Biblical Theology of the New Testament

Biblical Theology

of the New Testament

PETER STUHLMACHER

TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY

DANIEL P. BAILEY

WITH THE COLLABORATION OF

JOSTEIN ÅDNA

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive NE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505

www.eerdmans.com

Originally published in German

© Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG,

Peter Stuhlmacher, Original title: Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 2. Auflage,

Göttingen, 1999

English translation

© 2018 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

All rights reserved

Published 2018

27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 181 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

ISBN 978-0-8028-4080-6

eISBN 978-1-4674-5065-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stuhlmacher, Peter, author.

Title: Biblical theology of the New Testament / Peter Stuhlmacher ; translated and edited by Daniel P. Bailey ; with the collaboration of Jostein Ådna.

Other titles: Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments. English

Description: Grand Rapids : Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017059260 | ISBN 9780802840806 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. New Testament—Theology.

Classification: LCC BS2397 .S8713 2018 | DDC 230/.0415—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017059260

Contents

Foreword by G. K. Beale

Translator’s Preface

Preface to the English Edition

References and Abbreviations

Bibliography of New Testament Theologies

FOUNDATIONS

1.The Task and Structure of a Biblical Theology of the New Testament

BOOK ONE: THE ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PROCLAMATION

Part One: The Proclamation of Jesus

2.The Problem and Necessity of the Quest for the Earthly Jesus

3.The Chronology of Jesus’s Ministry

4.Jesus and John the Baptist

5.God’s Son and God’s Kingdom

6.Characteristic Forms of Jesus’s Proclamation

7.God’s Uniqueness and Saving Power in the Proclamation of Jesus

8.God’s Will in the Proclamation of Jesus

9.The Messianic Son of Man: Jesus’s Claim to Deity

10.Jesus’s Readiness to Suffer and His Understanding of His Death

11.The Consequence of Jesus’s Mission: Passion and Crucifixion

12.Who Was Jesus of Nazareth?

Part Two: The Proclamation of the Early Church

13.Jesus’s Resurrection from the Dead

14.The Development of the Confession of Christ

15.The Formation, Structure, and Mission of the First Churches

Part Three: The Proclamation of Paul

16.Sources, Chronology, and Nature of Paul’s Career

17.The Origin and Starting Point of Pauline Theology

18.Paul and the Law

19.The World, Humanity, and Sin

20.Christ, the End of the Law

21.The Gospel, Justification, and Faith

22.The Sacraments, the Spirit, and the Church

23.Life and Obedience by Grace: The Pauline Paraclesis

Part Four: The Proclamation in the Period after Paul

24.The Proclamation of Christ in the Pauline School

25.The Understanding of the Church in the Pauline School

26.Paraclesis and Eschatology in the Pauline School

Excursus: Eschatology and Apostleship in 2 Thessalonians

27.The Letter of James

28.The Theology and Proclamation of First Peter

29.The Theology and Proclamation of Hebrews

30.Apostolic Faith and Scripture Interpretation in the Church: The Struggle against Heresy in Jude and Second Peter

Part Five: The Proclamation of the Synoptic Gospels

31.The Origin of the Synoptic Gospels

32.The Gospel of Mark

33.The Gospel of Matthew

34.Luke and Acts

Part Six: The Proclamation of John and His School

35.The Tradition of the Johannine School

36.Johannine Christology

37.Life in Faith and Love

38.The Johannine View of the Church

39.The Significance of the Tradition of the Johannine School

BOOK TWO: THE PROBLEM OF THE CANON AND THE CENTER OF SCRIPTURE

40.The Formation of the Two-Part Christian Canon

41.The Center of Scripture

42.The Canon and Its Interpretation

43.Recent Work and Future Prospects

Biblical and Greco-Roman Uses of Hilastērion in Romans 3:25 and 4 Maccabees 17:22 (Codex S)

BY DANIEL P. BAILEY

Index of Subjects

Index of Modern Authors

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Sources

Foreword

For the first time, English readers will now have access to Peter Stuhlmacher’s two-volume Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Biblical Theology of the New Testament; vol. 1, 2005³; vol. 2, 2012²). Daniel P. Bailey, in collaboration with Jostein Ådna, has translated and edited Stuhlmacher’s work, a project that has taken years to complete. The new translation provides a window into both the world of German scholarship and debates about biblical theology. For example, the text offers an evaluative survey of the major German biblical theologies from the latter part of the twentieth century to the early part of the twenty-first century (17–27). A similar survey of Pauline theology is also provided (264–73).

Stuhlmacher asserts that biblical theology encounters two major problems: (1) the authoritative claims of the OT and NT and (2) the relationship of the authoritative writings in the NT to those in the OT. The book begins and ends with a discussion of the biblical canon. Stuhlmacher focuses on the complex relationship between the NT and OT. In contrast to most German biblical theologies, Stuhlmacher examines the use of OT texts in the NT as well as the wider theological framework of the OT.¹ The latter sheds light on the former and vice versa: Neither can the Old Testament be interpreted apart from the New nor can the New Testament be interpreted apart from the Old (802).² Accordingly, the OT is not a preliminary stage to the New, the significance and worth of which will only be decided on the basis of the New Testament revelation.³ Stuhlmacher’s approach marked the beginning of a trend among NT theologies that attempt to understand the significance of Christ and his redemptive work in light of the conceptual categories of the OT.

