An Intertextual Commentary on Romans, Volume 1: Romans 1:1–4:25

By Channing L. Crisler

An Intertextual Commentary on Romans is an exhaustive treatment of the hundreds of Old Testament citations, allusions, and echoes embedded in Paul's most famous epistle. As many scholars have acknowledged, to understand Paul's engagement with Israel's Scriptures is to understand Romans. Despite this acknowledgment, there is a dearth of reference works in which the primary focus is how the Old Testament impacts Paul's argument from Romans 1:1 to 16:27. This four-volume commentary aims to provide just such a reference. The interplay between Romans and its vast sea of Old Testament pre-texts produces unstated points of resonance that illuminate Paul's rhetorical argument from the letter's opening to its closing doxology. Volume 1 examines the Old Testament pre-texts in Romans 1:1-4:25. Although the citations of Habakkuk 2:4 and Genesis 15:6 in this section of the letter often dominate intertextual discussions, several other Old Testament pre-texts, though often overlooked, support the intertextual subtext of the letter and thereby illuminate various features of Paul's argument. In this commentary, each of these pre-texts is examined from a variety of perspectives. The overarching aim of the commentary is to provide scholars, interpreters, and students with verse by verse analysis of how Israel's Scriptures impact almost every clause of Paul's most famous letter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Jun 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781532668111

Channing L. Crisler

Channing L. Crisler is Associate Professor of New Testament at Anderson University, South Carolina. He is the author of Reading Romans as Lament (2016) and Echoes of Lament and the Christology of Luke (2020).

Book preview

1

Introduction

G. K. Chesterton observes, Thinking means connecting things, and stops if they cannot be connected.

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Chesterton’s observation characterizes the thinking of this commentary. It attempts to think about Romans by meticulously connecting the letter’s intertextual features to its rhetorical argument. Romans contains a vast sea of intertextual features that do far more than lie dormant beneath the surface of Paul’s rhetoric until they bubble up to the surface in the form of a citation. Citations, allusions, and echoes constantly burst through to inform, shape, direct, and illuminate the letter’s argumentation.

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As John Chrysostom noted long ago in his analysis of the citation from Habakkuk 2:4 in Romans 1:17, So Paul confirms his argument by citing the Old Testament. First, he uses a short phrase that opens a vast sea of stories, if one is able to understand his meaning.

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It is that vast sea of stories which Paul stretches across the entirety of his letter that this work aims to think about and connect in a systematic and cohesive fashion.

The attempt to think about Romans in this way is daunting, perhaps even inadvisable given the nature of the task. Yet, it is necessary given the hermeneutical impact of the OT on the letter. This impact cannot be exaggerated as many influential interpreters have noted over the centuries. As Luther concluded in the preface to his commentary on Romans, Therefore, it appears that he (i.e., Paul) wanted in this one epistle to sum up briefly the whole Christian and evangelical doctrine, and to prepare an introduction to the entire Old Testament. For, without doubt, whoever has this epistle well in his heart has with him the light and power of the Old Testament.

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For Luther, as with so many other interpreters, there is simply no way to interpret Romans without exegetical recourse to the letter’s vast sea and bright light of intertextual features from the OT. However, navigating the vast sea of OT uses in Romans can be treacherous. This commentary will hopefully serve as a steady guide for interpreters who know that Paul’s use of the OT is vitally important to their exegesis of the letter.

While this is primarily a reference work, it also has an overarching thesis related to the influence of the OT on Paul’s argumentation. The use of Israel’s Scriptures in Romans is not a pastiche of loosely related citations and allusions co-opted by Paul to fit his rhetorical needs. Rather, as I will lay out over the course of a four-volume intertextual commentary, Paul reads and employs the OT in a holistic way.

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There is an indissoluble link between his apocalyptic faith in the crucified and risen Christ, the needs of his recipients, and his reliance on Israel’s Scriptures as a source of hope for afflicted believers in Rome.

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Therefore, the various usages of the OT in the letter should be treated in relation to one another and in relation to the situation of the Christians in Rome. A larger question hovering over the pages ahead is simply this, How do the various uses of the OT in Romans cohesively support the letter’s rhetorical argument and address the needs of his recipients?

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To put it another way, the overarching purpose of Romans and Paul’s use of the OT in the letter are two sides of the same coin.

Before this undertaking begins in earnest, several preliminary matters must be addressed. I will begin by situating the current project within two areas of research: (1) Paul’s OT hermeneutic; and (2) Paul’s use of the OT in Romans. I will then lay out the intertextual approach to be taken up in all four volumes and briefly discuss the presuppositions related to the Sitz im Leben of the letter. As part of this discussion, I will explain the impetus for such a large project.

Paul’s OT Hermeneutic

Locating Paul’s OT Hermeneutic

In keeping with the position of many Pauline scholars, I do not believe that Paul engages Israel’s Scriptures in ad hoc or ad hominem fashion.

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With that said, the lingering question is how does Paul interpret the OT in his letters? This is a simple question but one that has produced a variety of responses as the following discussion will demonstrate. To varying degrees, pieces of all these responses collectively inform the intertextual approach taken up in the commentary.

Paul’s Attitude Towards the OT

In his seminal study Paul’s Use of the Old Testament, E. Earle Ellis begins by considering the apostle’s attitude towards Israel’s Scriptures.

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Ellis sums up Paul’s attitude noting, To him the Scriptures are holy and prophetic; they constitute the very oracles of God (τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ), and they ‘were written . . . for our learning.

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He bases his summary of Paul’s attitude towards the OT on four considerations: (1) introductory formulas; (2) the use of γραφή; (3) the relation of γραφή to other authorities; and (4) Paul’s canon.

Paul often introduces an OT citation with a formula such as γέγραπται, or καθὼς γέγραπται, the latter of which occurs most often in Romans.

¹¹

According to Ellis these introductory formulas provide a clue for understanding Paul’s attitude towards Israel’s sacred text. As Ellis puts it, Paul’s IF (introductory formulas) do give important insights into his attitude toward the OT. The Scripture is adduced as a final authority and one divinely planned whole whose significance is bound up inseparably with the New Covenant Community of Christians.

¹²

Ellis also probes Paul’s use of terms such as γραφή, νόμος, and πνεύμα to identify the apostle’s attitude towards the OT. Paul equates terms such as γραφή and νόμος with the revealed will of God.

¹³

Ellis explains, The issue of Law versus Christ here passes into Paul’s understanding of the nature of Scripture itself. Γραφή is the Spirit-carried letter, the Spirit-interpreted letter. Therefore, Paul does not hesitate to give his OT citations as interpretive renderings; and he is convinced that he conveys the true (i.e. the Spirit’s) meaning best in this way.

