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Monday, February 16, 2015

John Barclay's Paul and Gift

John Barclay, Lightfoot Professor of Divinity, Durham University, is simply put, one of the greatest living New Testament scholars in the world today. For many years, students and scholars alike have been awaiting his work on the Apostle Paul's theology. Apparently, the wait will end just in time for the 2015 annual SBL meeting when Barclay's Paul and the Gift (Eerdmans) will be released. The release date is October 16th, the book retails for $70.00 and the page count is a hefty 688 pages.


Here is the description:

A fresh scholarly reading of grace in Paul's theology
 In this book esteemed scholar John Barclay explores Pauline theology anew from the perspective of grace. Arguing that Paul's theology of grace is best approached in light of ancient notions of "gift," Barclay describes Paul's relationship to Judaism in a fresh way. Barclay focuses on divine gift-giving, which for Paul, he says, is focused and fulfilled in the gift of Christ. He both offers a new appraisal of Paul's theology of the Christ-event as gift as it comes to expression in Galatians and Romans and presents a nuanced and detailed consideration of the history of reception of Paul, including Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Barth. This exegetically responsible, theologically informed, hermeneutically useful book shows that a respectful, though not uncritical, reading of Paul contains resources that remain important for Christians today.
If folks are interested in learning more about Barclay's work on Paul's theology of grace as gift, one could also explore his audio lectures on this very topic at Regent Audio here .

Also, see his lecture,"Paul and the Gift" as he delivered the first lecture for the St. Mary's Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible (2013; St. Mary's University College Twickenham) here:


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