One example of this is Stuhlmacher’s argument that Jesus’s Last Supper should be understood as an enactment of the festival of deliverance from Egypt, a typological celebration of a worldwide deliverance of those in spiritual bondage. Stuhlmacher understands the reference to Isaiah the prophet in Mark 1:1–2 as the basis for the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The phrase as it is written never introduces a new sentence in the NT but always provides the grounds for something prior. No period is needed between 1:1 and 1:2. These two verses are therefore to be translated continuously: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah. . . . Mark intends to narrate the gospel of Jesus Christ just as it stands written (or promised) in the prophet Isaiah (561). Mark thus presents Isaiah as the basis or essential content of his gospel.

Stuhlmacher distinguishes between the Sinai Torah and the Zion Torah. The latter refers to the eschatological time (1) when Israelites would be personally changed into a new creation by the Spirit; (2) when Israelites would live in peace and walk according to God’s statutes;⁴ (3) when the new revelation of the law at Zion will supersede the provisional Sinai revelation of the Torah, the new Torah will not stand against people but will be written on their hearts, Torah instruction will not be needed (Jer 31:31–34); and (4) when the Messiah’s rule and new revelation of the law will be centered in Zion. As a result, Israel’s old Torah is weighted in new and different ways (288).

In contrast to the skeptical trend of German scholarship, Stuhlmacher follows the hermeneutical approach of his OT colleague, Hartmut Gese. Ernst Troeltsch established the hegemony of the historical-critical method, an approach marked by systematic skepticism (historical judgments are uncertain and cannot be the basis of faith), analogy (humans in the past are the same as humans today), and correlation (modern scientific natural law is assumed to be true). Stuhlmacher and Gese believe that these three principles are insufficient. Rather, principled historical skepticism must be overcome by a hermeneutic of good will or critical sympathy. Historical criticism must enter into serious discussion with the biblical texts by agreeing as far as possible with their central kerygmatic statements (12) or at least allowing them to have their say (cf. 742). Consequently, four criteria must control any biblical hermeneutic: it must be (1) historically appropriate to the NT, (2) open to the claims of revelation in the gospels, (3) related to the church’s experience of life and faith, and (4) transparent rationally.

Stuhlmacher sums up his approach as intellect seeking faith together with faith seeking understanding (13), although he appears to prefer the latter: there is . . . no better instruction for the understanding of Scripture than Proverbs 9:10 (NIV): ‘the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding’ (805). Consequently, exegetes must squarely face the truth claims of the NT books and get inside the ‘underlying spiritual experience’ in which both the [biblical] authors and recipients of these texts lived (795). This means interpreters must take into account the criticism of reason pronounced by the biblical texts themselves (796), and they must remain open to the miracle of God’s self-disclosure through the texts (804). In another book, Stuhlmacher observes that exegetical, hermeneutical, and theological methods are limited because God and the Spirit cannot be confined to a method.⁵

In contrast to many biblical theologies written in North America, Stuhlmacher’s biblical theology is like a NT introduction (it includes discussions of authorship, dating, and a survey of contents of NT books) with an emphasis on apologetics. Stuhlmacher defends the historical reliability of accounts in the Synoptic Gospels. For example, instead of assuming that the sayings of Jesus had their origin in the later tradition of the church, Stuhlmacher believes that there was a well-preserved continuity of tradition between the pre-Easter band of disciples and the post-Easter church (56). Accordingly, the beginnings of the Jesus tradition lie, not in the post-Easter church traditions, but in Jesus’s own teaching that he imparted to his followers, who then maintained these sayings together with the accounts of the healing miracles. Therefore, Jesus’s sayings and acts recorded in the Synoptic Gospels should be assumed to be historically reliable. Stuhlmacher maintains that a presupposition of historical reliability is in keeping with reading the gospels with critical sympathy (57).

Stuhlmacher finds Peter’s narration of the preaching about Christ in Acts 10:36–43—leading up to the mini-Pentecost at the end of that chapter—to be a good and reliable summary about the historical Jesus (61–62). Acts 10:36 is a crucial part of this narration: the word which he [God] sent to the sons of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all). The notion of God sending his word to Israel borrows from Psalm 107:20 and the preaching of peace indicates that it was through Christ that the promise of end-time peace had begun its fulfillment in Christ (in accordance with Isa 52:7, cf. 79–80, 88, 180). The designation that captures Jesus and his work most exactly is that of the messianic atoner and reconciler (183; cf. 184). Paul uses the word reconciliation to summarize atonement and justification (354). An inclusive model of Jesus’s death closely integrates several ideas: sacrifice and place-taking, destruction of that which is unholy, surrender of life to God, forgiveness of sins, and new creation (218).

Stuhlmacher appears to collapse the concepts of justification and sanctification: Sanctification for Paul does not mean anything additional to justification, but describes its inward dimension from the perspective of atonement theology; this dimension places believers into the new obedience (411). Further, he writes, If one considers the character of justification as sanctification and a change of lordship, then the apostle’s dialectic understanding of freedom also becomes understandable (414). Stuhlmacher never qualifies these statements.

I was pleased to see Stuhlmacher’s proposal of the center of NT theology: The early Christian resurrection confession becomes the all-decisive central datum of the biblical theology of the New Testament (199). I reached a similar conclusion in my own A New Testament Biblical Theology.⁶ Yet Stuhlmacher can also say that the doctrine of justification is therefore the distinguishing mark of the Pauline gospel from early on (256); likewise, from early on in Paul’s ministry, the doctrine of justification designates . . . the whole of Pauline theology (367). Indeed, Stuhlmacher states that the doctrine of justification can be designated as the center of Scripture by solid exegetical reasoning (800). He understands both Christ’s resurrection and the doctrine of justification to be the central ideas of a biblical theology.

