Paper Abstracts for 2009 SBL Annual Meeting

Paul's Reliance on Scripture in 1 Thessalonians
E. Elizabeth Johnson, Columbia Theological Seminary

Although Paul uses a good bit of what we recognize as biblical language and several phrases that seem to echo the Bible in 1 Thessalonians, nowhere does he quote scripture as he does in the Hauptbriefe. This essay seeks to understand how the scattered echoes and allusions to scripture in 1 Thessalonians demonstrate the shape of Paul's apocalyptic theology, whether or not those echoes and allusions would have been recognized by his Thessalonian listeners.


The Use of Scripture in Philippians: How Deep Should We Dig?
Stephen E. Fowl, Loyola College in Maryland

There are very few direct citations of Scripture in Philippians. Indeed, the use of Job 13:16 often passes unnoticed and Isa. 45:23 is incorporated into the so-called hymn of 2:6-11. At the same time an attentive reader can dig beneath the surface of Philippians to find a variety of Scriptural passages and themes lying beneath the surface. This raises a variety of interpretive questions about where and how deep one should dig and to what purpose. This paper will both display some of the Scriptural echoes in Philippians and examine how the excavation process might or might not shape interpretation of the epistle.


Writing "In the Image" of Scripture: The Form and Function of Allusions to Scripture in Colossians
Jerry L. Sumney, Lexington Theological Seminary

This paper will examine the mostly opaque allusions to Scripture that appear in Colossians. It will consider what such allusions, that the author never identifies as citations, may suggest about how the writer and readers might have prior knowledge of the citation and how these allusions function in the argument (and perhaps in the preformed material in which they appear). We will see what light this might shed on the knowledge and function of Scripture in the church the letter addresses.


God's Sure Foundation: "Paul's" Use of Scripture in 2 Timothy
Gordon D. Fee, Regent College

2 Timothy has relatively few direct references to Scripture, though still more than the two unquestioned letters of 1 Thessalonians and Philippians. This paper examines the various uses of Scripture in 2 Timothy, focusing on both the "what" and the "how" of this usage.

Papers from the 2009 Annual Meeting

22-233aPaul and Scripture
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
11/22/2009
Oak Alley

Beyond the Hauptbriefe
Christopher D. Stanley, St. Bonaventure University, Presiding

E. Elizabeth Johnson, Columbia Theological Seminary
Paul's Reliance on Scripture in 1 Thessalonians (10 min)

Discussion (60 min)

Break (10 min)

Stephen E. Fowl, Loyola College in Maryland
The Use of Scripture in Philippians: How Deep Should We Dig? (10 min)

Discussion (60 min)

Papers will be summarized, not read.


23-327aPaul and Scripture
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
11/23/2009
Oak Alley

The Disputed Paulines
Christopher D. Stanley, St. Bonaventure University, Presiding

Jerry L. Sumney, Lexington Theological Seminary
Writing “In the Image” of Scripture: The Form and Function of Allusions to Scripture in Colossians (10 min)

Discussion (60 min)

Break (10 min)

Gordon D. Fee, Regent College
God`s Sure Foundation: "Paul's" Use of Scripture in 2 Timothy (10 min)

Discussion (60 min)

Papers will be summarized, not read.

Papers from the SBL 2008 Annual Meeting

Session 1: Theme: Paul and his Jewish Contemporaries

Bruce Fisk, Westmont College
Paul among the Storytellers: Reading Romans 11 in the Context of Rewritten Bible

Session 2: Theme: Paul and Context

Stephen Moyise, University of Chichester, UK
Does Paul Respect the Context of His Scriptural Quotations, and Does It Matter?

Paper Abstracts for SBL 2008 Annual Meeting

Session 1. Theme: Paul and His Jewish Contemporaries

Christopher Stanley, St. Bonaventure University, Presiding

Bruce N. Fisk, Westmont College
Paul among the Storytellers: Reading Romans 11 in the Context of Rewritten Bible
Paul and his non-Christian Jewish contemporaries inherited many of the same exegetical traditions, adopted some of the same interpretive techniques and generally inhabited the same hermeneutical space. This paper will consider ways in which Paul's use of Scripture in Romans 11 shares this exegetical heritage with the authors of (so-called) Rewritten Bible, in terms of shared techniques and parallel appeals to post-biblical tradition, and in terms of their shared understanding of the nature of Scripture (as gapped, relevant, harmonious, self-interpreting and inspired) and of God (as trustworthy and fundamentally loyal to Israel).


Francis Watson, Durham University, Respondent (10 min)
James Aageson, Concordia College-Moorhead, Respondent (10 min)
Discussion (45 min)
Break (10 min)
Discussion (60 min)

Paper will be summarized, not read. Copies of the papers are available in advance here at the seminar's website: http://paulandscripture.blogspot.com.

