Abstract
Thompson argues a simple yet important thesis in this book, that if correct would have important implications for the way wider Pauline theology is understood. He articulates his thesis in various ways. The iterations of the thesis statement include the following: ‘Paul provides the vocabulary for what would later be called spiritual formation. He envisions moral transformation – a metamorphosis – in the present as a prelude to the ultimate transformation at the end.’ (p. 2). Stated in different words, he suggests that ‘Paul’s moral instruction was not only an ad hoc response to the crises in his communities, but a coherent vision of the formation of his converts.’ (p. 207). Thus for Thompson, the heart and key concern of Pauline theology is to be found in the ethical exhortations in his letters, which reflect the desire for the transformation of believers which reflects the ethical demands of ‘walking worthily of their calling.’
The book is divided into an introduction, eight chapters, and a conclusion, that are carefully structured to form a consistent and closely argued thesis. In the introduction, Thompson lays out the ‘heritage’ Paul draws upon for his moral instruction. Here it is astutely recognized that a false dichotomy between Hellenistic and Jewish elements is unhelpful, rather in Paul’s social and ethical matrix such elements were already thoroughly intermeshed. Hence Thompson writes, ‘like his peers in Hellenistic Judaism, Paul was indebted to both the Greco-Roman and Jewish traditions, but appropriated these traditions to correspond with his own theology’ (p. 18). In the first chapter, an overview of ethics in broadly contemporary Hellenistic Jewish sources is provided. Here the writings of authors as diverse as Philo and Josephus as well as texts such as Tobit, 4 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs are examined. The unifying aspect is understood to be that a ‘common identity and ethos emerged among Jews of the Diaspora that was essential for the continuing viability of these communities’ (p. 39). In constructing such a self-sustaining identity, it is argued that the law was central to this enterprise. However, it is noted that the authors do not produce extensive handbooks of case law. Instead they focus on generating summary statements concerning the law, which try to capture both its essence and those elements that differentiate the marginal Jewish communities from the dominant Hellenistic culture. Thus it is observed that ‘Summaries of the law also focus of sexual laws, consistently prohibiting sexual immorality (porneia) and homosexual practices, both of which characterize their neighbors in the view of the authors. Jewish heroes exemplify the capacity to control sexual passions. Paraeneses consistently warn against sexual vices’ (p. 40). This observation is important when the study turns to consider the structure of Pauline ethics.
Notwithstanding these important statements about recognizing both the Jewish and Hellenistic aspects that have shaped Paul’s moral vision, it is the former that receives most attention in Thompson’s study. However, when discussing Paul’s metaphor ‘to walk worthily of God’ (1 Thess 2.12, cf. Rom 4.12; 8.4; Gal 5.16; Col 1.10; 1 Thess 4.1, etc), Thompson does not bring out an obvious link with contemporary Jewish moral instruction. He states ‘Paul’s vocabulary indicates his indebtedness to Jewish instruction inasmuch as peripatein belongs to the Old Testament (LXX) and Jewish vocabulary for moral instruction’ (p. 61). In fact across all strands of Judaism the concern with halakhah was a reflection of a desire to understand how Torah was to be lived out in a religio-ethical framework. The term halakhah is derived from the Hebrew verb hlk, which itself means ‘to go, to walk’. This shows how deeply rooted the metaphor of ‘walking’ was as portraying moral conduct in both Hellenistic Judaism and Palestinian Judaism. In terms of virtue-vice lists, it is noted that while these are relatively rare in the Hebrew Bible, Hellenistic Jewish writers appropriated these in the later period (see Wis. Sol. 8.7; 4 Macc 1.1-6, 16-18; 5.23). However, the ethical instruction provided in these writings expanded Greco-Roman lists to incorporate vices prohibited in the Torah. Paul is seen as carrying forward this Torah-centred ethical outlook in his own lists of virtues and vices. Functionally, Thompson argues that such lists appear ‘in contexts in which Paul differentiates the new behaviour of gentile Christians from their previous behaviour and from that of the society around them’ (p. 91). In particular, it is noted that sexual offenses appear in all of Paul’s vice lists, but not in those of Hellenistic writers. From these observations Thompson concludes that while Paul’s lists resembles the shape of Greco-Roman moral instruction, the content of those lists is indebted to the moral outlook of Diaspora Jewish writers (p. 109). The larger implication, which is made in relation to the Corinthian believers, has to do with the way in which Paul perceived the group identity of his new communities. Thus Thompson postulates that ‘by identifying the gentiles as the other, Paul implies that he identifies this gentile congregation with Israel’ (p. 95). Therefore, according to Thompson, both the content of Pauline ethics and the identity of his new communities are highly Israel-centric.
