Pistis Christou debate at Bible Gateway

Over at BibleGateway are some entries about the "pistis christou" debate with thoughts so far from Tom Schreiner and Craig Blomberg (my own entry is now up).

Latest Pistis Christou Contributions with Friends

I've been on a pistis christou frenzy in the last year or two and the products of that rampage are now available.

First, just out is Michael F. Bird and Michael R. Whitenton, “The Faithfulness of Jesus Christ in Hippolytus’s De Christo et Antichristo: Overlooked Patristic Evidence in the Πίστις Χριστοu Debate.” New Testament Studies 55:4 (2009): 552-562. I honestly could not believe that nobody had seen this before, so I teamed up Michael Whitenton (of Ecce Homo fame) to put together this short piece. This is Whitenton's first academic publication and he did all the stuff on the Apostolic Fathers. So if you receive a Ph.D application from him put it in the "fast track" pile.

Second, now available from Amazon.com (see the sidebar) is The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological Studies co-edited with Preston Sprinkle, featuring essays from the top scholars working in the field like Francis Watson, Doug Campbell, Barry Matlock, Paul Foster, Richard Bell, Mark Seifrid, and many, many more. This is THE Paul volume of 2009!

Karl Barth on the "Faithfulness of Christ"

For the Barthophiles out there:

"The fact that I live in the faith of the Son of God, in my faith in him, has its basis in the fact that He Himself, the Son of God, first believed for me ... the great work of faith has already been done by the One whom I follow in my faith, even before I believe, even if I no longer believe, in such a way that He is always, as Heb 12:2 puts it, the originator and completer of our faith ... His faith is the victory which has overcome the world"

CD II/2, 559.

Hippolytus and the "Faith of Jesus Christ"

In his tract on the Christ and the Antichrist, Hippolytus discourses about what is going to happen to Christians when the Antichrist comes.

In paragraph 61 it says:

And the words, "upon her head a crown of twelve stars," refer to the twelve apostles by whom the Church was founded. And those, "she, being with child, cries, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered," mean that the Church will not cease to bear from her heart the Word that is persecuted by the unbelieving in the world. "And she brought forth," he says, "a man-child, who is to rule all the nations;" by which is meant that the Church, always bringing forth Christ, the perfect man-child of God, who is declared to be God and man, becomes the instructor of all the nations. And the words, "her child was caught up unto God and to His throne," signify that he who is always born of her is a heavenly king, and not an earthly; even as David also declared of old when he said, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool." "And the dragon," he says, "saw and persecuted the woman which brought forth the man-child. And to the woman were given two wings of the great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." That refers to the one thousand two hundred and threescore days (the half of the week) during which the tyrant is to reign and persecute the Church, which flees from city to city, and seeks concealment in the wilderness among the mountains, possessed of no other defence than the two wings of the great eagle, that is to say, the faith of Jesus Christ, [Iesou Christou pistis] who, in stretching forth His holy hands on the holy tree, unfolded two wings, the right and the left, and called to Him all who believed upon Him, and covered them as a hen her chickens. For by the mouth of Malachi also He speaks thus: "And unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings."

I came across this text quite accidentally a week or so ago and I think it is the clearest reference we have to a subjective genitive of "faith(fulness) of Christ" in relation to Jesus' death on the cross in patristic literature.

Is it just me or is this fascinating stuff? Anyways, myself and Michael Whiteton should have an article on this forthcoming very soon.

Two Recent Articles in the Pistis Christou Debate

In recent days there have been two articles published on the Pistis Christou debate:

1. Jae Hyun Lee, "Against Richard B. Hays’s ‘Faith of Jesus Christ’" JGRChJ (2008): 51-80.

Here Lee critiques Richard Hays' monograph The Faith of Jesus Christ. In particular, Lee takes Hays to task on the purported narrative structure of Galatians and the alleged divine-human dichotomy that Hays seems to assume. Overall, this is a good lexical semantic approach to the pistis christou debate, but it suffers from historical redundancy. Hays himself has pretty much abandoned arguing for the subjective genitive view based on a narrative sub-structure to Galatians and few subjective genitivalists refer to the redundancy of pistis/pisteuo any more (I know for a fact that Doug Campbell has abandoned that line of argument all together). Lee's critique might have been relevant in the early 1980s, but I question its utility now in 2008, the debate has moved on. What is more, I would point out that by undermining the weakest point of someone's argument does not mean that you have thereby undermined their argument in total. Lee's critique may be correct (and I surmize that for the most part it is), but Hays' argument has stronger nodes especially in his analysis of Romans 1-4 and reading Gal. 2.15-16 in light of Gal. 3.23, which do not get dealt with.