Stuhlmacher concludes his work by briefly discussing areas in NT theology in which there needs to be further work: (1) the tradition behind the Synoptic Gospels, especially with respect to its early Jewish and Jewish-Christian presuppositions; (2) the three great pilgrimage festivals (Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles); (3) the earliest Christian education system and how this relates to the teaching tradition of the OT and NT; (4) the dialogue between exegesis and systematic theology; and (5) the notion of truth in the OT and NT and its hermeneutical significance.

The translation of Stuhlmacher’s work by Eerdmans is a contribution both to scholarship and to the church.

G. K. BEALE

September 30, 2017

1. See also Peter Stuhlmacher, How to Do Biblical Theology, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1995), 79.

2. See also Stuhlmacher, How to Do Biblical Theology, 2–12.

3. Stuhlmacher, How to Do Biblical Theology, 79. Note also G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011) for further discussion.

4. Stuhlmacher appeals to Ezekiel 36–37 and Jeremiah 30–31 for these first two points.

5. Peter Stuhlmacher, Historical Criticism and Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Towards a Hermeneutic of Consent (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 90.

6. See pages 227–356.

Translator’s Preface

This book is a translation of Professor Peter Stuhlmacher’s two-volume Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments with special attention to the needs of English-speaking theological students. I have aimed at a translation that is easily readable over long stretches with as smooth a style as possible. Professor Stuhlmacher read drafts at frequent intervals as I submitted portions of chapters, using highlighting to identify added transitional phrases of various lengths, almost all of which were approved. I used the German text to guide me to the exegetical insight of the author and then expressed that point as clearly as I could, with frequent recourse to the many English versions, one of which was usually the ideal rendering for the author’s thought. The default translation for this edition is the NRSV at the author’s request; slight modifications have usually been noted. Special attention has been paid to primary sources, as I looked up most of the texts I did not know, and then provided page references to the standard sources for extrabiblical literature to make reference slightly easier. The Old Testament versification follows the Hebrew text, with English or Septuagint versification consistently given in parentheses or brackets. Important Hebrew terms have also been given in transliteration. Qumran documents have been identified both by number and by short title to help students gain familiarity, while the front matter provides extensive orientation to the system of reference and the primary sources. Finally, each chapter contains two bibliographies at the end, Original Bibliography and Further Reading. Citation of a work of secondary literature within the chapter with the author name and title but no date generally implies that the work is listed in the original bibliography; dates are usually given for other secondary literature cited within the chapter.

The starting point for this English edition is the latest German editions of the volumes containing chapters 1–23 and 24–43, namely, the third edition of volume 1 (2005) and the second edition of volume 2 (2012). However, the revision of volume 2 consisted mainly of converting Qumran document titles into the standard numbering system together with the correction of errors. There was no change to the German chapter bibliographies in volume 2, which therefore reflect the date of the first edition of 1999.

In German a major revision was undertaken in chapter 1 for the third edition, in which Professor Stuhlmacher added new material, balanced against cuts of existing material, to avoid increasing the chapter’s length at the publisher’s request. But in our English edition a few pages of useful German material that had been cut have been reincluded. The most significant restored material is the mild criticism of Joachim Jeremias that begins with a quotation from Ernst Käsemann’s essay Blind Alleys in the ‘Jesus of History’ Controversy (23–24).

For all chapters of this book, English-language supplemental bibliographies were provided at an intermediate stage in our process by Scott Hafemann and Alexander Kirk, as indicated in the author’s preface. These generally run through 2010, but there are also more recent entries. The front matter additionally contains a list of twenty-seven New Testament theologies in English and German.

To bring the volume up to date regarding secondary literature, we were fortunate to have the cooperation of four authors of recent works of New Testament theology in English, who provided substantial summaries of their work in §5.3.12 of chapter 1. We are grateful for the contributions of Frank Thielman, Frank J. Matera, Thomas R. Schreiner, and Gregory K. Beale. Furthermore, in §5.3.11, Eugene M. Boring has provided a summary of Udo Schnelle’s Theology of the New Testament (2007; ET 2009), of which he is the English translator.

I set out to gain a reasonably clear understanding of every topic addressed in this volume, for the sake of its readers as well as for my own learning. One result was that in chapter 40, on the canon, I substantially supplemented the text in various places and made in effect a second edition of it. In particular, an entirely new section of three thousand words on the Old Testament canon of Eastern Orthodoxy is added in §7.10 (762–68). This may be useful in part because in the United States, Bibles with the Apocrypha now include all the books that have been part of the Greek and Russian Orthodox (Slavonic) Bibles, including, for example, 4 Maccabees. I attempt to overview the situation as a journalist would, drawing particularly upon Eugen Pentiuc, The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition (2014).

Chapter 40 also includes a new five-hundred-word excursus on Josephus’s rationale (cf. Ag. Ap. 1.37–41) for counting twenty-two Hebrew canonical books rather than the traditional twenty-four (with no change in contents), drawing upon John Barclay’s volume Against Apion (2007) in the Brill Josephus series (744–45). There is also an expanded treatment of the canonical status or otherwise of the recognized, disputed, spurious, and rejected books of the New Testament as understood by Origen and Eusebius, summarized in an enhanced table on the model of Bruce Metzger (§7.4, [757–58]).

