Krister Stendahl: RIP and what if?
Various blogs are noting the death of Krister Stendahl. There are comparatively few books that come to be seen as discipline-altering and influential decades after their publication. There are even fewer articles /lectures, but his “Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” is one of them – possibly the most significant. What would Pauline studies look like today if he’d never written it? How many other articles can you say that about?
April 17th, 2008 at 3:50 am
This is the first that I’ve learned of his passing. I am very sad to hear it. It is not often that I can say I have read a book, his collection of essays “Paul Among Jews and Gentiles”, and found it close to a masterpiece even though I disagreed with much of it. He has a lot of good insights but I think it is the compassion with which he writes, his committment to correct some of the harmful errors of the past, and his desire to see the “greatness” in remaining small and humble — it’s all three of these things that are so memorable. He catches something very right about Paul even if he gets some other things wrong. Stendahl definitely reads with fresh eyes and that is very inspiring.