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The New Interpreter's Bible Commentary - 12 Volume Set #10
New Interpreter's Bible: Acts - I Corinthians
Volume X: Acts; Introduction to Epistolary Literature; Romans; 1 Corinthians. Volume X contains an excellent Introduction to Epistolary Literature, plus comments on the New Testament books of Acts, Romans, and 1 Corinthians.
KEY FEATURES:
� Easy-to-use format�detailed, critical Commentary and Reflections (a detailed exposition growing directly out of the Commentary)
� Coverage of the entire Bible in twelve volumes
� Includes the Apocryphal/ Deuterocanonical books
� New material specifically prepared to meet the needs of today�s preachers, teachers, and students of the Bible
� The biblical text is divided into coherent and natural units
� The ecumenical roster of contributors includes top scholars and emerging new voices
� Contributors draw upon a variety of approaches
� Numerous visual aids (illustrations, maps, charts, timelines) enhance understanding and ease of use
� Introductions to each biblical book cover essential historical, literary, sociocultural, and theological issues
� The full texts and critical notes of the New International Version® and the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible are presented in parallel columns for quick reference and comparison.
Download The NIB Vol. 10 Errata Sheet
CD-ROM Version for the full Twelve Volumes is also available. Click here for more details.
1007 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2002
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September 30, 2026
My foray into *The New Interpreter's Bible* began with my late father-in-law's purchase of the set to help him prepare sermons (he was a deacon in the Episcopal church). He then passed it on to my nephew and my nephew to my brother-and-law. Finally, my brother-in-law passed it on to me. These are very fine commentaries. I began by reading volume VII straight through and then volume III. I expect that unless some catastrophe happens I will live long enough to read the whole set (I'm only 68).
I started reading volume X in tandem with my Bible reading when I got to Acts. The Greek of Acts is difficult (at least for me!) and I appreciated Robert W. Wall's frequent comments on the Greek of Acts. His 368 page commentary which included a 34 page introduction is one of the most thorough commentaries I have read in this series. The 798 footnotes, many of them (most?) were narrative in content, some lengthy paragraphs with many sentences, meaning that if you neglect the footnotes you’re going to miss some good stuff. For example, the important alternate readings of the Western Text were footnoted. The downside was that this frequent footnoting made the text difficult to read.
Wall, I imagine, cites over 2 dozen scholars but certain scholars kept popping up again and again: Luke Timothy Johnson, Ben Witherington, Ernst Haenchen, Joseph Fitzmyer, and J. D. G. Dunn. Each of these scholars I would guess were cited over a dozen times. Of these scholars I have only read Fitzmyer's commentary on Acts. I will have to make it a point to get to the others someday.
Wall is undoubtedly correct when he says that Luke’s task is to interpret and grant theological significance to past events rather than to describe them objectively or with factual precision suitable for modern readers. This method of interpretation is used right off the bat when Wall confronts the situation of the conflicting accounts of Judas's death in Matthew and Acts. In Matthew, Judas's private remorse contrasts with Peter's penitence because he failed Jesus; in Luke, Judas's failure and demise pose a real threat to the destiny of the messianic community itself. Wall finds it notable that in sharp contrast to Matthew, in Acts Peter does not claim that a remorseful Judas returned the money.
In the Ananias and Sapphira incident, Wall claims that the authority of Peter and the importance of the rule of common goods form a historical nucleus. But he stops short of claiming that there actually were an Ananias and Sapphira. He draws a parallel between Ananias and Judas, noting that they both posed a threat to the fledgling community. This accords with his practice of finding theological themes throughout Acts. One theme Wall finds again and again in Acts is the proper use of wealth, of which of course the Ananias and Sapphira incident is a prime example. Other examples are the incident with Simon the Great (Wall says Simon Magus is a misnomer) and Paul’s funding of the four men who take a Nazirite vow.
Despite his general caution in ascribing historicity to Acts, it nevertheless seems to me that Wall is overly credulous in the traditional affirmation of Luke as a credible source of early church history, rather than one who creates tales whole-cloth with an apologetic motive. Wall says, for example, that is simply inconceivable that Luke would not have known and read Paul's letters and used them as a secondary source in writing Acts, an opinion not widely shared among scholars. Wall's idea that it is likely that the letter in Acts 15 is Luke's source for the whole Jerusalem council episode caught my attention. I don’t suppose that this is impossible, but it seems unlikely. His assertion that Timothy is a better partner for Paul than Barnabas because of Timothy's mixed heritage seemed suspect to me. The idea is that Timothy is able to appeal to both Jews and gentiles. But maybe Timothy's mixed heritage was created by Luke for theological reasons.
