Sunday, June 03, 2007

A quick thought

Chris VanLandingham's Judgment and Justification in Early Judaism and the Apostle Paul is an extremely challenging and thought-provoking read. If he is right then, well, ... yikes! But I do wonder if his thesis, which I shall review here shortly, fails to really account for Paul's rhetoric against 'works of law' (Gal. 2:16; 3:2, 5, 10, 12).

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6 comments:

Jae said...

I'm still slowly making my way through this book (so this objection may be a bit premature), but I'm wondering why VanLandingham believes that we can derive a clearer framework of Paul's "jewishness" and his teachings on salvation by depending heavily on the theological grids of Jewish contemporaries that for the most part didn't approve of this "Jesus is the Christ" business...

As well, I think Mr. VanLandingham's treatment of much of the OT suffers from a lack of acknowledgment of and thinking hard about the parts of Genesis that come before chapter 3. Should we try to dissect Paul's thinking about Christ and what He showed up for apart from those chapters? This book seems to make a seriously bold effort to do so.

7:19 PM
Chris Tilling said...

Hi Jae, thanks for your comment!

"suffers from a lack of acknowledgment of and thinking hard about the parts of Genesis that come before chapter 3. "

What do you mean by that? Perhaps you could expand your point.

All the best

2:15 AM
Anonymous said...

Hello Chris,

I'm looking forward to hear what you think of his book. I've thought about buying it, but I've got so many books in the pipeline, I keep putting it off.

I think I'm going to have to retire, so I can read everything I want to.

So thanks for providing us with a glimpse of his thoughts.

Pax,
John

Ps. Could you give me a stipend, so I can retire early? :-)

6:15 AM
Roberto said...

I've heard that VanLandingham is a Catholic, so I'd be curious to see some Catholic engagement with his thesis - is it compatible with what the Church teaches? Maybe Brant Pitre and Michael Barber could pick that up sometime.

5:13 PM
Andrew said...

I'm curious Chris as to which part of VanLandingham's book makes you say "yikes!". As in what particular proposition is it that he defends which strikes you as the most controversial?

I enjoyed reading his book myself, though I found the detailed source analysis needed a bit of skim reading.

9:15 PM
Chris Tilling said...

Hi John, my review will be posted in the next day or two. As for the money - it is more blessed to give, brother!

Roberto, cf. 244 of the book for his take on reformation and catholic theology.

Andrew, I'll detail some of my concerns in my review which I'll post here in two parts in the next few days.

1:38 PM

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