Alexandra Brown (of Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia) reviews Douglas Campbell's The Deliverance of God in the latest edition of Theology Today 68.1 (April 2011), which can be currently be read for free.
Campbell's thesis is generating three kind of responses. The first is to pretty much reject it (surprise, suprise from the conservative evangelical crowd who have the most to lose); a second response is to like what Campbell does in Romans 5-8, but remain unconvinced by his atrributing Rom 1.18-32 to the Jewish Christian Teacher. A third response, sadly in my view, in the minority is a much more positive endorsement of Campbell's work (see the likes of Chris Tilling).
Brown's review is of the second response kind. She ends her review with these words:
In the end, the enormous weight of the multiple layers of argument is nearly too much for the reader to bear. All but the most avid specialists in Romans will despair from time to time over the sheer complexity of the thesis that progresses through so many promises and deferments of argument (a favorite tactic of Campbell’s) that one can scarcely keep track of its many interrelated strands. The impact of Campbell’s urgently important thesis may be lost to the demands he makes on the cognitive skills of the reader whose intellectual, if not spiritual, agency is taxed nearly to the limit by this voluminous and complex book. But for those with the stamina to make it through, this boldly liberative reading of the Gospel according to Paul will—if one can say it without irony—reward the effort.
Other reviews can be found here.
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