Romans

Romans. By Leander Keck. ANTC. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005, 400 pp., $22.00 paper.

Leander Keck has proven to be one of the best Pauline scholars in the last two decades. His approach to Paul is one of a skilled exegete and a learned theologian. The great divide between biblical studies and theology has been broken down more than once in Keek's writings, and this commentary is no different. Keck gives a power presentation of Paul's magnum opus. However, do we need another commentary on Romans?

The Abingdon New Testament Commentary series is known for being short and accessible. Thus this commentary is much shorter than most other commentaries on Romans. This, of course, has its advantages and disadvantages. One major advantage is that it reads more smoothly than most commentaries of greater length, which tend to be more choppy and disjointed. Keck, however, gives a very lucid account of Paul's argument in Romans, tracing it step by step and honing in on the main themes and motifs. The disadvantage of this approach is that there are many questions left unanswered, or at least not solved with an exhaustive argument. In light of this, Keek's new commentary is a good supplement to some of the more critical commentaries that give greater attention to the minutiae of grammar, syntax, and word studies.

The text of the commentary does not display footnotes but rather includes bibliographical notes in brackets within the text. This approach can be cumbersome at times, though Keck is careful not to overload his citations. Citations of the Greek text are transliterated, so that those who do not know Greek can pronounce the word (although I am not sure what the benefit of this is). The book is straightforward; it looks like a novel, and at times reads as smoothly as a novel.

The introduction to the commentary gives a wonderful discussion on discourse and canon with regard to the book of Romans. "We do not read the letter as its first recipients did," says Keck, "for it comes to us already interpreted by its placement." Keck goes on to say, "Recognizing this does not invalidate historical exegesis, but expands its horizon by reminding us if the early church had not canonized this letter we would not be reading it at all. The New Testament Romans is the only Romans that exists" (p. 20). This sets the tone of the commentary, which tends to be more literary than historical-critical. Nevertheless, he does go on to give a brief overview of the probable background of the letter (pp. 29-32) and yet recognizes that the exegetical priority belongs to the text itself. "No reconstruction of earliest Christianity in Rome accounts adequately for much of the theological argument of the whole letter because it ignores the likelihood that the content of Paul's argument has its own logic and so was not directly his response to what he thought was going on in Rome" (p. 30). As an exegete, then, Keck is committed to the text, and this focus is clear throughout the commentary.

So where do we place Keck on the grid of approaches to Paul? From this commentary, I would say that his approach is "quasi-apocalyptic." I would not place him fully in the same camp as, say, J. Louis Martyn (Galatians [AB; New York: Doubleday, 1997]) or Douglas A. Campbell (Quest for Paul's Gospel [JSNTSup 274; London: T & T Clark International, 2005]), but he would be closer to them than other traditional or new perspective Pauline scholars. Some of Keek's interpretive conclusions are, however, very traditional. For instance, his treatment of Rom 1:18-3:20 is not much different from what you would find in Douglas Moo's or Thomas Schreiner's commentaries. He believes that 1:18-32 is directed toward Gentiles (e.g. p. 74); that 2:1-16 is directed to the moral man; and of course 2:17-29 is directed toward the Jew (pp. 82). He says that Paul was against homosexual acts because they were contrary to nature (pp. 68-69); that "works of the Law" refers to "deeds of the Law" in general (pp. 99-100); and that justification is a forensic declaration (he uses the term "rectification" as does Louis Martyn). So much of what is in this commentary will not sound very novel (Keck does take pistis Christou to be a subjective genitive, "faith of Christ," but this can hardly be called "novel" any more).

Yet his presentation is powerful and theologically rich. His section on 1:16-17 has an "apocalyptic" or even Barthian ring to it. "The gospel is God's power because the message itself has the capacity to effect salvation" (p. 51). God's righteousness is being revealed ek pisteos, by Christ's faithfulness, eis pistin, that is, it effects or elicits faith from the believer. "For faith," says Keck, "clearly refers to the purpose of revelation, namely, the intended result of hearing the gospel, igniting Christian faith" (p. 54). This section is programmatic for the entire argument in Romans 1-8. God's righteousness, his saving power manifested in the gospel, is the solution to the dark condition of the old age. It breaks into the cosmos rectifying both man and creation in order to set the world right.