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Fortress Press is currently offering a 50% discount on your first order when you sign up for email updates. This, it should be noted, is a better deal than the SBL/AAR conference discount. (If you are ordering from Canada, you will need to call in your order, but the discount still applies.)

SBL 2013: Initial Reflections on Baltimore

Washington Monument, Mount Vernon, Baltimore

George Peabody

This year's Society of Biblical Literature meetings had just about the right mix of good sessions and good conversations with friends and acquaintances new and old.

In the past, I would have included good new books as an essential component of any successful SBL, but this year I found that the sheer size and scope of the exhibit hall had a stultifying effect on my purchases, and that N.T. Wright's 1700 page Paul and the Faithfulness of God plugged a hole in my wallet: I wandered through the Fortress Press display several times, tempted by the sale on Wright's newest massive 2-volume tome, and thought to myself, "When will I ever have time to read that?" It turns out that the question is a useful one: It came to mind again when I encountered Francis Watson's newest important 500-page book on the Gospels, and Dale Allison's final book on Jesus. I would like to read both some day, but of the four important Watson volumes already in my possession, two are still unread, and I won't have time to read Allison—let alone Wright—during the next five months. This time around I wish that I had spent less time wandering through the exhibit hall and more time attending sessions.

In addition to stimulating papers and conversations, another highlight was my Monday morning hunt for the statue of George Peabody (pictured above) that figures in Knight's Castle, a 1950's era children's book I am reading to my daughter. (Remarkably, the book makes no mention of the statue of a much more famous George, right beside it.) When Shoshana saw the picture, she said we should take a family trip to Baltimore.

I hope to comment on individual sessions presently, but for now I leave you with a few lines from C.S. Lewis that I read the night before heading out to Baltimore:

"Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him. For it doesn't stop at being interested in paint, you know. They sink lower—become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations." - C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 81. 

Replace "artist" with "scholar", and you have it about right.

The Message of Romans in a Paragraph

Rembrandt "Peter and Paul"
(This picture has no connection to this post
except that pictures look nice.)

I asked my Romans students to read the letter and summarize its message in a paragraph. As this is the first time I assigned the exercise, I decided I should try my hand at it. Here is the result:

Paul writes to introduce himself to the Roman church and to prepare for his planned trip to Spain. He does this by demonstrating why the Good News is the solution to humanity’s problem. According to Paul, the Gospel is power for the salvation of believers because it reveals God’s right action in putting the world to rights in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Chapters 1:18-3:20 demonstrate, by a ‘shoe fits’ argument, that everyone without exception is under sin, and can do nothing to deliver themselves. Chapters 3:21-5:21 describe the solution: God is shown to be righteous by paradoxically acquitting the guilty. This acquittal is secured solely by trust not by anything we do. The results of this gift of acquittal is life—present and future—through participation in the Messiah. Romans 6:1-8:16 works out the implications of this transfer of realms, demonstrating in response to objections that right action or “righteousness” paradoxically comes as a result of freedom from the law. According to Paul, participation in the Messiah necessarily results in a new Spirit-empowered life of freedom from law, sin and death, on the one hand, and "freedom" (i.e., slavery) to righteousness, on the other. The rest of chapter 8 unfolds the cosmic implications of the Christ-event, and reflects on what it means to hope in the ‘not-yet’. Chapters 9-11 defend God’s freedom and faithfulness in light of the majority of Israel’s lack of faith, and explore the implications for Gentiles. Chapters 12-15, finally, describe what it means to live as righteous people in the new age, with special reference to problems affecting the church in Rome.

Greek Tense in a Teapot

Semi-technical post alert: Since the publication of Stanley Porter's gargantuan dissertation almost 25 years ago, scholars of biblical Greek have debated whether Greek tenses convey time in the indicative mood. Porter's claim that the Greek tense system conveys aspect* and never time has found a following in Rodney Decker, Constantine R. Campbell, and D.A. Carson, with support from K.L. McKay. But, to my mind, Buist Fanning (who is followed by Daniel Wallace), Albert Rijksbaron--and just about everyone else--have the better part of the argument: In the indicative mood, Greek tenses, as a rule, convey time as well as aspect.

