Hence, after providing a key excerpt—in English and German—from Oda Wischmeyer (Eng) on the “grandness” of N.T. Wright, this post will also include some brief comments on the chapters written by German-language-sphere scholars. On another note, readers of this blog may be interested in participating in the 2016 Mainz Summer School in German (and) Theology.

I. Oda Wischmeyer on the “Grandness” of N.T. Wright

I both profited from and greatly enjoyed co-translating (with Christoph Heilig) Oda Wischmeyer‘s chapter in God and the Faithfulness of Paul. What I found so remarkable was the honest and profound way that she was able to interact with both N.T. Wright’s work and her own academic tradition (cf. Christoph Heilig’s comments on Wischmeyer’s essay). Unlike many of us—whether we are Wright’s adoring admirers, sharp critics, or somewhere in between—Wischmeyer seemed to be entirely comfortable in her own shoes when discussing Wright and his work, so that she was able both to reflect on her own tradition with great insight and self-awareness and to draw out striking aspects of N.T. Wright’s work in a way that was both appreciative and critical in the best sense of the word. I don’t know why exactly this is the case. Perhaps it is because Prof. Wischmeyer herself is a senior scholar who has nothing to prove. Or perhaps it is simply because her hermeneutical approach has given her better tools for observing and reflecting on what is going on with Wright and in her own tradition. Whatever the reason, I found the tone and content of her essay to be both refreshing and illuminating. Let me turn then to my key excerpt, alternating between the English translation and the German original for those who are learning—or seeking to revive their—German:

GFP 74: Exactly one hundred years after the publication of Wilhelm Bousset’s great Paul article in the first edition of Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, N. T. Wright in his two-volume work Paul and the Faithfulness of God has again struck that sonorous tone which one could probably last hear in Germany in the the Pauline research of the history of religion school. …

Genau hundert Jahre nach dem Erscheinen des großen Paulus-Artikels von Wilhelm Bousset in der ersten Auflage der “Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart” hat N.T. Wright in seinem zweiteiligen Werk „Paul and the Faithfulness of God“ wieder jenen klangvollen Ton angeschlagen, den man in Deutschland wohl zuletzt in der Paulusforschung der Religionsgeschichtlichen Schule hören konnte…

GFP 74: At the first reading of Wright, it is the perception of the lofty tone, the liveliness of the historical narration and methodological discussion, and finally the certainty, elegance, and joy in the details of the presentation that excites an exegete who comes from the Bultmann school. …

Es ist die Wahrnehmung des hochgestimmten Tones, der Lebendigkeit der historischen Erzählung wie der methodischen Diskussion und schließlich der Sicherheit, Eleganz und Detailfreude der Darstellung, die eine Exegetin, die aus der Bultmannschule kommt, bei der ersten Lektüre von Wright begeistert. …

GFP 75: Wright writes today as Bousset … wrote a hundred years ago and as one does not write in contemporary German-language exegesis. …

Wright schreibt heute, wie Bousset … vor hundert Jahren schrieb und wie in der zeitgenössischen deutschsprachigen Exegese nicht geschrieben wird. …

GFP 76: For “German” ears or, more specifically, for a hermeneutical perception from the German-language exegetical tradition it is first—this deserves to be repeated once more—Wright’s tone or style that demands our full attention. …

Für „deutsche“ Ohren bzw. für eine hermeneutische Wahrnehmung aus der deutschsprachigen exegetischen Tradition ist es – es sei noch einmal wiederholt – zuerst der Ton oder der Stil Wrights, der alle Aufmerksamkeit beansprucht. …

GFP 76: Behind the pages of Wright we hear Handel’s music and Shakespeare’s language and we might not only be impressed by the force and energy of the presentation, but even saddened, or at least discontent, that we ourselves have lost this tone so completely and can no longer rhetorically orchestrate “grandness.”

Wir hören hinter den Seiten Wrights Händels Musik und Shakespeares Sprache und sind unter Umständen nicht nur beeindruckt von der Wucht und Energie der Darstellung, sondern auch betrübt oder mindestens unzufrieden, dass uns selbst dieser Ton so ganz abhandengekommen ist und wir „Größe“ nicht mehr rhetorisch instrumentieren können.

GFP 76: Or we react critically and regard this tone as too pious, too triumphalistic, too self-assured, not analytical enough—depending on our own academic background.

Oder wir reagieren kritisch und halten diesen Ton für zu fromm, zu triumphalistisch, zu selbstgewiss, zu wenig analytisch – je nach unserer eigenen akademischen Prägung.

GFP 76: Precisely these signals should be observed hermeneutically.

Gerade diese Signale gilt es hermeneutisch aufzufangen.

II. Review of Chapters by German-Language-Sphere Scholars

* For the complete table of contents, see here.