As one who enjoys reading the New Testament in Greek, I appreciated Wall's frequent comments on the Greek of Acts. One comment that caught my attention was his comment of the use of ἀλλόφυλος/allophylos in 10.28 in describing Cornelius. This, says Wall, is a racial term often derogatory in the LXX. This was significant for me because there are some that make the strange claim that Cornelius was not a gentile but rather a lapsed Israelite.
I also appreciated the notice that in Acts 3.15, "you killed the author of life", the meaning of archēgos is unclear. It may mean leader into life rather than author. I have always taken this verse as evidence that Luke had a similar view as John, that Jesus played a role in creation. It is clear that I was reading far more into the verse than what is there. "Author of life" may mean not physical life but rather the spiritual life that Jesus inaugurated by his sacrificial death.
On occasion, Wall notes the problems of taking the accounts in Acts as historically plausible such as when he notes that Haenchen and others have called attention to the practical and political problems of a mass conversion, such as is recorded in Acts 2.
I found Wall's notice that Paul is never called an apostle in Acts curious, because he seems to be called an apostle in Acts 14.4, 14. Wall claims that this curious reference to Paul and Barnabas as apostles are surely non-titular. The best alternative is that "the apostles" is a term of continuity, which reminds the readers that the mission and message of of Paul and Barnabas are grounded in the same religious authority and practice as were those of their prophetic (=apostolic) predecessors.
In his brief article, Introduction to the Epistolary Literature, Wall divides the letters into two groups: the Pauline and the non-Pauline. Noting that Protestants have generally favored the Pauline letters, he claims that some have been led to a reductionism which either reinterprets the non-Pauline letters in Pauline terms or neglects them entirely. He further notes that many still read James through a Pauline filter. I admit that when I was a Protestant I favored the Pauline letters and neglected the others, James in particular. It is only recently that I have studied the non-Paulines, James in particular, since it is the only example of wisdom literature in the N.T.
Although it is often denied, James and Paul disagree about the role of faith. Wall sees such disagreements as not necessarily a problem. "There is a sense in which the epistolary whole is actually better focused by disagreement than by agreement. That is, the collection’s witness to the truth is better forged by mutual criticism, making the whole greater than the sum."
Wall makes the interesting claim that the interpreters of the letters in these commentaries seek to find meaning (1) behind-the-text, (2) within-the-text, and (3) in-front-of-the-text. This modernist approach contrasts instructively with the postmodern approach. In *What Is Postmodern Biblical Criticism* A. K. M. Adam summarizes the postmodern approach: "We will not try to locate the world *behind* the text, or the world *in* the text, or the world *in front of* the text. We will not talk about extracting meaning from the text. Meaning is what we make of texts, not an ingredient in texts."
N. T. Wright takes a decidedly modernist approach in his commentary on Romans. I read this commentary in tandem with James D. G. Dunn's two-volume commentary on Romans. Dunn's commentary on Romans also takes a modernist approach, but is decidedly different in that a different audience is envisioned. Dunn's commentary is decidedly scholarly, with sometimes detailed discussion of the Greek and textual notes. Wright does not ignore the Greek, of course, but his comments are more accessible to an audience who may not know Greek. The NIB claims to be of use to scholars, but I suspect it is used more by pastors looking for sermon helps. Particularly in the "Reflections" sections Wright shines as someone with pastoral insight. According to Google, he served in pastoral and academic leadership roles within the Church of England, including as a college chaplain, Canon of Westminster Abbey, and the Bishop of Durham from 2003 to 2010, no doubt all great preparation for writing this chapter for the NIB.
