Friday, August 27, 2010

Paul's use of the the Old Testament

When Paul quotes Scripture, he regularly intends to refer, not simply to the actual words quoted, but to the whole passage. Again and again, when you look up the chapter from which the quotation is taken, a flood of light streams back onto Paul's actual argument. Among many favorite examples, I mention 2 Corinthians 4:13. "We have the same spirit of faith," declares Paul, "in accordance with Scripture--'I believed, and so I spoke'--we also believe, and so we speak." What does the quotation of Psalm 116:10 add to his argument? Surely believing-and-so-speaking is rather obvious? Isn't that what one normally does? Yes, but look at the whole psalm--the one we know as 116 in the Hebrew and English, divided into two in the Septuagint. It is a prayer of one who is suffering terribly, but who trusts in God and is delivered. In other words, it is exactly the prayer of someone in the situation of Paul in 2 Corinthians 4. Paul has the whole Psalm in mind, and wants his readers to catch the "echoes" of it as well.

N.T. Wright, Justification (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), 33.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The Fragility of Words

Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, 1.5 in Wright, Justification, 86

"Natural" Readings

...What seems "ordinary" or "natural" as a reading of a particular biblical text may owe everything to habituation within a tradition (Think of the medieval reading of "repent" as "do penance"!) and nothing to actual awareness of what Paul was talking about. The legend that makes the point most strikingly is the Calvinist commentator who headed the story of Salome's dance and the Baptist's beheading as "the dangers of dancing." That seemed natural enough at the time.

N.T. Wright, Justification (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), 83.

Finishing the sentence began by exegesis with theology...

The church can and must, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, develop words, concepts, discourse of all sorts, out beyond the narrow confines of exegesis. That is what happened with Athanasius, holding out for the nonbliblical term homoousion to express, against Arius, the radically biblical view of the divinity of Jesus Christ. We cannot reduce the task of theology to that of biblical commentary.

N.T. Wright, Justification (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), 81.