To What End Exegesis?

Essays Textual, Exegetical, and Theological

GORDON D. FEE

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.

Regent College Publishing

Vancouver, British Columbia

© 2001 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

All rights reserved

Published jointly 2001 by

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503 /

P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.

www.eerdmans.com

and by

Regent College Publishing

an imprint of Regent College Bookstore

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fee, Gordon D.

To what end exegesis? essays textual, exegetical, and theological /

Gordon D. Fee.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

Eerdmans ISBN 0-8028-4925-3

1. Bible—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title.

BS511.2.F442001

225.6—dc21

2001040361

Regent College Publishing ISBN 1-57383-218-9

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission

to reprint material granted by the sources listed on pp. ix–x.

Contents

Preface

TEXTUAL STUDIES

1. “One Thing Is Needful”? (Luke 10:42)

2. On the Inauthenticity of John 5:3b–4

3. On the Text and Meaning of John 20:30–31

4. Textual-Exegetical Observations on 1 Corinthians 1:2, 2:1, and 2:10

5. On Text and Commentary on 1 and 2 Thessalonians

EXEGETICAL STUDIES

6. Once More—John 7:37–39

7. 1 Corinthians 7:1 in the NIV

8. ΧΑΡΙΣ in 2 Corinthians 1:15: Apostolic Parousia and Paul-Corinth Chronology

9. Εἰδωλόθυτα Once Again: An Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 8–10

10. 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1 and Food Offered to Idols

11. Freedom and the Life of Obedience (Galatians 5:1–6:18)

12. Philippians 2:5–11: Hymn or Exalted Pauline Prose?

THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

13. Toward a Theology of 1 Corinthians

14. Christology and Pneumatology in Romans 8:9–11—and Elsewhere: Some Reflections on Paul as a Trinitarian

15. “Another Gospel Which You Did Not Embrace”: 2 Corinthians 11:4 and the Theology of 1 and 2 Corinthians

16. Some Exegetical and Theological Reflections on Ephesians 4:30 and Pauline Pneumatology

17. To What End Exegesis? Reflections on Exegesis and Spirituality in Philippians 4:10–20

18. Pneuma and Eschatology in 2 Thessalonians 2:1–2: A Proposal about “Testing the Prophets” and the Purpose of 2 Thessalonians

19. Toward a Theology of 2 Timothy—from a Pauline Perspective

20. Paul and the Trinity: The Experience of Christ and the Spirit for Paul’s Understanding of God

21. Wisdom Christology in Paul: A Dissenting View

Preface

I welcome this opportunity to gather this collection of academic papers that have appeared in a variety of publications over a twenty-five-year period and make them available in this single volume. Hopefully this will offer convenient access to some studies that are otherwise more difficult to find, since in many cases they first appeared in Festschriften in honor of scholar friends or in the SBL Seminar Papers for a given year, which in both cases by their very nature had a very limited ...