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Steve Moyise, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul ‘In Concert’ in the Letter to the Romans. By J. Ross Wagner. Pp. xxii + 437. (Supplements to Novum Testamentum, 101.) Leiden: Brill, 2002. isbn 90 04 11691 5, The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 57, Issue 1, April 2006, Pages 258–261, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flj006
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Extract
In this major contribution to our understanding of both Romans and Paul's use of Scripture, J. Ross Wagner begins by briefly reviewing previous work (Koch, Stanley, Lim, Hays) and offering a preliminary defence of an author-centred rather than reader-centred approach (ancient or modern). The bulk of the book is then an exposition of Romans 9–11 (pp. 43–306), followed by a short chapter on Romans 15 (pp. 307–40) and a summary and conclusion (pp. 341–59). The structure is explained by the fact that about half of the letter's 60 or so quotations (depending on how composite quotations are counted) occur in Romans 9–11, a frequency of one quotation for every three verses. Six more quotations occur in Romans 15. According to Wagner, Paul reads Isaiah as a three-act play of rebellion, punishment, and restoration and ‘locates himself and his fellow believers (Jew and Gentile) in the final act of the story, where heralds go forth with the good news that God has redeemed his people’ (p. 354). This involves a twofold strategy of reading prophecies of Israel's deliverance as prophecies of his own gospel and mission, while reading texts that ‘portray Israel as idolatrous and unfaithful’ (p. 353) as referring to Israel's current resistance to the gospel. But Paul can also find this plot line in Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Hosea, which both confirms that Romans comes from a ‘mind steeped in Israel's scriptures’ (p. 347) and that there is an underlying logic behind Paul's many conflations.
