Romans 13:1-7

[tmamone]

Okay, I'm sure this has been discussed before, but since I'm new I hope you don't mind me bringing this up again.

So here it is: how would Christian anarchists interpret Romans 13:1-7--

1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

[Porter Doran]

First of all, I should hope anarchists wouldn't comb Paul for statist proof texts and so do despite to his thesis, not to mention ignore his whole oeuvre. Not to mention thus pretend there is no gospel! apart from all the letters. Let's leave such willful ignorance and such humiliation of the Word to king's-men and other devil's-pawns.

Second, your translation is terrible crap -- what is it, the Southern Baptists' New King James? But I am afraid you will tell me it is something entirely mainstream.

Third, and to get to the point, the Envoys (specifically, Paul and Peter) taught a principle that you are seeing here but that surfaces a few times throughout their works. It is a minor principle, and it is not a detail of the gospel but is what Kant called "counsels to prudence". Put briefly, the principle is this:

Lest non-Followers blaspheme the gospel by calling it no more than an excuse to libertinism and to tweak Ceasar, then
let us in many ways ostentatiously obey Caesar and ostentatiously lead the lives of peaceable citizens, so that when
we do disobey him -- and the Follower always must disobey him --
non-Followers can say of us, These just are citizens of the Kingdom, blameless people.

Now, the gospel itself is e.g. "Your Master and Kingdom are in heaven; you know the truth no one else knows; you are entirely free in life and in death." This everyone Paul or Peter addressed fully knew, which sadly and importantly is not true of the modern religious.

Finally, a comment on your particular passage: If you had a translation not co-written by Satan, Paul's rationale for obeying Rome would be clearer and be of two parts: ( 1 ) We obey in the practical matters because, after all, the cop does not carry a sidearm for no reason, and we have much work to do for Jesus in this life; ( 2 ) we obey in matters of right-and-wrong because, after all, our conscience would have us living that way cop or no cop.

[John Tracey]

The "higher authorities" and "the rulers" are not the same thing. Romans 13 is a juxtaposition of the two.

Like "give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's" we are challenged to choose between the two.

"Obedience to the state; An exegetical exploration of Romans 13."
http://unlearningtheproblem.wordpres...-of-romans-13/

[glasshaus]

Originally Posted by Porter Doran

Second, your translation is terrible crap -- what is it, the Southern Baptists' New King James? But I am afraid you will tell me it is something entirely mainstream.

Really, Porter? This is the NIV. New King James?
And calling NIV a terrible crap translation is pretty surprising from someone who reads the Contemporary English Version. That should be marketed as more of a paraphrase. NIV isn't the best, but it's better than CEV, by the call of many scholars that are better equipped to at least identify versions when they see them.

Third, and to get to the point, the Envoys (specifically, Paul and Peter) taught a principle that you are seeing here but that surfaces a few times throughout their works. It is a minor principle, and it is not a detail of the gospel but is what Kant called "counsels to prudence". Put briefly, the principle is this:
Lest non-Followers blaspheme the gospel by calling it no more than an excuse to libertinism and to tweak Ceasar, then
let us in many ways ostentatiously obey Caesar and ostentatiously lead the lives of peaceable citizens, so that when
we do disobey him -- and the Follower always must disobey him --
non-Followers can say of us, These just are citizens of the Kingdom, blameless people.

I frankly disagree. Neither Christ nor Paul taught that we are to call attention to our good deeds other than to avoid offending people unless it must be done. After all, your beloved CEV says in v.5 "But you should obey the rulers because you know it is the right thing to do, and not just because of God's anger."

Finally, a comment on your particular passage: If you had a translation not co-written by Satan, Paul's rationale for obeying Rome would be clearer and be of two parts

Look, Porter, your preferred translation is worse than his and you speak of it without even knowing what you're talking about. You can't even identify the translation. You have conviction, but I have never heard you speak love. I have only heard you speak Pride, and it reeks. It will win no one, because it turns people off quickly, and if anything, it will turn people on the fence away if you are the example of what it means to follow Christ. Spiritual Pride is unbecoming. You have suggested people be silent if they don't know what they are talking about and I am suggesting that you heed your own advice. If you want to educate yourself and speak in humility, than you will do people a service. If you want to remain ignorant and continue to speak in arrogance, you will do service to no one, and your impact will be small.

As for this passage, I'm pretty sure Paul was explaining to the Roman Church that it would do no good to overthrow the government and replace it with a fascist theocracy. The church was persecuted and there were revolts brewing.
-Claven

[glasshaus]

Originally Posted by John Tracey

The "higher authorities" and "the rulers" are not the same thing. Romans 13 is a juxtaposition of the two.

Like "give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's" we are challenged to choose between the two.

