Review in: Interpretation
2004 58: 292
Review door: Richard
P. CarlsonGevonden op: http://int.sagepub.com/content/58/3/292.full.pdf+html
Romans
by Charles H. Talbert Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary. Smyth 8t Helwys, Macon, 2002.
360 pp. $50.00 (cloth). ISBN 1-57312-081-2.
CHARLES TALBERT'S COMMENTARY on Romans is the fifth addition
to the new Smyth 8c Helwys Bible Commentary series. The basic format in this
series consists of a commentary on the text (multifaceted exegetical analyses);
sidebars supplementing the text (a plethora of material including outlines of
literary structure, definitions, maps, historical information, history of
interpretation, art, music, and photographs); and a consideration of the
connections and implications the biblical text has for contemporary Christian
life and ministry. Included is a CD-Rom (in an Adobe Acrobat format) that
contains the entire commentary in an indexed and searchable format with
hyperlinks. All of these elements combine to make this one of the most
user-friendly, stimulating series on the market.
This particular
commentary is no exception. On the one hand, Talbert is recognized as one of
the most prominent New Testament scholars on the North American scene over the
past three decades. He brings his expertise on Paul and the ancient world to
bear in his analysis of the letter, its literary dynamics, and its theological
claims. On the other hand, the reader is treated to an array of insights
ranging from Luther to Barth, from African-American art to Rembrandt, from
Vaughan's Easter Hymn to a John Donne sonnet. The commentary demonstrates on
page after page the relevance and resilience PauPs letter has had throughout
the centuries.
With regard to Romans itself, Talbert begins by laying out
the historical context (and audiences) Paul is addressing and Paul's goals in
writing this particular letter. Talbert sees Romans as "an occasional
letter but with universal applicability" (p. 12) in which Paul is seeking
to bring theological and communal unity to a community divided particularly
along Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian lines. Somewhat problematic is the
polemical edge Talbert (p. 16) identifies in the overarching purposes of Romans
1-8 ("the destruction of Jewish presumption and objections"), 9-11
("overturning of Gentile pride"), 12-15 ("opposition to mutual
arrogance"). While there are certainly polemical points throughout Romans,
Paul's aims and tone are much more positive and edifying than Talbert states.
Each of the letter's sections ends not with dire warnings or polemics but with
hymnic crescendos praising God for the ultimate, merciful goals of the divine
plan and activity accomplished in Jesus Christ.
Any commentary on Romans has to deal with some basic
exegetical/interpretive issues such as an understanding of the righteousness of
God as the letter's theme (1:16-17), how phrases such aspistis Christou and
hilastërion (3:21-26) should be understood, and how one should regard
Paul's comment that all Israel shall be saved (11:26). In each instance,
Talbert seeks to lay out the issues and options at hand and then presents his
perspectives in cogent, understandable ways. Thus he argues that God's
righteousness is to be understood in terms of God's covenantal faithfulness and
pistis Christou is to be regarded as a subjective genitive referring to
the faithfulness of Christ; hilastërion more than likely is a noun
referring to the mercy seat; and all Israel will be saved because all Israel
will come to believe in Christ. While not everyone will agree with Talbert's
readings, he does seek to play fair by taking seriously the alternatives and by
drawing on material beyond Romans to ascertain how such terms or concepts were
used in the ancient world and how the letter's audience would thus be expected
to understand them. At times, however, these attempts to marshal evidence from
beyond the New Testament present their own set of problems. There is no uniform
attempt at dating such material, and evidence from a wide array of ancient
sources (e.g., Second Temple Judaism; Josephus; Stoicism; Roman historians and
rhetoricians; rabbinic Judaism) can be placed side by side without discerning
differences in setting, date, milieu, content, purpose, or religious
perspective. Thus occasionally the sheer weight of evidence substitutes for
applicability and probability. Even worse, the amount of references in the body
of the text can become tedious to sort through and at some points detracts from
the otherwise lucid flow of the commentary.
Anyone who has ever sought to exegete
Romans will at times disagree with Talbert's exegetical decisions. That is a
given, and that is why it is helpful to study a mammoth work like Romans with
three or four commentaries at hand. The one aspect of this commentary that will
prove to be consistently disappointing to some readers, however, is not the
exegetical decisions it makes but the interpretive connections it offers.
Generally the section on connections reflects a conservative (at times somewhat
polemical) application of Romans for the contemporary church. The problem is
not simply the conservative perspective itself, but that it sometimes serves as
the major application of texts from Romans. Thus the main focus in the
connections section for Rom 1:1-17 involves traditional language for God rather
than the radical implications of inclusive justification. In discussing the
implications of 1:18-32, unambiguous categories from the 1950 work of Chester
Quimby are used to establish society's attitudes toward sex. In 2:1-3:20,
near-atheistic modern culture is a root problem of idolatry. A major focus of
the hermeneutical implications of 5:1-11 is a complete rejection of feminist
critiques of some atonement theologies with three quotations by William Barclay
offered as the hermeneutical key to Paul's thought. In considering the
implications of Romans 9-11, the conclusion is drawn that for Christians not to
evangelize non-Christians (including Jews) "is a demand for the sacrifice
of something central to Christian identity" (p. 274). A rejection of
egalitarianism in Christian communities is part of the connective focus for
15:14-16:27. Certainly the author of a commentary has every right to present
his or her theological perspectives, and Talbert does so without compromising
the exegetical integrity of the Romans text itself. Yet at times the implication
that the implication that Romans has for life and mission in the
twentieth-first century seems too narrowly drawn.
Because of the scope, power, and influence of Romans, it is
also fairly common for commentaries on Paul's epistle to reflect the doctrinal
perspectives of their authors at various points, and Talbert's Baptist stance
comes through from time to time. For example, in analyzing Romans 6, he resorts
to Galatians 3 to claim that baptism is "effective because! of the
initiates' faith" (p. 166), even though the original audience of Romans
did not have Galatians 3, and in Romans 6 baptism is effective because it is
inclusion into Christ's death apart from any direct mention of the initiates'
faith. The English Baptists are presented as the example for holding together
individuation and participation in community (p. 179), and more than once
Baptists are held up as the model of religious liberty including the separation
of church and state (e.g., pp. 271, 322-23). This latter point may not ring
true for contemporary readers who are concerned about potential threats to
American civil liberties stemming from the political and legislative
involvement in the Republican Party of the religious right, which includes
significant figures from the independent Baptist tradition.
No commentary on Romans can be regarded as "the"
commentary on Romans. There are, however, some commentaries that deserve space
on one's desk when studying this landmark Christian document. Because of the
intelligent, readable, and accessible analysis on the text of Romans itself,
this new commentary deserves such space.
Richard P. Carlson
LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
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