C. Tilling, Paul’s Divine Christology, (Eerdmans, 2015, 336 pages).

There are not many doctoral dissertations that move the needle dramatically in a new positive direction in the huge field of Pauline studies. But Chris Tilling’s Paul’s Divine Christology (which originally appeared in print in the WUNT series of J.C.B. Mohr in 2012) is the exception to all such evaluations of the work of budding NT scholars. While it is true that one of the main criteria for evaluating a doctoral thesis is ‘does it make a contribution to the discussion of X’, sometimes with the addition of the word ‘fresh’ before contribution, it is very hard to accomplish something like that in the well-trod roads of Pauline studies, where one is more apt to hear the Qoheleth dictum: ‘there is nothing new under the sun here’. But again, Tilling’s work does set the discussion of whether or not Paul had a ‘divine’ Christology on new footing.
This study accomplishes this impressive feat by: 1) placing the discussion on a broader footing, namely taking into account all the evidence from the capital Paulines about the Christ relationship of Paul and his converts, not just the evidence of cultic worship of Christ or the discussion of Christ’s pre-existence. The study involves detailed contextual exegesis, especially of 1 Cor. 8-10, not just cherry picking of titles or ideas; and 2) making clear that Paul talks about Christian relationship to Christ in the same way that Israel’s relationship to YHWH had always been envisioned and discussed, and 3) getting beyond the rehash of discussing the titles of Christ, once more with feeling.

The net effect of this is that yes indeed there can be found plentiful evidence of an early high Christology in the earliest documents in the NT, Paul’s letters, evidence, as R. Bauckham would put it, that Christ was viewed by Paul as part of the divine identity, and he did not see this as a violation of Jewish monotheism. Indeed, he could include Jesus as Lord within an expanded version of the Shema in 1 Cor. 8, without blinking or fearing huge pushback from fellow apostles such as Peter and others. This comports well with the fact that after Paul’s meetings with the pillar apostles in Jerusalem they had agreed on the essence of the Gospels for both Jews and Gentiles, while they may not have fully agreed about what that meant in regard to the ongoing relationship between Jewish Jesus followers and the keeping of the Mosaic covenant (see Gal. 1-2).

If that were not enough, Tilling takes ample time to show that the supposed early Jewish precedents for including lesser figures within the Godhead (angels, Adam, Enoch, etc.) on closer review really aren’t precedents. For example, it is the way the relationship with the Lord of the Spirits is discussed in the Enoch literature that is analogous to the way Paul talks about the Christ relationship, not the way the relationship of the Son of Man with God is discussed in that literature, and in any case it is not clear that the relevant Enoch literature was known by Paul, not least because the crucial parts of that literature may well post-date Paul’s letters.

Methodologically, there is more to be said because Tilling is rightly wary of the whole history of ideas approach to discussing Pauline Christology, especially when it is accompanied by upward evolutionary spiral thinking (low Christology must be early, high Christology developed later). As Doug Campbell points out in his Forward, this sort of abstracting of ideas from the complex ways Paul talks about the Christ relationship had by believers is the product of post-Enlightenment ways of approach the data, something Paul himself was ignorant and innocent of. In any case, as Martin Hengel showed long ago, and before him Lightfoot, if we are actually evaluating trends in early Christian thinking it would be more plausible to think of the high Christology being early and continuing on later, for instance in the Johannine literature.

Another important methodological point is Tilling’s resistance to the strict dictum that ontology is one thing and function is another. The person of Christ should not be abstracted from his work, for in the Christ relationship he was known through his transformative work not just on the cross, but through the personal transformation of the mind and life of believers through the Holy Spirit. ‘No one can authentically confess Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit’ says Paul. One cannot eliminate the experiential side of things from the evaluation of whether or not Paul had a divine Christology. And besides, few scholars doubt that the Johannine Gospel reflects a divine Christology, and yet that Gospel also stresses the subordination of the Son to the Father, just as Paul does. The subordination discussion does not cancel out Paul’s divine Christology.