¹⁴

In other words, although Paul views γραφή as a final authority, such an attitude does not preclude a dynamic, even charismatic, engagement with the OT through the Spirit. The Spirit’s hermeneutical work in him results in true and authoritative OT interpretation.

While Ellis acknowledges the importance of scriptural authority for Paul, he also recognizes that the apostle sometimes combined the authority of the OT with other authoritative sources to support his epistolary assertions. Ellis summarizes these other sources noting, There are the law of nature, the conscience of the individual, his own revelation from Christ or the Holy Spirit, and the teaching of Christ as received through oral or written apostolic tradition.

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Appeals to other authorities gave rise to Adolf Harnack’s suggestion that Paul did not see the OT as the Erbauungsbuch (devotional book/religious tract) of Christianity.

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Harnack grounds his argument in two observations: (1) most of Paul’s quotations are confined to the Hauptbriefe where his appeals to the OT are mainly polemical in nature; and (2) outside of the Hauptbriefe Paul rarely appeals to the OT.

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However, as Ellis and others have noted, this is a rather anemic understanding of Paul’s attitude towards the OT.

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As we shall see, Paul’s citations in Romans are not merely polemical in their function. Moreover, Harnack does not adequately consider the hermeneutical significance of OT allusions and echoes proper.

With respect to Paul’s OT canon, Ellis suggests It is a reasonable inference that the body of writings accepted as authoritative by the first century Jewish community serves as Paul’s criterion of canonical authority as well.

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Of course, scholars have not always agreed on the extent to which first century Jews operated with an authoritative group of writings nor the parameters of those writings.

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Nevertheless, this disagreement notwithstanding, I would simply note that Paul almost always cites the Tanakh.

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This clearly holds true in Romans; therefore, it stands to reason that Paul viewed the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings as particularly authoritative.

In addition to Ellis’s observations, I would briefly note at least two other defining qualities of Paul’s attitude towards the OT. First, Paul believed that God gave eschatological hope (ἐλπίς) to early Christians through the didactic function (διδασκαλία) of the OT. Israel’s Scriptures specifically provided the endurance and encouragement believers needed until the eschaton. Paul makes this clear in Romans. Immediately following his citation of Psalm 69:10 in Romans 15:3, Paul explains For as much as was written beforehand, it was written for our instruction (διδασκαλίαν), in order that through the endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope (ἐλπίδα) (Rom 15:4). Second, Paul found figures in the OT who, although living long before Jesus’ parousia, shed light on the Christian experience. For example, in grappling with Israel’s unbelief towards Messiah Jesus, Paul understands his grief in relation to Moses’ grief propelled by Israel’s worship of a golden calf (Rom 9:1–5; Exod 32:32).

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As we shall see, in Romans, Paul understands his own Christian experience and that of his recipients through a variety of OT figures including: Abraham, David, Elijah, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, lamenters from the Psalms, and more.

Paul as Scriptural Apologist

In turning our attention to Paul’s OT hermeneutic specifically, we begin with the view that Paul used Israel’s Scriptures as a way of proving the Christian faith.

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Various examples could be offered here, but C. H. Dodd highlights the influential work of Rendell Harris.

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In the early 20th century, Harris’s Testimonies represented the climactic work among those who treated Paul’s use of the OT according to its supposed apologetic function. Harris argues that apostles such as Peter and Paul made use of testimonies, or quotations against the Jews, in their conflicts with Jewish opponents.

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Harris describes this supposed early Christian resource noting, They arose out of the exigency of controversy, and therefore covered the wide ground of canonical Jewish literature; but they were, at the same time, subject to the exigency of the controversialist, who travelling from place to place, could not carry a whole library with him. It was, therefore, a priori, probable that they would be little books of wide range.

²⁶

In reflecting on Paul’s use of these testimonies in Romans specifically, Harris argues "We have shown that in the Epistle to the Romans there is an imaginary objector who breaks the current of the Pauline argument and must be met either by concession or refutation. His objections are evidently made to certain statements in the Testimony Book."

²⁷

Harris points to questions such as But I say, Israel did not know, did it? (Rom 10:19) as indications of these objections.

In assessing the impact of Harris’s work during the mid-twentieth century, Dodd notes, It has, I believe, been assumed by most recent British writers that some such anthology of quotations was actually in existence at an early period, and that its use by New Testament writers is the best explanation of the phenomena before us. For myself, I worked with Harris’s hypothesis for many years. Many of the observations which I have already made, and shall make, I owe originally to the study of his work.

²⁸

Nevertheless, Dodd ultimately concludes that Harris’s theory outruns the evidence, and he sets out in a new direction which I will discuss below.

One need not agree with Harris’s overarching project to appreciate his observation that Paul often found himself embroiled in disputes which were hermeneutical in nature. While Paul’s OT hermeneutic is not thoroughly apologetic, his letters and biography imply that he sometimes used Israel’s Scriptures to defend his gospel and his conviction that Jesus was ὁ χριστός.

Paul as Unhermeneutical

In the first half of the 20th century, several influential NT scholars treated Paul as if he had no OT hermeneutic at all. As Matthew Bates puts it, they depicted Paul as unhermeneutical under the influence of romanticism.

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Bates explains this approach noting, Yet, under the influence of romanticism, NT interpreters would marry their love for textual detail with an intense fascination with the subjective, psychological life of the biblical authors.

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These interpreters include Adolf Harnack, Albert Schweitzer, and Rudolf Bultmann.

I have already reviewed Harnack’s position above. Here I would simply note Bates’s conclusion that Harnack believed Paul was driven to the scriptures only by external pressures.

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In this way, Paul’s OT hermeneutic is not discernible, because it was not intentional. Paul was simply not that thoughtful about his engagement with Israel’s Scriptures. Rather, he approached them in ad hoc and ad hominem fashion. Harnack’s position is the antithesis of the present commentary.

Although Schweitzer brought much needed attention to the eschatological tone of Paul’s thought, he also treated the apostle as if he had an unhermeneutical approach to the OT. For example, Schweitzer suggests that Paul cites Habakkuk 2:4 in Romans 1:17, because it is one of the few OT passages that suggests one can obtain righteousness in Christ. He notes, Another reason which led Paul to the expression ‘righteousness by faith’ was that it is required in the only passage from Scripture which he can cite in support of his doctrine.