When the dust settles, that leaves us more-or-less where we were almost a century ago, when H.P.V. Nunn published the following:

   It is somewhat unfortunate that we are compelled to use the name tense in connection with the forms of the Greek verb. It directs our attention too much to the time of the action of the verb, whereas it was the state of the action, rather than the time, that was most prominently before the mind of a Greek. The time of the action of the verb is often left to be inferred from the context, and cannot always be certainly told from the form of the verb. This is almost invariably the case with the moods other than the Indicative, and is sometimes the case in the Indicative mood itself.
   To the Greek mind the forms to which we give the names "Present" and "Imperfect" denoted duration, or repeated action. The forms to which we give the name "Perfect" or "Pluperfect" denoted action complete at the time of speaking, the results of which were regarded as still existing. The forms to which we give the name "Aorist" denoted a simple, indefinite action, and were always used where no stress was laid on the continuity, completion, or incompletion of the action denoted by the verb.
   As a rule the Indicative mood of the Aorist refers to an action in past time. The idea of time is however quite secondary, and does not enter at all into the meaning of the moods of the Aorist other than the Indicative, except in reported speech. With this exception the idea of Past time is only to be found in the forms of the verb which have an Augment, that is to say the Imperfect, the Pluperfect, and the Aorist Indicative.
   The Future tense in Greek, as in English, refers to future time in all its moods, and is thus an exception to the principle that the tenses of the moods other than the Indicative do not denote time in Greek.
   ... The use of the Aorist Indicative denotes that the action is regarded simply as an event without any account being taken of its progress or of the existence of its result. Even its time is not always distinctly contemplated; but, generally speaking, it is regarded as taking place in past time. The name Aorist means without boundaries or indefinite, and denotes that the action expressed by the verb is not defined with regard to its time, progress, or result. The Aorist Indicative is most frequently used to describe a past event or series of events, viewed as a whole, without any reference to the progress of the action, or the existence of its result.

- Henry Preston Vaughan Nunn, A Short Syntax of New Testament Greek (3rd ed. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1920), 66, 68.

To be sure, we would use different terminology today, but Nunn's summary still stands as an accurate thumb-nail sketch of the relationship between the Greek tense system, time, and what we now call aspect. While aspect theory has contributed significantly to our understanding of the Greek verbal system, the debate about time in the indicative mood has generated more heat than light. Time to move on.

For more along the same lines, see these excellent posts by Stephen Runge (here) and Mike Aubrey (here, here and here).

__________________
*A definition of aspect: The author or speaker’s decision to portray an action from a particular perspective or point of view—either as a process or as a whole

Where was Romans written?

Where did Paul write the letter to the Romans? After visiting the Isthmus of Corinth last spring, the normal answer--Corinth, of course!--is not completely satisfying because some of the evidence that is taken as evidence for a Corinthian provenance points instead to Cenchreae. While commentators routinely note that Cenchreae was one of the ports of Corinth, the two cities were actually about 8 miles apart--a fair distance for someone walking on foot:


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Acts 20:3 says only that Paul and company spent three months in Greece before travelling on to Jerusalem. The main evidence in support of Corinth as opposed to Cenchreae or some other place in Greece is found in Romans 16:23 where Paul passes along greetings from "Gaius, the host of me and of the whole church" and "Erastus the steward (oiknomos) of the city."

• In 1 Cor 1:14 Paul mentions baptizing a Gaius who belonged to the Corinthian church. Gaius was a common name, but it is reasonable to infer that the Gaius of Rom 16:23 and 1 Cor 1:14 are the same.
• The Erastus of Rom 16:23 may be the same Erastus who is mentioned in a Latin inscription near the theatre in Corinth:



Photo by David M. Miller

For those who don't read Latin, the inscription states: "Erastus, commissioner for public works, laid this pavement at his own expense" (Cranfield 2.807). Here is a close up:

Erastus Inscription, Corinth (Photo by David M. Miller) 

Paul refers to Erastus as the steward or "treasurer" of "the city." If the city in question is Corinth, it points to Corinth as the place of writing because "the city" most naturally refers to the city where Paul is living.

However, Paul begins his chapter full of greetings with a mini-letter of commendation for "our sister, Phoebe, a deacon of the church that is in Cenchreae" (Rom 16:1). Since Paul describes Phoebe as his benefactor (16:2), we might imagine Paul receiving support from Phoebe while residing in Cenchreae, the east-facing port from which Paul would depart on his trip to Jerusalem. This, at least, is what Leander Keck assumes in his commentary on Romans (27, 30, 369, 380). (Keck also concludes that although Paul's host, Gaius, was baptized in Corinth, he lived in Cenchreae and hosted the church of Cenchreae in his house there.) Paul may have needed to be at some remove from the rowdy church in Corinth to hammer out the argument of Romans.