2. Kenneth Schenck, "2 Corinthians and the Pistis Christou Debate" CBQ 70.3 (2008): 524-37.

Schenck maintains that 2 Cor. 4.13 provides evidence that Paul could think of Jesus as having faith and that Paul saw Jesus' faith as exemplary for the faith of subsequent believers in addition to its instrumental role in their resurrection. This depends on seeing Paul's quotation of Ps. 115 (LXX) as messianic where the speaker is Jesus himself and it refers to Jesus' faith that God will raise him from the dead. The line of argument runs: (1) Paul reads the psalm and sees Jesus having faith that God would raise him from the dead; (2) Paul also has this faith that God will one day raise him and the dead in Christ; (3) because the God who raised Jesus will also raise him and the dead in Christ (p. 528). Schenck supposes that the concepts of Jesus' obedience to God in his death and his confidence in God to raise him from the dead "flowed into each other in Paul's mind" (p. 535). The significance of this observation is that it might illuminate other texts. Perhaps in Rom. 1.17 ("from faith to faith") Paul refers to Jesus' faith and the believer's faith and Gal. 2.16 where three faith expressions are used in sequence. My only quibbles here are that (1) the Church Fathers had much to say against Jesus' faith as exemplary for various reasons. (2) One could accept Schenck's conclusion about 2 Cor.4.13, but still maintain the objective genitive interpretation of the relevant passages in Galatians, Romans, and Philippians. While it might illuminate the subjective genitive position it does not necessitate it or reinforce it.

Francis Watson on Pistis Christou

One of the best little quotes on the "px" debate that I've read (and believe me, I've read alot on this and had trouble making up my mind) comes from Francis Watson:

"As we have seen, the christological qualification of Paul's faith terminology is intended to refer neither to 'the faithfulness of Christ' nor to 'faith in Christ' but, more open-endedly, to the faith that pertains to God's saving action in Christ - originating in it, participating in it, and orientated towards it" (Francis Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentile: Beyond the New Perspective, p. 255).

I submit that this warrants a return to the translation of the 'faith of Christ' in Bible translations in order to keep the gentive deliberately ambiguous (much like the 'righteousness of God'). I think this is where I'll nail my colours to the mast for now! This is a position that I think resonates also with the works of Mark Seifrid and Preston Sprinkle. Now I find the theological mileage that one gets out of the subjective gentive view absolutely scintilatting. In addition, some of Doug Campbell's and Ardel Caneday's arguments are quite thought-provoking on the matter and I'd probably give a tacit approval to a subjective genitival reading in Philippians 3 thanks to Markus Bockmuehl, Peter O'Brien, and Paul Foster (although Barry Matlock and Richard Bell make me highly cautious about it). But all in all, I think I have to lean more towards a modification of the objective gentive along the lines that Watson suggests above.

Those interested in this further will have to wait until spring/summer 2009 for Paternoster and Hendrickson to release our book The Faith of Jesus Christ where these issues are explored more fully.

Early English Translations and the Pistis Christou Debate

For my "Romans in the Reformed Tradition" course, I begin each lecture by displaying the English translations of Romans by Tyndale and the Geneva Bible. I am embarrassed to say that I've never yet consulted these translations as part of the pistis christou debate in Pauline studies. I was intrigued, then, when I read their translations of Rom. 3.22:

Tyndale: The rightewesnes no dout which is good before God cometh by the fayth of Iesus Christ vnto all and vpon all that beleve.

Geneva: To wit, the righteousnesse of God by the faith of Iesus Christ, vnto all, and vpon all that beleeue.

I should hardly be surprised since the good ol' KJV is identical here and this underscores that early English translations decidedly maintained the ambiguity of the genitive (the same follows in Gal. 2.16).

Rom. 1.17: Anthropological vs. Christological Readings

I've currently reading through Desta Heliso's Pistis and the Righteous One (Mohr/Siebeck, 2007) which is about Romans 1.17. As I see it, this is the case, pro and con, for the christological intepretation of Rom. 1.17:

1. It is absurd to talk of human faith as the mechanism through which the "righteousness of God" is revealed when, in Rom. 3.21-26, it takes place in the Christ-event (Heliso, p. 36).
2. Could not the phrase "the righteous [one] shall live by faith" refer to the Messiah who acquired eschatological life through his faithfulness and is the one who will come to save the faithful (Heliso, p. 70)?
3. Hab. 2.3-4 was interpreted messianically in the LXX .
4. The title ho dikaios was a christological title in the early church (e.g. Acts 3.14; 7.52).

But on the negative side (see esp. Francis Watson):

1. Christ is not mentioned by name in the entire passage!
2. Paul's main concern is to demonstrate: (a) the conformity of his gospel to the pattern of Scripture, and (b) to show the link of "righteousness" and "faith" in counter-point to an ethnocentric nomism.
3. Most uses of Hab. 2.3-4 in Judaism (e.g. Qumran) were not messianic.
4. 1.16 clearly focuses on human faith, while 1.17 is probably more focused on divine faithfulness.

I find it hard to go past the anthropological reading when it is tied more closely to divine activity (as opposed to a believing versus doing antithesis). Mark Seifrid is about to argue (in our forthcoming "Faith of Jesus Christ" book) that this passage means "Faith has its source in the faithfulness of the God who promises and fulfills". Interesting stuff!