In “Paul and the Faithfulness of God among Pauline Theologies” Benjamin Schliesser (Eng) effectively situates Wright’s contribution in relation to the Pauline theologies of Bultmann, Dunn, Schreiner, Wolter, and Schnelle, displaying a remarkable gift of synthesis (cf. also his 2013 German article).

In “N.T. Wright’s Biblical Hermeneutics” Oda Wischmeyer (Eng) discusses both the history and present situation of German-language Pauline scholarship and the biblical hermeneutics of N.T. Wright.

In “Wright’s Version of Critical Realism” Andreas Losch offers a valuable discussion of “critical realism” in relation to the works of Ian Barbour, Bernard Lonergan, Ben F. Meyer, and N.T. Wright. Whether or not his thesis that Wright’s “critical realism” was initially developed with respect to Barbour and only associated with Lonergan/Meyer secondarily is correct (Wright rejects it [p. 718]), I found this chapter to be a helpful presentation of different versions of “critical realism” and benefited from Losch’s own assessment of the value and limitations of this approach.

In “Historical Methodology” Theresa Heilig and Christoph Heilig (Eng) provide a careful discussion of abduction, inference to the best explanation, and Bayesian confirmation, which includes a systematic analysis of the crucial issues in the debate between Barclay and Wright over whether Paul is criticizing the Roman empire (pp. 145-148)

In “Wright’s Paul and the Paul of Acts” Eve-Marie Becker (Eng) argues from the perspective of recent advances in historiography that Wright should have taken greater account of Acts as a source for Paul, suggesting, inter alia, that such an approach would have preventing him from problematically failing to incorporate Paul’s activities as miracle worker into his overall portrayal of Paul (pp. 160-161). In some respects her argument reminded me of perspectives advanced in Benjamin White’s important book.

In “N.T. Wright’s Narrative Approach” Joel R. White provides a sympathetic presentation and defense of much of what Wright is doing (e.g. he defends “the existence of a common first-century Jewish metanarrative highlighting God’s faithfulness to Israel in spite of her ‘ongoing exile'”), while also criticizing Wright at specific points (e.g. his treatment of apocalyptic language in relation to the notion of cosmic cataclysm, pp. 198-199). Significantly, at certain points White made me feel the force of Wright’s vision to a greater extent than Wright himself has done!

In “N.T. Wright’s Understanding of Justification and Redemption” (trans. Lars Kierspel), Peter Stuhlmacher both challenges key elements of Wright’s interpretation (e.g. the validity of his controlling narrative; cf. John Barclay, Alexandra Brown, and Chris Tilling [part I]; but see also Joel R. White’s defense of this metanarrative) and, perhaps more importantly, provides a compact and eloquent presentation of his own views on sacrifice and justification in critical dialogue with Wright (cf. Christoph Heilig’s comments on Stuhlmacher’s essay).

In “God and His Faithfulness in Paul” Torsten Jantsch (Eng) both presents a very helpful discussion of the history of research on God in Paul and compactly outlines aspects of the “concept of God” in Romans in critical dialogue with N.T. Wright (cf. also here). In my judgment Jantsch’s chapter would be an excellent place to start for anyone interested in recent (German) research on God (in Paul). It complements well Jochen Flebbe’s fine monograph on God in Romans.

In “Demythologizing Apocalyptic?” Jörg Frey (Eng) provides both an extensive discussion of recent perspectives on apocalyptic and a hard-hitting critique of Wright’s treatment of apocalyptic, which he regards as a “neutralizing” or “taming” of apocalyptic. In particular, Frey stresses that there is no need to deny that Paul drew on mythological concepts such as the idea of an end of the world and personally reckoned with the return of Christ during his lifetime (p. 526; cf. Joel R. White’s comments on pp. 198-199; cf. also Paula Fredriksen; Larry Hurtado). In his lengthy response Wright emphasizes the extent of their agreement (744-745, 748), differentiates between 6 forms of apocalyptic (pp. 745-748), denies the charge of neutralizing/taming (751), and responds to their primary disagreement about whether or not Paul’s “end-of-the-world” language is concerned with the end of the world as well as the relationship between this question and the early Christian conviction that Jesus the Messiah would return from heaven (748-754).

In “The Faithfulness of God and Its Effects on Faithful Living” Volker Rabens investigates Tom Wright’s portrayal of Paul’s ethics. In addition to providing a valuable discussion of Wright’s treatment of “plight” and “solution”, Rabens develops an especially perceptive critique that warns against Wright’s tendency to give pride of place to cognitive renewal and presses Wright to give greater attention to relational transformation and, more specifically, to “the transforming and empowering transferal by the Spirit into loving relationships to the divine and the community of faith” (p. 577; cf. Wright’s response on 729, 762 and 766).

