Tuesday, September 04, 2007

E. P. Sanders's relationship to W. D. Davies

In a recent post on Sibboleth on Degree Value, Daniel Kirk reflects on what has happened at Duke, the home of his PhD, in complimentary terms. He is less happy with what has happened at his seminary, which has published a book called Justification in Christ: God's Plan for Us in Justification. The book appears to be more in the American "Reformed" backlash against the New Perspective on Paul. There is a sample chapter available which at one point describes the work of E. P. Sanders. As usual on such occasions, the focus is all on Sanders's arguments about Judaism, and his contribution on Paul is largely ignored. I would like to comment a bit more on this trend in future posts, partly in response to Simon Gathercole's recent article in Christianity Today, and because I am thinking about these things in relation to a course I am teaching at the moment on Paul. But I wanted to make a minor correction in relation to this sentence:
A sea-change came with the work of E. P. Sanders (son-in-law to W. D. Davies). His work Paul and Palestinian Judaism took further the trajectory of his predecessors in a way that has revolutionized the map of New Testament, and particularly Pauline, studies in the past quarter century.
The comment in brackets is incorrect, a mistake that may arise from thinking that Margaret Davies is W. D.'s daughter (she is not).

No comments: