Journal for the Study of

the New Testament

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Ernst Ksemann, Commentary on Romans. SCM

Press, 1980. xxix + Pp. 428. 12.50
James D. G. Dunn
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 1983; 5; 117
DOI: 10.1177/0142064X8300501719
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117

Ernst Käsemann, Commentary

Pp. 428. £12.50.

on

Romans.

SCM

Press, 1980. xxix

James D. G. Dunn,

Department of Theology,
University of Nottingham.
NG7 2RD.
Nottingham,
As a postgraduate at Cambridge in the 1960s I well recall
conversing with fellow research students who had just returned
from TUbingen and hearing reports of Ernst K~semanns lectures
on Romans.
It was well known that they were being prepared for
publication and that Kgsemann regarded the promised commentary
as his major lifes work.
The excitement and enthusiasm (if the
author will pardon the word) on the part of those who had heard

the lectures

or seen notes on them made more than one young

Neutestamentler eager to see the final product.

That duly appeared in 1973, following the authors

retirement from his chair at TUbingen, and required two reprints
within the first year.
The translation by G.W. Bromiley, to
whom we owe the massive work of translating TWNT, is of the
fourth edition (1980).
In it Kgsemann has been able to make
only minor corrections, and to note the most directly related
literature from the intervening period. A more substantial
revision, which interaction with the more recent commentaries
of Cranfield (Vol. I, 1975), Schlier (1977), Wilckens (Vol. I,
1978) and Kuss (Vol. 3, 1978), and particularly E.P. Sanders
Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977), would have required, was
regrettably not possible. The translation makes the work
easier to handle, since it breaks up both the lengthier
paragraphs and sentences of the German, and makes the page
headings more precise. I noted only an occasional infelicity in
the translation - no mean feat, considering the heaviness of the
original. Those who think that German scholarship pays too
little heed to Britain should note that the English translation
is dedicated to Charles Kingsley and Margaret Barrett in
gratitude for three decades of constant friendship.
The commentary was written for the Handbuch series, but it
is very different from its predecessor (Lietzmann) with its
brief notes and excurses focussing principally on literary and
religionsgeschichtliche parallels and textual problems. For
KUsemann, Paul is primarily a theologian, and a commentary on

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118

Romans must wrestle first and foremost with his theology and
seek to expound it in its historical context in a way that lets
it speak with all due force to present day realities and needs.
Full use is made of the kind of philological and historical
knowledge in which Lietzmann excelled, but the main impression
is of an overriding concern to clarify the meaning of Pauls
message in continuous and detailed debate with alternative
interpretations of the past half century or so. Thus each
section begins with KUsemanns o~,m translation and a detailed
bibliography on the section, and the following pages are
spattered liberally with references to other literature in
brackets. Not surprisingly there are no indexes at the end the author index would have been enormous.
And apart from a
general bibliography of works cited frequently, there is no
introduction.
Without preparation or warning the reader is
thrust at once into a treatment of 1.1-]7.
No one can fail to be impressed by the mass of learning
which this commentary represents.
The detailed interaction with
modern scholarship is almost overwhelming - the product of
nearly 50 years involvement with the letter and its
interpretation. The fact that a particular exegetical
conclusion is based on such lengthy consideration with so many
alternatives sifted and found wanting gives the final judgement
a magisterial authority which intimidates the would-be disputant
less familiar with the history of interpretation.
There is no
question that this will be one of the standard treatments of
Romans for many years.
Anyone eager to come to grips with the
gospel and theology of Paul dare not ignore it, otherwise he
will run the risk of putting forward interpretations and
defending positions already undermined by various shrewd and
penetrating blows delivered with telling force in this
commentary. Indeed, anyone eager to engage with the Christian
theology of grace at depth ought to consult this volume, for
this is no antiquarian study of a teaching rendered obsolete
by the passage of time, but a vibrant restatement of the
doctrine of justification by faith which is sometimes moving
in its intensity and humbling in its challenge.
To an extent
that no one else has achieved, Kdsemann has managed to combine
the strengths of a Lietzmann and a Barth within the same
pages.

the

Leaving aside the inevitable disputes on points of detail,

major criticism I would have to make of Kgsemanns

one

commentary, however, is that he has been unable

to free himself

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119

from his Lutheran heritage sufficiently to gain a more

objective perspective on the historical context of Paul. The
reader is constantly being told and repeatedly reminded that
the doctrine of justification is the core and heart of Pauls
gospel (e.g. pp. 24, 95f., 287 - the article by which the
church stands or falls, 385).
But the author has failed
almost completely to take Stendahls criticism of this mode
of exposition and continues to read Paul through Lutheran
spectacles. So his characterization of Pauls opponents as
the Jews and of his argument as anti-Jewish polemic gives
a sense of Reformation remoteness from the first century
Jewish-Christian struggle for self-understanding. And despite
his best endeavours the doctrine that is portrayed breathes a
Reformation individualism which misses the nationalistic
character of pious works, as is most evident in his summary
at the end of 11.25-32 (p. 317).
Not surprisingly then we find
passages like chap. 2, 3.27-31, 7.7-25 and 9.30-10.4 all pushed
through the same Lutheran mincer, the very passages which a more
historically sensitive exegesis would have recognized as clues
to the tension in Paul as one who is both Jew and Christian.
Despite these same passages the antithesis between law and
gospel is unyielding - for example, on 13.8-14 KUsemann writes,
The real problem of the text is that there is no polemicizing
against the nomos (p. 361). And works are consistently
defined in terms of the Reformation bete noire of earning
salvation by pious deeds rather than as the particular acts
which document covenant status.

None of this however

can

detract from what

on

any count is

truly majestic magnum opus. I would not even wish that what
has just been criticized were otherwise, for a Ktsemann who did
a

feel so passionately about the doctrine of justification and

proclaim so resolutely the God who calls that which is not into
being, would not have given us this commentary in the first
not

place.

produce

Without these characteristics, any commentary he did

would not have been half so valuable.

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