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In this way, the OT exerts little influence on Paul’s theology and argumentation in Romans. For Schweitzer, Paul’s use of the OT is driven, like everything else, by Christ-mysticism. Therefore, Paul engages the OT only in as much as it supports this mysticism.

From Bates’s perspective, Bultmann marks the logical extreme of romanticism.

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Bultmann’s larger demythologizing and existential project naturally impacts the way that he assesses Paul’s OT hermeneutic at this point.

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This is exemplified in the way Bultmann treats Paul’s understanding of the Mosaic Law as a universal, or transhistorical, demand rather than a distinct vehicle for the demand of the law.

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Bultmann acknowledges that NT writers such as Paul presuppose the OT.

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However, for Bultmann, the substance of their presuppositions is material (sachlich) rather than historical (historisch). He explains, Thus the Old Testament is the presupposition of the New. Not in the sense of a historical (historisch) view, as though the historical phenomenon of the Christian religion had become possible only on the basis of the evolving history of religion attested by the Old Testament; but rather in the material (sachlich) sense that many must stand under the Old Testament if he wants to understand the New."

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Contrastively, as we shall see in this work, the historical sense of the OT plays a fundamental in the way Paul uses the OT in Romans.

Paul as Charismatic Scriptural Interpreter

Otto Michel can be credited with bringing attention to the role of the Spirit in Paul’s OT hermeneutic. Michel suggests that for Paul Exegesis of the OT is not something attainable by self-understanding, but rather it is a type of χάρισμα, a gift sent by God to the Christian.

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This charismatic interpretation of the OT commences with Paul’s Damascus Road experience and continues with his reception of and guidance by the Spirit through the duration of his apostleship. Bates summarizes Michel’s argument noting, So, in the final analysis, the OT becomes for Michel’s Paul a book of divine mysteries that can only be unlocked by the Spirit of Christ, who is the exegetical key alone capable of endowing the interpreter with the ability to pull back the veil.

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However, it does not follow that Michel places Paul’s OT hermeneutic entirely out of reach. Paul finds in the OT a collection of the deeply mysterious words of God.

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Such words prove Pauline belief statements and serve as a revelation of a deeply mysterious typological salvation history.

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One does not have to adopt Michel’s position wholesale to agree that Paul’s OT hermeneutic is dynamic, even charismatic. Although his interpretation of Israel’s Scriptures often parallels his contemporaries, there is a uniqueness to Paul’s scriptural engagement.

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It is a uniqueness propelled by what Paul believed God had done in Christ, namely fulfilled all prior promises made to the patriarchs, David, Jeremiah, and to the whole of Israel by arriving upon the earth in a crucified and risen Messiah.

Paul as Scriptural Theologian

Even after almost seventy years since its publication, any discussion of the NT use of the OT still cannot afford to bypass C. H. Dodd’s seminal work According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology. Dodd presupposes that early Christian thinkers such as Paul followed the same general tradition embodied in the apostolic kerygma and faithfully conserved its main outline.

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However, Dodd aims to locate commonalities among early Christian thinkers beyond their shared kerygma.

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He finds an additional common thread in the way that NT writers make use of the OT in their effort to articulate the significance of the kerygma.

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In explaining the cause behind these similar uses of the OT among NT writers, Dodd does not adopt Harris’s testimonia hypothesis. Instead, Dodd posits the early church’s use of a shared method for scriptural study among evangelists and teachers.

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This shared method has two main features. First, there is a selection from the OT, most notably from Isaiah, Jeremiah, certain minor prophets, and the Psalms. In assessing the way NT writers engaged these OT selections, Dodd notes These sections were understood as wholes, and particular verses or sentences were quoted from them rather as pointers to the whole context than as constituting testimonies themselves.

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He divides these sections into four scriptural groups: (1) apocalyptic-eschatological scriptures; (2) scriptures of the new Israel; (3) scriptures of the servant of the Lord and the righteous sufferer; and (4) unclassified scriptures.

Group (1) texts share a general plot defined by a supreme crisis of history which culminates in the day of the Lord.

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Early Christian thinkers and NT writers indicate that the Christian movement arose from this crisis-filled prophetic vision of judgment and redemption.

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OT texts from group (2), although closely related to group (1), are less deeply coloured by apocalyptic imagery.

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In summarizing this second group of OT texts, Dodd observes "In this whole group of prophecies, then, which speak of the emergence of a new Israel after terrible judgments, we have a body of scripture which can be shown with a high degree of probability to have been employed by early Christian teachers in elucidating the themes of the kerygma."

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In short, the whole process of judgment and renewal is conceived as ‘fulfilled’ in the Gospel facts.

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Group (3) is also united by a plot wherein, The ‘hero’ suffers shame, ignominy, torment, disaster, and then by sheer grace of God is delivered, raised up, glorified.

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The plot here is the same as the one found in groups (1) and (2). The only difference is that in group (2) suffering is God’s judgment upon his sinful people, but, in group (3), suffering is poured out on an innocent victim, persecuted by the enemies of God.

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For NT writers, the identity of the hero is obviously Christ.

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Finally, Dodd labels the texts in group (4) as unclassified scriptures noting that some OT texts employed by NT writers do not neatly fit into groups 1–3.

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Second, the shared method of NT writers also included an interpretation based on intelligible and consistent principles.

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For Dodd, NT writers did not primarily treat the prophecies of the Old Testament as a kind of pious fortunetelling, and seek to impress their readers with the exactness of correspondence between forecast and event.

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Instead, the main principle that guided their engagement with the OT was their shared Weltanschauung which was shaped by the interplay between the pattern of God’s dealings with the world established in Israel’s Scriptures and the gospel story. In describing this shared approach to the OT by NT writers, Dodd notes:

They interpret and apply the prophecies of the Old Testament upon the basis of a certain understanding of history, which is substantially that of the prophets themselves. Though not stated explicitly in the New Testament it is everywhere presupposed. History, upon this view, or at any rate the history of the people of God, is built upon a certain pattern corresponding to God’s design for man His creature. It is a pattern, not in the sense of a pre-ordained sequence of inevitable events, but in the sense of a kind of master-plan imposed upon the order of human life in this world by the Creator Himself, a plan which man is not at liberty to alter, but within his freedom works. It is this pattern, disclosed in divers parts and divers manners in the past history of Israel, that the New Testament writers conceive to have been brought into full light in the events of the gospel story, which they interpret accordingly.

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For Dodd, it is this larger view of history that guided the NT writers’ OT hermeneutic. The interface between OT passages applied to gospel facts functions as the substructure of all Christian theology and contains already its chief regulative ideas.

