Biblical Interpretation Series 214. Leiden: Brill, 2023.
Set within emerging interests for a third option in the Pistis Christou Debate, Johnathan M. Harris (hereafter H) gives what I find to be the most persuasive argument, even though the thesis of his work is more concerned with Abraham in Galatians. One comes across numerous monologues that are a true pleasure to read—reading well, bibliographic, and informative on every page—but I have not come across a work that I have enjoyed as much as what H has provided for us. Perhaps I am a bit biased, as he and I share a great deal of similar thoughts on Galatians and Pauline scholarship, but alas. Moreover, given that he and I also share research interests, I was more aware of the publications he interacts with in the book, which he navigates very well and leaves little stones unturned. I am quite confident that H’s work should, and will, become a major contribution to Galatian, Pauline, and NT scholarship as time allots for readers to interact with it. For the potential reader, I confidently say that the bibliographic interaction justifies the price alone.
H structures his book very well, covering in the first few chapters the preliminary material which allows him to lay the groundwork for his argument within the book. In Part I we find chapters 1–3 which cover Pistis Christou, Works of the Law, and Righteousness, respectively. In Part II, H lays out his argument over Galatians. This structure, though simple, is helpful as H adequately prepares his argument and familiarizes the reader with the scholarly landscape in Part I, smoothly transitioning into Part II. Finally, one will find the conclusion in chapter seven and, for desert, an appendix applying his methodology and arguments to Romans, particularly Romans 4. H provides a pretty comprehensive bibliography, just shy of forty pages (pp. 259–298) along with brief source, author, and subject indexes (pp. 298–300). The sum of H’s thesis, to which he admits some may not agree with connections he draws (p. 230), is that Abraham’s faith prefigures that of the Christian faith, here taking πίστεως ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ to mean ‘Christ-faith,’ which is the realm of participation for the Abrahamic promise of sonship to materialize.
He arrives to this point by navigating the rhetoric and discourse of Paul’s epistle which arrives at the “climax and capstone” of his argument in 4:21–5:1 where “Paul cements the very antithetical rhetorical strategy he has employed all along and maps it onto the Abrahamic narrative of two sons” (p. 195). Thus, “Paul reads the Genesis narrative as a prefiguring of salvation-history” (p. 205). H’s ideas here remove an otherwise atomistic view of salvation taken by most readers—particularly laypersons—and reveals that “Rather than beginning with the individual, salvation is conceived of as a cosmic, age-altering event in which the old world is brought to a decisive end and new creation is made a—or better the—reality in Christ” (p. 231). These conclusions obviously warrant and necessitate a reading of the work in entirety, but the work is marked by some manner of ambiguity due to the ambiguous nature of the topic H is addressing. Thus the work lacks what we may see as an ‘all-encompassing conclusion statement,’ and we are inevitably dealing with the obscure ideas of Paul’s theology, attempting to articulate it as best as we can—to put this another way, since H is involved in so many Pauline ‘touchstones,’ it is one of those books that you’ve just got to read. As H chimes, “A dozen letters from Paul’s pen would not have sufficed for him to fully articulate his biblical-theological vision, yet his argument is not rendered unintelligible in their absence” (p. 211). Given that H navigates an inevitably peculiar realm it speaks to the clarity and strength of his argument, which begins in the first three chapters.
