Angus Paddison

Book Review: A Political Theology for Scotland: Doug Gay, Honey from the Lion: Christianity and the Ethics of NationalismGayDoug, Honey from the Lion: Christianity and the Ethics of Nationalism (London: SCM, 2013. £19.99. pp. ix + 207. ISBN: 978-0-334-0467-9).

that institution. Most of the contributors are exegetes, while several are theologians. They do not represent a single school of thought, but they are all committed to, in the editor’s apt description, ‘the effort to understand the relationship between divine activity and its human reception in a cosmos that remains contested territory’ (p. vii). The contents of the book unfold as follows: Martinus C. de Boer, ‘Paul’s Mythologizing Program in Romans 5-8,’ argues that Paul, so far from distilling the primitive kerygma to its existentialist core (as per Bultmann), actually adds a layer of cosmological myth to the Jewish apocalyptic tradition that he inherited. Stephen Westerholm, ‘Righteousness, Cosmic and Microcosmic,’ gives an account of dikaiosune, ‘righteousness’, in Paul, and explains how it pertains both to the whole order of things and to particular persons and their deeds. Benjamin Myers, ‘A Tale of Two Gardens: Augustine’s Narrative Interpretation of Romans 5’, defends Augustine from Krister Stendahl’s charge that he corrupts the Pauline gospel, arguing that Augustine rightly understands Rom. 5:12-21 as the story of humanity’s, and each human’s, transfer from life in Adam to life in Christ. John M. G. Barclay, ‘Under Grace: The Christ-Gift and the Construction of a Christian Habitus’, explicates the key term charis, ‘grace’, or, better, ‘gift’, in Rom. 6, arguing that for Paul the Christ gift is incongruous and unconditioned but not therefore unconditional. Beverly Roberts Gaventa, ‘The Shape of the ‘I’: The Psalter, the Gospel, and the Speaker in Romans 7’, argues that the notoriously difficult first-person discourse in Rom. 7 is literarily shaped by the first-person discourse of the Psalter, especially the psalms of lament. Susan Eastman, ‘Double Participation and the Responsible Self in Romans 5-8’, argues, in conversation with Bultmann and Käsemann, that Rom. 5-8 envisions the human both as an individual self and part of a world, and that both under sin and under grace. Philip G. Ziegler, ‘The Love of God Is a Sovereign Thing: The Witness of Romans 8:3139 and the Royal Office of Jesus Christ’, gives a dogmatic account of the munus regnum Christi in dialogue with Luther, Calvin, Barth, and Otto Weber, suggesting that Rom. 8 provides resources for overcoming recent objections to the doctrine. Neil Elliott, ‘Creation, Cosmos, and Conflict in Romans 8-9’, interprets the restoration of creation in Rom. 8 and the lament for Israel in Rom. 9 as a polemical foil to the Roman myth of creation and conquest represented on the Ara Pacis Augustae. Finally, J. Louis Martyn supplies an afterword, titled ‘The Human Moral Dilemma’, in which he assesses the contributions and predicts the ascendancy of their approach in Pauline studies in the years to come. I suspect that there are Paulinists in, say, New Haven, Copenhagen, or Jerusalem who might dispute this prediction, but the book certainly represents the best of its particular approach to Paul. It is characterized by a more markedly theological, even pious tone than many comparable volumes, but it is none the worse for that. The volume is a fitting tribute to the long, distinguished history of Pauline interpretation at Princeton Theological Seminary. Finally, it should be noted and appreciated that Baylor University Press have produced a handsome volume, generally free of typos, thoroughly indexed, and reasonably priced.