The Pistis Christou Debate at SBL

On seminar to attend will be:

The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical and Theological Studies

11/16/2007, 12:30 PM to 5:30
PMRoom: 28 A - CC

Michael Bird, Highland Theological College
The Faith of Jesus Christ: Problems and Prospects (15 min)

Joel Willitts, North Park University
The Saving Value of "Faithfulness" in Jewish Traditions (30 min)

Stanley Porter, McMaster Divinity College
Lexical and Semantic Reflections on Pistis (30 min)

Douglas Campbell, Duke University
The Faithfulness of Jesus Christ in Romans and Galatians (30 min)

Preston Sprinkle, Aberdeen University
Pistis Christou as an Eschatological Event (30 min)Break (15 min)

Ardel Caneday, Northwestern College, St. Paul
The Faithfulness of Jesus as a Theme of Pauline Theology (30 min)

Francis Watson, University of Aberdeen - Scotland
The Faith of Jesus Christ (30 min)

R. Barry Matlock, University of Sheffield
The Faithfulness of Jesus Christ in Romans and Galatians (30 min)

Mark Elliott, University of St. Andrews-Scotland
The Faith of Jesus Christ in the Church Fathers (30 min)

Benjamin Myers, University of Queensland
The Faithfulness of Christ in the Theology of Karl Barth (30 min)

What's at Stake in the Pistis Christou Debate?

Here's a thought provoking quote from Mark Reasoner:

'In the end, the best arguments for the subjective genitive seems to be its theological utility, not the lexical or syntactical difficulties of the objective genitive'.

That confirms to me that one of the reason for the attraction of the subjective genitive is not exegetical but its aesthetical appeal to certain theological implications that arise from it. Thus, it is the theological mileage that one gets out of the subj-gen view that makes it compelling.

Reasoner also says this:

'Why does it matter whether we read pistis Christou as objective (faith in Jesus) or subjective (Jesus' faith)? First, the degree to which we emphasize faith in the human affects how we present the gospel. Proponents of the subjective genitive, who hold that Christ's faith is what saves, will not call for a distinct, conversion-constituting act of placing one's faith in Jesus. They will rather call people to join the church that lives out in a concentric pattern the faith that Jesus displayed. Second, we will begin to read Paul's gospel not as primarily based around the dichotomy of works and faith, which both have a human subject, but rather as a dichotomy between law and Christ. Third, this view of pistis Christou moves students of Paul's letters to see that justification by faith is part of a bigger theme in Paul, participation in Christ.'

My comments are: (1) We should affirm that human faith only has saving value because of God's own faithfulness to Israel and creation has been expressed in the sending of his Son, and that the cross is only efficacious because Jesus himself was obedient/faithful to the Father. But that does not warrant a divide between conversion and community driven cruciformity to the example of Christ. While Paul expected Christians to follow the example of Christ's obedience (e.g. Phil. 2.5-11), he also expected them to turn from idols to God (1 Thess. 1.10). (2) We should also affirm that the primary faultlines in Paul's thinking is not over assent to theological propositions versus merit theology, but whether the salvation of the Gentiles belongs to the epoch of Moses or to the new epoch inaugurated by Jesus' faithfulness.

New Pistis Christou Book

Over at Mohr [Siebeck] this volume has just come out and relates to the pistis christou or 'faith of Christ' debate:

Ulrichs, Karl Friedrich
Christusglaube
Studien zum Syntagma pistis Christou und zum paulinischen Verständnis von Glaube und Rechtfertigung

(WUNT 2.227; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2007)

Karl Friedrich Ulrichs untersucht die in paulinischen Rechtfertigungskontexten siebenmal (Röm 3,22.26; Gal 2,16.20; 3,22; Phil 3,9, vgl. 1Thess 1,3) belegte Wendung "Glaube Christi". Spätestens seit der Arbeit von Richard B. Hays 1984 zu Gal 3 ist die syntaktische Bestimmung des Genitivs, die Semantik von "Glaube" und damit die inhaltliche Interpretation des paulinischen Rechtfertigungsdenkens umstritten. Der Autor schlägt vor, die notorische Engführung einer Alternative genitivus subiectivus/obiectivus in der philologischen Debatte zu überwinden. Er stellt die in der bisherigen Forschung vorgebrachten Argumente dar, ordnet und gewichtet sie und zeigt das Problem im jeweiligen Kontext der Belege auf. Dabei wird die kontinentaleuropäische mit der - in diesem wichtigen theologischen Gedanken der Soteriologie abweichenden - angelsächsischen Forschung ins Gespräch gebracht und die Diskussion um die new perspective on Paul wird so erweitert. In methodischer Hinsicht liegt hier eine auf Kriterien der klassischen gräzistischen Philologie bezogene und das principle of maximal redundancy verwendende Untersuchung vor, die das Recht des traditionellen Verständnisses von Pistis Christou und der entsprechenden Soteriologie sowie Anliegen der neuen Paulus-Perspektive zusammenbringt. Es zeigt sich, dass Paulus dieses Syntagma prägt und damit eine Integration verschiedener von ihm aufgenommener soteriologischer Modelle (Rechtfertigung, Partizipation, Geistbegabung) leistet.

My thanks to Ben Myers for telling me of this volume!