In “Barth, Wright, and Theology” Sven Ensminger provides a concise sketch of Barth’s treatment of revelation, religion, and Christology with some points of comparison with N.T. Wright. Ensminger seeks to contribute to the question of the relationship between biblical studies and theology (658), and gives particular attention to the following question: “to what extent can God be bracketed out of theological reflection about a key figure of the Christian church such as Paul in order to consider him as a historical figure with his socio-political background?” (p.656). See also my post Sven Ensminger on N.T. Wright, Karl Barth, and the Aufhebung of Religion.

In “Evangelism and the Mission of the Church” Eckhard J. Schnabel tackles a range of topics related to evangelism and mission, including a) a challenge to Wright’s suggestion that Paul wanted to visit places “where Caesar’s power was the strongest” (p. 688), b) the interpretation of Gal 2:7-9 (691-692), c) the validity of the language of “conversion” (692-696; but cf. 759), d) the meaning of gospel (796; but cf. 729), and e) a critique of Wright’s alleged repetition of caricatures of missionaries (700-704; but cf. 757-758).

Finally, if I could mention only one of the many fine essays by English-language-sphere scholars—I realize, of course, that some of the scholars could be classified in both groups—I would highlight Gregory Sterling‘s chapter “Wisdom or Foolishness? The Role of Philosophy in the Thought of Paul”. Sterling shows genuine appreciation for N.T. Wright’s treatment of philosophy, while suggesting, inter alia, that Wright has not given sufficient attention to the later Platonic tradition and specifically to what we call Middle Platonism. Among other observations, I found Sterling’s discussion of prepositional metaphysics to be especially illuminating (cf. here). More generally, I found his chapter to be a very helpful introduction to recent scholarship on philosophy and early Christianity, and I will certainly return to it (for N. T. Wright’s very positive response to Sterling’s essay, see p. 754-756).

For more posts on GFP, see here and here.

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German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! I hope to be able to write at least one Monday blog post each month. Best, Wayne

Volker Rabens, “‘Schon jetzt’ und ‘noch mehr’: Gegenwart und Zukunft des Heils bei Paulus und in seinen Gemeinden” (JBTh 2013)

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This post will inaugurate the new category of “German scholars”. The purpose of this category is to introduce junior and senior German scholars and their research to the English speaking world. Each post will consist of (a) my translation of a short passage (ca. 3-7 sentences) that the German author has selected and submitted from one of his or her publications and (b) some biographical-bibliographical information about the scholar in question, which will also be provided by the German author. For my other “German Scholars” posts, see here. For further information on this category, see here.

Today’s “German scholar” is Dr. Volker Rabens of the University of Jena, who is especially well known for his publications on the Spirit in early Christianity and its environment. Indeed, I suspect that a time will come when he may need to be added to Brian LePort’s list of “influential pneumatologists”. Please see here for Dr. Rabens website at the Theologische Fakultät Jena, which includes a picture of him. For his Academia.edu-profile, see here.

I. Translation: Adoption and Pauline Eschatology           

As his passage of choice, Dr. Rabens has submitted the following excerpt from his freshly-minted article “‘Schon jetzt’ und ‘noch mehr’: Gegenwart und Zukunft des Heils bei Paulus und in seinen Gemeinden”, which can be found in Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie 28 (2013). This volume of JBTh, which is focused on the topic of “Zeit”, includes contributions from many perspectives, including New Testament scholarship, systematic theology, and practical theology (for Rabens essay, see now here)

English Translation (wmc): The motif of adoption, which we have returned to here, allows multiple characteristic features of Pauline eschatology to come to light. υἱοθεσία is a central image/picture for God’s intervention for the liberation of human beings(,) who live under the slavery of the powers. It has a punctiliar aspect, for it marks the entrance into God’s space of salvation, i.e., his family (which is again a ‘local’ aspect of the new age, as became clear in II.1.). But it does not only stand at the beginning of the salvific action of God. Rather, the experience of belonging to the family of God continually changes the believers in their identity and in their being. The Spirit of the Son lives the childship of God in the believers and gives expression to it (Gal 4.6; Rom 8.15). They no longer live under the slavery of the flesh, but due to these new experiences they can win the fight against the temptations of the flesh (Rom 8.12-17; Gal 5.16-18). Finally, adoption as children of God also has a future dimension, for it will only become completely manifest at the end of time (Rom 8.23). In closing we will now take up this future dimension of “time” in Paul in part III.