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With respect to Paul’s use of this proposed method, Dodd at several points singles out the apostle as one of three writers who demonstrated creative power in their uses of the OT.

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Dodd suggests that it is the application of these four groups of OT texts to the gospels facts that served as the starting point for the theological constructions of Paul.

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To put it another way, Paul is a scriptural theologian who merges OT texts with the story of Jesus in his preaching and letter writing. This holds true at various points in Romans as we shall see.

Paul as Jewish Exegete of Israel’s Scriptures

In the mid-twentieth century, multiple factors prompted scholars to assess Paul’s OT hermeneutic in relation to Jewish midrash.

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Critics of this approach have, for quite some time, rightly pointed out that there are serious historical problems with setting Paul’s exegesis of the OT against the backdrop of rabbinic midrash.

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As Bates points out, "Scholars are increasingly reluctant to offer such rabbinic interpretive rules as the definitive interpretive explanation."

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It is true that one cannot treat these sources in an uncritical or anachronistic fashion, or as the definitive interpretive explanation for Paul’s hermeneutic.

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That is why, though somewhat dated, Ellis’s work is still valuable.

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He is measured in his approach and realistic in his conclusions. Therefore, he will help guide the following discussion.

Ellis aims to identify the rationale that directs Paul’s OT usage and his theological application of Israel’s Scriptures.

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He ultimately concludes, While rabbinic Judaism has influenced the mechanics of Pauline citation, one must look to the apostolic church and to Christ Himself to find the primary source of the apostle’s understanding and use of the OT. The emphases, applications and hermeneutics of Paul’s quotations mark him as one with the apostolic Church in contrast to his rabbinic background.

⁶⁹

Ellis clearly locates Paul’s main hermeneutical influences in the apostle’s ecclesiastical and Christological engagement. However, Ellis still allows for overlap between Paul’s OT hermeneutic and that of his Jewish contemporaries. Several salient points emerge in this overlap.

With respect to Paul’s use of the OT in comparison to rabbinical methods, Ellis sums up such methods noting Some methods more peculiar to Jewish commentators are the use of Midrash, or running commentary; the practice of quoting from the Law, the Prophets and the Hagiographa; and the employment of Hillel’s rules and emphasis upon grammatical exegesis.

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Ellis believes that Paul employs these methods in his use of the OT, but he does so in his own unique way and based on contingent circumstances. For example, Ellis acknowledges that Paul sometimes employs the ancient midrashic form of commentary.

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He points to Romans 9–11 and Galatians 3 as examples while underscoring the fact that the apostle’s midrashic style often clashes with his contemporaries.

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Similarly, like Jewish exegetes of his day, Paul will cite the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, although with his own style. Examples include Romans 11:8–10 and 15:9–12.

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Ellis observes, Often to support an opinion the rabbis quote the Law, Prophets and Hagiographa in succession and Paul also adopts this custom on occasion. It is not habitual with the apostle, however, and probably represents only an incidental reminiscence. Moreover, although principles of Hillel such as a fortiori (קל וחומר) and analogy (גזירה שוה) are implied in Pauline texts, Ellis warns that such rabbinic affinities can be too greatly stressed.

⁷⁴

Finally, regarding Jewish grammatical exegesis, with its emphasis on grammatical minutiae, Ellis reminds us of well-known instances such as Galatians 3:16. Similar to his contemporaries, Paul distinguishes the singular and plural forms of זרע/σπέρμα from Genesis 17:8 to identify Christ as the promised Abrahamic seed.

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Ellis goes on to consider other points of literary contact between Paul and Jewish writings such as introductory formulas, combined quotations, and allegory. First, the introductory formulas in Paul and the Mishnah show that both had a high view of divine inspiration and of the instrumentality of the human author.

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However, while the Mishnah prefers verbs of saying (אמר) to introduce OT citations, Paul prefers it is written (γέγραπται).

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Next, the Pauline corpus contains combined OT quotations that bear some resemblance to Jewish writings. Ellis notes, "Two forms of combined quotations are found in the Pauline letters: merged or amalgamated quotations, and chains quotations or haraz (חרז)."

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The Talmud often quotes the Pentateuch and then strings on similar passages from the Prophets and Hagiographa.

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Yet, Paul does not introduce his own haraz in this order. Finally, Ellis suggests that points of contact between Pauline and Jewish allegory hinge upon how one defines the term.

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He notes, In rabbinic literature several passages are classified as allegory: The Midrash on Gen. 40.9 identifies the vine of Pharaoh’s dream with Israel, and its three branches with Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. The Song of Solomon was interpreted throughout as an allegorical description of God and Israel.

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Yet, Ellis suggests that Paul’s allegorical exegesis has less in common with rabbis and more with the Alexandrian school. He explains, The same passages which form the backbone of Pauline typology—the Creation, Patriarchal and Exodus narratives—also serve as the subject of much of Philo’s exegesis.

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However, even here, Ellis sees large differences. Commenting on Galatians 4:21–31, Ellis notes Even in the passage which Paul designates as ἅτινά ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα (Gal. 4.24), one finds an interpretation more in accord with Pauline typology than Alexandrian allegory.

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As Michel ultimately concludes, Paulus denkt mehr typologisch als allegorisch im eigentlichen Sinne.

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Since Ellis’s study, many interpreters have analyzed Paul use of the OT in relation to rabbinic exegesis.

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When caution is exercised, it remains a fruitful approach to analyzing Paul’s engagement with Israel’s Scriptures. As the chapters ahead will demonstrate, this is at least one approach that will prove helpful in analyzing at least some uses of the OT in Romans.

Paul as Scriptural Redactor

As the first citation of the letter in Romans 1:17 demonstrates, Paul sometimes alters his OT Vorlage to fit his rhetorical needs.

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Among those who have brought attention to this phenomenon, Bates singles out Dietrich-Alex Koch and Christopher Stanley. Koch and Stanley reach different conclusions regarding how these intentional modifications of the OT Vorlage inform our understanding of Paul’s OT hermeneutic.

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Koch’s rich study provides several valuable insights including a statistical breakdown that tracks Pauline modifications of OT citations in comparison to extant LXX documents and the degree to which the contingencies of Paul’s rhetoric propelled the modifications.

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As Bates puts it, Koch notes that fifty-two of the ninety-three citations he has identified in Paul deviate from the LXX (56 percent), and Koch identifies thirty-seven of these fifty-two as exhibiting evidence of having been modified due to the contingencies of Paul’s particular argument (71 percent), providing firm evidence that Paul did intentionally modify his scriptural sources in an interpretative fashion when citing them.