Wright puts us on notice at the outset by claiming that anyone who claims to understand Romans fully is, almost by definition, mistaken. True to his word, he admits when a text is difficult to understand. For example, he says that everything about Romans 9-11 is controversial. The commentary on Romans 9-11, and on chapter 4 were of particular interest to me because of my interest in Israel Only Preterism, a branch of preterism which claims that the covenant was only for bloodline Israelites. The IO narrative is important as a challenge to the dominant narrative that the covenant and the promise are for all people, not just Israelites. IO in particular uses Romans 4 and 9-11 to support their position. Interestingly Wright claims that this issue is not addressed in chapter 4, and so we must defer, therefore, "to Romans 9-11 the matter of the continuing relationship between those who see themselves as the children of Abraham defined by faith in the lifegiving God revealed in Jesus and those who see themselves as the children of Abraham defined by the possession and keeping of the Mosaic Torah." Nonetheless, Wright hints at there being support for his position in chapter 4 even independently of 9-11. For example, commenting on 8.19-21, he says, "It is part of the revelation of God’s righteousness, that covenant faithfulness that always aimed at putting the whole world to rights. This is why, as we saw in 4.13, Paul declared that God's promise to Abraham had the whole world in view." IO would disagree with this view of 4.13, understanding "world" here not as the cosmos, but rather as Israel's covenant world.
In the section Romans 11.1-36, "The Salvation of 'All Israel' in Fulfillment of God’s Unbreakable Promises," Wright comments that this is one of the most controversial of Paul's sustained arguments. Wright's position is that "the phrase 'all Israel,' then, is best taken as a polemical redefinition, in line with Paul's redefinition of 'Jew' in 2.29 [one is a Jew who is one inwardly], of 'circumcision' in 2.29 and Phil 3.3, and of 'seed of Abraham' in Romans 4, Galatians 3, and Rom 9.6-9. It belongs with what seems indubitably the correct reading of 'the Israel of God' in Gal 6.16 [As for those who follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God]."
This interpretation seems problematic to me. Of course IO would disagree, but so do many commentators, such as James D. G. Dunn, W. D. Davies, and E. P. Sanders. For these scholars, it seems illogical for Paul to be talking about ethnic Israel throughout chapters 9-11 and then suddenly have a different group in mind in 11.26. I tend to agree with Dunn and others on this point. Wright's viewpoint smacks of supersessionism to me, a viewpoint which cannot be sustained.
Another important verse for IO is 1.3, where Wright seems to support the IO position, commenting that "Others have seen 'according to the flesh' as Paul's way of hinting that, while Jesus was indeed the seed of David, this was not the most significant thing about him. In other words, this was Paul's way of distancing himself from Jewish messianic beliefs in order to hurry on to the more important point about Jesus's divine sonship. This, too, is misleading for the reasons already given." The reason already given no doubt is Wright, in commenting on the interesting fact that Paul nowhere else refers to Jesus's Davidic sonship, states that "It is often assumed (less often argued) that Paul had moved away from Jewish messianic ideas altogether," a viewpoint that Wright criticizes."
The last important IO verse I wish to examine is 1.21: "Although they knew God…" I am grateful to Jason DeCosta for pointing out the argument that this shows that Paul’s Gentiles were actually lost Israelites because only Israelites knew God. Significantly the word for "know" here is γινώσκω/ginōskō. Ancient Jewish translators used ginōskō to translate yada over 500 times in the Greek Old Testament, yada being a key word in Amos 3.2, another key IO verse: "You only have I known (yada) among all the nations of the earth." "Yada" has a more relational connotation than our English word "know." Is Paul meaning to say that his Gentile audience in Romans had an intimate relationship with the God of Israel? Not necessarily. Paul is able to use ginōskō in its more casual sense of mental/factual knowledge as in 7.15. Nonetheless it is curious that Paul uses ginōskō rather than οἶδα/oida.
In his comment on 1.22-23, Wright finds an allusion which supports the IO position: "The 'exchange' of God's glory for an idol echoes Ps 106.20, which speaks of Israel in the wilderness swapping the living God for the golden calf." Could Paul have had this in mind? It seems quite likely.
I was quite impressed that the NIB found a scholar of the stature of N.T. Wright to contribute to them. Most of the scholars in these volumes I have never heard of. Wright makes many comparisons to music in his commentary, which caused me to find this quote of his: "I was a musician before I was a theologian."
Currently I am beginning the commentary on 1 Corinthians, but I’m truncating the review here because a review of all three commentaries would be too long for Goodreads or Facebook. When I’m done reading 1 Corinthians I will attach my review of it as a comment to my Goodreads review.