I take it for granted that Chris Tilling has demonstrated the essence of his thesis that in the capital Paulines Paul and his converts related to Christ in the same way Israel related to YHWH, and that the implicates of this are that Paul and various converts saw Christ as part of the divine identity, to use Bauckham’s language. Were Larry Hurtado, of blessed memory, still around, he would be sending Chris the coffee mug he sent me and various others as members of ‘the early high Christology club’. But Chris’s crucial insight does not fully take into account that in Paul’s letters Christ relates to God’s people in the same way the OT describes YHWH relating to Israel. To give but one example, in 1 Cor. 10, Paul makes the remarkable statement that when Israel was wandering in the wilderness their source of water turned out to be Christ (‘the rock was Christ’). A simply reading of the Pentateuch in its original language and context does not suggest such a surprising idea, rather it makes clear it was YHWH who provided sustenance and water for Israel. In short, we need the exploration of both sides of the relationship and the way Paul conceives them to support the case for Paul having a divine Christology. The actions of Christ, and the resulting Christ relationship on the part of believers provide a fuller proof that Paul indeed had a divine Christology.

BEN: One comment about p. 202—Actually, if you are dealing with the case of demonic possession, there is plenty of involuntary activity including speech and actions. So there are circumstances where the powers of darkness can make a person do things. But if you mean that for anyone who has Christ as Lord in his or her life, the Devil or demons cannot determine our behavior, then— o.k. They can pressure, persecute, manipulate, but not control our behavior. Comments?

RHYNE: I am open to correction here, but I did not expect my favorite Methodist scholar to tell me I was being too libertarian in my view of free will! Just kidding. I could probably better nuance what I am saying there. My main point is that not every point of theological disagreement can be attributed to demonic activity, and I think people who find the Devil under every rock might miss that.

I’ve been re-reading J.B. Lightfoot’s most polemical, but also in some ways his most interesting book, ‘Essays on Supernatural Religion’. It was compiled from his various responses to the anonymous broadside entitled ‘Supernatural Religion’ which attacked B.F. Westcott (Lightfoot’s colleague and friend at Cambridge) and particularly Westcott’s John commentary, advocating instead for a miracle free Christianity focusing on Christ’s ethical teachings. The compilation was released at the very end of Lightfoot’s life in 1889. I draw attention here to a quote from near the end of the Introduction of the book, which must clearly have been one of the last things Lightfoot ever penned:

“It seems to be assumed that, because the sceptical spirit has its proper function in scientific inquiry (though even here its excesses will often impede progress), therefore its exercise is equally useful and equally free from danger in the domain of [historical, including Biblical] criticism. A moment’s reflection however will show that the cases are wholly different. In whatever relates to morals and history– in short to human life in all its developments– where mathematical or scientific demonstration is impossible, and where consequently everything depends on the even balance of the judicial faculties, scepticism must be at least as fatal to the truth as credulity”. (Essays on Supernatural Religion, p, 26, emphasis added). In other words, how did ‘trust but verify’ degenerate into ‘distrust and vilify’?? Richard Bauckham has quite rightly lamented of late that “Such skepticism has become endemic in Gospel studies as a result of form criticism. Many NT scholars seem to suppose that the more skeptical of the sources they are, the more rigorously historical is their method. But this is not how historians usually work. In good historical work it is no more an epistemic virtue to be skeptical than it is to be credulous. In everyday life, we do not systematically mistrust everything anyone tells us. When someone is in a position to know what they tell us does so, we normally believe them. But we keep our critical faculties alert and raise questions if there is specific reason to doubt.” (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses 2nd edition, last chapter location 14369 on Kindle). Just so!

It is to this last sentence I draw especial attention. After spending some 40 years, a full Biblical generation, in the guild of Biblical scholars, one of the constant traits I have found in the guild is the inability to distinguish between mere skepticism, however eruditely presented, and critical thinking. What is especially odd about this phenomena is that the courtesy one regularly extends to one’s peers, hearing them out, and reserving judgment and trying to keep an open mind, is not extended to the writers of the NT and their sources.