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For Koch, Paul adapts his sources so that Israel’s Scriptures bear witness to the present attainment of God’s righteousness.

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Bates observes that Koch sets Paul’s use of the scriptures around two poles, namely (1) the righteousness of God and the law; and (2) the calling of Jews and Gentiles, and how the this relates to the question of Israel’s election."

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While building upon the conclusions of Koch, as Bates notes, Stanley finds that ‘roughly half’ of the deviations from the mainline LXX traditions are due to Paul’s intentional introductions to changes.

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Stanley identifies at least four purposes for Paul’s scriptural changes: (1) the Vorlage is changed to comport with its new Pauline context; (2) the Vorlage is changed to accentuate a main point by means of summary; (3) the Vorlage is changed to either emphasize or de-emphasize particular features of the Vorlage because such a change meets Paul’s rhetorical needs; and (4) the Vorlage is changed to inform Paul’s audience how the verse is being interpreted and or how they should respond to it.

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The present work does not align with the conclusions of Koch and Stanley at every point. However, their general thesis that Paul intentionally modified his scriptural Vorlage informs facets of the present work, especially as it relates to citations in Romans. As well shall see, Paul sometimes redacts portions of Israel’s Scriptures in the sense that he makes slight, though sometimes significant, alterations to his Vorlage to comport with his hermeneutical, rhetorical, and theological needs.

Paul as Scriptural Poet

If any twentieth century work related to Paul’s use of the OT deserves the label seminal, it is Richard Hays’s 1989 monograph entitled Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. Hays’s book has probably had a larger impact on the topic than any other work since Otto Michel’s Paulus und seine Bible (1929) and C. H. Dodd’s According to the Scriptures (1953).

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I will summarize Hays’s work at length below, because he attempts to treat so many OT usages in Romans. Here I simply want to review his overarching thesis and situate it within the larger discussion of Paul’s OT hermeneutic.

Drawing from the work of John Hollander, Hays aims to read Paul’s letters metaleptically.

⁹⁵

It is worth citing Hays at length here. Using Robert Alter’s example from Yeats’ quatrain The Nineteenth Century and After, which itself interplays with Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach, Hays explains:

Allusive echo can often function as a diachronic trope to which Hollander applies the name of transumption, or metalepsis. When a literary echo links the text in which it occurs to an earlier text, the figurative effect of the echo can lie in the unstated or suppressed (transumed) points of resonance between the two texts. Yeats says nothing about the Sea of Faith, but Arnold’s explicit note lingers as an overtone in Yeats’ line. Hollander sums up in a compact formula the demand that this sort of effect places upon criticism: the interpretation of a metalepsis entails the recovery of the transumed material.

⁹⁶

In short, metalepsis is a literary trope wherein the interplay between two texts produces unstated points of resonance that the interpreter must recover. To use a locative analogy, metalepsis places the reader within a field of widespread or unstated correspondences.

⁹⁷

Hays’s metaleptic field is Paul’s letters. He argues that it is imperative for interpreters to read Paul within this field, or cave, explaining We will have great difficulty understanding Paul, the pious first-century Jew, unless we seek to situate his discourse appropriately within what Hollanders calls the ‘cave of resonant signification’ that enveloped him: Scripture.

⁹⁸

The first example that Hays offers for his metaleptic reading of Paul emanates from Philippians where he detects an echo from Job:

For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance resulting in salvation (ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν) through your prayer and provision of the Spirit of Jesus. (Phil

1

:

19

)

And this will turn out for deliverance (ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν), for deceit will not enter before him. (Job

13

:

16

LXX)

The shared diction of ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν signals an echo, albeit one that might be missed by many hearers/readers as Hays acknowledges.

⁹⁹

Nevertheless, for those able to locate the source of the original voice, it will be discovered that Job 13:16 LXX is part of a longer speech wherein Job insists upon his integrity against the facile insinuations of comforters who attribute his suffering to some secret iniquity in his character.

¹⁰⁰

In this way, Paul assumes the role of righteous sufferer, as paradigmatically figured by Job but not without differences.

¹⁰¹

Hays makes clear that there are differences between Job and Paul. He does not claim that Paul sees himself as the antitype to Job’s type. The contrasts are in fact part of the metaleptic effect.

¹⁰²

Nevertheless, Hays accentuates the similarities between Job and Paul. For example, Hays notes Just as Job was afflicted by pious homilizers, Paul now finds himself beset by preachers who ‘preach Christ from envy and rivalry . . . not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment’ (Phil. 1:15–17).

¹⁰³

The echo of Job in Philippians illustrates how Hays employs Hollander’s principle that the interpretation of a metalepsis entails the recovery of the transumed material.

¹⁰⁴

Hays explains, None of the correspondences between Paul and Job, or between Paul’s rivals and Job’s interlocutors, is actually asserted; instead, they are intimated through the trope of metalepsis. The trope invites the reader to participate in an imaginative act necessary to comprehend the portrayal of Paul’s condition offered here.

¹⁰⁵

Hays’s explanation raises a number of questions regarding the relationship between the author’s intent of an echo and the reader’s detection of an echo. He acknowledges that when we move along a spectrum of intertextual reference (citation, allusion, echo), it inevitably becomes difficult to decide whether we are really hearing an echo at all, or whether we are only conjuring things out of the murmurings of our own imaginations.

¹⁰⁶

Therefore, in his wider study, Hays concentrates on higher-volume echoes whose allusive character is more readily audible.

¹⁰⁷

The proposed echo from Job serves as a baseline for Hays’s assessment of other echoes in the Pauline corpus.

¹⁰⁸

In this way, Hays applies the interpretive strategies to Paul’s overt allusions and quotations that are ordinarily appropriate to subtler echoes.

¹⁰⁹

In his own review of Hays from a post-Echoes of Scripture perspective, Bates notes three developments in Hays’s thought worth mentioning here. First, after his 1989 work, Hays goes on to identify the apocalyptic in-breaking of the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ as the hermeneutical key for Paul.

¹¹⁰

As Hays notes in his reflections on Paul’s OT usage in 1 Corinthians, Paul reads Scripture through the lens of an eschatological hermeneutic, and conversely, he ‘reads’ the identity of the eschatological community through the lens of Scripture.

¹¹¹

God’s apocalyptic revelation in Christ, as it is outlined in Israel’s Scriptures, is mutually interpretive for Paul and his recipients. Second, Bates observes that after his seminal work Hays went on to suggest that through his use of scripture Paul invites the reader to undergo ‘an imaginative projection,’ when the reader steps into the typological space opened up by the correlation between the church and Israel.