In chapter one, H provides a lengthy and contemporary overview of the Pistis Christou debate and highlights the importance of alternative options and their implications in that “Each time one exegetical puzzle is altered, coherence is temporarily jeopardized until all the other pieces can be arranged to accommodate the shift and form a new, unified whole” (p. 9). Such an apparent obfuscation materializes in options for πίστεως ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Dismissing subjective genitive readings, particularly as Paul never speaks of Jesus’s displaying of faithfulness (p. 14), and that any satisfactory reading here must explain the relationship between πίστεως ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ and the Christian faith (p. 15), along with Abraham’s (p. 18), we can see that Paul is concerned with God’s decisive and historical act in Christ which actualizes justification for the believer (p. 16). For H, then, πίστεως ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, translated as ‘Christ-faith,’ ought to be seen as denoting the “Christ-event,” that is, “the narrative-historical event of Christ in its totality, including his coming, life, death, resurrection, and exaltation” (p. 34). Following Schliesser (2015) and others, ‘Christ-faith’ denotes the new creations and new space where Christ has delivered the believer from the ‘present evil age’ (cf. Gal. 1:4) contra the old existence ‘under Torah.’ “Christ-faith lies decisively within the third [option] as a ‘supra-individual’ category. Like Χριστός, πίστις is conceived of as a ‘sphere of influence’ that representes ‘the “real cosmos” created by God at the fullness of time.’ [Schliesser, “Christ-faith,” 283]. To be “in the faith” is to be “in Christ”’ (p. 37). Therefore ‘Christ-faith’ is an eschatological sphere characterized and structured by pistis, a realm opened up within the ‘Christ-event’ (p. 40). Recapitulating aptly H’s argument is beyond our reasonable scope, but his argument is sound, insightful, and full of implications. He closes the chapter out by pointing out the salvation-historical tenor of Paul’s words, and centering the potential focus to Abraham prefiguring this “eschatological inbreaking of faith” with the reception of the Spirit and the realization of the children of promise (p. 42).
In chapter two, H entreats the enigmatic and antithetical, to ‘Christ-faith,’ term ἔργων νόμου (‘works of the law’). Here my interest was piqued, as H chooses to translate the term as ‘Torah-works,’ which is a decision I arrived at myself. In this chapter H moves to focusing not only on a brief history of readings of ἔργων νόμου—from both objectivists and subjectivists, though the latter, other than Gaston (1984) and Owen (2007), has few advocates—but Paul’s spatial use of prepositions (see especially pp. 62–64). Canvassing Paul’s arguments for ‘Torah-works’ in correspondence with ‘Christ-faith,’ as well as focusing on the issue of flesh, sin, and death in the epistle (example, p. 54), H views the term as describing “the covenant space and means by which one will attain to the righteousness and life of the age to come” (p. 57) and that “Paul’s polemic against Torah-works is the sharp divide he makes between the old and new age. When Paul says that no one will be justified through Torah-works, he denies Torah’s ability to open one up to the life of the age to come, to ferry one from the old age to the new. The law is not God’s instrument to bring humans out of the present evil age into the eschatological age” (p. 59). Thus, “Christ-faith and Torah-works are two competing spheres of existence” (p. 60), yet the latter belongs to this ‘present evil age.’ In my mind, H’s argument here is cohesive and captivating, and he blazes a path that I have hoped to see done, where notions of participationist soteriology and source-origin are able to be applied to the juxtaposition of these two genitival phrases. Though I would have loved to see H develop further the idea of ‘Torah-works,’ such is not the goal of his work, and we likely have different views there. His comments are somewhat brief and glossing, but he says enough to establish the idea of competing spheres of influence, while simultaneously allowing the work to (properly) focus on Christ-faith instead of meandering into points not immediately pertinent or relevant to his argument, which focuses on Abraham.
