I’ve been slow on my reading of Douglas Campbell’s The Deliverance of God lately. Sorry to leave you all hanging. I’m currently going through the chapter where he critiques the traditional “justification theory” reading of Romans 1:18-3:20.
In general, I find in reading through this section that my fears from the earlier chapters are playing out. The critiques Campbell brings against “traditional” readings of Romans 1-3 are, in general, critiques of justification theory as he has presented it, coupled with the idea that Romans 1-3 has to be read in a particular way in order to uphold that theory.
The problem with this, as I mentioned earlier, is that I am not aware of anyone who holds to justification theory and its reading of Romans 1-3 in precisely the way that Campbell presents it. Or, perhaps I know of some people, but they’re not biblical scholars.
In my estimation, the “best” readings of Paul, and of Romans 1-3, recognize that, yes, Paul is what Campbell calls an “apocalyptic” thinker. Moreover, there is also a wide-spread estimation that though Rom 1-3 works as an argument that, in general, thinks “forwards,” rather than starting from the Christ event and reassessing everything else in its light, that these earlier passages still reflect Paul’s ex post facto thinking even though they are not making an ex post facto argument.
In short, there are numerous places where different ways of putting Paul’s argument together, or reframing our own estimation of what a tenable argument is, leaves those of us who haven’t come up with Campbell’s reading wondering who he is trying to dissuade of their own.
The other reason I am not finding the feet of the “traditional” reading so clay-like as the book would have me to is because the critiques leveled against the reading sometimes feel anachronistic. Is it really an argument against Paul to say that a would-be prophetic critique of non-Christian Judaism leaves “Judaism necessarily accused of depravity”? Maybe I’ve been spending too much time reading the OT Prophets recently, but such a criticism of an interpretation of Paul seems to be too dependent on modern sensibilities about what a person is or isn’t allowed to say about Judaism in light of the post-Jewish history of Christianity.
Put differently: Jewish prophets told the Jewish people in general that they were rebellious and depraved–even in their most pious acts of worship!–and that if they didn’t heed the voice of the prophet they were going to find themselves under God’s judgment. This might not always make them happy (cf. Habakkuk), but neither did it make them anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic, or the like. One might also compare the denunciations of the outsiders we find at Qumran.
Such parallels, one might argue, are no reason to think that Paul, who has a very different understanding of God’s work, is doing the same thing.
Fair enough. But the parallels do show that there is no contradiction in Paul making the sort of arguments that, according to Campbell, are clear indications of “problems” in the traditional reading. My estimation is that these are greater problems for 21st century westerners than for a first century Jew.
Thus far, I continue to grow in my suspicions that the “straw man” critique is more or less fatal. There seems to be little reason for the wholesale reassessment Campbell has on offer. Without the exegetical problems, I see little need for a radical new solution. Yes, there are a few points at which some inconsistencies arise, a few places where a small problem or two should be hammered out.
In all, what I’m thinking as I run through the critique is that what’s needed is a robust articulation of justification within the union-with-Christ, ex post facto paradigm–not the radical reconceptualizing that awaits me on the future pages of DoG, but the position I wish Campbell had engaged with as he was making his proposal.
Do you not think that the “straw man” is indeed Melanchthon? And do you not hear echoes of Augustine and Luther?
Good questions, Alan. I do hear some echoes of various positions. But the work is a contra mundum piece that needs, in my estimation, to deal with more nuanced targets if it is going to be effective.
For example, in his deconstruction of “traditional” readings of the Gentiles having the law written on their hearts, he talks about how this can’t be regenerate people because it comes at the wrong point in the argument. But that’s only a valid criticism if someone not only holds to justification theory but holds to it in the way DAC articulates it AND reads Romans 1-3 as defending just that theory in just that way that DAC says it “must”.
I find myself raising this sort of criticism all the time. When DAC interacts with folks like Richard Hays as representative of what he considers untenable moves, he’s intimating that his target is much larger than one or two strands of Reformation / post-Reformation exegesis.