¹¹²

Third, Bates points out that Hays identifies in Paul’s OT hermeneutic a posture of trust. Bates explains, Hays argues that Paul’s hermeneutic adopts a posture of trust, with Abraham as the example. As such, Paul’s hermeneutic is grounded not in suspicion but in God’s abilities to make good on the promises found in the scriptures.

¹¹³

Overall, Hays’s approach to Paul’s OT hermeneutic strikes me as poetic in nature. Paul employs Israel’s Scriptures like a poet who consciously and unconsciously weaves the language, imagery, and storyline of the OT into his rhetorical argument. In underscoring the poetic, or artistic, features of Paul’s OT hermeneutic, Hays uses the analogue of drama and real life:

Anyone who has ever acted in a play knows the experience of discovering that lines from the play come unexpectedly to mind in real-life situations different from the original dramatic context. The aptness of the quoted line does not depend on exact literal correspondence between the original meaning and the new application. Indeed, the wit of pleasure of such quotations lie partly in the turning of the words to a new sense. In such cases, the act of quotation becomes an act of figuration, establishing a metaphorical resonance between drama and life. Paul’s use of Scripture often have a similar character: Scripture is for him the text of the world-play in which he performs and from which familiar lines repeatedly spring to life in new situations.

¹¹⁴

As this commentary will discuss, Paul’s poetic use of Israel’s Scripture is on full display in his letter to the Romans.

Paul as Scriptural Narrator

Hays’s other seminal work, his 1983 doctoral dissertation entitled The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11, likewise has had a sizeable impact on how interpreters assess Paul’s OT hermeneutic. Much of the attention garnered from the work tends to focus upon Hays’s interpretation of the phrase πίστις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ as the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.

¹¹⁵

Nevertheless, Hays places his larger focus in the work on the story-shaped character of Paul’s theology.

¹¹⁶

This is also where my interest lies, particularly Hays’s thoughts on how Israel’s Scriptures impact Paul’s story-shaped letter writing and theology.

Hays’s central thesis is that A story about Jesus Christ is presupposed by Paul’s argument in Galatians, and his theological reflection attempts to articulate the meaning of that story.

¹¹⁷

This story about Jesus’ faithfulness, one that fulfills God’s prior promise to Abraham, functions as the narrative substructure of the letter; therefore, Paul deals with the contingent circumstances in Galatia by interpreting them within the framework of the story.

¹¹⁸

As Bates points out, Hays’s argument significantly contributes to the discussion of Paul’s OT hermeneutic.

¹¹⁹

For example, Hays links the story of Jesus’ faithfulness to God’s prior promise that Abraham would have offspring who would be a blessing to the nations (Gen 12:1–3; Gal 3:6–22). Additionally, Hays incorporates Habakkuk 2:4 and his identification of ὁ δίκαιος as a messianic title into his discussion of the narrative substructure in Galatians.

¹²⁰

While Hays identifies the main story in Paul’s thought as a story of Christ’s faithfulness, it is indissolubly bound up with the narrative qualities of the scriptures of Israel.

¹²¹

Other interpreters have taken a similar approach to Paul, but they have highlighted other portions of the OT as playing a fundamental role in the apostle’s narrative.

¹²²

That will hold true in this work as well. Although I do not adopt Hays’s approach wholesale, particularly at the point of Jesus’ faithfulness, it is the case that Paul narrates the story of Jesus in his letters based on the combination of contingent circumstances and his OT hermeneutic. Simply put, in Romans, Paul is a narrator who tells the Scriptural story from the perspective of how God has revealed his righteousness in Christ and in a way that addresses the needs of his recipients.

Paul as Scriptural Pastor

Paul often strikes a pastoral tone in his letters, and, as noted already, he uses the OT to address the needs of his recipients. In many instances, those needs stem from the actions of Pauline opponents. Paul often found himself embroiled in hermeneutical debates with these opponents for the sake of his apostleship, gospel, and letter recipients. His recipients also suffered because of inimical powers of the present age including sin, death, Satan, ecclesiastical unrest, and the like. Therefore, one aspect of Paul’s OT hermeneutic involves the apostle’s use of the OT to care for his recipients in the face of scriptural opponents and affliction.

For J. L. Martyn, Paul uses Israel’s Scriptures to both attack his Galatian opponents, whom Martyn refers to as the Teachers, and to defend himself against them. As an example of the former, in assessing Paul’s use of Psalm 143:2 in Galatians 2:16, Martyn argues Paul changes ‘everyone living’ to ‘all flesh,’ thus focusing his polemic on the Teachers’ claim that one is rectified by commencing observance of the Law with the act of circumcising the flesh of the foreskin. Second, he inserts line 2, thus causing the Psalm verse to fit into this argument about the impotence of Law observance.

¹²³

In other words, Paul both uses, and even alters, Psalm 143 to attack his opponents. Similarly, in facing his opponents, Martyn suggests that Paul uses Habakkuk 2:4 and Leviticus 18:15 in Galatians 3:10–14 to both defend his theology of rectification and to undercut the opponents’ retort against that theology.

¹²⁴

Although I do not agree entirely with Martyn’s reconstruction of the Galatian opponents (the Teachers), or his specific assessments of how Paul uses the OT, he draws attention to the impact that contingent circumstances most likely had on Paul’s OT hermeneutic. Such circumstances are not the only factor in Paul’s engagement with Israel’s Scriptures, but it is at least one of them. As I will note in the chapters ahead, Paul often makes use of the OT in Romans as a pastor and a missionary who suffers and addresses those who suffer. That affliction surely influences the kinds of OT texts he draws from and how he draws from them.

Paul as Typological Interpreter

Paul describes Adam as a τύπος, or type, of Christ (Rom 5:14). The literal sense of τύπος is a mark made as the result of a blow or pressure.

¹²⁵

One might find this kind of mark, or blow, on items such as ancient seals, letters, or dice.

¹²⁶

However, τύπος could also bear a figurative sense. It might indicate a relationship between people, such as that between a parent and a child.

¹²⁷

The latter would be the τύπος of the former.

¹²⁸

The noun could also bear the sense of a prototype, or a prefiguration.

¹²⁹

It is the latter definition that interpreters often use to understand the meaning of τύπος in Romans 5:14. However, contextually, in Romans 5:12–21, the term not only bears the sense of prefiguration but also of a relationship between two people, namely Adam and Christ. We will return to the intertextual analysis of this text in volume two of the commentary. Here I would simply note that this text serves as the classic exemplum for Paul’s typological hermeneutic. Of course, for some interpreters, Paul’s typological hermeneutic consists of far more than Adamic typology.