Moving to chapter three, H moves to the contested and important word, and truly concept, of δικαιόω (‘justification’ or ‘righteousness’). This chapter is dense and quite bibliographic, and any attempt to sum it up in a review would be difficult. The topic itself is characterized by significant debate, touching on various points of theology and intertextualism. H charts this course prudently, however, in opening the chapter discussing metaphor and meaning (especially pp. 66–70), as well as drawing from those such as Michael Gorman [Inhabiting, 46] that while the HB and Jewish literature looms in the background, we must allow for Paul’s own unique uses and creativity, particularly when drawn onto the background of Christ’s arrival (p. 99). Ultimately, on pragmatic, thematic, and lexical grounds, H sees δικαιόω and ‘life’ as immediately connected, and therefore he offers a partial explanation in that δικαιόω’s ‘righteousness’ can be understood as a “state of ‘righted-ness,’” where, in light of the eschatological event in Christ, God effects this state: “In an age dominated by sin leading to death, life is the de facto revelation of righteousness” and these ideas reflect Paul’s “effortless shift” between ‘righteousness’ and ‘life’ (p. 102). H coins a rather amusing yet accurate term in that “Justification is a ‘deliverdict’” (p. 108), probing beyond the impasse of if δικαιόω should be understood ‘forensically’ (i.e., “declared righteous”) or more ontologically-sensitive, with participation in mind, as ‘deliverance.’
Part I of H’s work therefore displays itself as instrumental in establishing any, really, argument over Galatians, covering the meaning of three key concepts in ‘Christ-faith,’ ‘Torah-Works’, and ‘justification.’ The structure is to be admired and one wishes they had come up with it! In fact, Part I could constitute an entire work on its own, and chapter three expanded to provide a fascinating conclusion on what ‘justification’ is for Paul. H, however, continues his commitment to excellency in Part II, moving to his ultimate thesis while not abandoning further development on the concepts and his subsequent arguments laid out in Part I.
In chapter four, H moves into the introduction of Abraham into Paul’s discourse and how the father of the faith’s own belief typifies that of the present Galatians in receiving the Spirit, which sees the invoking of ‘hearing’ as echoing sentiments from Isa. 53 and other OT passages (pp. 117–118). Here H diverges a bit from many interpreters, but not without adequate reasoning to. To quote at length, “For any reader familiar with the Abraham narrative, Paul’s mention of ‘Spirit’ and ‘miracle’ would immediately call to mind one specific event: the birth of Isaac. It should be no surprise, then, when Paul turns immediately to cite Gen 15:6—the very text in which Isaac’s birth is promised. For Paul in Galatians, it is not Abraham who receives the Spirit but Isaac, who was born from the Spirit (4:29). Indeed, it is not Abraham with whom Paul intends to relate the Galatians but Isaac (4:28)” (p. 121). For H, Paul focuses on the “basic contours of the Abraham narrative” and the shape of the story the Galatians would remember, highlighting specific themes from the narrative which contribute to his argument (p. 123), thus accommodating us seeing the apostle involved in a unique use of the narrative. Perusing around Abraham’s faith and being made righteous, as well as eschatological notions of righteousness, Paul envisions the Galatians as likened unto Isaac being born miraculously out of a divine event of Abraham’s believing God. Thus “Paul understands Isaac’s birth as a historical prefiguration of the righteousness that God would accomplish ultimately through the inbreaking of faith in Christ” (p. 138), where God would produce for Abraham children through the promise of the Spirit, birthed out of the present evil age and into the eschatological life of the new creation. “Isaac becomes a type for Paul of the Galatian Christians” (ibid.). Abraham’s faith stands as representative of a class or the beginning of God’s salvation history and, looking to Isaac, Abrahamic sonship is thus to source one’s life from faith, with Paul using Abraham similar to other interpreters (p. 148). Christ and Abraham may be the subjects at play, but Isaac is the object, given he received the “Spirit’s life-giving action,” functioning as “a type of the eschatological heir and human” (p. 153).
