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Continuing his series of highly regarded and innovative socio-rhetorical commentaries on the New Testament, Ben Witherington now tackles Romans, perhaps the most profound — and difficult — book of the New Testament.

Interacting with recent treatments of this Pauline letter and with ancient Christian commentators, Witherington shows that the interpretation of Romans since the Reformation has been far too indebted to Augustinian readings of the text as filtered through Luther, Calvin, and others. Instead, Witherington urges a reading of the text in light of early Jewish theology, the historical situation of Rome, and Paul's own rhetorical concerns.

Offering a new translation of the Greek text and new insights into Paul and his world, this commentary sheds fresh light on the meaning of Romans for its original audience and for Christian readers today.

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Customer Reviews

Grasping Paul's Message in Romans
Ben Witherington is one of the most prolific New Testament scholars writing today, and he brings a great volume of learning to the texts. In this book, a "socio-rhetorical" commentary, he takes a careful look at Paul's letter to the Romans, paying special attention to the social setting of Paul and his readers, and also analyzing carefully Paul's rhetorical structure and flow. These two emphases make this book a bit different than many commentaries, in that they bring out these two facets of the text, but I think this makes his book the stronger for it. This well-written commentary does justice to this very important and theological letter, discussing the many important issues of interpretation, all the while keeping Paul's "rhetorical strategy" in view. This helps, in my estimation, to help keep sight of the forest among the trees, by placing particular verses and passages within the larger narrative flow, to help see the relations between the passages and their role in supporting his main argument or countering possible objections. This, in turn, helps keep Paul's main idea always in view.

Witherington, with the help of doctoral student Darlene Hyatt, also adds "Bridging the Horizons" sections that illumine applications of texts and themes to our modern day, a very helpful addition. It is certainly not a comprehensive "application" section, but it demonstrates one possible direction one could go when looking at a particular text, and some of them prove quite insightful.

Overall, I think this is a great book on Romans. Witherington's Methodist leanings certainly show through, as do any commentators, but I think this provides a refreshing, non-Reformed and non-Lutheran take on this letter that is still very balanced and seems to take into account Paul's major points with ease. While not the only book one could or should read on Romans (I'm sure there is no such thing), this book is a worthy addition to a library and makes for very good reading.

Superb! Very helpful study of Romans.
While not without a few minor faults, this work on Romans is a wonderful commentary to use for understanding the book of Romans. Romans is not so much a tractate on systematic theology by Paul, as if Paul sat down to write up a theology text. Many protestants and especially reformed christians have treated Paul's letter to the Romans as such. Paul's Romans correspondence is a letter though, occasioned by a certain historical concern pertaining to Paul in relation to the Roman christian's of his day. Paul's "theology" in Romans flows from this. Witherington for the most part does an outstanding job of zeroing in on the actual flow of and nature of Paul's letter, what was Paul getting at, why was Paul saying what he was saying and what did it mean in it's original setting back then. THis is true biblical study. What did the text mean in it's original setting. What was going on then, not just theologically, but also socially and historically in whatever it was that occasioned the writing in the first place. Witherington's study of Romans strives to lead the reader section by section through Romans with just such a purpose in mind. He procedes more or less section by section, but pretty much treats almost each "verse" along the way. He does an amazing job of not missing the forest for the trees. Witherington just about gets you feeling as if you were transported back into Paul's day in his situation and helps the letter to the Romans make sense according to it's own structure, content and meaning in it's first century setting. Witherington strives to unravel and explain Romans as it really is- correspondence from an ancient time between Paul and Roman christians wherein Paul is applying and explaining pastorally the gospel to them. The gospel meaning of Romans is really brought out by Witherington in it's fullness as well. There are a few minor small points to quibble with here or there, but honestly- they are far, far outweighed by the overall excellent work as a whole. Must reading for wrestling with Romans. Also worth checking out is Romans by Paul Achtemeier which is sort of similar to Witherington's in some ways, or for a more traditional reading of Romans along typical (ho-hum) reformed protestant lines, Robert Mounce's commentary on Romans.

The Best Arminian Commentary on Romans
This was a very interesting commentary. He wrestles with the text in the body of the book, and concludes each section with thoughts toward how the text applies to our lives.

He says that Paul is responding to the fact that the Jewish believers are returning to Rome and how he is trying to get the Gentile believers to accept their Jewish brothers and sisters in the faith (Romans 15:7).

He has some interesting readings of the text that part company with some of the more recent (and retro) Calvinist interpretations. He rejects the notion that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us through faith. He also sees Romans 7:7-13 as Paul personifying the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden, and he sees Romans 7:14-25 as the unsaved Jewish person (or unconverted person) struggling with their inability to live up to the good that they desire to do.

He also rejects the Calvinist reading of Romans 9, saying that it has nothing to do with election to salvation, but that it is dealing with how God has chosen individuals to play certain roles in salvation history (whether we're talking about protagonists like Jacob or antagonists like Esau and Pharoah).

He also interprets the 'all Israel' of Romans 11:25 as all the Jewish people alive at the time of Christ's return.

Though I might wonder about the interpretation of controverted texts such as Romans 8:29 and Romans 9:22, I thought that Ben's work was very solid, and he did a nice job of showing how this epistle works as a piece of Greco-Roman rhetoric. With the plethora of Calvinist commentaries on Romans that are available, it is refreshing to see another take. Get this commentary and use it along side the larger work of Douglas Moo and the equally impressive application commentary in the BST series by John R.W Stott.