Leonhard Goppelt’s 1939 work entitled Typos: Die Typologische Deutung des Alten Testaments im Neuen Testament remains the most influential treatment of the topic.

¹³⁰

The guiding question of Goppelt’s study is simply this, How did Jesus and the early church interpret the book that they made the Holy Scripture of Christendom?

¹³¹

For Goppelt, the answer is clear Without exception they indicate that typology is the method of biblical interpretation that is characteristic of the NT.

¹³²

Goppelt lays out the parameters of his typological analysis as follows:

The concept of typology with which we begin may be defined and distinguished from other methods of interpretation as follows: Only historical facts—persons, actions, events, and institutions—are material for typological interpretation; words and narratives can be utilized only insofar as they deal with such matters. These things are to be interpreted typologically only if they are considered to be divinely ordained representations or types of future realities that will be even greater and more complete. If the antitype does not represent a heightening of the type, if it is merely a repetition of the type, then it can be called typology only in certain instances and in a limited way. This is true also when the interpreter does not view the connection between the two as being foreordained in some way, but as being accidental or deliberately contrived (a parabolic action is not a type of the event that it represents).

¹³³

This typological analysis is built upon the NT writers’ view of history wherein Israel’s God, ultimately revealed in Jesus Christ, is sovereign over history.

¹³⁴

With respect to Paul specifically, Goppelt crafts two substantial treatments of the apostle’s typological exegesis.

¹³⁵

First, he meticulously analyzes Paul’s letters and their typological engagement with the OT.

¹³⁶

He identifies two large typological strands which he labels as Christ the second Adam who brings the new creation and the church as the ‘children of Abraham’ and as the ‘spiritual Israel.’

¹³⁷

In summarizing Paul’s typological contrast between Adam and Christ, Goppelt concludes What is being contrasted, then, is the accomplishments and the consequences of the mediators of the first and second creations and not the mediators themselves. There is only one mediator—God through Christ.

¹³⁸

Additionally, in summarizing the typological relationship between Israel and the church, Goppelt concludes The church’s relationship to the historical Christ and to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant must not be replaced by a nonhistorical, syncretistic myth. Typology demonstrates not only the nature of the new in comparison with the old, but it also shows that the new is founded directly and solely on redemptive history.

¹³⁹

Goppelt acknowledges that Paul’s explicit references to these two strands of typology are few; however, he still argues that Paul views all of Scripture in a framework that arises from these typologies.

¹⁴⁰

Goppelt identifies the framework as redemptive history. He explains, Paul uses this framework to gather the individual statements of Scripture in groups as pictures of a single divine redemptive act that has been carried out in history, but which has now been surpassed, i.e., set aside.

¹⁴¹

Goppelt points to Paul’s typological exegesis in 1 Corinthians 10:1–13 as a prime example. Moreover, the typological framework shapes the way Paul uses individual sayings from the OT such as his use of Psalm 69 in Romans 15:3, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell upon me. Goppelt observes, Though the psalm originally spoke of David, it really refers to Christ. Accordingly, the typological approach has put its stamp on the apostle’s total understanding of Scripture. It shows conclusively how it also controls his whole theology.

¹⁴²

In his second treatment of Paul’s typology, Goppelt compares Paul’s typology and apocalypticism as different means for interpreting the Christ event.

¹⁴³

While acknowledging that both typology and apocalypticism interpret history as pointing to the eschaton, Goppelt detects a distinction between the two. He explains, Apocalypticism interprets history as a course of events leading to the consummation; typology interprets it as a prefiguration of the consummation.

¹⁴⁴

Goppelt sees a relationship between apocalypticism and typology in Paul’s theology, though, not surprisingly, more weight is placed on typology.

According to Goppelt, Paul uses apocalyptic thought to state that the coming of Jesus which would occur in the near future means the end of this world and the beginning of a new one, and that this world should definitely be called ‘this (passing) aeon.’

¹⁴⁵

Moreover, apocalypticism supplies Paul with the outline of a world view.

¹⁴⁶

Yet, it is precisely at this point, when the aeon drags on, that a difficulty arises in Paul’s thought. As Goppelt puts it, In what sense, then, can Paul view these events as eschatological while this aeon still continues?

¹⁴⁷

For Paul, the eschaton is not present in the form of an eschatology that unfolds step by step in an apocalyptic drama, but it is present in the dialectic of the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’ (Rom 8:24).

¹⁴⁸

To put it another way, How the eschaton is present for him in history cannot be explained on the basis of apocalyptic thinking.

¹⁴⁹

Instead, the eschaton is present for Paul through typology. Goppelt explains, Adam typology and Abraham typology make it clear that Jesus’ resurrection is an eschatological event because it presupposes a new relationship to God that cancels Adam’s fall and fulfills Abraham’s relationship to God in accordance with the promise.

¹⁵⁰

Therefore, Goppelt believes that Paul locates the presence of the eschaton in the new relationship to God that the one who is justified by faith enjoys.

¹⁵¹

For Goppelt, typology is more than a hermeneutical strategy employed by Paul. It is Paul’s way of bringing the eschaton into present historical circumstances based on Christ’s cancellation of Adam’s fall and his fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. As we shall see, these Adamic and Abrahamic typologies play a key role in Paul’s use of the OT in Romans, particularly in Romans 4 and 5.

Paul as Kerygmatic Narrator and Prosopological Interpreter

Bates’s work The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation not only provides a rich summary of how scholars have articulated Paul’s OT hermeneutic in the past, it also provides a fresh proposal. Bates argues:

In light of Paul’s hermeneutical statements about the scriptures and in view of Paul’s use of prosopological exegesis, this study argues that Paul received, utilized, and extended an apostolic, kerygmatic narrative tradition centered on certain key events in the Christ story as his primary interpretative lens—a narrative tradition that already contained a built-in hermeneutic. That is to say, while Paul accepted and employed a basic christocentric narrative tradition that itself articulated a fundamental hermeneutical posture, Paul seamlessly grafted his own apostolic mission onto this narrative, seeing his own Gentile mission as promised in advance by God I the scriptures.

