594 - Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity: New Testament Essays

Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity: New Testament Essays
By E. Earle Ellis
Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1978. 289 pp. $15.00

E. Earle Ellis, Professor of Biblical Literature at New Brunswick, Theological Seminary, has collected here seventeen of his essays, all but one of which have previously appeared in journals or Festschriften. There is a unity to the collection in that all essays but the last have to do with Paul and his co-workers, including Jude and the author of Acts. Since most of the parts were originally intended for readers of technical New Testament journals and the like, the same is true of the whole. There are frequent cross references between the separate articles and useful indices to the whole.

The overall theme of the collection has to do with what Ellis calls the "pneumatics," early Christian prophets holding a recognized office who could give a Spirit-guided exposition of Scripture and speak of the Word of God to the present. Paul's co-workers are to be found in this group, as are his over-enthusiastic converts in Corinth. Paul's opponents are also identified as pneumatics, part of a unified countermovement beginning from Jerusalem and extending throughout Paul's mission field. These pneumatic Judaizers, the "ritually strict wing of the Jerusalem/Palestinian church," are known by the technical names of "Hebrews" and "those of the circumcision."

Paul and the pneumatics, like their predecessors in Qumran, are able to give a prophetic alteration of texts cited in a charismatic exposition of them, producing a kind of Christian midrash. Building on the suggestions of Borgen and Bowker, Ellis believes he can find certain midrashic patterns not only in the Pauline letters and the speeches of Acts but also in the teaching of Jesus. Examples of the alleged pattern dominate the second half of the book, which closes with a sharp attack against form-criticism.

One suspects that a tacit purpose of these essays is to demonstrate something about the inspiration and historical reliability of Scripture. Ellis is disturbed (pp. 156, 244f.) at the citation of the non-canonical Enoch in the letter of Jude and is relieved that his hypothesis provides a solution. That Jude should be identified with the pneumatic "brother" of Acts 15:22, that the letter should be dated c.a. A.D. 60, and that it should be a prophetic midrash directed against Jewish Christians very similar to Paul's opponents all seem to solve problems which are never stated. The same seems to be true of Ellis' assertion that part of the gospel tradition was written in Greek during the lifetime of Jesus and his insistence on the church as the new Israel and the divine inspiration of early Christian prophets as heirs of the Old Testament tradition. An explicit discussion of these concerns would have added greatly to the

595 - Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity: New Testament Essays

clarity of the work. In any case, even readers who do not share Ellis' presuppositions and who remain unconvinced by his conclusions can learn something from most of the articles.

Lloyd Gaston
Vancouver School of Theology
Vancouver, British Columbia