Reason No. 63: James interprets Paul that way – 100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

The following post is an abridged version of one of the 100 reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive included in my forthcoming book:

100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

Reason No. 16: Straining after the Subjective Genitive Gnat

Many commentators have taken James 2.24 as a deliberate response to Paul, qualifying Paul’s approach to justification by faith. James 2.17-24 employs the same example of Abraham as Paul does in Romans 4:

“So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe–and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. (24) You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

From this passage, we see that James interprets “faith” as “faith in (Christ)” and argues against those (Paul) who proclaim salvation is by ‘faith in’ alone. So, as Barry Matlock argues, if Paul is the target, the passage provides corroboration for an objective genitive interpretation of Paul’s words.

References:

R. Barry Matlock. “’Even the Demons Believe’: Paul and ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 49.3 (2002): 300-318.

Reason No. 47: The Evidence of the Church Fathers – 100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

The following post is an abridged version of one of the 100 reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive included in my forthcoming book:

100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

Reason No. 47: The Evidence of the Church Fathers

Harrisville’s survey of the Church Fathers (1994) shows that native Greek speakers Origen and Chrysostom interpreted πίστις Χριστοῦ in the objective genitive sense (cf. Silva 1988). Undoubtedly, Origen and Chrysostum also made statements about “the role of Christ in making faith available” in the wider context of their commentaries. But this does not alter the fact that the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ was interpreted as an objective genitive (contra Hays 2002: il).

Moreover, Harrisville finds no examples of the subjective genitive interpretation in any commentaries of the Fathers.

Furthermore, he finds no discussion of the phrase’s possible ambiguity. Interpretation of the phrase is just not an issue.

It should be remembered that the Fathers’ interpretations follow a period of theological development after Paul, in different social contexts. But nevertheless, the complete absence of interpretational support amongst the early Church Fathers (including native Greek speakers), or even any recognition of its possible ambiguity, is a significant piece of evidence for the objective genitive interpretation.

References:

Roy A. Harrisville, “ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ: Witness of the Fathers” Novum Testamentum 36 (1994): 233-41.

Moisés Silva, Philippians (WEC: Chicago: Moody, 1988).

Reason No. 22: The Example of Christ’s Faithfulness as Conspicuous Silence – 100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

The following post is an abridged version of one of the 100 reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive included in my forthcoming book:

100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

Reason No. 22: The Example of Christ’s Faithfulness as Conspicuous Silence

Proponents of the objective genitive interpretation have argued that there are passages where Paul would have been expected to discuss Christ’s faithfulness if he had intended πίστις Χριστοῦ to be understood as a subjective genitive. But as Paul does not, this constitutes a persuasive argument from silence.

It is unusual that Paul doesn’t develop specific examples of Christ’s own faithfulness if he had the concept in mind when he wrote the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ. After all, Paul does manage to repeat himself easily and develop his thoughts in various ways, with many practical examples.

Leon Morris (1993: 288 ) gives the example of Romans 4, where, after the mention of πίστις Χριστοῦ in Rom 3.22 & 26, Paul gives the example of the faith(fulness) of Abraham, rather than the faith(fulness) of Christ. Once Paul had delivered his reasoned argument in Romans 3 — and if he was referring to the faithfulness of Christ with the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ — one might have thought that an example from Christ’s own life would have been most appropriate.

But, as with all arguments from silence, contrary arguments can be raised. Proponents of the subjective genitive interpretation have provided possible reasons for making Abraham the example here. In the first place, Abraham acts as the representative and model for all humans in being reckoned righteous, while Christ was not reckoned but was righteous from the very beginning (Hooker 1989: 325; Hays 2002: 723). Secondly, in providing Abraham as the example here, Paul demonstrates that justification by faith (now defined in Christ) was God’s original plan for his chosen people, which makes the selection of Abraham a deliberately selected counter-reading to the dominant Jewish interpretation of Abraham as being justified by his faithfulness to the command of God (Hooker 1989: 325; Hays 2002: 722).

While the example of Christ’s own faithfulness on the cross seems like the most powerful example to provide when Romans 4 commences, it is also hard to discount other purposes Paul may have had in providing Abraham as an example. So, while it is unusual that Paul never provides an example of Christ’s own faithfulness, a factor which points in the direction of an objective genitive interpretation, this doesn’t provide an open-and-shut basis for the interpretation.

