BEN: Chapters 8 is rather different from the other early Jewish literature you’ve thus far surveyed and it prompts some good questions. Suppose someone were to say to you—‘you’ve demonstrated that grace falls under the category of gift, but it appears you’ve also shown that gift does not necessary fall into the category of grace, at least as usually understood by Christians. By this I mean that the writers of the NT, and Paul in particular, emphasize we are all... Read more

BEN: Let’s talk about Chapter 7. Why did you pick the Hodayot out of all the Qumran material to discuss a theology of gift/grace? JOHN: Well, it is absolutely stuffed full with the language of divine mercy, goodness, and hesed (however we translate that term), so a prime place for examining how Jews talked about ‘grace’. But it is also a very interesting, indeed, extreme, case of the incongruity of this mercy, because the hymns spend a lot of time... Read more

BEN: Let’s talk about Chapter 7. Why did you pick the Hodayot out of all the Qumran material to discuss a theology of gift/grace? JOHN: Well, it is absolutely stuffed full with the language of divine mercy, goodness, and hesed (however we translate that term), so a prime place for examining how Jews talked about ‘grace’. But it is also a very interesting, indeed, extreme, case of the incongruity of this mercy, because the hymns spend a lot of time... Read more

BEN: One of the questions that begins to arise is whether or not the attempt at ‘perfecting’ grace in too many ways at once, leads to exegetical and experiential problems. For example, in the Philo chapter you show how he struggles to reconcile the idea of God’s gracious relationship with Israel with the idea of whether they were worthy or unworthy recipients of God’s election compared to everyone else, with his tending towards the ‘worthy’ idea. The idea of incongruous... Read more

BEN; One of my very favorite early Jewish books is the Wisdom of Solomon. I have argued at some length that it influenced both Jesus and Paul in some of their teachings in my book Jesus the Sage, though I was not focusing on the possible influence on their theologies of grace. Do you see evidence of some influence of Wis. Sol. on Paul’s theology of grace? JOHN: There are well known parallels between Paul (esp Romans 1-2) and Wisdom... Read more

Here is an important article, about the finding of an early (1604ff) notebook of one of the Cambridge translators of the KJV. See what you think, BW3 Read more

BEN: In various ways, Lou Martyn seems to have anticipated a few of the themes emphasized in the New Perspective discussions, particularly in regard to ‘pistis Christou’, and in fact, I would suggest he influence Richard Hays when he was writing his dissertation on Galatians at Emory. To what do you attribute the rather huge animus directed against Lou Martyn’s ‘apocalyptic ‘ approach to Paul’s thought from various folks in the Reformed camp, in particular Tom Wright? It’s not like... Read more

BEN: Dealing with Barth or Bultmann’s treatment of Paul is of course difficult in the span of just a few pages, but at least on a surface reading it would appear appropriate to say that Barth emphasizes Paul’s belief that special revelation is required for salvation, and therefore ‘natural theology’ based on general revelation in creation, if not impossible, at least can be said to be non-salvific. By contrast, Bultmann wants to analyze Paul starting with Paul’s anthropological terms, and... Read more

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“To suppose that a direct road leads from art, or morals, or science or even from religion to God is sentimental liberal self-deception.” K. Barth Epistle to the Romans p. 337. Read more