A. Andrew Das

The Doctrine of Infant Baptism for Today

Baptized Into God's Family

Paul's fiercely passionate letter to the Galatians offers a rare glimpse into the early history of the emerging Christ-believing movement. Paul is seething with righteous indignation over the events at Galatia even as he conveys his hope that the Galatians might be coaxed back to the true Gospel. The young faith was grappling with issues that would prove to be a watershed. Do gentile Christians need to adopt Moses' Law and be circumcised as Jews in order to worship the God of the Jewish Savior? Or does Baptism incorporate every manner of person—without distinction—into Christ? Does faith alone suffice for salvation? Across the divide of two thousand years of time and cultural space, the letter to the Galatians is an authoritative witness to the catholic Gospel of salvation by grace alone, for all people alike.

Galatians

Much recent scholarship on Paul has searched for implicit narratives behind Paul’s scriptural allusions, especially in the wake of Richard B. Hays’s groundbreaking work on the apostle’s appropriation of Scripture. A. Andrew Das reviews six proposals for “grand thematic narratives” behind the logic of Galatians—potentially, six explanations for the fabric of Paul’s theology: the covenant (N. T. Wright); the influx of nations to Zion (Terence Donaldson); Isaac’s near sacrifice (Scott Hahn, Alan Segal); the Spirit as cloud in the wilderness (William Wilder); the Exodus (James Scott, Sylvia Keesmaat); and the imperial cult (Bruce Winter et al.). Das weighs each of these proposals exegetically and finds them wanting—more examples of what Samuel Sandmel famously labeled “parallelomania” than of sound exegetical method. He turns at last to reflect on the risks of (admittedly alluring) totalizing methods and lifts up a seventh proposal with greater claim to evidence in the text of Galatians: Paul’s allusions to Isaiah’s servant passages.

Grand Thematic Narratives in Galatians

Paul and the Stories of Israel

Paul J. Achtemeier

Frank J. Matera

This volume provides a comprehensive survey of the unity and diversity behind biblical conceptions of "God." This is accomplished by respecting the distinctive theology of each canonical book and by placing reflection about God in conversation with major themes of biblical theology--Christology, pneumatology, anthropology. Four essays examine the Old Testament images of God while ten essays address the way in which God is presented in the New Testament. The volume is rounded off with an essay exploring biblical preaching about God.

A. Andrew Das

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