Reviews of Paul Books by Wright and Gorman

For some interesting reviews of recent Paul books, see below.

Over at Reformation21, Simon Gathercle reviews N.T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God.

I enjoyed this book enormously. I won’t say that at times it didn’t feel like hard work, but I did enjoy it. At risk of sounding patronizing about a scholar far more eminent than myself, I think that it is Wright’s most compelling academic book. Not only does it give the clearest exposition yet of Wright’s take on Paul, but it is also his most generous exposition – not just in word-count, but in the way in which Paul is seen as a rich and expansive thinker. Here is a Paul who thinks both in terms of participatory and juridical categories, who is thoroughly Jewish but not without considerable reworking, whose understanding of the cross is representative and substitutionary and a good deal more besides, who is the originating ancestor of Christian theology but also one who – by divine inspiration – though being dead, yet speaketh.  – See more at: http://www.reformation21.org/articles/paul-and-the-faithfulness-of-god-a-review.php#sthash.40O98CXG.dpuf

Over at First Things, Peter Leithard reviews Michael Gorman’s Covenant Atonement.

Gorman makes a compelling case for this model, first by identifying the elements of the prophetic promise and then by demonstrating that those elements are evident throughout the New Testament. Along the way, he offers a neat response to New Testament theologies that would posit a gap between Jesus and Paul, and, surprisingly, argues that one important but neglected element of continuity between the two is an emphasis on participation.