I started reading volume X in tandem with my Bible reading when I got to Acts. The Greek of Acts is difficult (at least for me!) and I appreciated Robert W. Wall's frequent comments on the Greek of Acts. His 368 page commentary which included a 34 page introduction is one of the most thorough commentaries I have read in this series. The 798 footnotes, many of them (most?) were narrative in content, some lengthy paragraphs with many sentences, meaning that if you neglect the footnotes you’re going to miss some good stuff. For example, the important alternate readings of the Western Text were footnoted. The downside was that this frequent footnoting made the text difficult to read.
Wall, I imagine, cites over 2 dozen scholars but certain scholars kept popping up again and again: Luke Timothy Johnson, Ben Witherington, Ernst Haenchen, Joseph Fitzmyer, and J. D. G. Dunn. Each of these scholars I would guess were cited over a dozen times. Of these scholars I have only read Fitzmyer's commentary on Acts. I will have to make it a point to get to the others someday.
Wall is undoubtedly correct when he says that Luke’s task is to interpret and grant theological significance to past events rather than to describe them objectively or with factual precision suitable for modern readers. This method of interpretation is used right off the bat when Wall confronts the situation of the conflicting accounts of Judas's death in Matthew and Acts. In Matthew, Judas's private remorse contrasts with Peter's penitence because he failed Jesus; in Luke, Judas's failure and demise pose a real threat to the destiny of the messianic community itself. Wall finds it notable that in sharp contrast to Matthew, in Acts Peter does not claim that a remorseful Judas returned the money.
In the Ananias and Sapphira incident, Wall claims that the authority of Peter and the importance of the rule of common goods form a historical nucleus. But he stops short of claiming that there actually were an Ananias and Sapphira. He draws a parallel between Ananias and Judas, noting that they both posed a threat to the fledgling community. This accords with his practice of finding theological themes throughout Acts. One theme Wall finds again and again in Acts is the proper use of wealth, of which of course the Ananias and Sapphira incident is a prime example. Other examples are the incident with Simon the Great (Wall says Simon Magus is a misnomer) and Paul’s funding of the four men who take a Nazirite vow.
Despite his general caution in ascribing historicity to Acts, it nevertheless seems to me that Wall is overly credulous in the traditional affirmation of Luke as a credible source of early church history, rather than one who creates tales whole-cloth with an apologetic motive. Wall says, for example, that is simply inconceivable that Luke would not have known and read Paul's letters and used them as a secondary source in writing Acts, an opinion not widely shared among scholars. Wall's idea that it is likely that the letter in Acts 15 is Luke's source for the whole Jerusalem council episode caught my attention. I don’t suppose that this is impossible, but it seems unlikely. His assertion that Timothy is a better partner for Paul than Barnabas because of Timothy's mixed heritage seemed suspect to me. The idea is that Timothy is able to appeal to both Jews and gentiles. But maybe Timothy's mixed heritage was created by Luke for theological reasons.
As one who enjoys reading the New Testament in Greek, I appreciated Wall's frequent comments on the Greek of Acts. One comment that caught my attention was his comment of the use of ἀλλόφυλος/allophylos in 10.28 in describing Cornelius. This, says Wall, is a racial term often derogatory in the LXX. This was significant for me because there are some that make the strange claim that Cornelius was not a gentile but rather a lapsed Israelite.
I also appreciated the notice that in Acts 3.15, "you killed the author of life", the meaning of archēgos is unclear. It may mean leader into life rather than author. I have always taken this verse as evidence that Luke had a similar view as John, that Jesus played a role in creation. It is clear that I was reading far more into the verse than what is there. "Author of life" may mean not physical life but rather the spiritual life that Jesus inaugurated by his sacrificial death.
On occasion, Wall notes the problems of taking the accounts in Acts as historically plausible such as when he notes that Haenchen and others have called attention to the practical and political problems of a mass conversion, such as is recorded in Acts 2.
I found Wall's notice that Paul is never called an apostle in Acts curious, because he seems to be called an apostle in Acts 14.4, 14. Wall claims that this curious reference to Paul and Barnabas as apostles are surely non-titular. The best alternative is that "the apostles" is a term of continuity, which reminds the readers that the mission and message of of Paul and Barnabas are grounded in the same religious authority and practice as were those of their prophetic (=apostolic) predecessors.
