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In this new contribution to the New Testament Library, renowned New Testament scholar Beverly Roberts Gaventa offers a fresh account of Paul's Letter to the Romans as an event, both in the sense that it reflects a particular historical moment in Paul's labors and in the sense that it reflects the event God brings about in the gospel Paul represents.
Attention to that dual sense of event means that Gaventa attends to the literary, historical, and theological features of the letter.
Throughout the commentary, Gaventa keeps in view central questions of what Paul hoped the letter might accomplish among its listeners in Rome and how his auditors might have heard it when read by Phoebe. In posing potential answers to these questions, Gaventa touches on vital themes such as the intrusion of the gospel of Jesus Christ that prompts Paul to write in the first place, what that event reveals about the situation of all creation, how it relates to both Israel and the Gentiles, and what its implications are for life in faith.
The New Testament Library series offers authoritative commentary on every book and major aspect of the New Testament, providing fresh translations based on the best available ancient manuscripts, critical portrayals of the historical world in which the books were created, careful attention to their literary design, and a theologically perceptive exposition of the biblical text. The contributors are scholars of international standing. The editorial board consists of C. Clifton Black, Princeton Theological Seminary; John T. Carroll, Union Presbyterian Seminary; and Susan E. Hylen, Candler School of Theology, Emory University.
About the author
Beverly Roberts Gaventa is Helen H. P. Manson Professor Emerita of New Testament Literature and Exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary. Following her retirement at Princeton, she served as Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Baylor University. In 2016, Gaventa was president of the Society of Biblical Literature. The British Academy awarded her the Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies in 2020 for her long and distinguished contributions to New Testament scholarship. Her publications range from commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles and the Thessalonian correspondence to studies of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and explorations of maternal imagery in the letters of Paul.