One very important collaboration occurred after Professor James D. G. Dunn had read a preliminary version of my translation of Professor Stuhlmacher’s chapter 17, and asked by email whether it would be possible for us to refer to some of his more recent works on subjects pertaining to Paul and the law. I therefore corresponded extensively with both Professors Stuhlmacher and Dunn over Christmas 2015–2016 to produce an updated version of §1.5.4 of chapter 17 (270–73), mainly based on Dunn’s clarifications in his long introductory essay to his collected essays The New Perspective on Paul, entitled The New Perspective: Whence, What and Whither?,¹ which appeared after the latest German edition of the present work. The extra material in this Biblical Theology begins with the reference in the text to Dunn’s comprehensive new essay (271), and has been selected by me to create a kind of dialogue, although only Professor Stuhlmacher speaks in the first person.² I simulated a response by Professor Stuhlmacher, in which he interacts with passages where Dunn has summarized his views. Both professors have read and approved of the resulting presentation, which shows the lasting impact of characteristically Lutheran and Reformed understandings of justification and sanctification.

Beyond a unique example of editing like the one just explained, Professor Stuhlmacher kindly writes in his preface that I have expertly augmented (fachkundig ergänzt) his text (see below, xx). However, I would also like to make it clear that this statement is partly a reflexive one, as many of the ways in which I have tried to enhance the English text of this Biblical Theology have been a product of knowledge I gained while working with Professor Stuhlmacher and his Tübingen colleagues. Particularly important for my own academic development were my translation and annotation of Bernd Janowski and Peter Stuhmacher, eds., The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources (Eerdmans, 2004), as well as research on the atonement conducted in both Tübingen and Cambridge.

While in The Suffering Servant I often enclosed my translator’s additions within the double square brackets ⟦(Tr.) . . .⟧, I have not used that convention here in this Biblical Theology, and I use the tag translator only sparingly (e.g., 128, 159, 183, 219–20nn1–2, 352). I count at least forty more or less significant additions made to the text of this work, introducing a new issue or adding more evidence for existing points. These expansions generally augment the theological, philological, or exegetical infrastructure of English edition in support of Professor Stuhlmacher’s superstructure. Nineteen examples in six categories are noted below.³

There are many people to acknowledge. First in historical order would have to be my University of Cambridge doctoral supervisor, Professor Morna D. Hooker. In her role as editor of the Journal of Theological Studies she gave me my first translation assignment, working with Professor Stuhlmacher’s most esteemed colleague, Professor Martin Hengel, along with his research student Roland Deines. The project was a seventy-page English translation of a longer (at the time unpublished) German review article of two works by E. P. Sanders.⁴ A year later I was invited as Professor Hooker’s student to participate in the 1996 Baylor University Colloquium on Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins, where the other main speaker was Professor Stuhlmacher’s Tübingen colleague Otto Betz. My paper, "Concepts of Stellvertretung in the Interpretation of Isaiah 53,"⁵ began to popularize the English translation of the Tübingen German expression einschließende or inkludierende Stellvertretung as the inclusive place-taking of a sacrificial animal, or the Suffering Servant, or Jesus himself on behalf of the beneficiaries of atonement. My study was mainly based on Professor Otfried Hofius’s use of the latter expression in the Tübingen volume on Isaiah 53, which I would later translate (as above),⁶ while Hofius for his part had based his work on the seminal essay of Tübingen Old Testament Professor Hartmut Gese, The Atonement.⁷ This terminology of inclusive place-taking has since become mainstream in English and is now one of the topics in a popular book by Simon Gathercole.⁸ It can be counted as a lasting contribution of the Tübingen approach, which Professor Stuhlmacher attributes to very favorable collegial relationships with these and other Tübingen professors.⁹

My collaborator Jostein Ådna deserves special thanks for his outstanding contribution to the final editing of this book. After the translation had been largely completed, Jostein painstakingly read the entire work against the German. While he caught a few outright scribal errors, for which I am thankful, much more valuable to me was his deep knowledge of Professor Stuhlmacher’s theology and the German theological scene in general, which helped give an added level of precision to our final text. In many cases he also found the ideal English word and generally gave me extra confidence in the soundness of our product. Finally, Jostein has influenced the book’s vocabulary by introducing the increasingly standard terminology of Jesus’s action in the temple or temple act for the traditional temple cleansing that stood in the German, supported by his dissertation and a related dictionary article.¹⁰

My friend and former student Kevin M. Franco helped with formatting of bibliographies and the writing of the extra section on the Orthodox canon in chapter 40, as well as looking up German works and their English translations for the painstaking page correlations (including a late night in the Regenstein Library). He also spent time away from his family on several Saturdays to try to help me organize the essay on Romans 3:25 and 4 Maccabees 17:22 that concludes this volume.

I also received help in translating languages I am not very familiar with. For Swiss German of the sixteenth century, my friend from college days, Professor Amy Nelson Burnett (University of Nebraska–Lincoln), translated two portions of Heinrich Bullinger’s Zurich Confession of 1545 (761, 782).

For katharevousa Modern Greek, our chair of Classics and Mediterranean Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Professor Nanno Marinatos, helped me to understand a very formal letter of recommendation by an authority from the Orthodox Church in Greece, addressed to the director of the Greek Bible Society, and reproduced in their The Holy Bible in Today’s Greek Version with Deuterocanonicals (1997). The letter recommends this modern Bible for personal study; but in part because its Old Testament is based on the Hebrew text rather than the Septuagint, it also states that it is not to be used in the liturgy or in other church activities (see below, 766).

