The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (127 page)

²⁴
Gamble,
Textual History
, 116.

²⁵
W. Sanday and A. C. Headlam,
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
, ICC (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922), xc; Cranfield,
Introduction and Commentary on Romans I-VIII
, 8; J. D. G. Dunn,
Romans 1-8
, WBC 38A (Dallas: Word, 1988), lx; Moo,
Romans
, 8; T. R. Schreiner,
Romans
, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 7—8; G. Bray,
Romans
, ACCS (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1998), 379—80. Bray provided an English translation of Origen's important quotation.

²⁶
Cranfield,
Romans
, 1:8.

²⁷
A. M. Hunter,
The Epistle to the Romans, Torch
Bible Commentaries (London: SCM, 1955), 12.

²⁸
This date is supported by J. Finegan,
Handbook of Biblical Chronology: Principles of Time-Reckoning in the Ancient World and Problems of Chronology in the Bible
, rev. ed. (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1998),
396—97
, §687; L. Morris,
The Epistle to the Romans
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 6—7; and C. K. Barrett, A
Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
, Harper's NT Commentaries (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), 5. Although J. McRay dated the composition of Romans a year earlier, during the first three months of the year 54 (J. McRay,
Paul: His Life and Teaching
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003],
77)
, most recent discussions date the letter a year or two after the date proposed here. Dates affirmed by important recent commentaries are: (1) winter of 55—56 or 56—57 (Cranfield,
Romans
, 1:16); (2) “sometime in the 50s A.D., probably in the middle 50s, and most probably late 55/early 56, or late 56/early 57” (Dunn,
Romans
, xliii); (3) 56 (P. Stuhlmacher,
Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Commentary
, trans. S. J. Hafeman [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994], 8; (4) 56—57 (Paul Barnett, “Why Paul Wrote Romans,”
RTR
62 [2003]: 139); (5) 57 (Moo,
Romans
, 3; though Moo correctly warned that constructing an absolute chronology of Paul is a “hazardous process”); (6) winter of 57—58 (Fitzmyer,
Romans
, 87); and (7) 55—58 (Schreiner,
Romans
, 5).

²⁹
S. Mason suggested that the expulsion of the Jews from Rome was not comprehensive in the first place. See Mason, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel’ (Rom 1:16): The Gospel and the First Readers of Romans,” in
The Gospel in Paul
, ed. L. A. Jarvis and P. Richardson (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 254-87.

³⁰
Fitzmyer,
Romans
, 85.

³¹
P, MS L, and MS 337.

³²
J. Murphy-O'Connor,
Saint Paul's Corinth
(Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2002), 37; J. H. Kent,
Ancient Corinth: A Guide to the Excavations
(Athens: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1954), 74; V. P. Furnish, “Corinth in Paul's Time: What Can Archaeology Tell Us?”
BAR 14/3
(1988): 14-27.

³³
Commentators who affirm a Corinthian provenance include Schreiner,
Romans
, 4; Moo,
Romans
, 2—3; Dunn,
Romans
, 1:xliv; Fitzmyer,
Romans
, 85—87.

³⁴
M. Reasoner, “Rome and Roman Christianity,” in
Dictionary of Paul and His Letters
, ed. G. F. Hawthorne, R. P. Martin, and D. G. Reid (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993), 850-55, esp. 851.

³⁵
Reasoner, “Rome and Roman Christianity,” 851.

³⁶
Tacitus,
Annals
15.44.

³⁷
Suetonius,
Nero
28-29.

³⁸
See Acts 18:1-2.

³⁹
A few late mss. omit the address to the Romans (see Bray,
Romans
13—14). But an overwhelming number of manuscripts, including many early manuscripts (e.g., p
¹⁰
,
^p
26, and the major uncials), include the phrase “in Rome.”

⁴⁰
So also Gamble,
Textual History
, 116; and Schreiner,
Romans, 7.

⁴¹
Cranfield
(Romans
, 9) showed that “the suggestion that Romans 16 is a fragment of a Pauline letter to the church in Ephesus was made as early as 1829 by D. Schulz, in
TSK 2
(1829), pp. 609ff.”

⁴²
Manson, “St. Paul's Letter to the Romans—and Others,” 3—15.

⁴³
On the event and its probable date, see Suetonius,
Life of Claudius
,25; and Orosius,
Seven Books of History Against the Pagans
, trans. I. W. Raymond (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1936), 332.

⁴⁴
In addition to the standard commentaries, see B. N. Kaye, “To the Romans and Others: Revisited,”
NovT
18 (1976): 37-77.