Session 2: Theme: Paul and Context

Mark Given, Missouri State University, Presiding

Stephen Moyise, University of Chichester
Does Paul Respect the Context of His Scriptural Quotations, and Does It Matter?
For some scholars, the fact that Paul can quote a text like Isa 52:5 in Rom 2:24 and Isa 52:7 in Rom 10:15 is clear evidence that Paul respects the context of his quotations. For other scholars, the Sarah and Hagar allegory of Galatians 4 and the "muzzle the ox" quotations in 1 Cor 9:9 is clear evidence that he did not. There are also a number of mediating positions such as (1) Paul shows awareness of the context but is not bound by it (2) Paul does not respect the context from a modern historical-critical perspective but does from a first-century perspective (3) Paul modifies the meaning of individual verses but respects their context from a larger canonical or salvation-history perspective. It is also clear that this is not simply an academic question but carries moral implications for Paul's integrity and perhaps even for the faith or non-faith of the individual scholar. In this paper, I will explore whether agreement in the meaning of key words such as "respect" and "context" could lead to some sort of consensus or whether these scholarly differences are the result of different presuppositions.

Christopher Tuckett, University of Oxford, Respondent (10 min)
G. K. Beale, Wheaton College, Respondent (10 min)
Discussion (45 min)
Break (10 min)
Discussion (60 min)

Papers will be summarized, not read. Copies of the papers are available in advance here at the seminar's Web site: http://paulandscripture.blogspot.com.

Papers from the SBL 2007 Annual Meeting

Session 1: Scripture and Righteousness in Romans

Neil Elliott, Augsburg Fortress Press, "Blasphemed among the Nations": Pursuing an Anti-imperial "Intertextuality" in Romans

Douglas Campbell, Duke University, Tit for Tat: A rhetorical and apocalyptic analysis of Paul's intertextuality in his Justification texts (with special reference to Romans 9:17–10:21)

Supplementary Readings:

Douglas Campbell, The meaning of dikaiosyne theou in Paul—an intertextual suggestion

Douglas Campbell, Rereading the Frame

Douglas Campbell, The Faithfulness of Jesus Christ in Romans and Galatians

Diana M. Swancutt, Yale University, O Dikaios Ek Pistews Zesetai' in Intercultural Translation: 'Living Justly' as Paul's Jewish Paideia to Roman Greeks


Session 2: Broadening the Conversation--New Approaches to Paul and Scripture

Kathy Ehrensperger, University of Wales-Lampeter, Feminist Perspectives on Paul's Reasoning with Scripture

Jeremy Punt, University of Stellenbosch, Paul and postcolonial hermeneutics: Marginality and/in early biblical interpretation

Mark Given, Missouri State University, Paul and Writing

Paper Abstracts for SBL 2007 Annual Meeting

Session 1:  Scripture and Righteousness in Romans

Tit for Tat: A Rhetorical and Apocalyptic Analysis of Paul's Intertextuality in His Justification Texts
Douglas Campbell, Duke University

The language that Paul uses in the passages where he speaks about justification is distinctly intertextual.  Most interpreters have construed this language as an attempt by Paul to corroborate a particular account of his gospel directly, building from problem to solution.  Against this trajectory, this paper will argue that Paul's use of Scripture represents a "tit-for-tat" argument with another adept Jewish-Christian exegete from whose system Paul has appropriated some of the texts that he cites.  In the process, Paul constructs an argument that is framed around a web of scriptural texts linked together by shared key words.  This web offers a systematic, point-by-point refutation of the opposing system of his opponent.  Viewed in this light, Paul's argument from Scripture turns out to be less direct than many interpreters have supposed for the reconstruction of his own position.  It deploys explicit scriptural texts, and also draws, slightly less directly, on a shared theology of divine kingship.  The theology behind this argument turns out to be more apocalyptic than is usually thought.

Blasphemed Among the Nations
Neil Elliott, Augsburg Fortress Press

Going against the tide that reads a Jewish or Jewish-Christian interlocutor (or "opponent") as the target of Paul's rhetoric in Romans, this paper argues that Paul's statements and citations of Jewish scripture regarding "works," law, and being put right before God must be interpreted in the context of non-Judean perceptions of Judeans. This requires attention to the historical context of Roman policy toward Judean populations and Roman ideological portrayals of Judean and other subject peoples.


