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  • Reading Paul with the Reformers: Reconciling Old and New Perspectives by Stephen J. Chester
  • R. David Nelson
Reading Paul with the Reformers: Reconciling Old and New Perspectives. By Stephen J. Chester. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017. xxi + 478 pp.

At least since the appearance of Krister Stendahl's famous 1963 essay on "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West," Luther and the other Protestant Reformers have been eyed with great suspicion by scholars of the New Testament, particularly those doing research on Paul's letters. Proponents of the so-called "New Perspective on Paul," which has flourished in biblical studies circles for the past four decades, often situate themselves aggressively against what is normally shorthanded as "the Lutheran perspective" on Paul's theology. Luther and Lutheran exegesis frequently are singled out as paragons of the "old" perspective which now must be abandoned in light of the findings of up-to-date critical research into Paul's life, literary deposit, and contexts. Stendahl—ironically enough, an ordained Lutheran clergyman and the bishop of Stockholm for four years in the 1980s—essentially incited this trend in Pauline interpretation when, in the aforementioned programmatic essay, he charged Luther with shoe-horning New Testament exegesis into the narrowly defined role of addressing the problem of the private, introspective conscience. When this is accepted prima facie as the extent of Luther's exegetical imagination, the history of interpretation since Luther becomes conceived as something of a comedy of errors, as the Reformer's exegetical miscues are—at least as the story goes—perpetuated by subsequent generations of Protestant interpreters. Never mind that such narratives of the putatively "Lutheran" perspective on Paul [End Page 224] typically are recounted without nuance or the support of careful scientific study of the Reformation period. By consequence (and as Chester helpfully demonstrates), the Reformation-era exegetes are, more often than not these days, swiftly and carelessly faulted by biblical scholars on three scores: as in Stendahl's assessment, they confine the problem of New Testament soteriology to the crisis of the introspective conscience; they misread (with drastic repercussions centuries later) the Jewish backgrounds of Paul's thought; and they deflate Paul's rich theology of justification by reducing it to a private, forensic exchange.

The great virtue of Reading Paul with the Reformers is Chester's sustained thesis that "the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century have insights into the interpretation of the Pauline letters that can assist us as we attempt to interpret the same texts in and for contemporary contexts" (1). While acknowledging that the reformers erred in some of their exegetical judgments, Chester resists the supposition that the Reformation trajectory of Pauline interpretation can be rejected summarily as an obstacle to the correct understanding of the Apostle's letters. Chester's countermove unfolds in four steps, beginning with a fascinating study of the sixteenth–century debates over the nature of scripture which took place between Luther and Erasmus. Chester uses this episode from the history of interpretation to good effect, showing that the quarrels between Luther and Erasmus bear significant entailments for today's tensions between theological and historical-critical modes of biblical exegesis. In the book's second large unit, he explores the continuities and discontinuities between Reformation-era exegesis and the interpretative practices of the medieval period, suggesting that the metaphor of "grammatical structure" can be used aptly to describe the paradigm shift in exegesis which took place in the sixteenth century. Accordingly, the reformers positioned their own views on particular topics and concepts over against the antecedent tradition, effectively introducing a new exegetical grammar that would go on to shape the Protestant tradition of interpretation for generations. In the third unit, Chester carefully examines specific components of this exegetical grammar as they emerge in the [End Page 225] works of Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin. His analysis uncovers many shortcomings in the reformers' exegesis. But key insights from Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin—often overlooked by contemporary scholars—shine forth here and are given fair and due consideration. This sets the stage for the final unit, in which Chester explores how Reformation exegesis, when properly understood and appreciated, might impact the study...

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