All the Fullness of God: The Christ of Colossians by Bonnie Bowman Thurston (review)

Abstract

tung des Corpus Pastorale im zweiten Viertel des 2. Jahrhunderts n.Chr.” [A new proposal: a historical and theological location of the Corpus Pastorale in the second quarter of the second century c.e.]. This is in many ways the most interesting chapter, because it brings together in summary all the preceding details as they bear on the opening question and its corollaries: Do the Pastorals (together with the Ignatians and the Acta Pauli) have as their goal a “de-Judaizing” of Paul, or is Israel simply out of the picture by this time? A related issue is the “organizational history” of the church and the role of the Pastorals in advancing the monepiscopate and hierarchical order. (At several points throughout the book T. has pointed to the anti-woman intent and outcome of the hierarchical model promoted by the Pastorals.) The eleventh and final chapter then, as mentioned, addresses (quite acerbically!) the issue of “canonical” reading in light of the obvious pseudonymity of some writings. Israel-Vergessenheit presents some of the best of contemporary German scholarship; T. incorporates multiple references to English-language writers as well. It is an intriguing contribution to the roiling debate about the dating of some of the NT writings. In a forthcoming commentary on Acts, I will argue that, while Acts does not use the Pastorals or the Pastorals refer to Acts, the two works are warring arguments on the subject of church organization and leadership. Early-second-century Asia Minor, and especially Ephesus, where many works seem to have been composed, must have been a colorful mosaic (not to say battleground!) of competing theological opinions—Johannine, Lucan, Pauline, pseudoPauline, rabbinic (for, as we are now coming to see, the “ways had [not yet? never?] parted”). The triumph of the Pastoral-Ignatian position, and the acceptance of the Pastorals as genuinely representing Paul’s viewpoint, was indeed an important part of the process of “deJudaizing” the ancient church, with its fatal consequences. Thus, T. concludes his book: “But if Israel is the ‘root’ that constantly infuses the church with new life and ‘nourishes’ its prayerand faith-life, it is our obligation to oppose every kind of forgetfulness of Israel, and of Jerusalem, in church and theology, even when we already find the beginnings of such things—for example, in the canonical Pastoral Epistles—in the New Testament” (p. 389; my translation).