Instead we hear remarks about how they, bless their hearts, were ‘people of their own time and couldn’t be expected to have correct modern notions about miracles or demons or divine activity in the human sphere’, or the like. This is often said without realizing that this presupposes that we now ‘know better’ than the original authors about such things, and we come from a posture and place of such intellectual superiority, that we can only pity the authors of the NT for their credulity and lack of critical thinking.

This whole condescending approach seems to be partly grounded in what I call ‘justification by doubt’. The way you establish your modern credentials as a good critical thinking scholar is by pouring scorn on the thinkers of earlier ages, being skeptical about things you have a difficulty in believing. But in fact critical thinking is one thing, and a presupposition or attitude of skepticism is another. I would suggest that we extend the same courtesy to our ancient writers as to our current peers— hearing them out, construing what they say in the most open and positive way one can, and then draw conclusions, using critical thinking. We don’t immediately assume they are wrong or right, we hear them out, and give them the same benefit of the doubt we do colleagues, even if in the end we disagree with their claims and assertions.

Especially in the so-called third quest for the historical Jesus have we had an absence of this kind of approach to the data again and again, but it has also surfaced in the way that textual criticism has been done, not to mention the method of evaluation of the ante-Nicene Church Fathers and their claims. And oddest of all— some of the most skeptical of the scholars are the very ones who protest most strongly that they are open minded folk!

This reminds me of something my old mentor, C.K. Barrett once said trying to explain the difference between Biblical scholarship in America and in the U.K. Kingsley said, and I’m paraphrasing from memory here: ‘Here in the U.K. we look over our shoulder and what see is Deutschland and its considerable critical scholarship. And we respond to that with what we take to be a more balanced approach. But in America, when many scholars look over their shoulders they see Christian fundamentalism, and they spend their careers in over-reaction to that.’ AMEN to that. It’s sad but true. I remember the repeated tales of a professor at a church related divinity school who began a class on the historical Jesus with students training for the ministry with the pronouncement ‘I don’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, now let’s critically evaluate the Gospel data.’!! I’m afraid Prof. Barrett was all too accurate in the way he saw many of our ranks. It is sad when someone spends their career establishing what they are against, and not as much on what they are for. One final quote from Lightfoot is worth repeating:

“We Christians are constantly told that we must expect to have our records tested by the same standards which are applied to other writings. This is exactly what we desire, and what we do not get. It is not easy to imagine the havoc that would ensure, if the critical principles of the Tubingen school and their admirers were let loose on the classical literature of Greece and Rome.” (Essays, p. 82).

Enough said.

One of the most influential Reformed and Puritan exegetes of the late 16th and early 17th century was William Perkins, whose works for the longest time were out of print until the 20th century. Andrew Ballitch has now done us all a good service (and thanks to Lexham Press as well) by providing a detailed exposition of Perkin’s hermeneutical method of interpreting Scripture, which involved the analogy of faith, context, and collation (the latter referring to the comparing of Scripture with other Scriptures). Ballitch’s treatment of his subject is thorough and helpful and quite detailed as well. He has certain done the research well. He is also candid from the start about Perkins living in a pre-critical age and operating out of a pre-critical approach to Scripture. The most fundamental principle or assumption is that Scripture is the best interpreter of Scripture. The book goes carefully through Perkins Sermons which in turn became commentaries, and then his practical and theological works, to demonstrate Perkins’ consistent use of those three means of interpretation— the analogy of faith, context, and collation. Ballitch without question proves his thesis (a thesis originally done as a doctoral dissertation).

