New Wine into Fresh Wineskins: Contextualizing the Early Christian Confessions

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Dec 2001 by Turner, David L

New Wine into Fresh Wineskins: Contextualizing the Early Christian Confessions. By Richard N. Longenecker. Peabody: Hendricksen, 1999, x 207 pp., $14.95.

The previous works of distinguished NT scholar Richard Longenecker should already be well known to readers of JETS. In this volume Longenecker works out a thesis he first argued in a 1993 paper before the American Theological Society. He uses the new wine saying of Jesus (Mark 2:22 and parallels) as a metaphor for his thesis that the NT is both a contextualization of previously existing Christian confessions and a model for the contextualization of the gospel message today. There are three parts to the book. The first identifies the NT material Longenecker and others view as dependent on early confessions and presents a synthesis of that material. The second analyzes how the confessional material is contextualized in the NT. The third presents various models of contexualization today and makes suggestions as to how a contextualized incarnational theology should proceed. The book also contains endnotes, select bibliography, and indexes of modern authors and ancient sources.

Longenecker has produced a well-written work, one whose argument is quite clear. Introductions, summaries, and a concluding epilogue insure that the main point is unmistakable to the reader. Part 1 is a particularly helpful introduction to the widespread literature on the form-critical analysis of putative confessional materials in the NT. The survey and evaluation of various models of contextualization in Part 3 is also useful. Whichever model one adopts, it seems clear that contextualization of the gospel is necessary if the Church is to be faithful to the mandate of its Lord to disciple all the nations.

But perhaps some readers will agree with this reviewer that the case in Parts 1 and 2 for a plethora of confessional material throughout the NT is not convincing. One wonders about the reliability of the form-critical criteria which are utilized to isolate the three main types of confessional material. Single-statement affirmations in narratives may more likely reflect a historical event than a theological confession. Formulaic prose portions and poetic portions may be due more to an author's characteristic style than to use of previously existing confessions. But Longenecker largely accepts the reliability of these criteria and therefore takes what might be described as a maximalistic view of confession in the NT. However, it seems to me that many of the passages accepted by this school of thought as confessional are just not that clearly so.

Three questions occur as one reflects on this viewpoint. First, were the NT materials so much inspired and shaped by putative early confessions as those early confessions were inspired and shaped by the NT materials (p. 110)? Evidence for the former seems to pale when compared with evidence for the latter. Second, was Luke's Gospel shaped so much by early confessions as it was by the redemptive-historical events transmitted to him by the written and oral traditions to which he alludes in his prologue (p. 109)? In other words, is it all that clear that the sources to which Luke alludes were confessional in nature? Third, if as Longenecker admits one must remain agnostic about the historical provenance of the putative early confessions behind so much of the NT (pp. 26, 47), does this not hinder our utilization of the NT today as a model for the contextualization of the gospel for specific receptor cultures? If the ancient historical situation is unknown, how can the NT function clearly as a model for contemporary historical situations? No doubt contextualization is crucial for mission today, but if Longenecker's case for the NT as a contextualization of early confessions is not convincing, the use of the NT as a model for contextualization today becomes a more complicated matter.

David L. Turner

Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary, Grand Rapids, MI