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Much like Dodd, Bates underscores the importance of a received kerygma that largely guided Paul’s engagement with Israel’s Scriptures. However, Paul grafted some of his own elements into the kerygmatic narrative. Focusing especially on 1 Corinthians 15:3b–5 and Romans 1:3–4, Bates describes the apostolic kerygma, or protocreedal material, taken up by Paul as a eight-stage master kerygmatic narrative which contains: (1) preexistence, (2) human life in the line of David, (3) death in behalf of our sins, (4) burial, (5) existence among the dead ones, (6) resurrection on the third day, (7) initial appearances, and (8) installation as ‘Son-of-God-in-Power.

¹⁵³

Bates suggests, Stages 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8 are specifically endorsed by Paul as being in accordance with the scriptures or pre-promised in the scriptures, while stages 4 and 7 are not designated as such.

¹⁵⁴

Paul extends this master kerygmatic narrative with four more stages: (9) subsequent appearances to others, (10) appearance to Paul, (11) apostolic commissioning, and (12) mission to the nations.

¹⁵⁵

In short, this twelve stage apostolic kerygma stands at the center of Paul’s interpretative activities.

¹⁵⁶

The second innovative piece of Bates’s argument stems from his suggestion that Paul utilizes prosopological exegesis. He explains the latter noting, "In brief, prosopological exegesis explains a text by suggesting that the author of the text identified various persons or characters (prosopa) as speakers or addressees in a pre-text, even though it is not clear from the pre-text itself that such persons are in view."

¹⁵⁷

Bates suggests that prosopological exegesis emerged from three intersecting social settings which he identifies as: (1) literary production viewed as a divinely inspired activity, (2) drama, and (3) rhetorical/educational training.

¹⁵⁸

He points out that within the Mediterranean world and Greco-Roman culture many people viewed various literary activities as divinely inspired.

¹⁵⁹

In turning to ancient drama, Bates further locates the background of prosopological exegesis in the areas of characterization and dialogue. Ancient drama is marked by a diverse use of dialogue between characters which attuned later practitioners of prospological exegesis to look for shifts in the speaker and addressee accordingly. From this practice, Bates concludes So when Paul reads his scriptures in search of dialoguing characters, his actions are rooted in ancient drama.

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Finally, with respect to rhetorical, or educational, training, Bates observes:

Rhetoricians employed the figure of prosopopoeia in speeches, placing appropriate words in the mouth of a character in order to evoke an emotive response. Schoolmasters likewise used prosopopoeia as a training device, asking student to write fitting, in-character speeches. Grammarians employed prosopon language in order to designate the person involved in the action and shifts in the grammatical subject. Moreover, there is evidenced that Paul employed prosopopoeial (or similar figures) within his letters as a rhetorical device, as Stowers and others have argued.

¹⁶¹

Based on these three interlocking social settings, Bates proceeds to identify the use of propsological exegesis in Paul’s Hellenistic world and in his letters, including Romans.

¹⁶²

With respect to Paul’s letters, Bates identifies six instances of prosopologial exegesis embedded in explicit quotations.

¹⁶³

For example, he detects prosopological exegesis in Paul’s citation of Isaiah 53:1a But not all heard the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘O Lord (κύριε), who has believed our (ἡμῶν) report?’ (Rom 10:16). By applying his prosopological criteria, Bates identifies the apostles as the referent of ἡμῶν and God as the addressee of κύριε. The apostles are the prosopa, including Paul, whose in-character speech and dialogue with God focuses upon stages 11 and 12 from Bates’s master kerygmatic narrative wherein they proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Bates notes that only seven percent of Paul’s citations employ this kind of prosopological technique. However, he cautions Since four of the six cases involve Christ as the speaker, the technique is disproportionately vital to understanding Paul’s Christology, hermeneutic, and conception of the Father-Son-Spirit relationship.

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We will consider how Bates’s proposal may prove helpful for analyzing some of Paul’s engagements with the OT in Romans.

Summary of Paul’s OT Hermeneutic

The preceding review indicates that Paul’s OT hermeneutic is far from monolithic. He is at different times a scriptural apologist, theologian, redactor, poet, narrator, and pastor. This certainly holds true in Romans. However, none of this hermeneutical diversity occurs in a disparate or vacuous way. He works within a hermeneutical framework shaped by his typological view of history, his experience with Jewish exegesis and Greco-Roman rhetorical devices, the early Christian kerygma, his apocalyptic encounter with the risen Jesus, and suffering. As we shall see, in Romans, suffering often influences the kind of OT pre-texts that Paul selects and the manner in which he uses them. Paul’s statement about Israel’s Scriptures in Romans 15:4 is informative on this point, For as much as was written beforehand, it was written for our instruction, in order that through the endurance and encouragement of the scriptures (τῶν γραφῶν) we might have hope. It is telling that in one of the rare instances where Paul talks directly about the nature and purpose of Israel’s Scriptures he stresses that they bring hope to those in Rome. Hope assumes hurt which Paul speaks at length about in the letter. He constantly draws from Israel’s Scriptures to address that hurt. Therefore, in the search to locate Paul’s OT hermeneutic as it relates to Romans, one should look with an especially keen eye at the suffering of Paul and his recipients.

Commentary Style Treatments of Paul’s OT Usage in Romans

To reiterate, this work attempts to analyze and synthesize all uses of the OT in Romans.

¹⁶⁵

Some have attempted a similar task before which I refer to here as commentary style treatments, meaning they have attempted to examine the use of the OT throughout the letter and not merely in isolated sections or with a limited focus on Paul’s use of a certain OT book or hermeneutical approach.

¹⁶⁶

Given this qualification, two works stand out, namely Richard B. Hays’s Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul and Mark A. Seifrid’s entry for Romans in the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament.

¹⁶⁷

Hays’s Commentary Style Treatment of OT Usage in Romans

First, Hays’s Echoes of Scripture offers a commentary style treatment of Paul’s use of the OT in Romans, though it is not without an overarching thesis.

¹⁶⁸

Hays does not limit his analysis to Romans, but it takes up a significant portion of his work.

¹⁶⁹

He seeks to articulate how Paul’s OT quotations work together to support the letter’s argument.

¹⁷⁰

Hays acknowledges that such a determination is difficult, but he suggests, If, however, we attend carefully to Paul’s use of the quotations, we will discover them spiraling around a common focus: the problem of God’s saving righteousness in relation to Israel. The insistent echoing voice of Scripture in and behind Paul’s letter presses home a single theme relentlessly: the gospel is the fulfillment, not the negation, of God’s word to Israel.

¹⁷¹

In this way, theodicy becomes instrumental in Hays’s reading of Romans and in his analysis of how Paul uses the OT. This is especially evident in his analysis of the letter’s propositio, Romans 1:16–17,