Michael L. Cook

Book Review: Paul, The Pagans’ Apostle. By Paula FredriksenPaul, The Pagans’ Apostle. By FredriksenPaula. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017. Pp. xii + 319.

focus on the Son of Man is his humanity and his denial of the presence of the Son of Man concept behind 17:1, 5; 11:4; and 20:17. If it is there, then clearly exaltation and glorification have to include more than a reference to Jesus’ death, as M. has argued, but include also his ascent and return to glory. But flexibility and openness are the marks of good scholarship and accordingly in “The Johannine Son of Man Revisited,” on these texts and the possibility that the Son of Man cluster of ideas lies behind them he writes, “If there is no distinction between the Johannine use of ‘the Son of Man’ and ‘the Son (of God)’ language, then this is a logical and justifiable conclusion . . . My earlier work created the false impression that the Johannine Son (of God) and Son of Man Christologies were to be radically separated. This position misunderstands the unity of the Johannine Christology that should not be broken into separate compartments” (196). These are but ripples on pools of wisdom that are to be found in M.’s expositions of John, including those of this volume, not to speak of his two commentaries on John. He has divided this collection into three sections: the Johannine world; Johannine theology; and the Johannine text, full of rich exegetical insights. Among these I would highlight his treatment of John 2–4 and his discussion of John 6 and the Eucharist in the Johannine community. It is enormously valuable to have not only these pieces but also M.’s retrospective reflection on all this work which he includes in the opening chapter along with his conclusions about both the Gospel’s structure and message and its likely historical context. Here is sane, balanced, engaged scholarship at its best.

35.

“This book addresses our cultural amnesia” (1). Through a historical study of the first three centuries of early Christianity, Hurtado emphasizes how distinctive, indeed unusual, bizarre, and offensive the early Jesus movement was to the sensibilities of the Roman era as contrasted to how commonplace the Christian religion has become for our contemporary religious understanding. The most striking feature was the accusation of atheism because Christians refused to worship the traditional gods. The Jewish tradition was exceptional because it was considered to have its own ethnic identity with its own god. However, the Jesus movement especially in the Pauline communities was Gentile and they were expected to observe traditional piety, “a readiness to show appropriate reverence for the gods, any and all the gods” (48). Refusing to do so was socially offensive especially among friends, families, and other associations. It could also lead to martyrdom. The most distinctive feature of Christianity, however, was the inclusion of Jesus in the worship of the God of Israel. God who created the world so loved the world that he gave his only Son that we might have eternal life and might live “an answering ‘love ethic’ characterizing Christian conduct” (65). The Jesus movement quickly became “translocal and transethnic” (67), including women, slaves, and children. It shared the traditional Jewish exclusivity regarding the one God but it reached out to include all, even the most humble, as recipients of God’s love. Given the diversity of movements within early Christianity, the catholic or orthodox tradition also had to establish unity within a legitimate diversity, for example the various letters and the four Gospels. H. develops many other related themes, such as the importance of “textuality” (141) and the “novel social project” of ethical behavior for the ordinary person reflected in the “household codes” (181), especially regarding sexuality. The book is not a “technical monograph” but is intended for a wide readership (xiii). The abundant notes will help those who want to pursue the issues further. I highly recommend it.

Book Review: Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World. By Larry W. HurtadoDestroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World. By HurtadoLarry W.. Waco, TX: Baylor University, 2016. Pp. xiv + 290.

distinction between nature and grace and looks to an alternative to modernity. It also opposes correlational moves between theology and liberal-democratic theory. The remaining essays treat postcolonial theology, Scripture’s role in public theology, and the contrast between Augustine and Aquinas (in an essay that stresses virtue ethics in both). An astute essay by William Cavanaugh, “Political Theology as Threat,” takes up views which would overly privatize religion in liberal democratic societies and any attempt to over-absolutize the religious–secular distinction. The volume does not pay much attention to feminist or African and Asian public theologies, but it would make a useful text for courses in political theology (and comes in a less expensive paperback edition).

29.95.