Finally, I must thank Professor Peter Stuhlmacher for the great privilege of learning from him and translating his magnum opus. The nearly three years I spent in Tübingen in separate visits in 1991 and 1992–1994 I recall as some of the happiest and most adventurous of my life.

I therefore feel privileged to have been able here to produce a new essay, which Professor Stuhlmacher has welcomed, on the interpretation of the crucial term hilastērion, entitled "Biblical and Greco-Roman Uses of Hilastērion in Romans 3:25 and 4 Maccabees 17:22 (Codex S). My treatment unavoidably becomes a tribute to Stuhlmacher’s own seminal essay of 1975, Recent Exegesis of Romans 3:24–26."¹¹ In particular, his idea that the use of this term in 4 Maccabees 17:22 Codex S should be interpreted in the light of the Greco-Roman inscriptions, which show all such ἱλαστήρια to be concrete propitiatory offerings, has influenced English Bible translation. Adopting Stuhlmacher’s ideas as mediated in part through my unpublished University of Cambridge dissertation (now available online),¹² Professor David deSilva of Ashland Theological Seminary has replaced the RSV’s expression "their death as an expiation (with reference to the martyrs) with their death as a propitiatory offering" for the ESV Apocrypha.¹³

It should be noted that my essay here contains arguments never before published about ἱλαστήριον, including a formal theory for distinguishing biblical and Greco-Roman usage as well as a less novel but still necessary criticism of the translation atoning sacrifice (which Professor Stuhlmacher asked me to include in the light of his interactions in 1975 with Eduard Lohse [cf. Märtyrer und Gottesknecht, 1955], who still holds this view). Nevertheless, the essay is not written in a strict journal-article style, but as a more expansive discussion of Greek intended to be accessible to students at various levels. As such, I cannot think of a place I would rather have it appear than in this Biblical Theology of the New Testament, as a small token of gratitude for all I have learned by studying with Professor Stuhlmacher and translating his great work.

DANIEL P. BAILEY

Chicago

February 16, 2018

1. In Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul (2008²), 1–97.

2. A key input for Professor Dunn came in the form of a May 2003 email from Professor Stuhlmacher that Dunn has preserved. Stuhlmacher wrote to Dunn in German in May 2003, and his message, according to Dunn’s English translation, is: Since all men are sinners, they themselves cannot be recognised as doers of the whole law, even if they have done some good. Without Christ and his intercession, they are lost (Dunn, New Perspective, 91 with n. 379). Professor Stuhlmacher has indicated that the quotation sounds like something he might have written, although he does not remember the particular exchange.

3. (1) Text criticism: Luke 22:16, οὐκέτι οὐ μὴ φάγω (152); Rom. 16:7, Ἰουνιαν = Junias or Junia (238–39); Acts 11:20, Hellenists, Ἑλληνιστάς vs. Ἕλληνας, Greeks (241); (2) Greek word studies: refutation of M. Karrer, Der Gesalbte, regarding τὸ χριστόν, Dan. 9:26b LXX (130–31); English translations of σάρξ, flesh, in Paul (308); ἐπερώτημα in 1 Pet. 3:20 interpreted as in NRSV margin, "a pledge to God from a good conscience" (516–17); John 1:18 as the apposition μονογενής = θεός in 𝔓⁶⁶ א* B C*, etc. (670–71); (3) Sacrifice, atonement, and the mercy seat: note 1: inaccuracies in J. Roloff, ἱλαστήριον, EWNT/EDNT (219); note 2: impossibility of using P. Fay. 337 to argue ἱλαστήριον is a term for a victim of sacrifice (220; cf. 688, first full paragraph); Jesus as περὶ ἁμαρτίας, sin offering, Rom. 8:3, with LXX statistics (88 times) (324–25; cf. 221); the mercy seat as physically a top-piece (ἐπίθεμα) on the ark (Exod. 25:17; Philo; Josephus) given various theological names: כַּפֹּרֶת, ἱλαστήριον, propitiatorium (and oraculum), Gnadenstuhl, mercy seat (160); also called the very seat of the godhead (J. Milgrom, 217); (4) Theological German: German scholars (e.g., C. Breytenbach) point out that the Greek expressions to make atonement (ἱλάσκεσθαι) and to reconcile (καταλλάσσειν) have different roots and meanings, whereas the corresponding German terms are etymologically related: Sühne and Versöhnung (or Versühnung) (352); German Bürgerlichkeit can be understood pejoratively as the conventional middle class way of life (cf. bourgeois); however, in the exegesis of the Pastoral Epistles it can also be used positively, as in The Ideal of Good Christian Citizenship (484); (5) Expanded quotation of primary texts: lists of verses are sometimes expanded as paragraphs, e.g., 38 statements of how Christ died or surrendered his life ὑπὲρ ἡμῖν/ὑμῖν/πάντων, for us/you/all, and other related expressions (777, first two paragraphs; another example, 750–51, §5.3); (6) Critical issues: M. Hengel’s theory of the authorship of John’s Gospel, expanded in our ET (651–52, small type).

4. M. Hengel and R. Deines, "E. P. Sanders’ ‘Common Judaism,’ Jesus, and the Pharisees: Review Article of Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah and Judaism: Practice and Belief by E. P. Sanders," JTS NS 46 (1995): 1–70.