Book Review: THE FUTURE OF THE UNITED REFORMED WORSHIP? Ernest Marvin, Shaping Up: Re-forming Reformed Worship (United Reformed Church, 2005. £14.99. pp. xiv + 180. ISBN 0—853—46238—0)

critique of his conclusions by Graham Davies in his article in Wisdom in ancient Israel [CUP, 1995]). Similarly, in the chapter on the ancient Near East, he decides that influence can be no earlier than 700 bc, a seemingly arbitrary date. He plays down the issue of formal influence of texts, one upon another, seeing even the Amenemope material as ‘weak evidence for any formal sharing of texts across the cultures’ (p .57). He writes, ‘The case for direct influence must always be qualified by the realization that humans come up with the same rather obvious truths quite spontaneously over and over again!’ (p. 61) Two chapters follow on Proverbs in which he argues that the author of the opening chapters (in this case 1–9) is the controlling mind of the whole – the other chapters of Proverbs are, as a result of this rather sweeping presupposition, given short shrift. He draws out the more theological aspects of this section of the text and briefly discusses key passages. On woman wisdom and her counterpart, he follows the idea of two contrasting goddess figures and makes the surprising statement that ‘Jews of that time would not have been likely to have been disturbed by the idea of a goddess’ (p. 107). Surely such a threat to monotheism, as established by post-exilic times, would have been highly problematic? His analysis of Proverbs 8:22–31 concludes that there are more questions than answers (a turn of phrase used a number of times in this book) which is no doubt true, but his method here, and elsewhere, seems to be to throw up the questions without really offering any satisfactory solutions. Two chapters on Job point out its similar worldview – particularly on ‘this life’ being all there is – to present day beliefs. Hunter resists the attempt to categorize Job into one or more theological theme such as ‘theodicy’ or ‘suffering’. He makes the following interesting suggestion: ‘Might not the drama of Job as a whole be interpreted as a journey from a peculiarly egocentric notion of righteousness to an integrated, balanced view of one’s role as servant of God in relationship to others?’ (p. 139). He suggests that only when Job abandons his isolated position does he start to relate to his challengers and gains meaning in his situation. He sees the Elihu speeches and God speeches as making Job listen, rather than the dialogues in which Job answers back. In the chapter on Qoheleth there is a particular emphasis on the links to Genesis 1–11 and an interesting chart on the echoes of the Cain and Abel story in the reflections of Ecclesiastes 4:1–4. The chapter on Ben Sira helpfully highlights key passages that assist in the navigation of this long and complex book. There is a curious third section on folk tales which is not really linked in by Hunter to his wisdom discussion and thus seems misplaced in a wisdom introduction. Overall I found this book rather disjointed – it discusses the major issues in the scholarship, but it tends to throw up possibilities without offering solutions and chapters sometimes peter out without a firm conclusion. At the end of each chapter ‘points to think about’ are offered, as well as a bibliography which could be a useful study aid to students. KATHARINE J. DELL St Catharine’s College, Cambridge

The Nature of Preaching and the Gospel of John

This article explores a positive ontology of the preaching act. What is preaching? Answering this question with the Fourth Gospel open on the desk I put forward a proposal for how preaching ‘works’ by matching it up to the revealing activity of the triune God. Two theses are advanced: (1) the power of preaching is the presence of the ascended and ruling Christ, and (2) preaching is an occasion through which the Spirit draws us into the conversation of the Trinity.

Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Romans 9–11 in the Light of Jewish–Christian Understanding:

This article focuses on Karl Barth’s exegesis of Rom. 9–11 in Church Dogmatics II/2. After locating Barth’s contribution both within its original context and within Barthian scholarship, the article moves to a reading of Barth’s exegesis. The importance of Barth’s theological exegesis is his insistence that we engage with the subject matter of Paul’s text. In this cause I expose Barth’s exegesis of Rom. 9–11 to two questions inspired by the quest for improved Jewish–Christian understanding. First, what kind of contribution to Jewish–Christian understanding might Barth’s exegesis make? Second, what theological, hermeneutical and ethical issues does Barth’s example provoke us to think about in relation to reading Rom. 9–11? Barth’s exegetical legacy, I conclude, contains both promise and risk, a feature that demonstrates faithfulness to the destabilizing ways of Rom. 9–11.