Divine and Human Agency in Paul and His Cultural Environment
Overview
Since the work of E.P. Sanders, most modern approaches to the question of divine and human agency have focused on social or sociological aspects of the issue (particularly in relation to Paul’s temporary social and religious settings mission to the Gentiles). However, the last few years have seen an increasing willingness to open up questions seemingly ’settled’ in the New Perspective, and a renewed desire to examine the structures of theology concerning grace and human action both in Paul and in his contemporary Judaism.
It seems now worthwhile to examine to what extent there was an internal debate within Judaism about divine grace and its relation to human agency, and whether this debate could or did spawn various more or less radical solutions. The aim of this volume is to re-examine Paul within contemporary Jewish debate on this topic, attuned to the significant theological issues he raises without imposing upon him the frameworks developed in later Christian thought.
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Looking for more divine sovereignty and human agency? check out the Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought (14 vols.) series.
- Re-evaluates the conclusion of the New Perspective on Paul
- Places Paul’s thought in his contemporary social and religious setting
- Zooms in on the question of divine versus human agency in light of modern research
- “Inner-Jewish Debate on the Tension between Divine and Human Agency in Second-Temple Judaism” by Gabriele Boccaccin
- “Predestination and Free Will in the Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls” by Philip Alexander
- “The Tension between God’s Command and Israel’s Obedience as Reflected in the Early Rabbinic Literature” by Friedrich Avemarie
- “Paul’s Anthropological 'Pessimism' in its Jewish Context” by Stephen Westerholm
- “Constructing an Antithesis: Pauline and other Jewish Perspectives on Divine and Human Agency” by Francis Watson
- “Self-sufficiency and Power: Divine and Human Agency in Epictetus and Paul” by Troels Engberg-Pedersen
- “‘By the Grace of God I am what I am’: Grace and Agency in Philo and Paul” by John Barclay
- “Sin in God’s Economy: Agencies in Romans 1 and 7” by Simon Gathercole
- “Epilogue: An Essay in Pauline Meta-ethics” by J. Louis Martyn
Top Highlights
“Chester again rightly argues that the motif of ‘deception’ in Rom. 7:11 strongly suggests that ‘the pre-conversion self portrayed in Rom. 7 [is] a victim of unrecognised sin’” (Page 168)
“But here everything depends on how one conceives the ‘human agent’ reconstituted in Christ” (Page 156)
“The second model presents divine and human agency as related to one another by kinship” (Page 6)
“The first model—and the one that occurs most naturally to the modern mind—places divine and human agency in an essentially competitive relationship: the more that one is said to be effective, the less can be attributed to the other. Because they operate in inverse proportion, the greater the affirmation of God’s power (in strength or scope), the more inconsequential must be human agency; and conversely, the more human agency is increased, the more God’s agency is limited. Divine sovereignty and human freedom are thus mutually exclusive; human freedom must be understood as freedom from God.” (Page 6)
“Paul, grace is revealed and enacted in the Christ-event, and thus as an eschatological event of new creation” (Page 157)
This book’s strength rests in the mature reflection of seasoned scholars, who provide even-handed conclusions and avoid unnecessary speculation. The broad coverage of texts makes this work a valuable addition to researchers working within Pauline studies, as well as theological studies within the fields of soteriology and theological anthropology.
—J. Brian Tucker, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
These are all fascinating and thought-provoking contributions, and serve to highlight the fact that the issue of the interaction of divine and human agency was of considerable importance to both Paul and other contemporaneous writers.
—Gary W. Burnett, Journal for the Study of the New Testament
- Title: Divine and Human Agency in Paul and His Cultural Environment
- Authors: John M. G. Barclay, Simon Gathercole
- Publisher: T&T Clark
- Print Publication Date: 2008
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Pages: 218
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible. N.T. Epistles of Paul › Theology; Bible. N.T. Epistles of Paul › Criticism, interpretation, etc; Asthenia › Biblical teaching; Free will and determinism › Biblical teaching
- ISBNs: 9780567084439, 0567084434
- Resource ID: LLS:DVNHMNGNCYPLHSC
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T23:25:49Z
Simon Gathercole Simon Gathercole is senior lecturer in New Testament studies in the faculty of divinity of the University of Cambridge and fellow and director of studies in theology at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. A leading British New Testament scholar, he has written hundreds of articles and several groundbreaking volumes, including The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Where Is Boasting?: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1–5, Heaven on Earth: The Temple in Biblical Theology, and Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul.
John Barclay is Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham, succeeding the position held by James D.G. Dunn. He is the author of Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora, Paul and the Gift, Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire, and Colossians and Philemon, part of the T & T Clark Bible Guides Collection.