In his brief article, Introduction to the Epistolary Literature, Wall divides the letters into two groups: the Pauline and the non-Pauline. Noting that Protestants have generally favored the Pauline letters, he claims that some have been led to a reductionism which either reinterprets the non-Pauline letters in Pauline terms or neglects them entirely. He further notes that many still read James through a Pauline filter. I admit that when I was a Protestant I favored the Pauline letters and neglected the others, James in particular. It is only recently that I have studied the non-Paulines, James in particular, since it is the only example of wisdom literature in the N.T.
Although it is often denied, James and Paul disagree about the role of faith. Wall sees such disagreements as not necessarily a problem. "There is a sense in which the epistolary whole is actually better focused by disagreement than by agreement. That is, the collection’s witness to the truth is better forged by mutual criticism, making the whole greater than the sum."
Wall makes the interesting claim that the interpreters of the letters in these commentaries seek to find meaning (1) behind-the-text, (2) within-the-text, and (3) in-front-of-the-text. This modernist approach contrasts instructively with the postmodern approach. In *What Is Postmodern Biblical Criticism* A. K. M. Adam summarizes the postmodern approach: "We will not try to locate the world *behind* the text, or the world *in* the text, or the world *in front of* the text. We will not talk about extracting meaning from the text. Meaning is what we make of texts, not an ingredient in texts."
N. T. Wright takes a decidedly modernist approach in his commentary on Romans. I read this commentary in tandem with James D. G. Dunn's two-volume commentary on Romans. Dunn's commentary on Romans also takes a modernist approach, but is decidedly different in that a different audience is envisioned. Dunn's commentary is decidedly scholarly, with sometimes detailed discussion of the Greek and textual notes. Wright does not ignore the Greek, of course, but his comments are more accessible to an audience who may not know Greek. The NIB claims to be of use to scholars, but I suspect it is used more by pastors looking for sermon helps. Particularly in the "Reflections" sections Wright shines as someone with pastoral insight. According to Google, he served in pastoral and academic leadership roles within the Church of England, including as a college chaplain, Canon of Westminster Abbey, and the Bishop of Durham from 2003 to 2010, no doubt all great preparation for writing this chapter for the NIB.
Wright puts us on notice at the outset by claiming that anyone who claims to understand Romans fully is, almost by definition, mistaken. True to his word, he admits when a text is difficult to understand. For example, he says that everything about Romans 9-11 is controversial. The commentary on Romans 9-11, and on chapter 4 were of particular interest to me because of my interest in Israel Only Preterism, a branch of preterism which claims that the covenant was only for bloodline Israelites. The IO narrative is important as a challenge to the dominant narrative that the covenant and the promise are for all people, not just Israelites. IO in particular uses Romans 4 and 9-11 to support their position. Interestingly Wright claims that this issue is not addressed in chapter 4, and so we must defer, therefore, "to Romans 9-11 the matter of the continuing relationship between those who see themselves as the children of Abraham defined by faith in the lifegiving God revealed in Jesus and those who see themselves as the children of Abraham defined by the possession and keeping of the Mosaic Torah." Nonetheless, Wright hints at there being support for his position in chapter 4 even independently of 9-11. For example, commenting on 8.19-21, he says, "It is part of the revelation of God’s righteousness, that covenant faithfulness that always aimed at putting the whole world to rights. This is why, as we saw in 4.13, Paul declared that God's promise to Abraham had the whole world in view." IO would disagree with this view of 4.13, understanding "world" here not as the cosmos, but rather as Israel's covenant world.
In the section Romans 11.1-36, "The Salvation of 'All Israel' in Fulfillment of God’s Unbreakable Promises," Wright comments that this is one of the most controversial of Paul's sustained arguments. Wright's position is that "the phrase 'all Israel,' then, is best taken as a polemical redefinition, in line with Paul's redefinition of 'Jew' in 2.29 [one is a Jew who is one inwardly], of 'circumcision' in 2.29 and Phil 3.3, and of 'seed of Abraham' in Romans 4, Galatians 3, and Rom 9.6-9. It belongs with what seems indubitably the correct reading of 'the Israel of God' in Gal 6.16 [As for those who follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God]."
