The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul

This book breaks a significant impasse in much Pauline interpretation today, pushing beyond both “Lutheran” and “New” perspectives on Paul to a noncontractual, “apocalyptic” reading of many of the apostle’s most famous -- and most troublesome -- texts.

In The Deliverance of God Douglas Campbell holds that the intrusion of an alien, essentially modern, and theologically unhealthy theoretical construct into the interpretation of Paul has produced an individualistic and contractual construct that shares more with modern political traditions than with either orthodox theology or Paul’s first-century world. In order to counter­act that influence, Campbell argues that it needs to be isolated and brought to the foreground before the interpretation of Paul’s texts begins. When that is done, readings free from this intrusive paradigm become possible and surprising new interpretations unfold.

Douglas A. Campbell is professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School. His many publications include Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of God’s Love, Paul: An Apostle’s Journey, Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography, and The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul.

 

N. T. Wright, one of the most highly respected biblical scholars in the world today, is research professor emeritus of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews and senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. He is the author of over eighty books, including Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, and The New Testament in Its World.