Paul's Use of the OT

Romans 1:16-17 stands as one of the great statements of the apostle Paul, capped by Paul's quotation of Habakkuk 2:4. Notice the slight difference in Paul's quote from the OT context:

Romans 1:17
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "The one who is righteous will live by faith." (ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται)

Hab. 2:4 MT
Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. (וְצַדִּ֖יק בֶּאֱמוּנָת֥וֹ יִחְיֶֽה)

Hab. 2:4 LXX
If he should draw back, my soul has no pleasure in him: but the just shall live by my faith. (ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεώς μου ζήσεται)

Richard Hays writes in his book:

In the Hebrew text of Habakkuk, God's answer to the prophet is an exhortation to keep the faith: "The righteous one shall live by his faithfulness," that is, the person who remains faithful will be rewarded in the end by God. The LXX, however, has reinterpreted the dictum as a promise about the character of God: "The righteous one shall live by my faithfulness," that is, God's own integrity in preserving the covenant with Israel will ultimately be confirmed. As Paul allows the quotation to reverberate into the text of Romans he elides the crucial personal pronoun, so that we hear only "the righteous one shall live by faithfulness." Whose faithfulness? We are not told. The ambiguity thus created allows the echoed oracle to serve simultaneously as a warrant for two different claims that Paul has made in his keynote formulation of the gospel: in the gospel God's own righteousness is revealed; and the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

I think Hays comment is very shrewd and Paul's use of the Scripture is brilliant!

The Maker

One of my favorite bands is Dave Matthews Band, and here is Dave Matthews jamming with Tim Reynolds... great song:



"The Maker" (by Daniel Lanois)

Oh, oh deep water, black and cold like the night
I stand with arms wide open
I've run a twisted line
I'm a stranger in the eyes of the Maker
And I could not see for the fog in my eyes
I could not feel for the fear in my life

From across the great divide
In the distance I saw the light
Of John Baptist walking to me with the Maker
My body is bent and broken by long and dangerous sleep
I can't work the fields of Abraham and turn my head away
I'm not a stranger in the hands of the Maker

Brother John, have you seen the homeless daughters
Standing there with broken wings
I have seen the flaming sword
There over east of Eden
Burning in the eyes of the Maker
Burning in the eyes of the Maker
Burning in the eyes of the Maker

Oh, river rise from your sleep
Oh, river rise from your sleep
Oh, river rise from your sleep

Synoptics vs. John

In a subsection titled, "The Question of the Kingdom of God," R. Brown says:

"The omission in John of the formula basileia tou theou, "kingdom of God [or of heaven]," except for 3:3, 5, is a difficult problem, although not so formidable an obstacle to Johannine ecclesiology as it might first seem. The Synoptic emphasis on the basileia making itself felt in Jesus' activity seems to have become in John an emphasis on Jesus who is basileus ("king") and who reigns. John refers to Jesus as king fifteen times, almost double the number of times that this reference occurs in any of the other Gospels... If the Synoptic basileia is like leaven working in a mass of dough, the Johannine Jesus is the bread of life. If there is a Synoptic parable of the shepherd and the lost sheep, the Johannine Jesus is the model shepherd. If the Synoptics record a parable where the basileia is like the vineyard that shall be handed over to others (Matt 21:43), the Johannine Jesus is the vine. This change of emphasis means that in John there is less apparent reference to collectivity than there is in the Synoptic concept of basileia. But we must not exaggerate. If the Johannine Jesus is "the King of Israel" (1:49), he has an Israel of believers to rule over; if Jesus is the shepherd, he has a flock that has to be gathered; if Jesus is the vine, there are branches on the vine."

Raymond Brown, An Introduction to the Gospel of John, 229.

Book review

History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel

Author: J. Louis Martyn
Publisher: Westminster John Knox, 2003
Paperback: xvii + 182 pp.

WJK
Amazon

Thanks to Emily Kiefer and the folks at Westminster John Knox for this review copy! I lament this is way overdue because I've been swamped with finals and traveling and getting engaged. Anyway, this book is part of the New Testament Library series, which seems to have a pretty good lineup of scholars writing commentaries on the NT as well as 'Classics' (which this book falls under) and 'General Studies.' J. Louis Martyn's perspective as seen in this book is setting John against Jewish (not Christian) background. There are two major assumptions for Martyn as an impetus for his understanding the Gospel of John: (1) the prevalence of the hostility of "the Jews" toward Jesus & co. representing a genuine historical setting and (2) that this setting could not be that of Jesus and his original opponents. As D. Moody Smith writes in the foreword, "Martyn is actually invoking the modern, form-critical principle that the Gospels bear testimony primarily to the life-setting in which they were produced, and only secondarily to their subject matter."

Martyn states that the problem that often plagues any interpreter of the Gospel of John is the tendency to read this Gospel apart from its original setting. He lists a slew of questions that he will attempt to answer such as: In what general thought-world did John move? Whom did he wish to have as his readers and for what purpose? Where did he live? And as far as method is concerned, Martyn wants to focus on how exactly 'traditional material' has been assumed and reinterpreted by John.

Martyn begins in chapter 1 with a form-critical analysis of John 9. The rest of the book is largely devoted to establishing his thesis of the 'two-level drama' that seems to play itself out in the Gospel of John. Basically, Martyn sees within the fourth Gospel not just facts about the times of Jesus' day but also that of the evangelist and the circumstances surrounding his own life. Martyn understands the motivation for writing the Gospel to have stemmed from a major fallout between the leaders of the Jewish synagogue and the local Christian community.

I think one interesting section of this book is the one titled 'Glimpses into the History of the Johannine Community.' It seems to be an essay which he printed earlier that was included in this book. In this section he traces the development of the Johannine community starting from the 'Early Period' that developed within the synagogue, the 'Middle Period' with its excommunication from the synagogue followed by martyrdom of some of its members, and the 'Late Period,' with the community forming its own theological and sociological identity.

This book was definitely challenging because it assumes one to be well versed in the discussions surrounding the Fourth Gospel. Not only that, Martyn seems to take the reader down many different rabbit holes, filled with many brilliant ideas that are nonetheless conjectures. I think this book is one that I will definitely pick up again in the future to think deeply about the situation surrounding the Gospel of John, and for those interested in that sort of thing, this seems to be a must-read.


EDIT (Jan. 22, 2010): This book would have been much easier and more enjoyable to read if I read Raymond Brown's introduction first...