German version: Das Motiv der Adoption als Kinder Gottes, auf das wir hier zurückgekommen sind, lässt mehrere charakteristische Züge der paulinischen Eschatologie zutage treten. Die υἱοθεσία ist ein zentrales Bild für das Eingreifen Gottes zur Befreiung der Menschen, die unter der Knechtschaft der Mächte leben. Sie hat einen punktuellen Aspekt, denn sie markiert den Eintritt in den Heilsraum Gottes, seine Familie (die wiederum ein ‚lokaler‘ Aspekt des neuen Äons ist, wie in II.1. deutlich wurde). Sie steht aber nicht nur am Beginn des Heilshandeln Gottes. Vielmehr verändert die Erfahrung der Zugehörigkeit zur Familie Gottes kontinuierlich die Gläubigen in ihrer Identität und in ihrem Sein. Der Geist des Sohnes lebt die Gotteskindschaft in den Gläubigen und verleiht ihr Ausdruck (Gal 4,6; Röm 8,15). Sie leben nicht mehr unter der Knechtschaft des Fleisches, sondern können aufgrund dieser neuen Erfahrungen den Kampf gegen die Versuchungen des Fleisches gewinnen (Röm 8,12–17; Gal 5,16–18). Schließlich hat die Adoption als Kinder Gottes auch eine zukünftige Dimension, denn sie wird erst am Ende der Zeit vollkommen offenbar werden (Röm 8,23). Diese zukünftige Dimension von „Zeit“ bei Paulus werden wir nun in Teil III abschließend aufgreifen.

Selective Grammatical Commentary: Rather than writing “who live under the slavery of the powers” I considered writing “living under the slavery of the powers” for the sake of readability, but I think this may slightly shift the sense, which might be problematic. I have added „i.e.” before “his family” for the sake of clarity. I don’t think “intervention” is a particularly good translation for “Eingreifen” but I haven’t found a better one yet. Volker Rabens noted that he discusses Martyn’s language of “invasion” at an earlier point in the essay, but agreed that it would not be a good translation for “Eingreifen” here. I think “punctiliar” is preferable to “punctual” since the latter usually has the meaning of “on time”. I have translated “Heilsraum” as “space of salvation” but “Heilshandeln” as “salvific action”, while recognizing that it might be preferable to translate the former as “salvific space” or the latter as God’s act of salvation for the sake of consistency. I initially translated “Heilsraum” as “sphere of salvation”, but when Volker Rabens alerted me to the fact that “Heilsraum” (arguably) has more personal and “warm” connotations than “Heilssphäre”, I decided to translate it as “space of salvation”, which allowed me to maintain a distinction between “Heilsraum” and “Heilssphäre”. But it could be preferable to retain “sphere” since “space of salvation” sounds a bit awkward. It is very difficult to translate “Gotteskindschaft”, which I have translated with the non-word “childship of God”. Since Volker has presumably chosen it in order to employ gender inclusive language, I don’t think it would be appropriate to render it as “sonship”, though “sonship and daughtership” would be an option (see n. 33 in his article). This whole sentence is very difficult, for which reason I have had to discuss it with Volker Rabens. It is not uncommon to encounter such sentences, for which reason it is invaluable to me if I can have correspondence with the German author of the works I translate. Despite its enigmatic character, we settled on the wooden translation that I have provided, with the acknowledgement that a better translation is probably possible. The translation of “abschließend” is difficult. It sometimes works to translate it as “finally” but I’m not sure if that works well here. I decided to adopt “in closing”, despite the fact that this resulted in the awkward ending “in Paul in part III”. Another option would be to translate “abschließend” more freely with “as a final line of thought”, which could be placed at the end of the sentence. The sentence would then read: In part III we will we will now take up this future dimension of “time” in Paul as a final line of thought. Or, with Judy Redman, one could adopt an even more dynamic translation such as “In the final part of this paper, we will now deal with this ‘future’ dimension of time in Paul.”

II. Biographical-Bibliographical Introduction (as submitted by the author)

I am an enthusiastic Neutestamentler. I enjoy research and lecturing at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena where I currently hold a position as Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter in the New Testament department. The major places in my academic life have been London, Tübingen, Bochum, and now Jena. This means that I’ve come to benefit from the advantages of both Anglo-American and German scholarship on the New Testament, and one of my aims is to foster the dialogue between both traditions (see, e.g., my monograph The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul, which has been published both in Germany with Mohr Siebeck as well as in the United States with Fortress Press). My major areas of research are Paul and Pauline theology, early Judaism, Johannine Literature, and I am starting to work on 1 Peter. I have a particular interest in ethics and pneumatology. I am also interested in hermeneutics, particularly in critical methodologies of bringing early Christian ethics into dialogue with contemporary ethics. I enjoy contributing to international conferences, for example to the SBL Annual Meeting, where I am an active member of the steering committee of the “Biblical Ethics” Section.

Addendum: Readers of this blog may also be interested in Dr. Rabens’s PowerPoint on Der Paulinische Sündenbegriff.

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German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! In an effort to provide a sense of regularity and predictability for this blog’s readership, I plan on writing a new post each Monday. So hopefully I will ‘see’ you again in a week’s time. Best, Wayne.