This interpretation seems problematic to me. Of course IO would disagree, but so do many commentators, such as James D. G. Dunn, W. D. Davies, and E. P. Sanders. For these scholars, it seems illogical for Paul to be talking about ethnic Israel throughout chapters 9-11 and then suddenly have a different group in mind in 11.26. I tend to agree with Dunn and others on this point. Wright's viewpoint smacks of supersessionism to me, a viewpoint which cannot be sustained.
Another important verse for IO is 1.3, where Wright seems to support the IO position, commenting that "Others have seen 'according to the flesh' as Paul's way of hinting that, while Jesus was indeed the seed of David, this was not the most significant thing about him. In other words, this was Paul's way of distancing himself from Jewish messianic beliefs in order to hurry on to the more important point about Jesus's divine sonship. This, too, is misleading for the reasons already given." The reason already given no doubt is Wright, in commenting on the interesting fact that Paul nowhere else refers to Jesus's Davidic sonship, states that "It is often assumed (less often argued) that Paul had moved away from Jewish messianic ideas altogether," a viewpoint that Wright criticizes."
The last important IO verse I wish to examine is 1.21: "Although they knew God…" I am grateful to Jason DeCosta for pointing out the argument that this shows that Paul’s Gentiles were actually lost Israelites because only Israelites knew God. Significantly the word for "know" here is γινώσκω/ginōskō. Ancient Jewish translators used ginōskō to translate yada over 500 times in the Greek Old Testament, yada being a key word in Amos 3.2, another key IO verse: "You only have I known (yada) among all the nations of the earth." "Yada" has a more relational connotation than our English word "know." Is Paul meaning to say that his Gentile audience in Romans had an intimate relationship with the God of Israel? Not necessarily. Paul is able to use ginōskō in its more casual sense of mental/factual knowledge as in 7.15. Nonetheless it is curious that Paul uses ginōskō rather than οἶδα/oida.
In his comment on 1.22-23, Wright finds an allusion which supports the IO position: "The 'exchange' of God's glory for an idol echoes Ps 106.20, which speaks of Israel in the wilderness swapping the living God for the golden calf." Could Paul have had this in mind? It seems quite likely.
I was quite impressed that the NIB found a scholar of the stature of N.T. Wright to contribute to them. Most of the scholars in these volumes I have never heard of. Wright makes many comparisons to music in his commentary, which caused me to find this quote of his: "I was a musician before I was a theologian."
Currently I am beginning the commentary on 1 Corinthians, but I’m truncating the review here because a review of all three commentaries would be too long for Goodreads or Facebook. When I’m done reading 1 Corinthians I will attach my review of it as a comment to my Goodreads review.
August 4, 2011
Review of N.T. Wright’s Romans in the New Interpreter’s Bible.
In many ways, this is not so much a commentary but a daring exercise in biblical theology. And for that reason it will be reviewed, not as a commentary, but as a biblical theology textbook. Many presuppositions are required in reading this commentary. One has to believe that Paul was familiar with the Biblical story (indeed, that the Old Testament even has an overarching narrative, and even if it does, that Paul was concerned about it). One has to believe that Paul saw the church as occupying a key space in God’s continuing narrative that began with Abraham (586).
Accordingly, I will not give a commentary on what Wright thought of each chapter. That is certainly possible and worthwhile, but it misses the narratival thrust of what St Paul is trying to say. Instead, I will highlight major themes and hermeneutical movements that Wright says Paul uses and see if they actually work.
The strength of NTW’s commentary is that his thesis tries to match up with what he deems St Paul’s thesis: God’s righteousness is unveiled in the death and resurrection of his Son—and this is the “gospel.” The Gospel is the resurrection and Lordship of Jesus Christ. St Paul does NOT define the gospel as "receiving the imputed righteousness of God by faith." Read the actual words of Romans 1:3-4, 16, and 17: The word "gospel" is used in connection with the death and resurrection of the Messiah. Verses 16 and 17 say that the revelation of God's rigtheousness (even assuming it means what Luther meant, which is easily contested) is a *subset* of the gospel, but iti s not strictly speaking "the gospel." Further, NTW shows how this theme controls the entire reading of Romans, as can be seen in the neat summary to the book found in chapter 15.