I am sympathetic to K.’s argument and think he has done as well as anyone I know in making the case for the impoverished nature of the disengaged stance as well as for the richness of premodern Greek and Christian reflection on these questions. My only negative criticism concerns his treatment of Descartes and, to a lesser extent, Aquinas. Voltaire said that “if God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him”; and I sometimes think that for many contemporary writers in philosophy and theology, the same goes for Descartes. What would authors like K. do without such a perfect foil against which to direct their arguments? My problem with this is that Descartes becomes a straw man, and the deeply meditative, even Augustinian, character of some of his major work is downplayed, if not overlooked. Descartes was not being ironic when he titled one of his major works Meditations. My reservation with regard to K.’s approach to Aquinas is that he exaggerates the limiting consequences of Aquinas’s epistemological stance. Where K. tends to see in Aquinas’s view a human nature hampered in the pursuit of its final end by an intrinsic finitude, others might argue that Aquinas is emphasizing the joy of coming to know God’s creation through sense and understanding. But these criticisms should in no way detract from the overall excellence of K.’s work.

Book Review: An Unexpected Wilderness. Christianity and the Natural World. Edited by Colleen Mary CarpenterAn Unexpected Wilderness. Christianity and the Natural World. Edited by CarpenterColleen Mary. College Theology Society Annual Publication, Vol. 61. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2015. Pp. xxvii + 209.

Alexandria is mentioned repeatedly throughout the text, but his contribution to the development of Nicene orthodoxy is covered in little more than a page (190–91), while the discussion of the Apostolic Tradition and the Didascalia Apostolorum occupies more than four pages (191–96). The volume’s more original contribution lies in the “guidelines” for readers setting out to find their way in the world of early Christian literature. For instance, P. invites his audience to reflect on the gradual shift in meaning of basic terms such as “church” or “scripture” (7–9), and outlines the different causes leading to outbreaks of persecutions throughout the second and third centuries (10–14, 156–68, 177–79). The introduction includes a number of “caveats” (2) warning readers not to draw hasty conclusions from the texts they engage: “do not assume uniformity of development”; “do not assume that something is new the first time it is mentioned”; and most importantly, “do not assume that the content of early Christian documents is raw information” (2–6). Chapter 6 contains an interesting survey of the development of the New Testament canon and an outline of different stages in the development of patristic exegesis that are taken up again by tables 2 and 3 in the last section of the volume (233–35). While some of P.’s claims are somewhat idiosyncratic—did the Antiochean School really experience such a clear-cut “reaction against allegory” (136)?—his outlines, as well as the charts and the tables that accompany the volume, will be of great use to students of this period. Similarly, in the last chapter, an agile overview of a few “ongoing themes”—such as anthropology, ecclesiology, and Christology—will help readers move with confidence from the pre-Nicene authors to the era of the great trinitarian and christological controversies of Constantinople and Chalcedon, as well as to the later syntheses of the Scholastic period. For the foreseeable future, John Behr’s The Way to Nicaea (2001) and the first volume of Pelikan’s The Christian Tradition (1971) are likely to remain the most important scholarly explorations of the first centuries of the Christian era. P.’s volume, however, will provide a helpful aide-mémoire for anyone looking for an overview of this period, while also serving as a useful teaching tool for undergraduate and graduate students who are exploring the pre-Nicene era for the first time.

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The article explores the African experience of Jesus in an objective and subjective sense. Under the rubrics of missionary, biblical, and independent experience, how Africans have experienced Jesus centers on the question whether and how Jesus can be said to have moved from being a stranger or guest to being kin and finally host. How Jesus has experienced Africa is a matter of the “paschal imagination” perceived as the re-creation and transformation of human life, the esthetic celebration of life, and the need for a socially responsible church.

Book Review: The Wisdom of the Liminal: Evolution and Other Animals in Human Becoming. By Celia Deane-DrummondThe Wisdom of the Liminal: Evolution and Other Animals in Human Becoming. By Deane-DrummondCelia. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014. Pp. xii + 346.

motivation and justification, even if several of his claims invite rejoinder and demand further nuance. This would be a more helpful book if S. were a bit more frank about the debts he owes to his predecessors. There is a lot more Hume, Kant, Habermas, and Derek Parfit in these pages than is explicitly acknowledged, and more frequent reference to their writings would clarify the treatment of numerous issues encountered in the course of S.s main argument. Despite displaying much welcome originality, S. is not creating a new landscape but following the contours of a well-mapped terrain. Bernard Williams emerges as the primary opponent of S., and it is perhaps wise that S. segregates into an appendix a long response to Williamss claims about subjective conditions rather than external reasons accounting for all of our moral judgments. For a serious work of moral philosophy, this volume is quite userfriendly, employing frequent insightful illustrations and colorful examples and a minimum of technical jargon. S. is conscientious in presenting a clear roadmap that guides us through each chapter, and the destination justifies the expedition.