This becomes even more apparent in chapter five, ‘Paul, the Law, and Moral Instruction’. Therefore without clear resolution, Thompson presents the paradox that Paul can affirm that believers ‘are not under law but under grace (Gal 3:1-12; Rom 6:14), but insists that they keep the commandments that are derived from the law’ (p. 111). Hence with the exception of ‘badges of membership’ such as circumcision, food laws and Sabbath observance, Thompson sees the commandments in the Torah as forming the moral framework of Paul’s ethical imperatives for his new communities. Here, one may wonder if enough weight has been given to the pneumatological dimension in Paul’s theology, whereby the moral outcomes that the law was unable to produce in its adherents are now attainable for members of Paul’s new communities through the indwelling presence of the Spirit. For Paul, the Spirit not only creates identity through the relational experience of knowing God as Abba (Rom 8.15), but also empowers believers to live the type of ethical lives which on Paul’s assessment the Torah set as a goal, but simultaneously doomed those seeking such a goal to failure (Gal 3.2-22). However, from Thompson’s Torah-centric perspective, he is able to suggest that ‘if the world of the Torah provided the churches with an identity, it also provided their ethos as they placed themselves within Israel’s story’ (p. 113). However, this notion may actually invert Paul’s perspective. It is not so much the ‘the churches’ are placed ‘within Israel’s story’, but rather while Paul acknowledges that believers have been grafted into relationship with God (Rom 11.17-24), it is more that Israel’s story has been placed within the larger sphere of the story of Christ and the formation of this new people of God. In fact the hope for Israel is that if ‘they do not continue in their unbelief, they will be grafted in’ (Rom 11.23).
The remaining chapters of the book look at ‘Paul, the Passions, and the Law’ (pp. 135-156), chapter seven ‘Putting Love into Practice’ (pp. 157-180), and chapter eight ‘Ethics and the Disputed Letters of Paul’ (pp. 181-206). In the first of these chapters, Thompson does give some room for Paul’s understanding of the Spirit’s role in overcoming the passions. Yet the formulation he offers remains tightly tied to seeing the new Pauline communities as restored Israel. Thus he states, ‘through the power of the Spirit, which God pours out on the returning exiles, the communities are able to fulfil the just requirements of the law (Rom. 8:4)’ (p. 156). The problem arises with the middle clause of that statement. Yes, Paul does view the Spirit as providing the transformative power that enables believers to fulfil God’s ethical requirements, but these believers are not viewed as Israel’s returning exiles. Rather Paul sees them as part of a ‘wild olive tree’, but not derived from ‘the cultivated olive tree’ (Rom 11.24). In this sense, Paul’s theology may be closer to that of Isaiah, where Gentiles are gathered in as Gentiles (Isa 49.22; 60.1-14), although Paul shifts this vision forward by not seeing this as entailing the subjugation of the Gentiles.
Thompson has written a vitally important book, which shows beyond any doubt that Paul’s ethics are not some epilogue or uninteresting backwater in his epistles, but are a central and integral part of his total theological outlook. The book is clearly and concisely written, and one can follow the logic of the argument with great clarity. Moreover, Thompson demonstrates an able command of Pauline texts that takes his readers into a deeper understanding of many issues relating to Pauline moral instruction. While one may feel that Thompson has overplayed the Israel typology as being at the heart of Paul’s moral theology, the conversation that Thompson has opened up is vital. This book must be read by all New Testament scholars working in Pauline studies, for it places back on the table of scholarly debate major tracts of the Pauline epistles that have been too frequently downplayed. Thompson’s book also raises a meta-level question concerning what appears to be a desire to force Pauline moral teaching into the procrustean bed of ‘Israel’s story’. The whole swathe of recent scholarship, that finds every aspect of Pauline theology as derivative on the Old Testament, every phrase in his letters as an echo of the Hebrew Bible, and now according to Thompson every element of his moral instruction as Torah-centred not only appears to deny Paul any originality as well as minimizing the newness that came about through Paul’s encounter on the Damascus Road, it may also be embedded in a more modern theological tendency.
The legacy of dispensationalism, which is stamped deep into the psyche of American evangelicalism, may perhaps at a subconscious level, overly shape the way Pauline theology is read. While Thompson is certainly no crude dispensationalist (and even by implication that should not be entertained), his vision of Pauline ethics resonates with a progressive kind of dispensationalism that sees the vision for and promises made to Israel as being expanded to incorporate the Church. It may be, however, to better understand Paul that it is necessary to break free from these deep-seated hermeneutical frameworks. Paul appears to have been more radical in his theology than Thompson allows. Moral formation is indeed at the heart of Paul’s instruction, and this is where Thompson’s book excels in making this point. However, the attempt to force the story of the newly formed Pauline communities inside the ‘story of Israel’ to the extent suggested is surely foreign to Paul’s theological conceptions. For Paul, Christ has become the centre of theology, and he seeks to tell the ‘story of Christ’, which becomes the lens through which to understand the future hope for Jews and Gentiles alike, and that Christ-centred focus becomes, according to Paul, the basis for the moral transformation of all believers enabling them to live lives worthy of their calling.