But what was meant by the analogy of faith? In one sense this referred to the Reformed catechism which involved explanations of the Decalogue, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Apostle’s Creed. Sometimes however, it meant the whole of Reformed theology front-loaded into the interpretation Scripture. It is interesting how different this is from John Wesley’s use of the term analogia fidei by which he means that the consistent theme or red thread that runs through the whole of Scripture is justification by grace through faith (and this in spite of the fact that both his parents grew up in 17th-18th century English Puritanism and then converted to Anglicanism).

Indeed, it is often hard to tell which is more dominant the plain exegesis of the Scripture (and Perkins favors the literal approach except where impossible) or the Reformed theology as a lens through which one reads Scripture, including things like the doctrine of election, double predestination, imputed righteousness as well as imputation of Adam’s sin to the whole race, limited atonement, perseverance of the faith, and more. Yes, Perkins’ exegesis is often detailed, but when he gets to collation, it’s often a sort of catchword connection, when in fact the two or three passages compared do not in fact refer to the same subject. Further, there is the division of all sorts of things into the categories of law and Gospel, whatever parts of Scripture were being read.

There is no sense of progressive revelation in this sort of approach. So for example, Abraham is taken as an example of a person who looked forward to the Messiah and placed his faith in Him in advance of his coming. No….. Abraham trusted Yahweh and it was credited to him as righteousness. Much more along these lines could be used to critique Perkins (see my Biblical Theology volume with CUP), but we must thank Prof. Ballitch for plainly and clearly laying out Perkins’ approach to the Bible.

One thing that did give me pause in this book is the constant polemics against Catholic ‘superstition’ without making clear whether Ballitch is referring just to Perkins’ views, or the author’s views or both. More clarity on this would have been helpful, since Catholicism today is very different, especially in the light of Vatican I and II than it was in Perkins’ day. Nevertheless, this book deserves to be read as it fills a void and our understanding of Puritanism in the Elizabethan era, and the considerable influence Perkins had on subsequent Puritan divines.

BEN: I agree with you that Mark, at most reflects an elementary use of rhetoric, but one thing that gave me pause in reading Teresa Morgan’s work is that our thinking about levels of educations, perhaps even in different social locations with different teachers is much too stratified for the actual situation on the ground in most places in the Empire. Indeed, all three levels could be taught by one instructor in one local, with younger students bunched together with older ones, and younger students of good ability could go ahead to higher levels of
grammar and rhetoric, sometimes helped by the older students, and, if they had one, a paidagogos. Comments?

HELEN:

Yes, I agree. Scholars like to systematize and create order, and this does lead to understanding, but we always have to remember that reality on the ground is significantly more messy. My own schooling was at a local village school where several year groups shared the same teacher, and I started secondary school at a different time to my peers, so I have first-hand experience that even in modern developed societies the rules are often broken. There’s also the added complication that some students are just better than others and able to produce more with even a limited education. I suggest that Mark has broadly made it through to the end of the second/middle level of education, but with little real study of the topics set out so neatly in the progymnasmata (which, along with most people now, I’d put as a third stage). But a skilled communicator would doubtless learn from the wealth of public lectures, talks, teaching, drama, oratory etc and might well start to incorporate some of the techniques he heard into his work. Synkrisis (or comparison) is interesting in this regard. I don’t really think that Mark demonstrates much of the formal use of this technique as outlined by Theon and the other grammarians, but he does quite clearly use it (not only in his characteristic intercalations but all the way through in his juxtapositions of various episodes); he’s got it from somewhere – listening to readings, or perhaps even art (which juxtaposed scenes in a similar way) – and has brought it into his work. And although I said earlier that there’s no evidence for a specifically Jewish education system, it seems likely to me that a Jewish teacher might well teach Jewish students with the LXX, perhaps alongside (or even in place of?) Homer.