"O dikaios ek pistews zesetai" in Intercultural Translation: "Living Justly" as Paul's Jewish Paideia to Roman Greeks
Diana M. Swancutt, Yale University

Paul and his Roman Greek rhetorical audience lived in a complex interethnic echo chamber in which Greek, Roman, and Judean ethnic cultures collided.  The meaning of scriptural phrases like "o dikaios ek pistews" and the identity and rhetorical function of Paul's interlocutor(s) in Rom 1-2 must be understood as complex enculturated moments of interethnic translation, the alchemy of Judean and Greek ideas and ideological engagements with their “others” within the larger frame of the Roman imperial gaze of both subject groups.  In this paper, I argue that Paul deployed Israel's scripture to teach Roman Greeks how (and why) to be good Jews.  I show that 1) Romans is a high-status, Greco-Roman protreptic speech, the first four chapters of which censure and educate his rivals in the gospel as the best way of life.  2) At crucial points, Paul punctuates this instruction of rivals with Israel's scripture in order to portray himself as the best teacher of Roman Greek believers--better than his Roman (1:18-2:16) or non-Christian Judean counterparts (2:17-4:25).  3) Heard in this rhetorical context, and in the heart of the Empire, Paul's scriptural instruction in "dikaiosyne" (1:16-17) is infused with imperial resonances of divine kingship, justice (iusticia), and fidelity (fides), which, when directed at Paul's Roman opponent (1:18-2:16), carry the counter-imperial claim that only the God of Israel, through his Son, the Davidic King, has brought true justice to all people.  He alone is faithful and just, and thus, he alone enables all to "live justly," in faithful imitation of Christ's faithfulness (Rom. 15:1-6).  The heart of Paul's good news to the Romans was, thus, a Romanized counter-Roman understanding of Israel's scripture that offered a Jewish Paideia in “just living” designed to call his Romanized Greek audience to (re)turn to lives of faithfulness to Israel's God.


Session 2:  Broadening the Conversation—New Approaches to Paul and Scripture

Paul and Writing
Mark D. Given, Missouri State University

This paper takes a philosophical and ideological approach to the subject of Paul and Scripture, relying especially on insights from deconstruction. While the discussion of Paul and Scripture in recent years has been preoccupied with methodology, the discussion should begin with theory, particularly with the issue of Paul and writing per se. I will demonstrate that underlying Paul’s entire ideology is a hierarchy of value grounded in a logic of presence and absence that can be designated “apocalyptic logocentrism.” This hierarchy has profound implications for the subject of Paul and Scripture because of where writing itself falls within it. An awareness of Paul’s apocalyptic logocentric symptoms will allow a number of key texts pertaining to his usage of writing and Scripture to be read from a new and illuminating perspective.


Paul and Postcolonial Hermeneutics: Marginality and/in Early Biblical Interpretation
Jeremy Punt, University of Stellenbosch

The paper explores Paul's engagement with the Scriptures of Israel from the point of view of his (sense of) marginality, which invites a postcolonial perspective on his hermeneutics. It first briefly considers the deployment of postcolonial criticism in biblical studies, followed by a consideration of the value of postcolonial theory for Paul's hermeneutical strategy towards the Scriptures of Israel in particular. Four areas where postcolonial criticism can make a particular contribution to the understanding of Pauline hermeneutics receive special attention: the importance of acknowledging the influence of ideological concerns on Paul's hermeneutical strategy; the conceptualisation and portrayal of (textual and personal) "others" in the hermeneutical enterprise; considering how hybrid notions of identity within postcolonial hermeneutics carry important consequences; and, the interplay, confluence and (contradictory yet inherent) tension between operational marginality and hermeneutics - aspects of which are also demonstrated from the Pauline epistles. The argument is concluded in seeing Paul's hermeneutical challenge informed by the tension between center and margins, and his efforts to deal with this tension constructively without allowing the one to assume or assimilate the other.

Feminist Perspectives on Paul's Reasoning with Scripture
Kathy Ehrensperger, University of Wales-Lampeter

The perception of Paul’s use of Scripture is closely intertwined with the perception of Paul’s use of power.  When it is presupposed that Paul claimed authority over his congregations in the vein of a command-obedience model, then his appeal to divine authority via the use of Scripture appears to have a coercive tendency to end dispute.  From a feminist perspective this involves using Scripture in support of a highly problematic exercise of power.  If on the other hand Paul’s use of Scripture is viewed from the alternative perspective of feminist theories of power, a different assessment of the function of Scripture in Paul’s way of arguing emerges.  Distinguishing the differing aspects of power not only as power-over, but as power-to, and power-with (following Arendt, etc.) impacts on the understanding of the function of Scripture in Paul.  Rather than being a coercive tool to settle disputes, Scripture may be seen as part of a socialization process into Christ which includes socialization into the world of the Scriptures.  Like good teaching Paul’s reasoning with Scripture forms part of an ongoing interactive conversation concerning the meaning of the Christ-event.

Papers from SBL 2006 Annual Meeting

Bruce N. Fisk, Westmont College: Synagogue Influence on Paul's Roman Readers

Stephen Moyise, University of Chichester UK: How does Paul read Scripture?

Stanley E. Porter, McMaster Divinity College CA: Paul and his Bible: His Education and Access to the Scriptures of Israel

Christopher D. Stanley, St. Bonaventure University: The Role of the Audience in the Interpretation of Paul's References to the Jewish Scriptures

Diana M. Swancutt, Yale Divinity School: Scripture 'Reading' and Identity Formation in Paul: Paideia Among Believing Greeks