James D. G. Dunn (1939–2020)

James D. G. Dunn has passed away. He was a prodigious and influential New Testament scholar. I did not know him personally but was sharpened and challenged by his scholarship.

Dunn on the Oral Gospel Tradition

The Eerdword blog (the blog for Eerdmans) has posted an interview with James Dunn related to the oral gospel tradition.

Dunn on Church Size

  

"The basic point which emerges is that the earliest house churches, in most cases, must have been fairly small, a dozen or twenty people in all. And even when ‘the whole church’ in a city or section of a city could meet as church in one place, we may very well be talking of only forty or fifty people, and not necessarily gathered in a single room. The dynamics of church life, of the shared life of believers in most cities, must have been dependent on and to some extent determined by the physical space in which they were able to function as church. We, of course, are accustomed to visualizing huge church buildings and congregations which can be numbered in the hundreds or even thousands. So it is important for us to remember that the typical church of the first century or more of Christian history was the gathering of small cell comprising twenty or so, and less regularly up to about fifty. This is important, since we are now well aware that the social dynamics of small groups is very different from that of large groups. And the accompanying theology needs to take such factors more into account than is usually the case. In many cases our concern should be not that our churches are too small but that they are too large!"
   

James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 171.

  

Dunn on the New Testament and a Biblical Theology of Israel

James D. G. Dunn suggests that the New Testament authors inherited four distinct elements related to a biblical theology of Israel. These elements are:

A. The election of Israel
B. Separation, zeal and blessing
C. Jewish factionalism
D. Israel's eschatological hope.

Dunn also states that the New Testament authors, influenced by the “impact” of Jesus and the Spirit, contributed the following elements to the inherited biblical theological concerning Israel.

A. The restoration of Israel
B. Jesus, Gentiles, and ‘sinners’
C. ‘Even on the Gentiles’
D. The fulfillment of Israel's mission
E. The body of Christ
F. The supersession or (re)definition of Israel?
G. One covenant or two?

James D. G. Dunn, New Testament Theology: An Introduction, Library of Biblical Theology, ed. James D. G. Dunn (Nashville: Abingdon, 2009), 98.

Dunn on Israel in the New Testament

"The fact that Israel remains a given for the NT is very striking, not least in view of the fact that by the end of the first century embryonic Christianity must already have been predominantly Gentile in composition. But fundamental it was. Jesus' message can be summed up in terms of a hope for the restoration of Israel. The first believers were all Jews, and the great majority of the NT writings were composed by Jews. The Paul of Acts sums up his mission by reference to ‘the hope of Israel’ (Acts 28:20), just as the Paul of Romans affirms the irrevocability of God’s calling of Israel and purpose for Israel (Rom 1 1:25–32). The chief term for Christian congregations, ‘church’ (ekklēsia), has been taken over from the LXX's translation of the qahal YHWH or the qahal lsrael (qahal = ‘assembly, congregation’).The assumption of the opening verses of James and 1 Peter is that the letters were addressed to (the twelve tribes[!] of) the Diaspora. And the seer of Revelation envisages salvation as embracing 144,000, 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel (Rev 74–8)."

James D. G. Dunn, New Testament Theology: An Introduction, Library of Biblical Theology, ed. James D. G. Dunn (Nashville: Abingdon, 2009), 97–8.

The Kingdom of God

See this short video on the much discussed topic of Jesus and the kingdom of God. Both Graham Stanton and James D. G. Dunn appear in the video.



HT: Matthew D. Montonini

Quote of the Day

“That Christ’s vicarious sacrifice for our sins was the central element of the gospel that Paul received on the Damascus road may be inferred from his persecution of the Hellenist Christians. Even [J. D. G.] Dunn agrees that the Hellenists rejected the Jerusalem temple out of their belief that Christ’s death was the eschatological atonement that ended all sacrifices. After seeing the crucified Jesus as vindicated by God on the Damascus road, Paul joined them. It would be most unnatural if Paul had failed to see the appearance of the risen Christ as a confirmation of their belief. So we will have to conclude that at Damascus Paul accepted their kerygma that Christ died for the sins of humankind.”

Seyoon Kim, Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on the Origin of Paul's Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 49.