I must admit I am a sucker for good sports movies, but frankly there aren’t that many good basketball movies that actually involve good acting as well as good action, though Hoosiers is an exception to this rule. Ben Afleck’s The Way Back is an exception. Over time, Ben Afleck has become a good actor, though of course we could list some sad or bad movies he has been in. This particular movie tells the story of an out of shape former basketball star of the CYO leagues in California who never played college ball, from personal choice. The man called Jack Cunningham was all world in high school, but he has a lot of baggage, from neglect from his father, to his problem drinking, to the loss of his son to cancer at a young age, to separation from his wife. Indeed, a lot to overcome. And then he gets an invitation to become the coach of a rock bottom Catholic team at Bishop Hayes High. As you might imagine, the story line is the team becomes the comeback kids, under Jack’s training and tutelage, and make the playoffs for the first time since Jack played for the team in the 1990s. Afleck is convincing in his portrayal of a man battling his demons, and fortunately in this movie the story line is not ‘and they all lived happily ever after. It’s much more realistic than that. This is two hours of a good story well played, and it has some good psychological complexity. I especially enjoyed the mentoring of the kids into decent players under the coach’s regimens. During a time which usually amounts to a good movie desert, this movie is worth seeing, though not a classic.

BEN: We are called to love self-sacrificially, as Christ loved. That seems a very high standard indeed which we can only approximate at times. But it does make clear that Christ expects a lot of us. ‘To whom more is given….’. I have grown tired of the mistranslation of the famous verse in Philippians which actually reads ‘I am able…… all things in Him who strengthens me’. It seems clearly, in light of Paul just saying he has learned contentment in good times and bad, with and without material well being that the appropriate way to read that verse is not ‘I can DO all things…’ but rather ‘I am able to endure with contentment all things… etc. Comments??

PATRICK: Yes, in John’s Gospel disciples are commanded to love one another as Jesus has loved them. Indeed loving one another is the only duty that is commanded in the whole Gospel. What that means is spelt out – Jesus lays down his life for his friends. This is love orientated to the good of others at cost to the self. It’s the very heart of Christianity. Of course all of this is much easier to understand in theory than do in practice! In the book I quote Francis Moloney, ‘Words about love can come easily enough; lives that demonstrate love are harder to come by.’ I happen to be married to someone who lives such a life but I agree with you that it’s a tough calling. It’s a long way from the sort of naïve positive thinking that you mention. I fail to be loving every day to the people I like, let alone to the ones I don’t! This is why life in Christian community is where the rubber really hits the road. Love hangs in there. It’s open-eyed about human failure – including our own. It seeks forgiveness and reconciliation. It’s honest. Churches are made up of all sorts of people and love is the only thing that’s going to hold it together if it’s going to flourish and grow. Perhaps it’s only such authentic communities of love that are going to make an impact on a (often rightly) sKeptical world.

BEN: Thanks so much Patrick for taking part in this dialogue I think it will definitely benefit our readers.

BEN: I think you make a good case for the speeches in Acts reflecting early Christian Christology and even Peter’s take on that. The Semitisms and distinct ways of labeling Jesus seem to reflect something primitive. Do you think there was a general apostolic outline that Peter and others followed when preaching, as C.H. Dodd long ago suggested, or would you see Peter as the innovator or first representative promulgating these ideas?

GENE: There’s the chicken and egg question, right? Vox Petri led me back to Dodd’s classic study and I asked the very same question. Where’s the genesis of the foundational structures of the early Christian kerygma? Given Peter’s role as the early church’s principle leader and theologian, I do not think that we’d be far off the mark if we regard him as a key player in the development of the kerygma. If not him, then who? Surprisingly, the Galilean fisherman demonstrates the creative reflexes and synthetic theological thinking to be the source of the apostolic teaching and the early theological tradition. This is by no means a proven point, but it would be unwise to bracket out Peter as we mull the origins of Christian theology, including its proclamation and praxis.

