donderdag 3 januari 2013

Review of: Ernest Best, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians (ICC)

Review van: Ernest Best, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians (ICC), T. & T. Clark, 1998 in JETS 44/2 

A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians. By Ernest Best. ICC. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998, xxix + 686 pp., $69.95. 

Once a neglected book, Ephesians now boasts an increasing number of excellent commentaries to guide scholars, teachers, and pastors who wish to understand this rich work. Best’s thorough treatment is among the better ones to emerge. He had a distinguished academic career in Scotland and retired from the divinity faculty of the University of Glasgow. This commentary replaces T. K. Abbott’s original ICC volume on Ephesians and Colossians, first issued in 1897. It contains three sections: an introduction section that covers the usual areas; the commentary itself, in which are embedded six detached notes on major Ephesian topics (the heavenlies, in Christ, the powers, the body of Christ, Israel and the Church, and the Haustafel); and two concluding essays (on the church and moral teaching). Three indexes complete the volume. Best has included a wealth of bibliographic entries; indeed, each section or subsection begins with an impressive list of pertinent resources.

The knotty problem of the authorship of this allegedly Pauline letter receives considerable and tightly reasoned attention. Since Ephesians so uniquely parallels Colossians, Best includes the latter in his assessment of what he sees as the main possible solutions: Paul wrote both letters; someone else wrote both letters; Paul wrote Colossians but not Ephesians; Paul wrote Ephesians but not Colossians; and the two letters were written by two different unknown authors. Next he sketches out the profile Ephesians presents of its author: a male, a Hellenistic Jewish Christian who possessed  complex Greek writing style (often with a liturgical sound to it), and one who consciously specified his name as Paul the apostle. If the writer was not Paul, how can we account for this claim? For Best, the answer is found in the device of pseudonymity. Paradoxically, he allows, “Were Ephesians not by Paul its content might still be true and helpful to believers” (p. 11)—except, of course, in its claim to authorship!

Yet, in fact, Best does his best to defend the notion that pseudonymity need not imply deception, for AE (Best’s convention for referring to the author of Ephesians) was simply writing “to instruct Christians in the new situations in which they were finding themselves in the way Paul would have done had he still been alive” (p. 13). Though admitting that by the third century pseudonymous writings were condemned by Christians, Best argues that this was not necessarily true at this early date. He assesses the possible ways in which Ephesians and Colossians might be related. He evaluates the linguistic phenomena in Ephesians and the hypothesis of a secretary to account for the divergences from Paul’s typical style. He compares the “thought” of Ephesians to that of Paul. He concludes that Ephesians and Colossians were produced by different authors—not Paul—who were part of some Pauline school. They take up Pauline concepts and terms, but extend them in new directions.

His case is well argued and certainly plausible, given his assumptions. I think he too quickly dismisses the ethical issue inherent in the hypothesis of pseudonymity to which I briefly alluded above. Two recent theses in Great Britain suggest that we cannot so easily dismiss the element of deception in pseudonymous writing. See T. L. Wilder, “New Testament Pseudonymity and Deception” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1998) and Jeremy Duff, “A Reconsideration of Pseudepigraphy in Early Christianity” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Oxford University, 1998). Both Wilder and Duff argue that deception is inherent in the genre of writing pseudonymously. What makes Best’s approach more curious is how he proceeds to describe the “picture of Paul” we get from this unknown author as reported in the letter, e.g. Paul is a prisoner, or Paul asks for prayer for himself (p. 42). Yet if this is written several decades after Paul’s death by a member of a Pauline school, it all turns out to be spurious concoctions anyway. Of course Paul was once a prisoner, but he’s dead now. This has the appearance of verisimilitude; but if it is only fiction—as if Paul were really in prison requesting prayer—how can we truly derive any picture of Paul from it? All we can know, in Best’s theory, is what AE wanted his readers to think about Paul, and what they were to imagine Paul would say were he alive between ad 80–90.

Best concludes that Ephesians is not a genuine letter after all, but a homily or sermon written and sent out for wider circulation (like Hebrews, James, and Jude). But since Paul normally wrote letters, AE disguises his homily as a letter, says Best. As to the purpose and occasion of Ephesians, Best considers but rejects, as do most, Goodspeed’s theory as well as those who posit that Ephesians was written to oppose the growing threat of gnosticism. He also rejects the view popularized by F. F. Bruce in his NICNT commentary (1984) that Ephesians expanded or universalized the principal tenets of Colossians (see also Moffatt’s Introduction, 1918). Likewise he dismisses the position of Schnackenburg’s (1982; ET, 1991) and Lincoln’s (1990) commentaries that sees the letter as a response to crises in the congregations. Best’s conclusion is rather more general: the AE seeks to help Christians, who have now entered into a new group—the church—out of their former paganism, to know what is the church’s nature and what conduct is now required of them.

