'Exegetical Amnesia' and  I TI  XPI TO : The 'Faith of Christ' in Nineteenth-Century Pauline Scholarship

Abstract

Contemporary scholarship holds, almost unanimously, that Johannes Haußleiter was the first to suggest that Paul's expression Χ should be interpreted as the 'faith(fulness) of Christ'. His article of 1891 is said to have initiated the ongoing debate, now more current than ever. Such an assessment of the controversy's origins, however, cannot be maintained. Beginning already in the 1820s a surprisingly rich and nuanced discussion of the ambivalent Pauline phrase can be seen. Then, a number of scholars from rather different theological camps already considered and favoured the subjective genitive. The present study seeks to recover the semantic, grammatical, syntactical, and theological aspects put forward in this past (and 'lost') exegetical literature. Such retrospection, while not weighing the pros and cons for the subjective or the objective interpretation, helps put into perspective the arguments and responses in the present debate. Then and now, scholars' contextualization of their readings is in keeping with their respective diverse theological and philosophical frames of reference.

‘Christ-Faith’ as an Eschatological Event (Galatians 3.23-26): A ‘Third View’ on Πίστις Χριστοῦ

“… 29. On the almost entirely neglected nineteenth-century scholarship on subjective genitive proposals, see Schliesser 2015. …”

A Linguistic Analysis of πίστις χριστοῦ: The Case for the Third View

“…The subjective genitive position is that the phrase πίστις χριστοῦ should be taken to mean 'faithfulness of Christ', where 'Christ' serves as the subject of the phrase. Although the subjective genitive position has been around for quite some time (Schliesser 2015), the influential study of Hays (2002;originally published in 1983) sparked renewed interest in it. From the outset, the position has been characterized by an appeal to the narrative structure, and the story that Paul is telling continues to be the foundational argument (Wright 2013: 836-38).…”

“… 3. For a survey of recent scholarship, see Easter 2010 and Kugler 2016, and for historical scholarship, see Hunn 2009 and Schliesser 2015. …”

When Academic Debate Meets Translation Decisions: The English Translations of Pistis Christou as an Example

“…The heated debate about whether to translate the term Pistis Christou as subjective genitive or objective genitive has been going on among scholars for over a century. The current debate can be traced back to Johannes Hauflleiter's paper in 1891, or even earlier (Schliesser, 2015). It is said that "new publications continue to flood the market" (Easter, 2010, 33-37).While the Pistis Christou debate is going on, new English translations of the Bible have appeared in the past 20 years.…”