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Q. I agree with you that the Sarah and Hagar tour de force in Gal. 4 is not like one of Philo’s allegories, or for that matter like Spencer’s Fairie Queene or Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. But it is an allegorizing of an historical narrative and the trick is to figure out why certain things are lined up by Paul in the way he does it. What does he mean, for example by the notion of the present Jerusalem being enslaved?... Read more

Q. On the issue of appealing to Torah ironically to get the Gentile converts not to submit to the Torah involving the Mosaic covenant I have often told my students that there is a difference between using the OT as Scripture which still speaks throughout to God’s people, and using it to talk about participation in a particular covenant, namely the Mosaic one. While Paul’s audience is not obligated to keep, observe, the Mosaic covenant they are required to learn... Read more

Q. I entirely agree with you that we already see incipient Trinitarian thinking about Father, Son, and Spirit all under the heading of God, in Gal. 4. I like to say that we have already in our earliest NT books the raw materials of a doctrine of the Trinity, which granted, needs some later unpacking, but that M. Hengel was right that the earliest Christology which we find in Paul is the highest or some of the highest, so the... Read more

Q. Michael Heiser, an OT scholar, who studied with M. Fox at U Wisconsin Madison, has written some fascinating books about spiritual beings (not just impersonal forces) in the OT and NT— The Unseen Realm, another on Angels etc. These studies are of relevance to the discussion of the ‘things (or is it beings) who are not by nature gods. I am not sure that Paul is talking about idols or beings with the stoicheia language but in 1 Cor... Read more

Q. It is interesting isn’t it, and I quite agree with you, that Paul applies the adoption as sons language to both Jews and Gentiles in Christ. They all need to become new creatures in Christ, and this is indeed like the way the 4th Evangelist says we all need to become children of God through being born of God/born again. Even a pious good Jew like Nicodemus is said to need this to get into the Kingdom later. John... Read more

Q. Thank you for the discussion of God sent forth his Son. I must say it’s always bewildered me why Jimmy Dunn and others worked so hard to try and avoid seeing the pre-existence of the Son in Phil.2.5-11. What’s up with that? In simple terms here in Gal 4 we are told God sent his Son to deal with the human dilemma. Now I’d be apt to say ‘you can’t send someone to do a job, if he doesn’t... Read more

Q. I think one of the real problems some commentators have with your reading, say on Gal. 4, in light of the Exodus and Exile materials is that when Paul says ‘to redeem those under the Law out from under the Law’, that really isn’t very analogous to redeeming literal slaves out from their bondage under Pharaoh. The Law was not a wicked master enslaving people. Indeed, Paul stresses it was good and holy, and the confinement or moral fencing... Read more

Q. As for the idea of progressive revelation, what at least I mean by that is not some sort of inherently evolutionary development of ideas but rather that later revelation from God often takes matters further, or even eclipses earlier things For example, the theology of actual bodily resurrection which most clear shows up for the first time in Dan. 12, eclipses the notion of the afterlife which merely involves Sheol, being gathers to one’s ancestors in the underworld. Would... Read more

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