In most ways, the most helpful portion of Gene Green’s detailed study is the long chapter on 1 Peter.Lot’s of good exegesis and theological reflection can be found on pp. 301-400. In this chapter Green rightly demonstrates that 1 Pet. 5. 12 refers to writing briefly with the help of Silas about the various topics included in the letter. Peter is the author of this letter, and Silas is the facilitator, turning Peter’s ideas into some of the best Greek in the NT. Unlike say 1 Thessalonians, Silas is not indicated to be a co-author with Peter in this document. It would be helpful at some juncture if someone would try and put the pieces together about Silas/Silvanus’ role in early Christianity, considering he is one of the emissaries who circulates James’ letter after the Acts 15 council, he is a sometime co-worker with Paul, and a sometime co-worker with Peter as well as 1 Pet. 5.12 suggests. And unlike Titus, who is nowhere mentioned in Acts, we find Silas in all three sources. I am not convinced by Green’s argument that despite Eusebius (H.E. 3.1.2); Jerome (de vir il.1), and Epiphanius (27.6.6.) all telling us Peter went to Anatolia, and Eusebius is also clear he wrote 1 Peter to Jews, we should ignore this evidence, as if it was just a made up tradition these early Christian writers followed.

One of the things that needs to be reflected on is how very difficult it would be in a small religious movement to pull off a pseudepigrapha. The more particulars added to such a document, the less convincing it becomes because it could be cross-checked by near contemporaries. Green earlier in his study rightly notes that for the most part, 2nd-4th century forgers didn’t attempt phony letters from apostles, they tried other things like Gospels or Apocalypses of Peter, and by the way, even then they were often detected as phony. Elliot, whose commentary on 1 Peter is excellent in various ways, wants to maintain the letter was written by a Petrine community after the death of Peter, someones who knew Peter and his traditions and ideas. But surely the references to Mark and Silas in the letter closing itself, means they worked with Peter, and even if the letter was assembled immediately after Peter’s death on the basis of his teaching, it would still be his teaching. But what 1 Pet. 5.12 strongly suggests is that it was composed while Peter was alive, since it says he is writing briefly through Silas, not that Silas is writing for him ex post facto. There is a difference.

Green’s argument is that Peter is referring to the audience as resident aliens in a spiritual way, a status that happened to them after their conversion, which led to their marginalization. But nothing in the beginning of this document (cf. 1 Pet. 1.1,17; 2,11) suggests this. To the contrary, these social designations are simply mentioned up front without qualification, in the same way the list of provinces are mentioned. The person hearing 1 Pet.1 for the first time would simply assume the terms were meant literally (see Elliot on this). And in any case there is no need to talk about a Diaspora, that is a dispersion of persons if they are all, or almost all Gentiles. Gentiles had not been scattered into Gentile lands. The term is a Jewish one referring to actions taken on or by Jews, just as in James 1. And consider the exhortation in 1 Pet. 4.2–‘you’ve spent enough time already doing what Gentiles like to do’. This is a very odd remark if Peter is addressing those who were always Gentiles– rather he is distinguishing them from Gentiles in that verse and telling them to stop acting like Gentiles, something they are not!

For my money it is Chapter 8, which begins on p. 315ff. which is the very best chapter in the whole book, which helpfully walks us through the theology in 1 Peter, and shows what an important contribution Peter makes to early Christian theologizing. This should be required reading for Protestants who practice benign neglect of this letter. Green is right that there is a strong emphasis and theology of grace in this document. Green takes a more Calvinistic approach to the language about ‘foreknowledge’ in 1 Peter which he takes to mean pre-ordaining, but as Origen and Chrysostom made clear long ago, the term in question doesn’t mean pre-destine, it means knowing in advance, as I point out at length in my 1 Peter commentary. Not everything God knows, in advance, has he willed in advance, and in particular he has not willed sin or evil and yet he knows it.

There is a strong and helpful discussion of vicarious atonement through Christ’s death on pp. 354ff. and here Green is spot on, as the Brits would say, as Peter draws on a profound reflection on Isaiah 53 to craft his thoughts on this subject. I will leave the readers of this blog to soak up much more of this good book on their but would remind them of Sir Francis Bacon’s advice: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few are to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” Gene Green’s book is of the latter sort, and kudos to him for writing it.