H begins to draw together his points in chapter five. He begins by writing that Paul’s ‘Christ-faith’ and ‘Torah-works’ antithesis “reflects this construal of the world. This antithesis runs throughout Paul’s argument as he continues to ‘pile up’ associations on each side, filling out the character of the two ages” (p. 155). Reiterating that these both describe two competing spheres of existence traced along the lines of salvation-history (p. 158) H categorizes and enumerates the ‘piling up of associations’ with ‘Christ-faith’ and ‘Torah-works.’ Detailing the Pauline issues with and towards the Law, namely in the insufficiency of it by its nature (p. 160) and marking existence in the old realm (p. 162), Paul further juxtaposes these two ages, reigniting his antithesis of two realms in 3:10–14 when citing Hab. 2:4 and Lev. 18:5 (p. 165). Paul expands the notions to faith and law generally (p. 168), and focusing on 3:14, sees the reception of the Spirit being brought into focus. Inscribing to Paul a positive outlook of the Law, the apostle “does not denigrate Torah but recognizes its historically limited role” (p. 183), especially within the analogy of the Torah as a pedagogue. Recognizing themes like slavery (p. 187), H views Torah-works as being characterized by flesh, sin, curse, death, promise-spoken, minority, law, slavery, etc., whereas Christ-faith is characterized by Spirit, righteousness, blessing, promise-given, inheritance, sonship, children, etc. (see especially p. 192). Here H ties in his earlier developments and traces the argument originally found in 2:16 onto the map of Galatians, and does so excellently.
In chapter six H moves to his actual thesis, which mostly revolves around the allegory in 4:21–29. Arguing that “Even when Abraham seems to be absent (e.g., 3:23-28; 4.1-11), defining the Galatians’ relation to him remains one of Paul’s major concerns (3:29),” showing that he “is never too far from view” (p. 193). Reiterating points made throughout, Paul’s historical focus is placed on the story of Isaac and Ishmael, who represent, in a way, the new and old creations, respectively, with 4:12–20, in leading up to the allegory, is Paul’s attempt to dissuade the Galatians from going under circumcision, recapitulated in 5:1–6 (p. 194). This chapter is packed with insight, and while H largely repeats points made throughout or that we covered in his conclusions above, he unpacks a significant amount of data and points with the concept of flesh, the Spirit, Sarah and Hagar, and how slavery “facilitates the link” (p. 206) within and without the allegory. Seeing broader and more elaborate biblical-theology at play in Paul’s allegory (p. 210), H centers on the allegory as the peak of the discourse and what his argument has flowed into and from. In essence, H’s argument is that Paul relates the Spirit, accessed via entrance into the new creations by the Christ-event and into the participatory Christ-faith, as providing sonship to those of faith. Through the example and typology of Isaac, the Galatians follow in like manner, and are characterized and legitimized as Abrahamic children by gaining the Spirit. “For Paul, the Christ-event divides history into two eras” (p. 228), one marked by ‘law’ generally speaking and the other marked by ‘faith,’ and in p. 226 providing a final list of attributes to each antithetical sphere.
In Christ-Faith and Abraham in Galatians 3–4, H provides us with a fresh, unique, and cogently argued proposal for better understanding Paul’s meaning(s) in Galatians and his rhetoric with his use of Abraham and the Spirit. The work is deeply complimentary to other recent titles, of which Buchanan (2023; review forthcoming) is counted among the lot, but ought to be cemented as one of the leading resources on the topics which oscillate Galatians. H’s work is certainly a standalone title, both in its fresh appraisals of Pistis Christou, ‘works of the law,’ and concepts of justification / righteousness as well as Paul’s epistle, and theology and soteriology at large. While I differ on some points in his ultimate conclusions, due to somewhat unrelated reasons, H provides an exceptionally well-researched work with deeply insightful and thought-out proposals that at no point feel like assertions or written with permanent marker. H organically allows the data and points of logic to make his case for him, and the work is in that regard an even more enjoyable and pedagogical reading. My own understanding of the epistle was sharpened and added to tremendously by his work, and I am indebted to his research, of which I am sure more than myself will be added to as those impacted by it. The work is a valuable contribution to Brill’s Biblical Interpretation Series and I look forward to future research from this promising scholar. I would strongly encourage people to purchase the book and read it cover-to-cover, as such a review could hardly represent properly or entirely H’s arguments, or replicate the research reflected in the work. All in all, H’s title goes down as one of the favorites on my shelf and I will certainly find myself referencing it often.