The Interpretation of Freedom in the Letters of Paul: With Special Reference to the 'German' Tradition

Wayne Coppins investigates the interpretation of freedom in Paul's letters with special reference to Martin Luther and twentieth-century German New Testament scholarship. He focuses on three key issues, namely the importance of freedom in Paul's letters and theology, the centrality and meaning of freedom from the law, and the relationship between freedom and service. In addition to providing a detailed exegesis of the key Pauline texts, the monograph also offers a synthesis of the aforementioned issues and concludes with a retrospective assessment of the promise and pitfalls of 'German' scholarship on freedom in Paul. While critical of the assumption that Paul himself had already developed a unified concept of freedom, the author suggests that it may nevertheless be appropriate to employ freedom as a category for depicting Paul's thought.

Wayne Coppins, Born 1975; 1998 B.A. in Greek and Latin at the University of Georgia; studied theology for two years at the University of Tubingen; 2002 M.A. from the University of Durham; 2007 PhD from the University of Cambridge; since August 2007 Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Georgia.