Apocalyptic Paul catalogues some of the fruit born from the ‘Creation, Cosmos and Conflict’ conference held in the spring of 2012 at Princeton Theological Seminary as part of its bicentennial celebrations. The collection of essays invites readers to join a discussion circle where leading Pauline scholars ‘converge around the effort to understand divine activity and its human reception in a cosmos that remains contested territory’ (p. vii). The full roster of expert contributors is sympathetic towards the identification of Paul as an ‘apocalyptic’ figure, though it is clear not all would express the significance of this designation in the same manner. Their essays are arranged to follow the sequence of Romans 5–8, giving readers who move directly through the collection the opportunity to follow the logic of Paul's argument as they engage and evaluate the contributions. In what follows, I will draw out the critical theme which emerges from the work as a whole and identify a couple of ways in which the volume creates inroads for fresh analyses in Romans’ scholarship.

In recent years, a growing number of scholars have advocated that Paul be heard as an apocalyptic theologian, challenging individualistic readings of his letters by emphasising the cosmic dimension of the gospel present therein. In the present volume, Beverly Roberts Gaventa states the protest thus: ‘Paul's understanding of the gospel is not addressed solely to the individual or solely to Israel or solely to Gentiles. Instead, the gospel has to do with a conflict between God and anti-god powers; these powers go by various names, in Romans they are most prominently named Sin and Death’ (p. 91, emphasis original). Statements like this one strike a reflexive nerve in Romans’ scholarship, especially in Western contexts. If Paul's gospel is about a conflict between powers, what happens to personal responsibility? Is the anthropos merely swept away by the powers battling for the cosmos? Many of the essays within this volume, most notably Gaventa's ‘The Shape of the “I”’ (chapter 5) and Susan Eastman's ‘Double Participation and the Responsible Self’ (chapter 6), function as thoughtful responses to these questions, as articulations of how sin-as-a-power and humans-as-sinners are mutually complicit agents. Others examine the role of human agency in relation to God's saving action. For example, John Barclay's ‘Under Grace’ (chapter 3) aims to overturn modern, Western assumptions about the ‘Christ-gift’ to demonstrate that ‘when [Paul] says that believers are “under grace” he means that grace carries demands’ (p. 61). What emerges from a collective reading of the essays is what Lou Martyn summarises as an ‘asymmetrical dual agency’ (p. 165), where the powers are primary and the role of the human is secondary.

While clarification of this dual agency surfaces as a dominant theme, the volume offers plenty of other insights, some of which challenge widely held views in Romans’ scholarship. Two essays stand out in this regard. First, Benjamin Myers’ ‘A Tale of Two Gardens’ (chapter 3) pushes back against the prevailing assumption that Augustine initiated introspective readings of Paul. This is quite ironic, argues Myers, since Augustine contested the doctrine of an autonomous individual self, ‘arguing instead that we must bear with one another's weaknesses since we are all tangled up in the same corporate moral history’ (p. 58). And second, Neil Elliot's ‘Creation, Cosmos, and Conflict in Romans 8–9’ (chapter 9) presents a case for reading Romans 8 in conjunction with chapters 9–11 as part of a polemical engagement with Romans imperial ideology. In doing so, he calls into question the long-held notion that there exists some kind of topical break between these chapters. On the whole, Apocalyptic Paul provides insightful reflection on the cosmological and anthropological implications of Paul's argument in Romans 5–8, while providing plenty of avenues for further contemplation of the letter more generally. Anyone who engages with these essays will enter into a conversation of lasting importance for Pauline studies.