100 of 101 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gordon Fee Has Done It Again, July 27, 2007
This review is from: Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Hardcover)
I. H. Marshall's assessment of Professor Gordon Fee's new book is much to the point. "Gordon Fee has done it again! Having given us the standard work of Paul's understanding of the Holy Spirit, he has now filled a surprising gap in Pauline studies by writing a remarkably comprehensive and detailed account of Pauline Christology." To this Paul Achtemeier adds: "Thoroughly researched, comprehensive, and wide-ranging, this solid study is arranged in such a way that it is useful not only for its impact pointing as it does to the coherence of Paul's christological thought but also for its careful exegetical studies of individual passages" (both from the dust jacket).
As for methodology, while acknowledging that a narrative approach to Paul's christology possesses some benefits, Fee opts for the combination of exegetical Analysis of passages and a theological Synthesis of the materials, the same structure as his earlier work on the Spirit in Paul. The Analysis is discernibly more technical than that of God's Empowering Presence, and for that reason it is likely to be less appealing to non-specialists in the field. Consequently, some readers anyway may want to reserve this segment of the book as a commentary on the individual passages without necessarily poring over the details in a cover to cover reading. However, the Synthesis lightens up and makes for easier sledding. Indeed, this portion of the book is not only theologically rich but devotional in tone. In any event, as a specialist in Paul I value the attention to detail, along with the various chapter appendices serving as compendia of the relevant passages, especially the wisdom texts, which are not so readily available.
The investigation yields expected results from an evangelical scholar such as Fee, who is fully supportive of Paul's "high christology." In summary: (1) Christ is the preexistent and eternal Son of God (King of Israel). (2) As "equal with God," Jesus is Lord in the "fully loaded" sense of the term (= Yahweh). (3) He is the incarnate redeemer (savior). (4) He possesses divine prerogatives and attributes, such as God's glory and faithfulness. (5) He shares in divine activities and purposes, including creation, forgiveness and resurrection. (6) He is a member of the "proto-Trinity." (7) He has now been exalted on high at God's right hand and given the name above all names. (8) To him prayer may be addressed. (9) He is an object of worship, to whom Paul is completely devoted. (10) Ultimately, every knee will bow to him and every tongue confess that he is Lord. In contending for such theologoumena, Fee is not content to fall back on orthodox assumptions regarding Christ's person, but rather the materials are examined methodically and microscopically with the aid of the best of contemporary scholarship. And the aggregate of the evidence is overwhelming: Paul had a very high christology indeed!
The only really surprising aspect of Fee's book is his categorical denial of any wisdom christology in Paul. His motivation is laudable enough: as personified wisdom, Christ is not to be reduced to a creature. With this I thoroughly agree, but it is not necessary to dispense with every potential allusion to wisdom in order to maintain this conviction. As for the Jewish materials, I would concur that Paul does not derive his conception of Christ from Wisdom of Solomon or Sirach. Rather, any pre-Pauline precedents would be provided by the wisdom materials of the Old Testament. Nevertheless, the Second Temple texts do provide important context for Paul, a context which is not to be dismissed lightly.
All in all, the bottom line is that Professor Fee's book is the most thorough and compelling account of Paul's christology to date and is nothing short of a great achievement. It is sure to remain the standard in the field for some time to come, and I am certain I will return to it repeatedly in my own research.
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80 of 80 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magisterial Pauline Christology, July 25, 2007
This review is from: Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Hardcover)
Dr. Fee has done it again. His scholarship is breathtaking: he examines all of the current literature, has a wide knowledge of the history of discussion on this topic, and has a nuanced understanding of the texts he examines. I was impressed by his work on Colossians, an area of my own research. For lay persons who are interested in this type of work, Dr. Fee has included English translations of the Greek and Hebrew which will make it more accessible to the non-specialist
I was sceptical about his claim about there being no major work dealing with this topic; upon further research, I am convinced.
Dr. Fee does a masterful job in demonstrating how kurios=YHWH of the Septuagint becomes kurios=Lord Jesus Christ in the Pauline corpus. His discussion of the echoes of the LXX in Paul is masterful and comprehensive.
Anyone doing work in this area will have to work with and respond to Dr. Fee. This is one of the works that every pastor as well as scholar should have on their shelves.
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73 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant Piece of Scholarship with Pastoral Sensitivity, April 10, 2007
This review is from: Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Hardcover)
Gordon Fee once again fills in a gap in Pauline studies with a massive tome of Pauline Christology. Readers who anticipate a work that parallels his work on the Spirit in Paul might be a bit disappointed. The vast amount of data on Christ in Paul's letters makes such a survey much more challenging and impossible to analyze every single passage in as much depth as one would hope. My greatest disappointment is the short length of discussion on Ephesians. But this is somewhat understandable since he had already discussed Colossians at length and the similarities between the two letter great (though perhaps he could have discussed more, being that God's Empowering Presence is about 250 pages longer. This work is just over 700 pages.
Nevertheless, the book is a goldmine of information and deserves to be on every pastor's and NT scholar's shelf. Virtually every passage one could imagine gets at least a paragraph or two. He groups similar themes in individual books into sections if they are short. And his appendices at the end of each chapter are extremely helpful for those who know NT Greek.
While the book will likely be read by people in a sort of piece-meal fashion, I advise reading the introduction before examining certain passages you might be interested in. It will help give a feel for the work as a whole because in the introduction, he explains his method of going through Paul's letters and understanding a scholar's methodology is extremely important is one desires to understand his work.
Buy it, read it, use it. You won't regret it.
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