Romans 9-11 - Book Battle!
Paul, the Gospel, and the Jews
Romans 9-11 is a fascinating passage, a contested passage, a passage fraught with much controversy.
There are exegetical puzzles (read Rom 10:5-8), theological debates (is Romans 9 a proof-text for Calvinism), discussions over eschatological passages (like Rom 11:26), and also questions about Jewish-Christian relations in the post-Holocaust era.
I generally follow Thomas Tobin’s summary of this passage as dealing with Israel in the past (Romans 9), Israel in the present (Romans 10), and Israel in the future (Romans 11).
Otherwise, two new books have come out on this passage/topic, including:
Mark Reasoner, Now Shown Mercy: A Commentary on Romans 9-11. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024.
Reasoner’s Now Shown Mercy is the first commentary in 500 years that returns to the quadriga (literal sense plus threefold spiritual sense) in its exegetical approach. The commentary shows how Paul understands Israel to be valued by God for its own sake, not simply as a type of the church or a preparation for the Christ. Paul views Israel as under God’s mercy even as he writes Romans chapters 9–11, grieving as he is over both Israel’s political subjugation in the first century and its spiritual condition. Since these chapters show that God values Israel for its own sake, the commentary’s exegesis calls gentile believers to heed anew Paul’s warning against boasting over Israel.
Thomas P. Dixon, Paul and the Wrath: Divine Judgment and Mercy of Israel in Romans 9-11. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2024.
Paul and the Wrath replaces the simplistic wrath-mercy binary with a thicker, overlooked, and distinctly Jewish lens of remedial wrath, clarifying Paul's argument that God judges Israel in order to save Israel. To configure this lens properly, Thomas Dixon outlines a taxonomy of views on divine wrath and mercy around four ancient, representative interpreters, then surveys philosophies of wrath in Greco-Roman literature before examining a swathe of images in biblical and extrabiblical Jewish texts in which judgment advances mercy. The frequency of such imagery in these Jewish sources establishes a plausibility structure for finding similar theology in Paul, which leads Dixon to a new evaluation of Paul's argumentative logic in Romans 9-11 and elsewhere.
Time for a book battle! Which one do I like the best? Check out the video below
Book Battle: Romans 9-11
Recommended Readings on Romans 9-11
John Barclay, Paul and the Gift.
Michael Bird and Scot McKnight (eds), God’s Israel and the Israel of God.
Johannes Munck, Christ & Israel: An interpretation of Romans 9-11.
Todd Still (ed), God and Israel: Providence and Purpose in Romans 9–11.
Florian Wilk, J. Ross Wagner, and Frank Schleritt (eds), Between Gospel and Election: Explorations in the Interpretation of Romans 9-11.
I like that idea that Israel has intrinsic value to God, not just instrumental value. I always ask 'Did God choose the Jews or just use the Jews?'
Reading this article reminds me of just how good God's Israel and the Israel of God (ed by Bird and McKnight) is. Particularly the first two articles, by of all people, McKnight and Bird. Thankfully I was liberal with a highlighter, so I have been able to pull it out frequently and review a Reader's Digest version every time someone on twitter refers to supersessionism. You guys were at the top of your game. More of this type of thing.