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Afterword: The Human Moral Dilemma
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157 2 J. Louis Martyn Afterword The Human Moral Drama We are little more than a decade into the twenty-first century, and in this volume we have already what will surely prove to be one of our period’s most significant international events in the study of the apostle Paul.1 Given my assignment to provide closing reflections, I could now attempt a summary. But to reread all of the contributions, honoring their rich complexity, is to realize that they do not lend themselves to such a synthetic treatment. 1 The volume originated from a conference celebrating the bicentennial of Princeton Theological Seminary, altogether well planned by Professor Beverly R. Gaventa, and maturely executed under her guidance by senior scholars among whom there is great mutual respect. The conference opened with an evening worship service, engagingly focused by Luke Powery on the eighth chapter of Romans and reflecting a weighty fact. Paul knew that, in a way similar to the handling of his other letters, Romans would be initially communicated to and received by the little house churches in the capital by being read aloud in their corporate services of worship, doubtless more than once. There, as he thought of it, the letter itself would be used by God for his own redemptive purposes. The possibility that his letter would be interpreted apart from the active and celebrated presence of God never entered the apostle’s mind. The conference proper was marked, then, by morning prayer each day, followed by numerous short papers and eight plenaries, any one of which could have served as the major lecture for its own conference. It is difficult to avoid the cliché about an embarrassment of riches, especially because those papers gave us clear indications about the future of Pauline studies. For the moment, readers of the present volume can accept the good offices of Carey Newman and Baylor University Press, in order to read and review the papers as printed here, and indeed to consult them as guides to Pauline research as it continues to unfold. 158 J. Louis Martyn Four Shared Interpretive Steps For readers of this volume a better route opens up, I think, when you, the reader, join me in taking four simple interpretive steps. First, a Discussion Circle Initially we draw on a close reading of the chapters in order to invite their authors—in our imagination—to take seats as major actors in a discussion circle. In our circle the conversation will find its own course, then, by drawing on the papers and by accepting the firm guidance of Paul’s letters themselves. All participants share a passion to hear the strange and wondrous voice of the apostle, confident that in our disparate labors we can be of help to one another in this listening process. In that spirit we ourselves take seats in the circle,2 the chief place belonging, of course, to the apostle himself. Second, an Arresting Piece of Art Continuing to give disciplined latitude to imagination, we take together a second interpretive step. We place before our group, so that all can see, an engaging painting by Renaissance master Raphael, Paul Preaching in Athens (figure 7). With some imagination and an equal amount of boldness we can use this arresting painting to bring the historical Paul into sharp focus, sensing a number of the ways in which he was markedly different from the popular philosophers who lived lives of traveling preachers of the moral life. Third, Paul and a Contemporary Competitor Boldly and respectfully we take Raphael’s work in hand, employing it twice, so as to have two versions of it, calling them “Today” and “Yesterday ,” and bearing both in mind as we proceed. Today In this version the commanding figure is indeed the apostle, arms raised for emphasis, speaking publicly on the day of his arrival in a sizable Hellenistic city, Thessalonica or Philippi or Corinth. On the day 2 I make no attempt, of course, to be completely objective. My own debt to the contributors reaches back through the years, and, reading the present volume, I continue to be instructed, especially because taken together these pieces tell us important things, as I have said, about the future of Pauline studies. [3.235.120.15] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 09:07 GMT) Afterword 159 portrayed in this edition of the painting, Paul has gone to the city’s chief marketplace, where, obeying God’s...