Romans: A Commentary (The New Testament Library | NTL)

by Beverly Roberts Gaventa

Publisher:

Westminster John Knox

, 2024

Overview

In this new contribution to the New Testament Library, renowned New Testament scholar Beverly Roberts Gaventa offers a fresh account of Paul’s Letter to the Romans as an event, both in the sense that it reflects a particular historical moment in Paul’s labors and in the sense that it reflects the event God brings about in the gospel Paul represents.

Attention to that dual sense of event means that Gaventa attends to the literary, historical, and theological features of the letter.

Throughout the commentary, Gaventa keeps in view central questions of what Paul hoped the letter might accomplish among its listeners in Rome and how his auditors might have heard it when read by Phoebe. In posing potential answers to these questions, Gaventa touches on vital themes such as the intrusion of the gospel of Jesus Christ that prompts Paul to write in the first place, what that event reveals about the situation of all creation, how it relates to both Israel and the Gentiles, and what its implications are for life in faith.

The New Testament Library series offers authoritative commentary on every book and major aspect of the New Testament, providing fresh translations based on the best available ancient manuscripts, critical portrayals of the historical world in which the books were created, careful attention to their literary design, and a theologically perceptive exposition of the biblical text. The contributors are scholars of international standing. The editorial board consists of C. Clifton Black, Princeton Theological Seminary; John T. Carroll, Union Presbyterian Seminary; and Susan E. Hylen, Candler School of Theology, Emory University.

Key Features

• Offers a fresh account of Paul’s Letter to the Romans as an event
• Focuses on the literary, historical, and theological features of the letter
• Provides a fresh translation based on the best available ancient manuscripts, critical portrayals of the historical world in which the books were created

Praise for Romans: A Commentary

Beverly Gaventa’s commentary on Romans is a special event. It evidences, as it carefully works through Paul’s text, her trademark accuracy and lucidity. And it engages the secondary literature with a masterful touch; only the most influential and helpful insights are noted and engaged. The result is a commentary that combines to an unusual degree clarity, economy, and profundity. These features of her commentary alone warrant our gratitude. What marks her reading as special for me, however, is the role played by powerful theological claims. Following in the footsteps of her mentor, Lou Martyn, the result is—although here, and finally here, for Romans—a gripping challenge from a divine word that reveals itself within history. And so the word that first challenged the Roman Christians as they listened to Paul’s letter being presented by Phoebe—and also had some of its more difficult paragraphs explained—reaches out again through Gaventa’s presentation to challenge its readers today, who listen to Paul by way of this signally-important, modern letter-bearer and her explanations.

—Douglas A. Campbell, Professor of New Testament, Duke Divinity School

In this superb commentary, Beverly Gaventa skillfully cuts her own path through the thicket of scholarly debates about Romans, offering many fresh readings of the letter in a clear and uncluttered style. Her deep resonance with Paul and her many theological insights provide a compelling interpretation of Romans, presented in an accessible form that will be highly welcome to scholars, students, and church leaders alike.

—John M.G. Barclay, Lightfoot Professor of Divinity, Durham University

After decades of carefully viewing Paul’s Letter to the Romans through a jeweler’s loupe, the celebrated New Testament scholar Beverly Roberts Gaventa now holds this great document up for all to see. She turns it like a diamond in the light, allowing the literary structure, the rhetorical force, the theological depth, the social import, and other facets of Romans to flash in all their brilliance. Readers of this superb commentary will be engaged by the scholarly discussion of this letter over the centuries and they will also feel the beauty and power of Romans itself, both for its own day and in ours. In Gaventa’s hands, the text of Romans is luminescent, by its own light but also through the brighter light of the gospel that shines through it.

—Thomas G. Long, Bandy Professor Emeritus of Preaching, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

Product Details

• Title: Romans: A Commentary
• Author: Beverly Roberts Gaventa
• Edition: First edition
• Series: The New Testament Library
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox
• Print Publication Date: 2024
• Logos Release Date: 2024
• Pages: 492
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Bible. N.T. Romans › Commentaries
• ISBNs: 9780664221003, 0664221009
• Resource ID: LLS:NTL66RO
• Resource Type: Bible Commentary
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-09-19T16:35:56Z

About Beverly Roberts Gaventa

Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Princeton Theological Seminary’s Helen H.P. Manson Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis, specializes in the Pauline epistles and in Luke-Acts with an emphasis on theological interpretation. She holds an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in New York, a Ph.D. from Duke University, an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Kalamazoo College, and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Christian Theological Seminary. She is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church. Her courses include Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Women and the Letters of Paul, and Paul and Karl (co-taught with Professor Bruce McCormack.) She is currently at work on a commentary on Romans.