Constructing Paul: The Canonical Paul, Volume 1. By Luke Timothy Johnson

Résumé fourni par la source

In this volume, Johnson aims to construct a ‘canonical’ Paul, an image of the apostle that differs from the ‘historical Paul’ rendered by the tools of historical critics or the ‘received Paul’ mediated by later ecclesiastical or theological tradition. That is, Johnson sketches ‘the elements required for a responsible reading of the letters ascribed to Paul in the New Testament canon’ (pp. 12–13). Johnson’s focus is on the canonical letters because of his conviction that ‘the canonical Paul is the lectionary Paul, the preached Paul, the Paul of theology among those not captive to the dogmas of historical criticism’ (p. 13). Constructing Paul represents the first part of a two-volume work, with the second volume promising to supply close readings of each of the letters in the Pauline collection. The monograph is divided into three parts. In Part 1, ‘Preliminary Scaffolding’, Johnson begins by assessing various traditions about Paul. He dismisses non-canonical writings as sources for Paul’s life and thought and affirms that the thirteen canonical letters attributed to Paul should be taken as authoritative. Curiously, Johnson concludes that Acts ‘is an invaluable secondhand primary source for knowledge of Paul’s life and ministry, but not for his thought’ (p. 32). This is puzzling because it would seem that the portrayal of Paul in Acts is part of the ‘canonical Paul’, yet aside from providing some biographical details the Paul of Acts does not figure in Johnson’s construction of Paul, leading to the question whether this volume might more accurately be subtitled the ‘Canonical Paul of the Pauline Letters.’ Chapter 2 offers a brief sketch of ‘Paul’s Life and Apostolic Ministry’, one that draws mainly from the canonical letters and selectively from Acts. Chapter 3, ‘The Pauline Correspondence’, takes up the question of authorship. Readers familiar with Johnson’s position on authorship will recognize his dissatisfaction with the now-conventional seven-letter corpus of ‘undisputed’ Pauline letters. Johnson, instead, groups the letters into five clusters (Thessalonians, Galatians/Romans, Corinthians, Colossians/Ephesians, Letters to Paul’s Delegates), with two letters as outliers (Philippians and Philemon). With some attention to ancient writing practices, Johnson suggests that Paul ‘“authorized” all the [canonical] letters that bear his name’, even if some letters were drafted or cosponsored by others. Chapter 4 takes up the question of Paul’s place within the larger landscape of early Christianity. Tracing points of continuity between Paul and other inheritors of the Jesus tradition, Johnson is particularly concerned to reject the notion that Paul was the true founder of Christianity. Part 2, ‘The Materials’, turns to ‘aspects of Paul’s symbolic world as they are disclosed in the canonical letters’ (p. 16). Chapter 5 asks, ‘What Kind of Jew Is Paul?’, with Johnson concluding that Paul was a ‘prophetic Jew’ in terms of Paul’s own self-understanding and presentation. Chapter 6, ‘Paul and Scripture’, argues that, in contrast to other Jewish figures like Josephus and Philo, Paul ‘inhabits a scripturally defined world’ (p. 148). Chapter 7, ‘Paul and Greco-Roman Culture’, then turns to the framework for reading Paul’s letters as products of their Greco-Roman context, including issues of Paul’s education, Paul’s rhetoric, and Paul’s relationship to philosophy and religion. Notable in this chapter is Johnson’s pointed dismissal of postcolonial interpretation of Paul, a form of ‘ideological criticism’ that, Johnson claims, ‘has found its way into the halls of academe inhabited by people who have never lived under any imperial power greater than the university tenure process, or any ideological tyranny other than the ones they have eagerly embraced’ (p. 164). Part 3, ‘The Elements’, turns to the content of the Pauline epistles, beginning with ‘The Claims to Experience’ in chapter 8. Long a proponent of the category of ‘religious experience’ for understanding early Christianity, in this chapter Johnson outlines the importance of the experience of resurrection in Paul’s letters. Chapter 9, ‘Convictions, Myths, Symbols, and Metaphors’, examines the ‘complex interactions’ between (1) ‘fundamental beliefs concerning God and the world’, (2) Paul’s language regarding ‘supernatural beings or powers (by definition nonempirical realities)’ and their intersection with ‘empirical things and persons’, (3) ‘words or gestures (signs) that point beyond themselves to some deeper reality’, and (4) ‘metaphorical constructions [that] have to do with the reality of salvation and the character of the church’ (pp. 224, 225, 230, 232, 236). In the penultimate chapter 10, ‘Paul’s Voice—Philemon’, Johnson presents a preview of the kind of close, canonical reading of a Pauline letter that will be found in volume 2. And finally, in chapter 11, Johnson asks: ‘Paul, Oppressor Liberator?’ Johnson’s treatment aims to address various critics of Paul, including ‘cultured despisers’, ‘Jewish detractors’, ‘feminist and womanist critics’, and ‘other oppressed objectors.’ His conclusion, ‘By liberating Paul’s letters from the shackles with which readers have bound them, we can see more clearly the elements within them that speak directly and powerfully to human liberation—not a liberation from this or that incidental inhibition but a liberation from the powers that seek to distort and destroy the image of God among humans, not simply a freedom from entrapment by human or cosmic forces but a freedom for a new way of existing according to this renewed image of God, with capacities and powers far exceeding our paltry imagination’ (p. 294). This is a difficult volume to assess, partly because this book lays the groundwork for more detailed textual analysis pledged in its sequel. The book is engaging and iconoclastic. Many readers will appreciate Johnson’s contrarian views, and many will find them problematic. Those familiar with Johnson’s previous work will observe overlap with already published materials. An unfortunate aspect of this volume is that Johnson’s interaction with scholarship is often outdated. For a book on Paul, Constructing Paul evidences strikingly little awareness of developments in Pauline studies in, say, the past two decades. To cite but a few examples: of the sixty-six secondary sources cited in the important chapter on the authorship of Paul’s letters (not including references to Johnson’s own publications) only two are from this millennium (2012 and 2006); there is no substantive engagement with current literature on the ‘real’ Paul or the reception of Paul (e.g. White, Remembering Paul; Ehrman, Forged; Strawbridge, The Pauline Effect), or with proponents of the so-called ‘Radical New-Perspective’, or with John Barclay’s monumental Paul and the Gift (which is listed in a few footnotes but not discussed in any detail), or with recent feminist or womanist critiques of Paul (e.g. Johnson’s section on these perspectives, entitled ‘Feminist and Womanist Critics’, tellingly opens ‘From the Women’s Bible [1895/98] of Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s In Memory of Her [1983]’ [p. 286] and then cites no contributions post-1990 and no womanist scholarship at all). Even readers (like the present reviewer) inclined to agree with Johnson’s critique of the standard ‘authentic and inauthentic’ grouping of the canonical letters ascribed to Paul may wish for a more robust discussion of authorship. And there remains the nagging question of the Acts of the Apostles, which in Johnson’s ‘canonical’ construction is allowed to give some biographical information but not to influence the presentation of the canonical Paul’s ‘thought.’ It is perplexing, for example, that Johnson’s lengthy treatment of the resurrection experience in chapter 8 makes no mention of Acts, for a study of the ‘canonical’ Paul would seem to be incomplete without attending to the narratives of Jesus’ resurrect

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