NCCS | New Covenant Commentary Series
The New Covenant Commentary Series (NCCS) is designed for ministers and students who require a commentary that interacts with the text and context of each New Testament book and pays specific attention to the impact of the text upon the faith and praxis of contemporary faith communities.
The NCCS has a number of distinguishing features. First, the contributors come from a diverse array of backgrounds in regards to their Christian denominations and countries of origin. Unlike many commentary series that tout themselves as international the NCCS can truly boast of a genuinely international cast of contributors with authors drawn from every continent of the world (except Antarctica) including countries such as the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Kenya, India, Singapore, and Korea. We intend the NCCS to engage in the task of biblical interpretation and theological reflection from the perspective of the global church. Second, the volumes in this series are not verse-by-verse commentaries, but they focus on larger units of text in order to explicate and interpret the story in the text as opposed to some often atomistic approaches. Third, a further aim of these volumes is to provide an occasion for authors to reflect on how the New Testament impacts the life, faith, ministry, and witness of the New Covenant Community today. This occurs periodically under the heading of “Fusing the Horizons.” Here authors provide windows into community formation (how the text shapes the mission and character of the believing community) and ministerial formation (how the text shapes the ministry of Christian leaders).
It is our hope that these volumes will represent serious engagements with the New Testament writings, done in the context of faith, in service of the church, and for the glorification of God.
Series Editors:
Michael F. Bird (Highland Theological College, Dingwall, Scotland)
Craig Keener (Palmer Seminary, Philadelphia, USA)
Titles in this series:
Colossians and Philemon Michael F. Bird
Confirmed forthcoming titles:
Luke Jeannine Brown
2 Peter and Jude Andrew Mbuvi
Matthew Joel Willits
1 Peter Eric Greaux
Philippians Linda Belleville
Hebrews Tom Thatcher
Galatians Brian Vickers
2 Corinthians David deSilva
Revelation Gordon Fee
Ephesians Lynn Cohick
James Pablo Jimenez
1–3 John Sam Ngewa
John Jey Kanagaraj
Pastoral Epistles Aída Besançon-Spencer
Mark Kim Huat Tan
Acts Youngmo Cho
Romans
A New Covenant Commentary
Craig S. Keener
CASCADE Books - Eugene, Oregon
ROMANS
A New Covenant Commentary
New Covenant Commentary Series 6
Copyright © 2009 by Craig S. Keener.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or mechanical, or stored on any information storage and retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publishers. For permissions write to Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Avenue, Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Cascade Books
A Division of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
isbn: 978-1-60608-156-3
Cataloging-in-Publication data:
Keener, Craig S.
Romans : a new covenant commentary / Craig S. Keener
xxvi + 274 p. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
New Covenant Commentary Series 6
isbn: 978-1-60608-156-3
1. Bible. N.T. Romans—Commentaries. I. Title. II. Series.
bs2665.53 k3 2009
Manufactured in the United States of America
To my siblings and siblings-in-law:
Thérèse, Emmanuel, Chris and Minglan, Eliser, Brett and Sally,
Aimé and Ornella, Gracia, and Jennifer
Preface
Romans is well-served with strong academic commentaries, but sparser on the end of concise, academically informed commentaries for a general audience. I hope that this brief commentary will contribute to that niche. I trust that readers will recognize that I could not cover every point in a commentary this size. I have covered what I could, but retain research notes to produce a much larger commentary on Romans if time permits. I am grateful to my co-editor for allowing me more space than some shorter volumes in the series, so that I did not need to end my comments, like some early manuscripts of Romans, with chapter 14 (or at least to omit the cover).
I have included only a fraction of my research documentation in the notes for interested readers to follow up, endeavouring at the same time to avoid distracting readers who choose such a volume for its conciseness.1 Less technical readers should not feel intimidated by the footnotes, but should simply feel free to ignore them. Use of footnotes allowed me to keep the main text more readable, focused on the points that seemed most central to Paul’s case.
To keep the series balanced, the editors’ first two choices for a Romans commentator offered perspectives and backgrounds different from mine; I have offered mine here only because our first choices’ other commitments precluded their participation. I am grateful to E. P. Sanders for conversation in the fall of 2008 about my understanding of the rhetoric of Paul’s argument, and editorial feedback from my Palmer colleague Julia Pizzuto-Pomaco regarding Romans 16. Thanks to Chris Spinks and Heather Carraher at Wipf and Stock. Special thanks go to Michael Bird, my co-editor for the series, hence the only objective editor for this volume. Michael is the series’ original designer, but having invited my participation, negotiated very flexibly both with respect to the series as a whole and with regard to my own volume (while reminding me of the series constraints where necessary).
1. Because I treated the background for some topics in Romans in greater detail in other works, I refer readers there at appropriate points to conserve space here. Nevertheless, readers will find many of my primary references new to Romans research.
Abbreviations
AB Anchor Bible
ABR Australian Biblical Review
ACCS Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture
ACNT Augsburg Commentaries on the New Testament
AJP American Journal of Philology
AUSS Andrews University Seminary Studies
BA Biblical Archaeologist
BBR Bulletin for Biblical Research
BDAG