Abstract
This volume collects together 21 of Keck’s essays, which relate to the thought and theological ideas of Paul. The volume is arranged in four parts. The first is entitled ‘Encountering the Apostle’, and the five essays it contains deal primarily with understanding and locating Paul in his Jewish context. However, this is not a unidimensional understanding of Paul’s interaction with his Jewish heritage. The final essay in this section unpacks several of the tensions that arise for Paul personally and within his thought as he held together his heritage of Jewishness with his sense of call as apostle to the Gentiles. Thus Keck observes that Paul’s ‘Pharisaism probably had a strong element of apocalyptic thought, some of which was modified by the impact of his newly adopted view of Christ and so continued to provide much of the framework as well as the substance of his gospel and its theological undergirding’ (p. 71). Hence for Keck, the dialectic between Jewish heritage and mission to Gentiles provides the creative tension from which Paul’s rich apocalyptic theology emerges.
The next section of the book offers seven essays under the heading ‘Engaging the Apostle’s Thought.’ A number of topics are covered here including Paul’s apocalyptic theology, his epistemology, his soteriology, his anthropology, his understanding of the divine, and his concept of justification. There is much to be learnt from these discussions, although each tackles various aspects of their respective topic rather than offering a fully developed treatment. The third part, ‘Exploration in Romans’, probes five aspects of the Romans. The first essay in this section, ‘What Makes Romans Tick?’ (pp. 167–194), is particularly rich. Keck comes to the conclusion that ‘Romans ticks because Paul did not allow his immediate situation to govern completely what he had to say, but allowed the inner logic of his gospel to assert itself even if it meant subjecting his first readers to certain amount of theological overkill’ (p. 194). The final section, ‘Engaged by the Apostle’, presents four essays, which broadly consider the reception and impact of Pauline thought.
This is an engaging and rewarding collection of essays. Keck again demonstrates his erudition on Pauline thought, and his ability to communicate complex ideas with great clarity. All scholars of Paul will be thankful for this rich and stimulating set of discussions.