New Exodus, New Creation.
Wright suggests that chs. 3-8 of Romans form a narratival substructure. St Paul is paralleling the Christian experience with that of YHWH redeeming the Hebrews from Egypt. Wright notes, “Allowing for Paul’s new perspective, whereby the promise of the land has been redefined into the promise of inheriting the whole cosmos [4:13; 8:18-25], the pattern is exact” (511). The Israelites were in slavery; God’s people have been redeemed from slave masters (Romans 3:24; 6:16). Other verses could support the claim, and while Wright doesn’t spell out the argument here like in his earlier essay, it runs something like this: chapter 6: sin as a slave master = Egypt; chapter 7: Giving of Torah (ala Exodus 20) = new discussion of Torah and the problem of Torah; end of chapter 7 to 8:11: Israelites in wilderness = Christians being led by the Spirit to their inheritance (same language is used of Spirit as was used of glory cloud in the wanderings).
What do we make of this argument? Admittedly, it does have a remarkable unity to it. It places the drama of redemption on a cosmic field. It retells the Old Testament story but this time around the redemption won in Christ. It implicitly draws upon the strong philosophical and hermeneutical resources of “narrative.” But can we know for certain this is what Paul really meant? Maybe, maybe not. Can we know that Paul really meant us to read his letter like a scientific database to proof-text doctrines? Accepting or not accepting Wright’s argument depends on one’s own hermeneutical allowances.
I think there is a lot to be said for this argument. Israel was called to be the means through which God’s saving work was brought to the world. Yet, Israel became the problem and in a sense, it became the microcosm of the problem. Therefore, reading Romans as a narrative on Israel’s narrative makes sense.
Paul and Torah
Torah was God’s gift to Israel to be given to the world. Yet Torah soon was intertwined with the problem. Instead of dealing with sin, it highlighted the sin. There was no way for Israel to escape the dialectic. God’s son—God’s servant ala Isaiah 40-55—allowed Torah to reach a “critical point” on himself, focusing the world’s sins in one place, and dealing decisively with the sin problem once and for all through the death of the Messiah.
This helps us understand the “works of the law” debate. If works of the law is rightly identified with the rites of ethnic Israel—the boundary markers—then what Paul is saying makes sense. If salvation were through Torah, then the death and resurrection of the Messiah is meaningless. If salvation were through Torah and “identity markers,” then we can’t relate to God through faith. Later Protestant attempts to read “Roman Catholic merit theology” into the phrase “works of the law” destroys any meaning Paul gave to this passage.
Conclusion
This is one of those books that really deserves an extended commentary. It is full of rich insights that cannot be exhausted in one review. There are a few drawbacks, but that happens with any commentary. While the format of the NIB is generally good, the editors’ decision to use the two worst translations on the market (the NIV and the NRSV) as the translations in the text mar a lot of the work. Notwithstanding, this is a fine commentary.
In many ways, this is not so much a commentary but a daring exercise in biblical theology. And for that reason it will be reviewed, not as a commentary, but as a biblical theology textbook. Many presuppositions are required in reading this commentary. One has to believe that Paul was familiar with the Biblical story (indeed, that the Old Testament even has an overarching narrative, and even if it does, that Paul was concerned about it). One has to believe that Paul saw the church as occupying a key space in God’s continuing narrative that began with Abraham (586).
Accordingly, I will not give a commentary on what Wright thought of each chapter. That is certainly possible and worthwhile, but it misses the narratival thrust of what St Paul is trying to say. Instead, I will highlight major themes and hermeneutical movements that Wright says Paul uses and see if they actually work.
The strength of NTW’s commentary is that his thesis tries to match up with what he deems St Paul’s thesis: God’s righteousness is unveiled in the death and resurrection of his Son—and this is the “gospel.” The Gospel is the resurrection and Lordship of Jesus Christ. St Paul does NOT define the gospel as "receiving the imputed righteousness of God by faith." Read the actual words of Romans 1:3-4, 16, and 17: The word "gospel" is used in connection with the death and resurrection of the Messiah. Verses 16 and 17 say that the revelation of God's rigtheousness (even assuming it means what Luther meant, which is easily contested) is a *subset* of the gospel, but iti s not strictly speaking "the gospel." Further, NTW shows how this theme controls the entire reading of Romans, as can be seen in the neat summary to the book found in chapter 15.
