Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary behind the Church's Conservative Icon. By Marcus J Borg & John Dominic Crossan

2009; Wiley; Volume: 50; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1468-2265.2009.00523_25.x

1468-2265

Geoffrey Turner,

Theology and Canon Law Studies

Pp.vi, 230 . SPCK , London , 2009 , £8.99. The overblown subtitle of this jointly authored book is unnecessarily iconoclastic but the aim is to read Paul afresh detached from later traditions. It is ‘reception history’ in reverse. The book is directed at non-academic readers who are first shown how to read one of Paul's letters in the context of other letters of the time. We are then directed to ‘three Pauls’: the radical Paul of the seven authentic letters (on slavery and patriarchy in particular), the conservative Paul of the doubtful letters, and the reactionary Paul of Ephesians and the Pastoral Epistles which are not by Paul. But the authors go further; they want to defend Paul's understanding of the cross and sacrifice from Anselm and Catholic tradition, and Paul's idea of justification from Luther and later evangelical tradition. I always look askance at any writer who says that everyone has misunderstood such-and-such an author until me, but Borg and Crossan do succeed in offering a consistent interpretation of Paul in the round. That is, they look at the wholeness of Paul's thinking in a concise way and they focus on Paul's own writings, especially Romans and Galatians. The authors are particularly good at contrasting Paul's christology with the imperial theology of Rome that lauded the emperor as saviour, son of god, Lord, and a god to whom prayers and sacrifices were to be offered. The political dimension of Paul's gospel is brought out, in which the imperial pattern of salvation/peace coming through war and victory is replaced by peace through non-violence and justice. And in which retributive justice (punishing enemies and wrong-doers) in the empire is replaced by distributive justice (sharing resources equitably) in the Church. Paul's eschatology is shown to be directly comparable with Jesus' vision of the kingdom which focus God's great cleaning-up of this world, which was primarily the world of Rome. To that extent Paul had a very dangerous message, yet his fear was not that Christians will be killed but that they will conform to Roman standards and themselves kill in rebellion against Rome. Borg and Crossan explain that when Paul says we have to work out our salvation in fear and trembling this ‘is not because God will punish us if we fail, but because the world will punish us if we succeed’. If true, this suggests that there have not been enough martyrs in the Church. The authors – one Lutheran, one Catholic – think that Luther's presentation of justification sola fide presents a false problem. But the reader might hesitate over the way they try to cut through the problem by insisting that in Paul faith means faith-with-works, while works means works-without-faith. It is all too neat and Paul does not actually say that. It looks as though all references to eating meals in Paul are about the Eucharist and yet when 1 Cor 11 criticises those who eat and drink in an unworthy manner, failing to discern the body ‘refers to the community as the body of Christ. The way the Lord's Supper was being practiced in Corinth denied the equality of life ‘in Christ’’. When the richness of Paul's ‘in Christ’ language is reduced to ‘shorthand for Paul's vision of Christian community’ we suspect that the multi-dimensionality of Paul is being reduced to something which is not wrong but is limited. What emerges is a Paul with a vision of social justice, in contradistinction to Rome's imperium, that is consistent with the picture of Jesus, the crucified (but not risen) teacher of Crossan's earlier books. Is there life beyond the grave in this account of Paul? It is not clear, but probably not, despite 1 Cor 15. This is not a misconceived book on Paul; it is full of insights and adds a dimension to conventional interpretations, while correcting some old misunderstandings. Some will be drawn to its social and political dimension, others will have some reservations, but all its readers will be made to reflect about some of Paul's own words.