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Paperback - 156 pp
ISBN 066425361X
Westminster/John Knox Press

Summary

In this book, James Aageson likens interpretation to a conversation and uses Paul as a model for illustrating this.  In Paul's case, interpretation is a conversation between Paul and scripture.  Aageson gives four case studies of Paul conversing with scripture: Paul's use of Abraham texts, his understanding of Israel, his use of the figure of Adam, and his seeing christ as a figure by which all traditions are understood in new ways.

As a Jew, Paul learned the skills of biblical interpretation and placed them in the service of a christological and ecclesiological message.  For Paul, scriptural texts had integrity and generated a message for his own time and situation.

Editorial Comments

Aageson offers a good introductory survey of the most important passages in which Paul quotes and interprets Old Testament texts . . . The book highlights Paul's creative hermeneutical transformations of inherited traditions and argues that theological interpreters in the church today must be willing to carry forward similarly creative readings. . . . The book gathers some important results of recent Pauline studies and makes them accessible for a broad readership.

Richard B. Hays
Associate Professor of New Testament
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina