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Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
This thoroughly revised and reset new edition of a popular commentary on a favourite Epistle amends and expands in the light of the scholarship of recent years. It is concerned not only with the questions of the time at which the Epistle was written and the meaning that the workds had for St Paul and the community to whom it was addressed, but also the particular message that the Epistle has for the present day.
294 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
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September 22, 2021
Bible commentaries are seldom for actual reading, any more than dictionaries are; however I've often felt Romans is such a difficult book that it warranted it in this case. I happened to inherit this commentary rather than purchasing one of the best rated modern one, and having no comparison available I can only say I was really impressed by the analysis of this 1962 edition. Barrett truly was a great biblical scholar, in no way tied to an era of critical thinking. In many ways what Barrett does is likely better than the more modern works, which by academic necessity (snobbishness) are all over long and over encumbered with footnotes as tributes to other academics. In contrast this is clean and direct, taking a fresh look at the original manuscripts. However the only gripe I might have is that when the Greek is mentioned it would have been nice to have the transliteration as well as the actual Greek scripts included.
Despite what many say, Romans is not the culmination of Paul's theological thinking, nor 'the greatest theological construct ever' at all; but rather pulling together a number of embryonic ideas and concepts that Paul had used in his dialectic exchanges as evangelist to the Greek world, often against the local Jews. Page 43, Barrett says, "It often becomes easier to follow Paul's arguments is the reader imagines the apostle face to face with a heckler, who makes interjections and receives replies which sometimes are withering and brusque". In this Barrett has revealed the key to understanding Romans. What we actually have here, is Paul dictating a series of loosely connected (tenuously tied together) recent exchanges of debate, which he believes will be relevant and useful to the Roman church.
Therefore often in Romans we find structure and flow, even logic; very obscure and difficult to connect together. At times there is even looseness in the text where meaning (even in the direction of heresy) could be misconstrued. No wonder even Peter writes that Paul's writings are sometimes difficult to understand (2 Peter 3) - no more clearly than here in Romans! So, the wording is sometimes obscure, awkward, difficult or of imprecise meaning - and Barrett does a great job of getting to the overall structure and the actual meaning. Really much of Romans comes down to understanding and defining key words - 'grace', 'faith', 'justification', 'righteousness'.
In general the popularly understood meaning of Romans as interpreted by Luther and Calvin generally is correct, albeit that particularly Calvin bases his predestination arguments on the easier portions of Romans rather than the more difficult chapters 1 to say 7. However it is really in the finer nuances of meaning that Barrett discusses in these earlier chapters that we see the real value of Romans; and how our modern church thinking based so heavily of the early modern reformation lacks the depth of Gods truth, relevant so much for the modern mind.
On the whole Romans is most difficult in the early chapters and this is where Barrett has excelled. Where the meaning is obvious a commentary is less needed and from chapter 12 there is less for Barrett to say although he still has to fill in the space. This is itself (although Barrett doesn't mention it) an interesting aspect to Romans - the first part of Romans is the difficult part whereby it seems Paul is throwing in complex arguments with tricky connections, but as the book proceeds (perhaps as Paul moves from recounting third party debates and into direct messages to the actual Romans) the whole tone becomes simpler, the terminologies less technical and more towards exhortation than theology.
This commentary helped me with Romans far more than I had a right to expect; and there remains enough here that I will need to come back to Barrett again and again over the years.
Despite what many say, Romans is not the culmination of Paul's theological thinking, nor 'the greatest theological construct ever' at all; but rather pulling together a number of embryonic ideas and concepts that Paul had used in his dialectic exchanges as evangelist to the Greek world, often against the local Jews. Page 43, Barrett says, "It often becomes easier to follow Paul's arguments is the reader imagines the apostle face to face with a heckler, who makes interjections and receives replies which sometimes are withering and brusque". In this Barrett has revealed the key to understanding Romans. What we actually have here, is Paul dictating a series of loosely connected (tenuously tied together) recent exchanges of debate, which he believes will be relevant and useful to the Roman church.
Therefore often in Romans we find structure and flow, even logic; very obscure and difficult to connect together. At times there is even looseness in the text where meaning (even in the direction of heresy) could be misconstrued. No wonder even Peter writes that Paul's writings are sometimes difficult to understand (2 Peter 3) - no more clearly than here in Romans! So, the wording is sometimes obscure, awkward, difficult or of imprecise meaning - and Barrett does a great job of getting to the overall structure and the actual meaning. Really much of Romans comes down to understanding and defining key words - 'grace', 'faith', 'justification', 'righteousness'.
In general the popularly understood meaning of Romans as interpreted by Luther and Calvin generally is correct, albeit that particularly Calvin bases his predestination arguments on the easier portions of Romans rather than the more difficult chapters 1 to say 7. However it is really in the finer nuances of meaning that Barrett discusses in these earlier chapters that we see the real value of Romans; and how our modern church thinking based so heavily of the early modern reformation lacks the depth of Gods truth, relevant so much for the modern mind.
On the whole Romans is most difficult in the early chapters and this is where Barrett has excelled. Where the meaning is obvious a commentary is less needed and from chapter 12 there is less for Barrett to say although he still has to fill in the space. This is itself (although Barrett doesn't mention it) an interesting aspect to Romans - the first part of Romans is the difficult part whereby it seems Paul is throwing in complex arguments with tricky connections, but as the book proceeds (perhaps as Paul moves from recounting third party debates and into direct messages to the actual Romans) the whole tone becomes simpler, the terminologies less technical and more towards exhortation than theology.
This commentary helped me with Romans far more than I had a right to expect; and there remains enough here that I will need to come back to Barrett again and again over the years.
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