References:

Richard B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3.1—4.11. Rev. Ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.

Morna D. Hooker, “ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ.” New Testament Studies 35 (1989): 321-42.

Leon Morris, “Faith”, in Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin & Daniel G. Reid, eds, Dictionary of Paul and his Letters (Downers Grove and Leicester: InterVarsity, 1993), 285-291.

Reason No. 16: Straining after the Subjective Genitive Gnat – 100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

The following post is an abridged version of one of the 100 reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive included in my forthcoming book:

100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

Reason No. 16: Straining after the Subjective Genitive Gnat

Given the absence of any explicit reference to the “faithfulness” of Christ outside of the disputed phrases, we would expect Paul to refer to the faithfulness of Christ in some other way for the subjective genitive intepretation to have a sound foundation. But there aren’t any such examples. This forces the proponents of the subjective genitive interpretation to strain after a gnats, in their attempt to manufacture a “faith of Christ” meaning elsewhere. The very tendentiousness of the attempt is testimony to the superiority of the objective genitive interpretation.

For Hays, Jesus’ faithfulness is his obedience to God, pre-eminently in his death on the cross. Hays argues that Christ’s obedience has saving significance in Rom 5.19, that obedience and faith are linked in Rom 1.5, and therefore that faith has soteriological consequences (2002: 51). Although such explanations provide a theoretical corroboration for the subjective meaning of πίστις Χριστοῦ, Barry Matlock contends that proponents of the subjective genitive interpretation are using their ingenuity to find a sense for the phrase, rather than methodologically beginning from first principles in asking what the link is between πίστις and Jesus’ death that signals the selection of a particular sense of πίστις (“faithfulness”) and a particular relation to Χριστοῦ (“subjective”) (2000: 12).

It is probably correct that ὑπακοὴν πίστεως (Rom 1.5) is to be interpreted epexegetically as the “obedience which consists of faith” (Wright 2002: 420). But it is much more doubtful whether a description of obedient faith occurring among the Gentiles can be used to support the strong identification of obedience and faith required to interpret Christ’s obedience as “faithfulness”, without a more explicit unpacking or exposition of the idea elsewhere in relation to Christ. Although Christ’s obedience is a prominent theme in Paul’s epistles (e.g. Rom 5; Phil 2), the doubt surrounding Paul’s association of obedience with the idea of Christ’s “faithfulness” makes it quite unwarranted to conclude that there is a “prima facie expectation of subjective genitive” where the word πίστις appears in a genitival phrase with Χριστοῦ (contra Hooker 1989: 324). The same conclusion applies to the ‘Christ Hymn’ in Phil 2, where “obedience” is described, but is not equated with “fathfulness” to God here or elsewhere in Paul’s writings.

The issue is not resolved by referring to Paul’s explicit recognition of the faithfulness of God (Rom 3.3). As Hultgren notes, the issue concerns whether there is evidence for the faithfulness of Christ (to the Father), not the faithfulness of God (to humankind) (Hultgren 1980). In the first century AD, in Paul’s letters, these are not the same thing.

References:

Richard B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3.1—4.11. Rev. Ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.

Morna D. Hooker, “ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ.” New Testament Studies 35 (1989): 321-42.

Arland J. Hultgren, “The Pistis Christou Formulations in Paul.” Novum Testamentum 22.3 (1980): 248-63.

R. Barry Matlock, “Detheologizing the ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ Debate: Cautionary Remarks from a Lexical Semantic Perspective.” Novum Testamentum 42.1 (2000): 1-23.

N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections.” In The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol 10, Leander E. Keck, et al, eds. (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), 420

Reason No. 19: The πίστις – πιστεύω Disparity Effect – 100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

The following post is an abridged version of one of the 100 reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive included in my forthcoming book:

100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

Reason No. 19: The πίστις – πιστεύω Disparity Effect

If the subjective genitive interpretation were adopted for the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ, it would result in the highly unusual disparity that the noun πίστις would be assigned to Christ, while all occurrences of the verb πιστεύω are attributed to human believers.