⁴⁵
See especially Dunn,
Romans
, 1:lii.

⁴⁶
J. Munck,
Paul and the Salvation of Mankind
(Richmond: J. Knox, 1959), 201.

⁴⁷
W. Wiefel, “The Jewish Community in Ancient Rome and the Origins of Roman Christianity,” in
The Romans Debate
, 85-101.

⁴⁸
This is the view of most modern commentators (e.g., Moo,
Romans
, 12—13).

⁴⁹
So also Schreiner,
Romans
, 13—14; Stuhlmacher,
Paul's Letter to the Romans
, 6—8; Moo,
Romans
, 4—5; Dunn,
Romans
, 1 :liii—liv.

⁵⁰
For a helpful English translation, see M. Grant,
Tacitus: The Annals of Imperial Rome
(London: Penguin, 1996), 308-9.

⁵¹
This translation is from B. Metzger,
The Canon of the New Testament
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 305—7.

⁵²
See Stuhlmacher,
Romans
, 2.

⁵³
Scholars debate whether opponents had already infiltrated the churches of Rome or Paul simply assumed that opponents would eventually do so based on his previous experience. Stuhlmacher (
Romans
, 253) represents the former view, while Schreiner (
Romans
, 21) argued that the verses Stuhlmacher believed were explicitly directed against opponents (Rom 3:8; 16:17—20): “Do not relate to actual opponents in Rome but to the enemies Paul faced in the east and whom he feared might reach Rome. He knew that doubts and questions had surfaced in the Roman congregations about his gospel, but he did not yet face full-fledged opponents.”

⁵⁴
Schreiner (
Romans
, 19) stated: “The majority position is now that Paul wrote to resolve the disunity between Jews and Gentiles,” citing Marxsen, Minear, Bartsch, W. Campbell, Käsemann, Dunn, Russell, Wedderburn, Crafton, Reasoner, Wiefel, Donfried, Bruce, P. Lampe, Stuhlmacher, Walters, Wright, and Guerra as representatives of this view.

⁵⁵
M. A. Seifrid,
Justification by Faith: The Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme
, NovTSup (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 182-210.

⁵⁶
Bruce (
Letter of Paul to the Romans
, 38—39) correctly observed: “Yet, crucial as the justification of sinners by faith alone is to the Pauline gospel, it does not exhaust that gospel. It is not, as Albert Schweitzer called it, ‘a subsidiary crater,’ but in itself it is not the centre of Paul's teaching.” Moo (
Romans
, 29) wrote, “There is too much in Romans that cannot, without distortion, be subsumed under the heading of justification: the assurance and hope of the believers (chaps. 5 and 8); freedom from sin and the law (chaps. 6 and 7); God's purpose for Israel (chaps. 9—11); and the life of obedience (chaps. 12—15). To be sure, we can relate all of these to justification, as its fruits, or implications, or requirements; and Paul makes this connection himself at several points (see 5:1,9; 8:33; see 9:30—10:8). But he does not do so often enough to make us think that justification, or ‘the righteousness of God,’ is his constant reference point.”

⁵⁷
E.g., A. Schweitzer,
The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle
(London: A&C Black, 1931), 205-26; and W. Wrede,
Paul
(London: P. Green, 1907), 123-25.

⁵⁸
This was the view of F. C. Baur and F. J. A. Hort. See the summary of their views in Sanday and Headlam,
Epistle to the Romans
, xlv, li.

⁵⁹
E.g., W. S. Campbell, “Why Did Paul Write Romans?”
ExpTim
85 (1974): 264-69; and K. Donfried, “A Short Note on Romans 16,” in
The Romans Debate
, 46—48.

⁶⁰
Those who view the righteousness of God as the central theme of the letter include Schreiner,
Romans
, 25—27 (as is evident from his outline); Stuhlmacher,
Romans
, 10; E. Käsemann,
Commentary on Romans
, trans. G. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980); U. Wilckens,
Der Brief an die Römer
, EKKNT (Zürich: Benziger, 1978-82); and A. Schlatter,
Romans: The Righteousness of God
, trans. S. Schatzmann (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995).

⁶¹
Moo,
Romans
, 27-30.

⁶²
Ibid., 14.

⁶³
Manson, “St. Paul's Letter to the Romans—and Others,” 14—15.

⁶⁴
G. Bornkamm, “The Letter to the Romans as Paul's Last Will and Testament,” in
The Romans Debate
, 16—28.

