Paul and the Wrath

I do not enjoy thinking about wrath, least of all God's wrath. But someone has to do it--if only because the biblical authors wrote so much about it--and Thomas P. Dixon has done it in this profound and readable book. In dialogue with theological minds from Origen to Abraham Joshua Heschel, Dixon reads Paul's Letter to the Romans as a story of God's temporary wrath leading ultimately to mercy.

~Matthew V. Novenson, Helen H.P. Manson Professor of New Testament, Princeton Theological Seminary

How to understand wrath in Paul? And how does wrath relate to divine mercy? These are important questions, and Thomas P. Dixon makes some valuable contributions to this emerging discussion. Dixon provides a taxonomy of perspectives, a history of reception, and an analysis of the relationship between wrath and mercy in Paul’s Greco-­Roman and Jewish ‘cultural encyclopaedia.’ This provides him with a plausibility framework for his exegetical observations of Pauline instances of wrath language, with a special focus on Romans 9–­11. He argues that God’s wrath, in Paul, is temporary and consonant with divine mercy and benevolence.

~Chris Tilling, Head of Research and Senior Lecturer in New Testament, St Mellitus College

In this well-researched study, Thomas P. Dixon takes up a crucial but long-neglected question in New Testament Studies: the character and scope of God’s wrath in Pauline theology. Situating his project in dialogue with ancient as well as contemporary interpreters of Paul, Dixon succeeds in showing that for Paul and his scriptural predecessors, wrath and judgment are often not the antithesis of mercy but rather the very means by which God graciously redeems his people.

~J. Ross Wagner, Associate Professor of New Testament, Duke Divinity School