Since Paul instructs the churches at Rome to receive Phoebe and provide for her needs (16:2), it appears that Phoebe and Paul's epistle to Rome were going to travel together--Phoebe was responsible to take the letter to the church at Rome. Evidence from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri apparently indicates that the letter-bearer would also be the designated letter-reader and letter-explainer. According to Arland Hultgren, this makes Phoebe "the first exegete of the Letter to the Romans" (Hultgren 3; cf. Jewett 90; Keck 27). To do this well, Phoebe would most likely have interacted with Paul about the contents of the letter. What better location to do this than in Phoebe's house in Cenchreae?

So which is it--Corinth...

Corinth Bema (photo by David M. Miller)

...or Cenchreae?

Cenchreae (photo by David M. Miller)

In favour of Cenchreae is the nice pastoral setting and the fact that Paul is about to embark on a trip east to Jerusalem. If it was up to aesthetic preference, I would choose Cenchreae*, but the description of Erastus as the steward of "the city" tips the balance slightly in favour of Corinth (in my view). (Corinth has the added advantage of being easier for modern English-speakers to pronounce.)

*Update: Here's an additional argument from silence: Assuming that Luke knew where Paul stayed in Greece, the fact that he doesn't specify a precise location may indicate that Paul was in the less well-known Cenchreae instead of Corinth.

Bibliography:

Cranfield, C. E. B. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. 2 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975, 1979.

Hultgren, Arland J. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011.

Jewett, Robert. Romans: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007. 

Keck, Leander E. Romans. Nashville: Abingdon, 2005.

All photographs .

John Barclay on Paul, grace and ancient patterns of gift-giving

In a talk that apparently previews the argument of a much larger book(s) on the subject, John Barclay draws on ancient practices of gift-giving to argue that God's χάρις ("grace" or "gift"), according to Paul, is unobligated (so Luther) but not without obligation (contrast Luther). Just as in the ancient world gift-giving always set up a complex system of reciprocity--much like a covenant--so too with God's "grace": God's gift of grace is given to unworthy sinners who have no claim on God's mercy, but those who receive the gift are obligated to respond appropriately.

This is not sunergism, it is not completing grace with works, or making subjectively true what is objectively true--because the gift changes everything. The gifts that is grace is life--a transfer of realms from the rule of sin and death to the realm of life--and anything we do is made possible in and through the resurrected Messiah. (Another way of saying this is that it is the Spirit that gives life.)

The Christian, then, is not simul iustus et peccator ("simultaneously righteous and a sinner")--to use Luther's language--but simul dead and alive. The body--dead because of sin but alive because of righteousness--is the site of a battle. Those who are made alive must experience mind-renewal, which is always exhibited in a transformation, a change in habitus, from one set of bodily practices to another. This is no individual struggle because the body, for Paul, is corporate, and the disciplines of the Christian life are lived out in community.

Note: I jotted down these notes on paper within a week or so of listening to Barclay's talk on a drive to Regina last summer. Since I can't vouch for their accuracy, I recommend listening to the lecture (online here), reading the conference proceedings (just released by Baylor University Press), or, if you are a visual learner, watching this video on a related topic.

Milestone

Pisidian Antioch

I am a newly-minted 40-year-old, embarking on my 10th year on faculty at Briercrest College & Seminary. 10 years is a long time by Caronport standards; it is also longer than I have ever lived in one place.

I wish I had the maturity that, 10 years ago, I would have thought came with such age and experience, but it turns out that maturity doesn't happen automatically, and I still have a (long) way to go.

Anyway, the teaching part of my 19th semester looks like this:

• Mon/Wed 12:25-1:40 p.m. GRK300/700 (Second Year) Greek Syntax 
• Tues/Thurs 12:25-1:40 p.m. HEB300/700 (Second Year) Hebrew Syntax & Exegesis I 
• October 21-25 modular: BLST306/825 Romans

All courses are cross-listed between the college and the seminary. I have posted copies of the syllabi here.