New Exodus, New Creation.
Wright suggests that chs. 3-8 of Romans form a narratival substructure. St Paul is paralleling the Christian experience with that of YHWH redeeming the Hebrews from Egypt. Wright notes, “Allowing for Paul’s new perspective, whereby the promise of the land has been redefined into the promise of inheriting the whole cosmos [4:13; 8:18-25], the pattern is exact” (511). The Israelites were in slavery; God’s people have been redeemed from slave masters (Romans 3:24; 6:16). Other verses could support the claim, and while Wright doesn’t spell out the argument here like in his earlier essay, it runs something like this: chapter 6: sin as a slave master = Egypt; chapter 7: Giving of Torah (ala Exodus 20) = new discussion of Torah and the problem of Torah; end of chapter 7 to 8:11: Israelites in wilderness = Christians being led by the Spirit to their inheritance (same language is used of Spirit as was used of glory cloud in the wanderings).
What do we make of this argument? Admittedly, it does have a remarkable unity to it. It places the drama of redemption on a cosmic field. It retells the Old Testament story but this time around the redemption won in Christ. It implicitly draws upon the strong philosophical and hermeneutical resources of “narrative.” But can we know for certain this is what Paul really meant? Maybe, maybe not. Can we know that Paul really meant us to read his letter like a scientific database to proof-text doctrines? Accepting or not accepting Wright’s argument depends on one’s own hermeneutical allowances.
I think there is a lot to be said for this argument. Israel was called to be the means through which God’s saving work was brought to the world. Yet, Israel became the problem and in a sense, it became the microcosm of the problem. Therefore, reading Romans as a narrative on Israel’s narrative makes sense.
Paul and Torah
Torah was God’s gift to Israel to be given to the world. Yet Torah soon was intertwined with the problem. Instead of dealing with sin, it highlighted the sin. There was no way for Israel to escape the dialectic. God’s son—God’s servant ala Isaiah 40-55—allowed Torah to reach a “critical point” on himself, focusing the world’s sins in one place, and dealing decisively with the sin problem once and for all through the death of the Messiah.
This helps us understand the “works of the law” debate. If works of the law is rightly identified with the rites of ethnic Israel—the boundary markers—then what Paul is saying makes sense. If salvation were through Torah, then the death and resurrection of the Messiah is meaningless. If salvation were through Torah and “identity markers,” then we can’t relate to God through faith. Later Protestant attempts to read “Roman Catholic merit theology” into the phrase “works of the law” destroys any meaning Paul gave to this passage.
Conclusion
This is one of those books that really deserves an extended commentary. It is full of rich insights that cannot be exhausted in one review. There are a few drawbacks, but that happens with any commentary. While the format of the NIB is generally good, the editors’ decision to use the two worst translations on the market (the NIV and the NRSV) as the translations in the text mar a lot of the work. Notwithstanding, this is a fine commentary.
Currently Reading
November 2, 2009NT Wright's commentary on Romans was definitely a bit of a turn from what I've grown up with in reading various sermons/commentaries on this massive letter from Paul. It's hard not to get lost in his references to extrabiblical literature (Baruch, 4 Ezra, Maccabees), but that's just due to the fact that I have no education in these areas. His so-called 'redefinition' of the word(s) translated into the phrase "the righteousness of God" as "God's covenant faithfulness" has given me pause- and in spite of many fierce critics from the Reformed wing of Evangelicalism, I think that Wright's definition is not incorrect- but I think it's not necessarily complete either. This commentary is still teaching me lots that I've never understood before in Romans, and has made so much better sense of the letter as a whole, as opposed to breaking it up into sections supposing that Paul was jumping around talking about different things.
June 22, 2008
All three of the commentaries in this volume are excellent, but here's the real draw: N.T. Wright on Romans. Need I say more?
October 2, 2011
I got this to read N. T. Wright's extended commentary on Romans, which was just as spectacular as I expected it to be. If you want all the juicy typology and structure of Romans, here's your stop.
May 14, 2012
Wright's study of Romans is golden
September 19, 2013
Just read through Wright’s commentary on Romans. Best I’ve read on Romans.
January 27, 2015
bought this for N.T. Wright on Romans...excellent
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