Quest for Paul's Gospel: A Suggested Strategy, The

The Quest for Paul's Gospel: A Suggested Strategy. By Douglas A. Campbell. JSNTSup 274. London: T & T Clark International, 2005, xi + 290 pp., $115.00.

Douglas Campbell, assistant professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, has been speaking and writing on central matters of Pauline interpretation for some time now (e.g. The Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans 3.21-26 [JSNTSup 65; Sheffield Academic Press, 1992]). For this reason it is helpful to have a good portion of this work collected in a single volume. Most of the chapters originated as oral presentations, with elements of four having appeared previously in print (p. 3, n. 5; oddly, only two previous publications are noted in the Acknowledgement, p. vii).

The book opens with a complaint about the lack of a "grand strategic discussion" (p. 2) in Pauline studies, giving promise of a breakthrough. On the whole, however, what unfolds seems to be less a new strategic vision and more a stimulating rendition of the familiar quest for the center of Paul's gospel (p. 17) or soteriology (p. 33). In particular, Campbell urges that we aim for a "constructive theological explanation," which results in "recovering [Paul's] theology for the church" (p. 3). Such interest in a theological and practical orientation is refreshing in a Pauline scholar.

With acknowledged kinship to J. L. Martyn's apocalyptic interpretation and the trajectory associated with Deissmann and Schweitzer, Campbell argues that Paul's center is to be found in what he terms "pneumatologically participatory martyrological eschatology" (PPME). One also hears echoes of Sanders's participatory eschatology. The reader must learn immediately to negotiate Campbell's love of abbreviations. Alongside PPME, we have JF (more traditional, "Lutheran," justification by faith), SH (salvation history), and AT (anti-theological), just to name the more prominent. Taken on the whole, the book is a sustained argument for an apocalyptically oriented interpretation of Paul and against the "Lutheran" model. The SH model, although inadequate as a descriptive center, contains valid concerns that Campbell sees as sufficiently covered in the PPME approach. He is sympathetic to the New Perspective on Paul (NP); it is, however, not a "coherent explanatory enterprise" but a diverse coalition. In the end, so Campbell, only the PPME model will achieve victory in the quest for Paul's gospel; no compromise or truce is allowed.

The book unfolds in three sections. The first (chaps. 1-2) reviews the debate over Paul's gospel and outlines the three main strategic options: (1) justification by faith (JF); (2) salvation history (SH), e.g. Cullmann and Wright; and (3) his own PPME model. The JF model is nearing the end of its usefulness, and SH will become a subordinate witness to the superior PPME model. Each model is helpfully aligned with particular sections of Romans (JF with Romans 1-4, PPME with Romans 5-8, and SH with Romans 9-11), and he rightly cautions against seeking some "conceptual and linguistic construct" for Paul's center rather than "Christ himself (p. 32).

Section 2 (chaps. 3-7) seeks to flesh out the PPME model in relation to a number of selected texts and issues: apocalyptic and salvation history (chap. 3), narrative (chap. 4, esp. Romans 5-8), Gal 3:28 (chap. 5), Pauline ethics (chap. 6), and Jewish Law (chap. 7). This is the heart of the book, and there is much here for students of Paul to mull over. Here are just a few examples. Although reference to the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22) is not new for Pauline scholars, Campbell gives heightened stress on this story as foundational to Paul's narrative of Christ's descent (a "story of descent by a Father's own Son through obedience to suffering and death," p. 86). Galatians 3:28 is "an excellent summary of the Pauline Gospel, articulating the PPME model clearly and compactly" (p. 95; cf. chap. 5). Participatory eschatology is reaffirmed, which carries strong ethical connotations (as against JF's notorious difficulties in relating justification and sanctification). Chapter 6 examines the modern issue of gay ordination. Although clearly leaning in the direction of a liberationist sexual ethic, Campbell stops short of prescribing this, calling instead for a process of ecclesial discernment on the issue. Campbell is prepared to speak of Paul's inconsistency in ethical application, so that he is sometimes liberational and thus true to his gospel (as in Gal 3:28) and at other times more "rooted . . . in structures of creation than in the structures of redemption" (p. 113). When a "creation-based theology obstructs true theology" in Paul (e.g. gender codes [1 Cor 11:2-16], "unnatural" homosexual activity [1 Cor 6:9], slavery [Philemon]), the apostle's analysis "lacks theological authority," being "neither christologically derived, nor fundamentally scriptural" (p. 120). Evangelical scholars will likely be troubled by such blunt talk of inconsistency, but questions related to Paul's stance on creation are rather complex.