Campbell argues that such an argument relies on fallacious etymology (1997: 713-719). But he’s wrong. Barry Matlock (2002: 13) rightly counters that:

1. Paul uses the noun and verb interchangeably in his paraphrase in Rom 4.9 (“We say, ‘Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.'”) of his earlier quote of Gen 15.6 in Rom 4.3 (“Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”);
2. E. A. Nida and J. P. Louw’s, Lexical Semantics of the Greek New Testament Based on Semantic Domains treats the noun πίστις (“trust”) and verb πιστεύω (“I trust”) as a single entry;
3. The fallacy of etymology involves historical development not semantic classifications; and
4. Paul’s choice of verb or noun is one of syntactic structure and stylistic features, and it’s overinterpreting his letters to treat the stylistic difference as having theological import.

So the subjective genitive translation results in an implausible disparity between the meaning of the noun πίστις and the verb πιστεύω. Given these unlikely semantic consequences, the objective genitive is to be preferred.

References:

Campbell, Douglas. “False Presuppositions in the ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ Debate: A Response to Brian Dodd.” Journal of Biblical Literature 116 (1997):713-19.

R. Barry Matlock, “Detheologizing the ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ Debate: Cautionary Remarks from a Lexical Semantic Perspective.” Novum Testamentum 42.1 (2000): 1-23.

Reason No. 15: Faith in Christ is attested in the undisputed phrases – 100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

The following post is an abridged version of one of the 100 reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive included in my forthcoming book:

100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

Reason No. 15: Faith in Christ is attested in the undisputed phrases

Furthermore, there is unambiguous evidence for faith in Christ in Paul’s epistles (Schreiner 2001):

Rom 10.9-14 (“if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved…”);
Gal 3.26 (“in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.”);
Phil 1.29 (“…believing in Christ…”);
Philem 1.5 (“…your faith toward the Lord Jesus”);
c.f. Col 1.4 (“…your faith in Christ Jesus”);
c.f. Col 2.5 (“…the firmness of your faith in Christ”)

These explicit references to the faith of humans in Christ occur in and around the more difficult phrase, πίστις Χριστοῦ, and in similar descriptions of Paul’s concept of salvation. So there is a strong prima facie expectation that this more difficult phrase should be interpreted in light of the more secure meaning “faith in Christ”, and no persuasive basis on which to distinguish the meaning.

By contrast, there is no unambiguous evidence for the faithfulness of Christ to God in Paul’s epistles. (This has not, however, stopped reinterpreters of Paul from straining after a few gnats; e.g. Rom 1.17).

The evidence thus provides a strong basis for interpreting πίστις Χριστοῦ as an objective genitive.

References:

Thomas R. Schreiner, Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ: A Pauline Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001).

Virgin Mary on Christmas Playboy Cover – The Borrowed Kettle – Too Many Excuses

The December 2008 Mexican edition of Playboy features a woman draped in a religious looking veil, standing in front of a stained glass window, with the words ‘We adore you, Mary’ across the cover. The model’s name is Maria Florencia Onori. She appears completely nude within the publication, in various religiously themed poses. The magazine was released immediately before Mexico celebrates the Virgin of Guadalupe, and in the month of Christmas.

Playboy has made a number of responses: a denial, a shifting of the blame, and a ‘sincere apology’ for any offense caused.

A denial:

The image “is not and never was intended to portray the Virgin of Guadalupe or any other religious figure… The intent was to reflect a Renaissance-like mood on the cover.”
– Raul Sayrols, publisher of Playboy Mexico

A blame-shift:

“the Mexican edition of the magazine is published by a licensee, and the company did not approve or endorse the cover.”
– Chicago-based Playboy Enterprises Inc

An apology:

“While Playboy Mexico never meant for the cover or images to offend anyone, we recognize that it has created offense, and we as well as Playboy Mexico offer our sincerest apologies.”- – Chicago-based Playboy Enterprises Inc

The problem is the magazine has too many reasons.

Freud tells a story about a borrowed kettle:

“A. borrowed a copper kettle from B. and after he had returned it was sued by B. because the kettle now had a big hole in it which made it unusable. His defence was: ‘First, I never borrowed the kettle from B. at all; secondly, the kettle had a hole in it already when I got it from him; and thirdly, I gave him back the kettle undamaged.'”

