Victor Paul Furnish - Böcker

This study shows that the common view of 1 Corinthians as mainly about 'ethics' and therefore of little importance for 'theology' needs correcting. Furnish argues that 1 Corinthians is an even better place to take the apostle's theological pulse than the allegedly 'more theological' letters to the Galatians and Romans, because here it is especially evident how his thinking about the gospel took place within the crucible of his missionary and pastoral labours. Paul's complex theological legacy is not a systematic theology or even the basis for constructing a theological system. However, we come close to the heart of Paul's legacy in his clear-sighted identification of the gospel with the saving power of God's love as disclosed in Christ, and his insistence that those who are called to belong to Christ are thereby summoned to be agents of God's love wherever in the world they have received that call.

This study shows that the common view of 1 Corinthians as mainly about 'ethics' and therefore of little importance for 'theology' needs correcting. Furnish argues that 1 Corinthians is an even better place to take the apostle's theological pulse than the allegedly 'more theological' letters to the Galatians and Romans, because here it is especially evident how his thinking about the gospel took place within the crucible of his missionary and pastoral labours. Paul's complex theological legacy is not a systematic theology or even the basis for constructing a theological system. However, we come close to the heart of Paul's legacy in his clear-sighted identification of the gospel with the saving power of God's love as disclosed in Christ, and his insistence that those who are called to belong to Christ are thereby summoned to be agents of God's love wherever in the world they have received that call.

Paul's letters are the earliest surviving Christian writings and therefore the earliest documentary evidence for what Jesus's followers knew and said about him. The present volume deals with questions frequently asked about Paul. Did he know Jesus personally? If not, then how much did Paul know about Jesus, and how did this information come to him? Where in his letters does Paul make use of Jesus's teachings, how does he employ them, and what kind of authority does he accord them? Above all, why does Paul place so much emphasis on Jesus' death and resurrection? How is he able to proclaim these as saving events? Finally, a closing chapter considers how several writings in the Pauline tradition variously continued and altered the apostle's own interpretation of Jesus. Because these Pauline understandings of Jesus have remained so influential across twenty centuries, the more fully they are appreciated the more one is helped in understanding Jesus today.

First published in 1968--and out of print since the 1980s--Victor Paul Furnish's treatment of Paul's theology and ethics has long been regarded as the key scholarly statement and most useful textbook on Paul's thought. Now, Theology and Ethics in Paul is available once again as part of the Westminster John Knox Press New Testament Library. Featuring a new introduction from Richard Hays, this timeless volume is as relevant in this century as it was in the last.The New Testament Library offers authoritative commentary on every book and major aspect of the New Testament, as well as classic volumes of scholarship. The commentaries in this series provide fresh translations based on the best available ancient manuscripts, offer critical portrayals of the historical world in which the books were created, pay careful attention to their literary design, and present a theologically perceptive exposition of the text.