5. In Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins, ed. W. H. Bellinger and W. R. Farmer (1998), 223–50.

6. See O. Hofius, The Fourth Servant Song in the New Testament Letters, in The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources, ed. B. Janowski and P. Stuhlmacher (2004), 163–88.

7. H. Gese, Die Sühne, in Zur biblischen Theologie (1977), 85–106; ET: The Atonement, in Essays on Biblical Theology (1981), 93–116.

8. See S. Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul (2015), esp. The Tübingen Understanding of Representative ‘Place-Taking,’ which is the first topic of chapter 1 (pp. 30–38), followed by M. D. Hooker’s Interchange in Christ (pp. 38–42).

9. On this topic of the Tübingen contribution to biblical theology as Professor Stuhlmacher sees it, we now have his retrospective article, which he has indicated may be his last, Die Tübinger Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments—ein Rückblick, TBei 48 (2017): 76–91. Stuhlmacher reviews the productive results for biblical theology of his collegial relationships with Tübingen Professors Hartmut Gese, Otto Betz, Martin Hengel, Gert Jeremias, and Otfried Hofius, and at a later time, Gese’s former student Bernd Janowski. But he also seems to lament, while also accepting it as a not uncommon result in academic life, that this biblical theology is not being clearly carried forward by the current Tübingen biblical faculty, which is once again turning to the perspectives of the Bultmann school. On the whole, this essay provides an overview of Stuhlmacher’s entire career and the exegetical results he considers most important.

10. Cf. J. Ådna, Jesu Stellung zum Tempel (2000); Temple Act, DJG 947–52.

11. See P. Stuhlmacher, Zur neueren Exegese von Röm 3,24–26, in Jesus und Paulus, FS W. G. Kümmel, ed. E. E. Ellis and E. Grässer (1975), 315–33, repr. in idem, Versöhnung, Gesetz und Gerechtigkeit (1981), 117–35; ET: Recent Exegesis of Romans 3:24–26, in Reconciliation, Law, and Righteousness (1986), 94–109.

12. See "Jesus as the Mercy Seat: The Semantics and Theology of Paul’s Use of Hilasterion in Romans 3:25" (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 1999; https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.17213), summarized in TynBul 51 (2000): 155–58.

13. On deSilva’s translation of 4 Macc. 17:22 Codex S, see also the expression the propitiatory offering of their death in the running translation in D. A. deSilva, 4 Maccabees: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Sinaiticus (2006), 59.

Preface to the English Edition

The publication of my Biblical Theology of the New Testament in English is a risky venture. I wrote it twenty years ago, and it reflects the prevailing discussion in Germany at the time. In those days, it was hotly debated whether it would even make sense to write a theology of the New Testament that would no longer see the New Testament tradition as anchored only in Hellenistic syncretism, but first and foremost in the Hebrew Old Testament, the Septuagint, and the faith traditions of ancient Judaism. Likewise, it was (and remains) controversial whether access to the biblical texts can be obtained only with the help of the historical-critical method, or whether this method is rather to be embedded in the wider effort to understand the biblical texts as they understand themselves. Within the context of the Christian canon, they are testimonies of faith in the one and only God, who definitively revealed himself in Jesus Christ and has opened access to the knowledge of this revelation through his Spirit-filled word. To the extent that this is not about specific historical analyses but the study and exposition of biblical theology, in my opinion the testimony of the texts must be hermeneutically respected. Since the theological discussion in the United States and the United Kingdom is accented differently than in Germany, it remains to be seen whether and how my presentation fits into this other conversation.

This book is appearing only now in English for two reasons. For professional and health reasons, Dr. Daniel Bailey was unable to work as quickly on the translation as he originally planned. At the same time, I was so intensely occupied with caring for my sick wife at home for ten years that academic work was impossible. Only now can I get back to my desk. But now I no longer have the time and energy to revise the original two volumes once again. I have to let them go out as they were. I regret that, because much progress has been made in work on the theology of the New Testament. Ulrich Wilckens has completed his three-volume theology (in seven part-volumes), portions of which are due to appear in English, and has supplemented this with a criticism of methods of biblical interpretation that is worthy of consideration: Kritik der Bibelkritik: Wie die Bibel wieder zur Heiligen Schrift werden kann (Criticism of Biblical Criticism: How the Bible Can Again Become Holy Scripture, Neukirchener Verlag, 2012). However, although it was not possible to systematically interact with Wilckens’s Theologie in the body of this work, I provide a summary of the contents and approach in chapter 1 (§5.3.10) and I have also published a review in Theologische Beiträge.¹ Donald A. Hagner has presented a theological introduction to the New Testament: The New Testament: A Historical and Theological Introduction (Baker Academic, 2012). This book also deserves attention. Furthermore, Nicholas Thomas Wright has enriched the discussion with profound monographs. His imposing magnum opus, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, criticizes the dogmatic interpretation of Paul coming out of the Reformation and attempts to place it back on its original biblical foundations. This ambitious undertaking requires a careful response, but although this could no longer be incorporated into my book, I have recently been able to comment on Wright in another venue.² Finally, although I have long been in conversation with James D. G. Dunn on the issue of justification by faith through the biennial Durham-Tübingen symposia and other opportunities, here in collaboration with the English translator I have only been able to provide a brief update by referring to the lead essay in the second edition of Dunn’s The New Perspective on Paul (2008²).³