This story is a favourite of Zizek’s. He has another good example:

“Do we not encounter the same inconsistency when high United States officials try to justify the attack on Iraq? (1) There is a link between Saddam’s regime and al-Qaeda, so Saddam should be punished as part of the retaliation for 11 September; (2) Even if there is no link between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda, they are united in their hatred of the United States–Saddam’s regime is thus very dangerous, a threat not only to the United States, but also to its neighbours and the Iraqi people; (3) The change of regime in Iraq will create the conditions for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
– The Universal Exception, 289

Of couse, there have been a number of other, also contradictory excuses offered by United States officials for the Iraq war. But there is no mention that war and securing oil are good business and smart political muscle-flexing. There was no mention from Playboy Enterprises Inc that controversy and sex sells porno magazines, either.

Reason No. 14: No Argument Based on a Disputed Phrase – 100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

The following post is an abridged version of one of the 100 reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive included in my forthcoming book:

100 Reasons πίστις Χριστοῦ is an Objective Genitive

Reason No. 14: No Argument Based on a Disputed Phrase

Of great significance for the proponent of the objective genitive interpretation is that, while the faith of believers is mentioned many times in Romans and Galatians, there is no unambiguous explicit reference to the faithfulness of Christ (Schreiner 2001). There is only a conspicuous silence.

Here’s the references to the faith of human believers in Romans and Galatians:

Rom 1.5;
Rom 1.8;
Rom 1.12;
Rom 3.27-28;
Rom 3.30-31;
Rom 4.5;
Rom 4.9;
Rom 4.11-14;
Rom 4.16;
Rom 4.19-20;
Rom 5.1-2;
Rom 9.30;
Rom 9.32;
Rom 10.6;
Rom 10.8;
Rom 10.17;
Rom 11.20;
Rom 14.23;
Rom 16.26;
Gal 2.20;
Gal 3.2;
Gal 3.5;
Gal 3.7-9;
Gal 3.11-12;
Gal 3.14;
Gal 3.26;
Gal 5.5-6.

And here’s the references to the faithfulness of Christ in Romans and Galatians:
.
.
.
.
.
[None]

James (“Jimmy”) Dunn’s contention is therefore that the subjective genitive interpretation is a “thesis built solely on a disputed phrase”. This slightly overstates the case against the subjective genitive, as the thesis is built on the lack of any explicit references to Christ’s πίστις. It is still open to the proponent of the subjective genitive to argue for some implicit reference. But Dunn is correct that the subjective genitive interpretation has been largely built on the basis of a disputed phrase – hardly a reassuring basis for any interpretation.

But W.W.B.S.? This is what Barry says:

“While the objective genitive is supported by the surrounding linguistic context … the subjective genitive rests crucially on the phrases themselves” (2002: 316-17).

So this provides a strong basis on which to interpret πίστις Χριστοῦ as an objective genitive.

References:

James D. G. Dunn, “Once More, ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ.” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers, 1991: 730-44.

R. Barry Matlock, “‘Even the Demons Believe’: Paul and ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 49.3 (2002): 300-318.

Thomas R. Schreiner, Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ: A Pauline Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001).

Objective Genitive Man – ‘Mild mannered New Testament Lecturer by Day, But…’

I described Barry Matlock as “Objective Genitive Man” in one of the references to an earlier post.

Dr. Matlock replied:

“‘Objective Genitive Man’–how would that look on a t-shirt? Or maybe a superhero costume! NOW I know what to ask for for Christmas!”

Playing with the moniker a little, I guess it would look something like this…

Merry Christmas, Barry!

A Place for all Off-Topic Hobbyhorse Comments

There are a few people in this world who indulge themselves in their personal hobbyhorses at any opportunity. A few of them make comments on this blog. As I am not a censor of comments, I have created this post for you all to indulge in your cyber-self-gratification. You’re welcome to bookmark this post, and whenever you feel like going off on a tangent, please post your meandering ramblings and esoteric theories here. It may well be that one day we will look back and say, ‘Gosh, so-and-so was onto this well before any of us!’ It’s possible, but I’m guessing that even with the benefit of hindsight we will look back on these comments and go, ‘WTF?’.

(This will also be where I move off-topic hobbyhorse comments. Feel free to move any such comments found on your own blogs here, too.)