⁶⁵
Barnett, “Why Paul Wrote Romans,” 141.

⁶⁶
This category was suggested and defined by M. L. Stirewalt Jr., “The Form and Function of the Greek Letter-Essay,” in
The Romans Debate
, 147—71. Stirewalt pointed to 15 different documents as examples of the letter-essay including the letters of Epicurus, the letters of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, selections of Plutarch's works, 2 Maccabees, and the Martyrdom of Polycarp. Stirewalt did not discuss the classification of Romans. The classification of Romans as a “letter-essay” was adopted by K. P. Donfried, “False Presuppositions in the Study of Romans,” in
The Romans Debate
, 122—25; and Fitzmyer,
Romans
, 68—69 (though Fitzmyer preferred the term “essay-letter,” which better stressed the document's “missive character”).

⁶⁷
Stirewalt, “Greek Letter-Essay,” 163.

⁶⁸
R. Jewett, “Following the Argument of Romans,” in
The Romans Debate
, 266.

⁶⁹
W. Wuellner, “Paul's Rhetoric of Argumentation in Romans: An Alternative to the Donfried-Karris Debate over Romans,” in
The Romans Debate
, 128—46, esp. 139. Cf. R. Jewett, “Following the Argument of Romans,” in
The Romans Debate
, 266; G. A. Kennedy,
New Testament Interpretation Through Rhetorical Criticism
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1984), 152—56; M. L. Reid, “A Rhetorical Analysis of Romans 1:1—5:21 with Attention Given to the Rhetorical Function of 5:1—21,”
Perspectives in Religious Studies
19 (1992): 255—72; B. Byrne,
Romans
, SacPag (Collegeville: Glazier, 1996), 15-18.

⁷⁰
D. Aune, “Romans as a Logos Protreptikos,” in
The Romans Debate
, 278—96, esp. 278—79. The classification of Romans as protreptic rhetoric has been argued at greatest length by A. J. Guera,
Romans and the Apologetic Tradition: The Purpose, Genre, and Audience of Paul's Letter
, SNTSMS 81 (Cambridge: University Press, 1995).

⁷¹
Dunn,
Romans
, 1:lix.

⁷²
C. E. B. Cranfield,
Commentary on Romans IX—XVI and Essays, in A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1979), 818.

⁷³
Verse 24 is not in the oldest and best manuscripts of the letter. For a more detailed analysis of the structure of the book that takes into consideration objective features such as word repetition, shifts in person, the use of diatribe, and so on, see Aune, “Romans as a Logos Protreptikos,” 290—96.

⁷⁴
For a convenient list of scholars supporting each view of the structure, see Fitzmyer,
Romans, 96—97.

⁷⁵
See the more thorough treatment of the structure in Fitzmyer,
Romans
, 96—98; Cranfield,
Romans
, 1:252—54.

⁷⁶
Scholars dispute whether the phrase “obedience of faith” refers to faith as an act of obedience to the gospel (appositional genitive) or an obedience that results from faith (genitive of source). Paul's frequent mention of obedience to the gospel message (see 1:8; 10:16; 11:23, 30—31; 15:18; 16:19) strongly suggests that the phrase refers to obedience to the gospel that consists primarily of faith. But this does not imply that an obedient lifestyle does not issue from the believer's commitment to Christ.

⁷⁷
Alternatively, Paul's question, “Who will rescue me from the body of this death?” (7:24) anticipates both the activity of the Spirit that sets the believer free from the law of sin and death (8:1—17) and the final redemption of the body through resurrection and glorification (8:18—39).

⁷⁸
See the discussion of Phoebe in A. J. Köstenberger, “Women in the Pauline Mission,” in
The Gospel to the Nations: Perspectives on Paul's Mission
, ed. P. Bolt and M. Thompson (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000), 228—29. Cf. Moo,
Romans
, 912—16; and Schreiner,
Romans
, 786—88, both of whom, while also complementarian in their view of gender roles, leaned toward identifying Phoebe as a deacon. Among translations, the HCSB has “servant” in the text, with a footnote saying, “Others interpret this term in a technical sense:
deacon
, or
deaconess
, or
minister.”
Similarly, both the NASB and the NIV have “servant” in the text and a footnote: “Or
deaconess”;
this is reversed in TNIV: “deacon” in the text, “Or
servant”
in a footnote.

⁷⁹
See Köstenberger, “Women in the Pauline Mission,” 221—47.

⁸⁰
Bruce,
Letter of Paul to the Romans
, 30—31.