Q. It seems to me a more balanced approach than we find in the apocalyptic readers of Paul to say that there is both a historical sequence of events which Christ comes and is the fulfillment of, and there is also surprising moments of divine incursion as well in that overall narrative. It’s not just one or the other. God does come to the rescue at points interrupting a bad scenario for God’s people, but this is part of the... Read more

Q. I was equally pleased to see you discuss Wisdom of Solomon in connect with Paul’s Christology, as I had done in my Jesus the Sage volume. Christ takes the role previously predicated of Wisdom in that interesting book (see also e.g. 1 Cor. 10). He doesn’t merely embody wisdom in the abstract, he is God’s Wisdom come in person. Why do you think otherwise well grounded Biblical exegetes so often push back against this line of thinking to this... Read more

Q. On p. 260 you put your finger on something which I have often found troubling, namely the abstracting of ideas from the NT in order to put together a systematic theology of sorts. I think your critique of what happened at Nicaea and Chalcedon etc. is quite fair. You do not mention, which you could have done, how middle Platonism affected the way say for example John 1, but also Gal. 4 was read by those divines at that... Read more

Q. It’s pretty clear that you and I disagree about what Paul means by the stoicheia tou kosmou. We do however agree that Paul is not using those terms in the normal meaning they had— namely the elements of the universe— earth, air, fire, water. For me at least we do indeed need to consider the use of stoicheia elsewhere in the NT, in texts either by Paul or possibly influenced by Paul, by which I mean Colossians and Hebrews.... Read more

Q. In your conclusion to Chapter 3, you show just how far the current divided church has really come from the original attempts of uniting Christians into one family. A good example, which you cite, of justifying a form of division comes in the case of messianic Jews, who see themselves as necessarily keeping apart from their Gentile brothers and sisters in worship and observance of the Mosaic law etc. This is one of the things I found most distressing... Read more

Q. Gal. 3.28 has been called ‘the Magna Carta of Christian freedom’ by my old Harvard prof, Krister Stendahl and many others thereafter. While Paul is not saying any of these categories don’t matter any more (Jews for instance are still Jews, and females are still females), what he is saying is that these categories don’t determine status or standing or for that matter one’s salvation in Christ. You do mention that Paul is alluding to Genesis when he breaks... Read more

Q. In one sense Gal. 3.23-4.7 is where the rubber really meets the road, a Pauline summary that sort of ties a lot of things together. You have called it the ‘heart of Paul’s theology’ (p. 236). Can you explain what you mean by that? A. Well, the ‘heart’ or ‘centre’ of P’s theology is always a problem. What I mean is that here Paul is telling the story of ‘before—then Christ—then after’. Obviously he can do this in many... Read more

Q. When we get to the whole issue of ‘sperma’ in Gal. 3.16, I was not clear whether or not you were saying that Paul says Christ is the seed, or Christ and all believers are the seed of Abraham. In any case, since ‘in Christ’ is incorporative, and as you point out sometimes Paul even uses the term ‘Christ’ to refer to his body, i.e. his people, why is it important to say that ‘sperma’ itself is collective in... Read more

Q. One of the places where I think you and I do disagree somewhat significantly is whether or not the new covenant is about covenant renewal (ala Deut. 30 etc.) or not. My answer would be – Paul says it is not. He’s talking about a genuinely new covenant that contrasts with the Mosaic one in various regards (ala Gal. 4, 2 Cor. 3). Even for Jews in Christ this is not about restoration of something that existed previously, it’s... Read more

Q. I have some questions about your reading of the Abraham story. The children of Abraham are not ‘Israel people’, not least because there was no Israel in Abraham’s time of any sort. Israel proper comes later in Moses’ day. Secondly, the blessing of the nations in Abraham, especially in the context of a letter mainly to Gentile new Christians is surely to be seen as a reference NOT to Israel but to the ethnoi as opposed to the laoi.... Read more