Those familiar with Pauline studies will know that the apocalyptic school of Pauline interpretation looms large. In this revised version of his Cambridge PhD thesis, Shaw, who serves as a pastor of Woodstock Road Baptist Church in Oxford, offers a helpful engagement with this prominent interpretive school.

Shaw argues that there is no study that has significantly evaluated the “exegetical foundations” of the “apocalyptic Paul” (p. 6) and numerous “conflicting accounts of Paul” (p. 6) have been put forward under the umbrella of “apocalyptic.” With these differing approaches in mind, Shaw’s purpose in this monograph is to analyze the different ways in which an apocalyptic approach has been executed and, in turn, to evaluate these distinct expressions of the apocalyptic Paul exegetically.

This book is divided into three parts. Part 1 surveys eight scholars commonly associated with an “apocalyptic” understanding of Paul’s letters. Thus, eight chapters look at William Wrede, Albert Schweitzer, Ernst Käsemann, J. Christiaan Beker, Martinus de Boer, J. Louis Martyn, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, and Douglas A. Campbell, respectively. Here, the discussion of each scholar is framed by the concepts of plight and solution. Part 2 (chs. 9–10) provides a synthesis of the first part, framed, again, by plight and then solution. Part 3, consisting of three chapters (chs. 11–13), critically analyzes the exegetical strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches surveyed in Part 1.

Turning to part 1, though many see Käsemann as the forerunner of the apocalyptic Paul, Shaw argues that he is more of a popularizer and drew from the earlier work of Wrede and Schweitzer. By including Wrede in the list of scholars working in this vein, Shaw broadens the history of this interpretative school. Specifically, he argues that Wrede’s emphasis on “powers and spiritual beings” and “participatory and universalistic soteriology” as well as his criticism of “Protestant individualism” (p. 17) influenced later interpreters. Shaw sees with Schweitzer an emphasis on mysticism, i.e., “mystical union with Christ” (p. 21), as the primary solution—over against the eschatological and juridical—to the plight of enslavement to demonic powers. Despite later reception of Käsemann by de Boer, among others, Shaw demonstrates that the former is not as far removed from Bultmann or, indeed, from Luther, as is often supposed with the central place he gives to justification.

Martyn, though drawing from de Boer’s basic schema of Jewish apocalyptic—in short, two distinct tracks of cosmological and forensic apocalyptic, with the latter replacing the former—introduces a shift from the future to an “inaugurated eschatology” (p. 68). Gaventa, in turn, follows Martyn with a thoroughgoing apocalyptic reading of Paul, departing from Schweitzer and de Boer. Campbell, for Shaw, is a return to Schweitzer, as he departs from Gaventa’s interaction with Martyn by seeing “the theological consistency of Paul and the integrity” of the letter to the Romans as in direct conflict. With the synthesis of his survey, Shaw discerns two basis components throughout the eight authors discussed: (1) salvation is largely “liberative” and decidedly “not forensic in character,” and (2) it is “emphatically universalistic,” i.e., “an objective and ontological transformation of the human situation has occurred” (p. 115).

Given that de Boer, Gaventa, and Campbell are the most recent representatives of the apocalyptic school, Shaw gives attention to their respective exegesis of Romans 1–8 in the third part. Regarding Romans 1–4, he argues against the attempt by de Boer and Campbell to sever these chapters from Romans 5–8. Shaw demonstrates—in light of “forensic terminology” in Romans 5:1–11, 12–21, and the return to such language in Romans 8—that Romans 5 does not signal a departure from Romans 1–4. Rather, Romans 6–8, with Romans 5 as the hinge, builds on the earlier argument established in Romans 1–4. Regarding the question of the nature of the plight in Romans 1–8, while apocalyptic interpreters are right to see “conflict between God and anti-God powers,” the primary focus is on “the hostility between God and humanity” (p. 140). Finally, regarding the apocalyptic construal of sin, death, and the flesh in Romans 1–8, Shaw argues that while many of their insights hold, these interpreters oversimply the picture, effectively removing the need for human beings to receive divine forgiveness for sins.

In conclusion, Shaw has provided the scholarly community with a well-argued and long-needed exploration of apocalyptic approaches to Paul on exegetical grounds. By drawing the development of this school back to Wrede and including the most recent work (to the date of this monograph’s publication) of Gaventa and Campbell, he shows both the divergencies and commonalities that exist between the various scholars. Moreover, by having a critical yet sympathetic eye toward the various treatments of Paul, Shaw’s work is a model of brevity, clarity, and charity as he is able to tease out both their distinct strengths and weaknesses.

The only minor point of improvement that could be made, which the author himself recognizes, is that interactions with de Boer, Campbell, and Gaventa on Romans 1–8 required him to patch together their discussion of these chapters from various publications. If this monograph were to be revised in the future, or if another were to build on Shaw’s work, interactions with the recent publication of Gaventa’s full length commentary on Romans would be necessary. This monograph is essential reading for any serious student of Paul or scholar who is concerned with the interpretive approaches of the “apocalyptic Paul” school.