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Romans, says Waetjen, is the first publication of the Christ movement. To understand it well is thus a task of monumental importance, and to understand it today requires a postmodern hermeneutics in which the interpreter’s subjective experience of reading the text is correlated with historical-critical knowledge and social-scientific criticism. That hermeneutics has to create a new genre of commentary, making room for readers’ prior understandings as well as for a dynamic form of close reading and consistency building. The outcome is a contemporizing of Paul’s theology that induces conversation with Derrida, Žižek, Badiou, Agamben, and others.

The central theme of Romans is, according to Waetjen, the healing of humanity through the realization of “the justice of God,” which is disclosed in the movement “out of trust into trust,” or, more specifically, out of the trust of Abraham into the trust of Jesus Christ. Living on this side of the law of Sinai and therefore being conscious of the condition of sin requires the reconciliation of Christ’s death and the justification of Christ’s resurrection in order to participate in the new humanity of life-giving spirits.

Consequently, Romans is more than a rhetorical effort to mediate conflicts between Jewish and Gentile believers in Rome. Composed prior to his journey to Jerusalem with the possibility of martyrdom before him, the letter is Paul’s major theological testament.

Herman C. Waetjen is Professor Emeritus of New Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

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