The commentary itself is a model of thoroughness, and Best takes pains not to neglect any crucial exegetical matter. Modern and ancient sources are used with facility and leave readers feeling that Best has carefully considered the entire history of exegesis in assessing the letter’s issues and implications. Though adopting the Nestle-Aland27 critical Greek text, he considers the variant readings in that edition all along the way, though few, as he says, seriously alter the meaning of the text.

A review like this must pick on specific questions or highlight possible problems, but let readers know that my concerns are minuscule compared to the otherwise masterful analysis of this letter. I was disappointed that, while Best correctly and importantly notes concerning 1:4, “Election and predestination in our passages are not related primarily to individual salvation but to God’s purpose,” he does not proceed to tease out the possible corporate implications of these theological constructs within the wider community issues of the church’s identity in Ephesians. At the same time, in his note on “in Christ,” Best articulates the corporate nature of that phrase in its local sense: the church is the body that is “in Christ.” Best fully unpacks his understanding of the corporate nature of the church in Ephesians in Essay I at the end of the commentary (pp. 622–41).

The sealing of the Spirit (1:13) specifies the “mark” that the Spirit leaves on believers at the point of their conversion including, but not limited to, charismatic gifts and the fruit of the Spirit, and indicates to them that they belong to God and are under his protection. Wisely, Best explains AE’s use of the “powers” in 1:21 and elsewhere in a way that combines both their natural and supernatural elements, despite the qualms of many in the West to acknowledge supernatural realities. They are connected to the heavenlies (and the stars) and spirits, and they influence or control the lives of people. Importantly, in the view of AE all such powers are now subject to Christ’s allencompassing dominion, and the church proclaims God’s wisdom (3:10), in Best’s terms, “to facts and observable forces” (p. 179). On the thorny problem of 1:23 Best opts for taking the participle pleroumenou and pleroma (fullness) as passive and the clause in apposition to soma (body): the pleroma is filled by Christ who is himself filled by God. Christ is both the head of the church and fills it as his pleroma (p. 180). And then, what means “head” in this letter? Best concludes his note by including both ruler and source: “Of the occasions when Christ is described as head in Ephesians he is clearly depicted as overlord in 5.23 and 1.22. Probably this holds also for 4.15 even if Christ, and not the head, is to be viewed as the source of the body’s growth and development” (p. 196).

Considering the many possibilities for the “quotation” in 4:8, Best believes that AE was citing part of a Christian hymn whether or not he actually knew it derived from Ps 68:18. Though finding the view of W. H. Harris and others on the descent (4:9) attractive—that it refers to the Spirit’s descent to give gifts at Pentecost—Best finds it, and the patristic view that Christ descended to the underworld, unconvincing. He opts for the simple view that the text refers to Christ’s incarnation in this world. He questions the popular view of 4:11 that the one article governing “shepherds” and “teachers” identifies them as one group, often pastor-teachers. According to Best, they may indeed be two—as there are three other groups: prophets, apostles, evangelists— though obviously closely identified and overlapping in their roles.

As to the Haustafel, Best observes, “Christianity contains an unresolved tension between authority and mutuality or, in the terms of our passage . . . , between mutual subordination and the authority of some” (p. 517). In other words, he says, though all believers are to be mutually submissive, in their differing functions in the household, some must exercise authority over others, and some must submit to others. As AE is certainly addressing Christian readers, submission would be the voluntary response of those who wished to respond “as to the Lord.” Disagreeing with Bedale (JTS 5 [1954] 211–15), Best believes the sense of “head” in 5:23 must be “rule” since headship of the husband is linked to the wife’s subordination.

In Essay II (pp. 642–59) Best analyzes the moral teaching of this letter. In a few words, he is not impressed by what AE has constructed. He finds it lacking in depth, penetration, and focus, compared with other authors of the NT, especially Jesus and Paul. And he finds it very culturally bound with little transfer to modern Christians. In its favor, he admits, is Ephesians’ insistence that all Christians are morally responsible, and all must follow the same standards of conduct. Having studied, written, and taught on Ephesians for many years, I find this section very disappointing and wide of the mark. It left a bad taste in my mouth after having profited so much from Best’s wise insights throughout the volume. I wonder whether his disavowal of Pauline authorship restricted his ability to understand the book’s ethics in the larger understanding of what Paul sought to do towards the conclusion of his career. Notwithstanding, I would recommend this commentary highly. Its judgments are sane and well argued. It is written clearly and well.

William W. Klein
Denver Seminary, Denver, CO
 

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