Without the long-term collaboration based on mutual trust with my Tübingen friends and mentors Prof. Dr. Martin Hengel, DD (†), and Prof. Dr. Hartmut Gese, I could not have written my book. It remains dedicated to them. For the English translation, others are deserving of mention. First and foremost, I thank Dr. Daniel P. Bailey (University of Illinois at Chicago). He has translated the German original with remarkable expertise and sensitivity and has knowledgeably augmented the text. Prof. Dr. Jostein Ådna (Stavanger) has checked Dr. Bailey’s translation, suggested improvements, and contributed significantly to the work’s completion. He too deserves my heartfelt thanks. The same is true for Dr. Scott Hafemann (St. Andrews). He has advised me and worked together with his former assistant Dr. Alexander Kirk to produce the supplemental bibliographies. At my request, Dan Bailey and Jostein Ådna have taken over the task of copyediting and submitting the book. They thereby bear a burden that I as an old man would not have been able to shoulder. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company has ventured to publish this theology. I thank William B. Eerdmans Jr., James Ernest, and their entire team for the confidence they have placed in me and all who helped in the book’s preparation.

PETER STUHLMACHER

Tübingen

March 17, 2017

1. There are both a print version and a longer downloadable version of the review: Peter Stuhlmacher, Nimm und lies!, review of Theologie des Neuen Testaments, by Ulrich Wilckens, TBei 47 (2016): 224–29; idem, ‘Nimm und lies!’ Zur Lektüre von Ulrich Wilckens ‘Theologie des Neuen Testaments.’ See PDF: http://theologische-beiträge.de/index.php?id=4715.

2. See now Peter Stuhlmacher, N. T. Wright’s Understanding of Justication and Redemption, in God and the Faithfulness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N. T. Wright, ed. M. F. Bird, C. Heilig, and J. T. Hewitt, WUNT 2/413 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 359–74.

3. See below, chapter 17, §1.5.4, esp. 271–73.

References and Abbreviations

Abbreviations generally follow those in The SBL Handbook of Style: For Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies, edited by P. H. Alexander et al. (1999), supplemented by the Theologische Realenzyklopädie: Abkürzungsverzeichnis, edited by S. M. Schwertner (1994²). A few abbreviations have been coined, the most important of which is DSSSE (see below).

General

Biblical Text Types and Versions

Masoretic Text Versification

Citations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament follow the versification of the Masoretic Text or MT (as in BHS), with which the English Translation or ET (i.e., NRSV) usually agrees. Where the ET differs, its versification is given in parentheses, for example, Psalm 8:7 (ET 8:6); Malachi 3:19–24 (ET 4:1–6).

English Bible

The basic default text of the English Bible is the NRSV, at the author’s request. Occasionally NRSV modified, RSV modified, etc., signals a slight alteration in the text. Other English versions have been cited by the translator to illustrate various exegetical options considered in the German or to summarize exegetical issues most efficiently for students.

Standard Editions for Ancient Primary Sources: Biblical and Extrabiblical

Primary sources are quoted from the following standard editions unless otherwise indicated. The Loeb Classical Library (LCL) texts and translations are used for Philo, Josephus, the apostolic fathers, Eusebius, and relevant Greek and Roman writers. Both Brenton and NETS are used for the LXX (as indicated in the text). English editions of all other ancient primary sources are given in the text.

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha

Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Texts

Nonfragmentary texts from Qumran are referred to by column and line separated by a colon, like the chapter and verse of biblical texts, for example, CD 20:1; 1QS 9:11; 4Q171 3:16. Fragmentary texts follow this format: Fragment(s) (arabic numeral) column (roman numeral), line: for example, 4Q521 frag. 2 II, 12; 4Q398 frags. 14–17 II, 7. Relevant page numbers in the Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition are often given for convenience. Full titles of the documents, in DSSSE order (except for CD), are as follows:

Philo

Josephus

Mishnah and Talmud Tractates

m. Mishnah, b. Babylonian Talmud, y. Jerusalem Talmud, t. Tosefta

Tractate names are occasionally abbreviated, as indicated:

Targumic Texts

Apostolic Fathers

Modern Reference Works, Journals, Series, and Source Collections

Bibliography of New Testament Theologies

(Most of the following works are discussed in chapter 1 below.)

Beale, Gregory K. A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (2011).

Berger, Klaus. Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums: Theologie des Neuen Testaments (1995²).

Bultmann, Rudolf. Theology of the New Testament, 2 vols. (1948, 1953; ET 1951, 1955; cf. 2007 reprint by Baylor University Press, with new introduction and supplementary bibliographies by Robert Morgan).

Caird, G. B. New Testament Theology, completed and ed. L. D. Hurst (1994).

Childs, Brevard S. Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible (SCM 1992/Fortress 1993).

Conzelmann, Hans. An Outline of the Theology of the New Testament (1967¹, 1968²; ET 1969).

Gnilka, Joachim. Theologie des Neuen Testaments (1994).

Goppelt, Leonhard. Theology of the New Testament, ed. J. Roloff (1975–1976; ET 1981–1982).

Guthrie, Donald. New Testament Theology (1981).

Hahn, Ferdinand. Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 2 vols. (2002).

Hübner, Hans. Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 3 vols. (1990–1995).

Jeremias, Joachim. New Testament Theology, Part One: The Proclamation of Jesus (1971¹, 1973²; ET 1971).

Kittel, Gisela. Der Name über alle Namen II: Biblische Theologie/NT (1990¹, 1996²).

