Mohr Siebeck watch

The following book caught my eye from the first moment I saw it:

Implicit Epistemology in the Letters of Paul: Story, Experience and the Spirit, by Scott, Ian W (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 2. Reihe, 2006).

Scott’s treatment of Paul’s epistemology fills a lacuna in NT Pauline research, and I think succeeds in taking the exegete a step deeper into the texts themselves. Though I haven’t made my way through the whole thing, from what I’ve read I can affirm that it is a really fascinating read – and at times I felt like he was presenting a Paul that came across sounding like a good Barthian!

He doesn’t attempt to ‘uncover Paul’s conscious thinking, but rather the asssumptions and logical structures ... which are evident in his attempts to persuade’ (p. 11)

From the blurb at the Mohr website:

‘Ian W. Scott explores the way of knowing which is assumed by Paul’s argumentation in his letters. Paul presumes that a kind of hermeneutical reason plays a central role in religious knowing, once it has been freed from the moral corruption endemic to human beings. His theological knowledge is structured as a story, and ethical reasoning involves “emplotting” human beings within that story. Paul never tries to justify the narrative itself, but his argument in Galatians suggests that this story remains open to change in light of new experiences. Novel events such as the crucifixion or the Galatians reception of the Spirit, since they are part of the unfolding story, may force a reinterpretation of the prior theological narrative. Paul’s narrative reasoning is thus responsive to the world, even though it is not justified in a foundationalist fashion. His implicit epistemology also suggests a model of theological and ethical inquiry in which change and development can be an organic outgrowth of tradition.’