Kümmel, Werner G. The Theology of the New Testament according to Its Major Witnesses: Jesus—Paul—John (1969; ET Abingdon 1973/SCM 1974).

Ladd, George Eldon. A Theology of the New Testament (1974¹, 1993², rev. and ed. Donald A. Hagner).

Lohse, Eduard. Grundriss der neutestamentlichen Theologie (1974¹, 1989²).

Marshall, I. Howard. New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel (2004).

Matera, Frank J. New Testament Theology: Exploring Diversity and Unity (2007).

Morris, Leon. New Testament Theology (1986).

Schelkle, Karl H. Theology of the New Testament, 4 vols. (1968–1976; ET 1971–1978).

Schmithals, Walter. The Theology of the First Christians (1994; ET 1997).

Schnelle, Udo. Theology of the New Testament (2007; ET 2009).

Schreiner, Thomas R. New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ (2008).

Schweizer, Eduard. A Theological Introduction to the New Testament (1989; ET Abingdon 1991/SPCK 1992).

Strecker, Georg. Theology of the New Testament (1996; ET 2000).

Thielman, Frank S. Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach (2005).

Wilckens, Ulrich. Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 3 vols. in 7 part-volumes: I/1–4; II/1–2; III (2002–2017).

Foundations

CHAPTER 1

The Task and Structure of a Biblical Theology of the New Testament

1 The discipline of New Testament theology offers an organized overview of the proclamation and the faith content of the New Testament books. This task requires a certain systematic approach and reflected method for selecting, organizing, and presenting the material. It is therefore necessary at the beginning to give an account of the task of a biblical theology of the New Testament and the principles underlying its presentation.

Our first principle reads: A theology of the New Testament must allow the New Testament itself to dictate its theme and presentation.

This principle is less self-evident than it seems. The problems become apparent as soon as one considers what the New Testament is and what claims it makes. Historically speaking, the New Testament is a selective collection of early Christian writings from the first 150 years of the Christian era. That it is only a selection is clear from Luke 1:1–4, John 20:30, 21:25, 1 Corinthians 5:9, 2 Thessalonians 2:2, etc. This collection of writings was read in the meetings of the early Christian communities. It presents the content of Jesus Christ’s own testimony and the substance of faith in him, reflects these, and proclaims faith as the only effective way of salvation for Jews and Gentiles.

However, above and beyond the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, a whole series of other early Christian writings or fragments with similar contents and aims has been preserved. One immediately thinks of the apostolic fathers and the New Testament Apocrypha. We also possess early Christian writings from gnostic authors. In view of this literature, the preceding definition of the New Testament as a selective collection is insufficient. We must be more precise: this collection stands under a specific claim, that of being the church canon of twenty-seven individual books.

The New Testament canon was assembled by the ancient church from the middle of the second century AD in a differentiated process of retention of authentic tradition and faith content on the one hand and demarcation against secondary and heretical traditions on the other. This canon was finally fixed at the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century. The standard documents for the fixing of the canon are in the eastern church the thirty-ninth Easter letter of Athanasius from AD 367 and in the west the answer of Pope Innocent I to the bishop of Toulouse in 405. The New Testament is therefore the church canon of early Christian books fundamental for the faith of the church, in whose origin and definition the church itself was inextricably involved. The church recognized the main writings of the New Testament (see below) as authoritative, and added a few other books to them. This was done by a certain principle of selection, namely, by the criterion of apostolicity, which involved both historical and dogmatic considerations. Books that did not satisfy this criterion were not accepted into the canon.

New Testament theology is oriented to the church canon and therefore differs from a history of the early Christian religion that works with all the available source material from the time of Christian origins.

In his recent programmatic work Beyond New Testament Theology (2000²), H. Räisänen has once again advocated a history of religions approach to all the available early Christian literature. Räisänen thereby renews the appeal of the Wroclaw (Breslau) New Testament scholar W. Wrede. In his treatment entitled The Task and Method of ‘New Testament Theology’ (1897; ET in R. Morgan, New Testament Theology [1973], 68–116), Wrede advocated subsuming New Testament theology under a history of early Christian religion encompassing all of early Christian literature. G. Theissen has now carried out this program in a book that meets Räisänen’s approval: A Theory of Primitive Christian Religion (1999; revised German ed., Die Religion der ersten Christen: Eine Theorie des Urchristentums [2003³]). The middle ground between the history of early Christianity and the theology of the New Testament is occupied by K. Berger’s theological history of early Christianity, Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums (1995²). This is oriented strictly historically, dares to offer a new assessment of the entirety of early Christian literature, and includes important exegetical observations. However, because Berger not only rightly avoids premature application of the New Testament texts but also categorically rejects the quest for a theologically normative kerygma or canon within the canon, a theological discussion can be had with him only with difficulty.

By beginning with the canon, New Testament theology immediately encounters two fundamental problems: first, how to do justice to the claims and authority of this canon, and second, how to relate the New Testament canon to the Old Testament, Israel’s Holy Scriptures, which the early Christian churches shared through Jesus and the apostles. In the first century both Jews and Christians read the Holy Scriptures as the living word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

1.1 The church did not simply fix the boundaries of the New Testament in an authoritarian manner. Rather, it undertook a centuries-long process of preserving what was original and excluding what was secondary and foreign. This is best illustrated by the fact that there was almost no inner-church opposition to the reception of the main writings of the New Testament: the four Gospels, Acts, the essential Pauline Letters, Hebrews, and 1 Peter. The only disputed