"Obedience to the state; An exegetical exploration of Romans 13."
http://unlearningtheproblem.wordpres...-of-romans-13/

"Higher Authorities" or "governing authorities" seem to be used (other than "rulers") everywhere except v.3, which seems to be a continuation of v.2 by use of the word "for." I will check out the link, though.
I definitely see where this could be drawn from v.7.
-Claven

[glasshaus]

That was a great article! The Greek exegesis was really interesting. Good work! I've read a lot of commentaries on this, and believe it or not, this is the first one I've read that touches on the Greek. I liked the smiley face in the upper right-hand corner, btw.
-Claven

[Rob A]

Here's something I've written elsewhere on the subject that explains what I think is going on the passage. This reading was influenced by John Howard Yoder in The Politics of Jesus. I'll spare you the footnotes and just give you the main body.

Basically, there are four broad strokes of what I call the "conservative reading" of Romans 13 that many exegetes from the Reformation on until to today have agreed upon. I argue here that these four are illegitimate and unwarrented assumptions given what's actually written in the text.

1. There is a generally positive view of the “governing authorities.” This includes positive affirmations of the vocation and calling of the governing authorities, and appreciation for their role in maintaining order through the violence of the sword.
2. The belief that the powers that be are “established,” “ordained,” “instituted,” or otherwise “set up,” by God.
3. Resisting the authorities via insurrection, civil disobedience, or noncompliance is sinning against what God has established.
4. The major interpretive trend is to remove 13:1-7 from its context, isolating it from the crucial material in chapter 12, and essentially making this pericope into a stand-alone short treatise on the authority of the state.

In what follows I will proceed exegetically through the crucial portions of 13:1-7, delving into the text to bring to light some of the grammatical nuances missed by the vast majority of our contemporary English translations that have perpetuated the unfortunate conservative misreading of this contentious pericope. We will find that not only can the four characteristics noted above not be legitimately derived from the biblical text, but also that Paul’s message to the Romans is fundamentally grounded in a subversive trust in the God who has triumphed over the very powers to which the Christians are to be subordinated. I must begin this exegesis however, by challenging one of the dominant interpretive trends that keeps Christians in bondage to this stagnant, conservative reading.

The most significant interpretive trend we must challenge is that of decontextualizing Romans 13:1-7 and reading it as if it were a complete literary unit. Romans 13:1-7 cannot function as a stand-alone theology of the state because, quite frankly, it does not stand alone. It is intricately tied in with what precedes it and what follows. This passage comes in the middle of the ethical exhortation section of Paul’s letter— in light of the theological claims he has laid out in chapters 1-11, chapters 12 and 13 provide Paul’s answer to the question of how to live. Further supporting this contextual reading is the fact that Romans 13:1-7 is bookended by discussions about suffering love (12:9ff, and 13:8-10). Thus, any discussion of 13:1-7 which is not also read in light of its surrounding context of Christlike suffering love must be rejected as a misinterpretation. We will maintain this awareness of the context of 13:1-7, as well as its place within the larger Pauline corpus as we proceed in our commentary. Readers who wish to follow this exegesis closely are advised to have their favorite English translation of the Bible opened to Romans 13:1-7 in order to compare notes.

13:1a: Πᾶσα ψυχὴ ἐξουσίαις ὑπερεχούσαις ὑποτασσέσθω.
Literally: (Let) every soul (be) under-ordered to the over-having authorities…
Paul begins with an exhortation that every ψυχὴ, or “soul” must be “subordinated” to those authorities. Two key points on Paul’s choice of vocabulary must be borne in mind as we proceed. First, the verb in this clause is an imperative-a command- in the passive voice. ὑποτασσω is a prefix-augmented variant of the verb τασσω. Τασσω is crucial for 13:1-7, because it occurs repeatedly in several forms throughout this passage. It means “order,” as in straightening up, controlling the chaos, arranging, maintaining the proper state of things. Combined with the prefix ὑπο (meaning “under”), it means in 13:1 “be ordered under,” or voluntarily permit your order to be sublimated to that of the authorities. This is no passive submission to the authorities. It means allowing their “order” to exist on top of one’s own “order.” Concretely, this would mean for the Roman church to which Paul is writing that they must either obey the commands of the authorities where Christian conscience permits, or they must disobey the authorities where obeying would be a violation of Christian conscience- but then they must be willing to accept the consequences of that disobedience. To be “ordered under” does not imply obedience in all circumstances; rather it means not rebelling against the order which is over top of you. Verse two will make this point more explicitly.

The other point from this first clause that must be remembered is that the ἐξουσίαι (“authorities”) did not merely connote human authorities for Paul and his audience as we often assume today in our rush to apply these idealized “authorities” to our own political masters. The discussion of the authorities needs to be situated into the much larger discussion of what has come to be known in theological shorthand as the “powers and principalities.” In the Greco Roman milieu, “the boundaries between the spirit world and the world of humanity and nature were fluid and often imperceptible.” In the worldview into which both Paul and his Roman audience (not to mention everyone else in Rome) were socialized, spirits infused everything and had untold influence on events of the physical, material realm. Understanding of, and even sympathy to this point is utterly crucial for a proper comprehension of to whom or what Paul enjoins subordination. Clinton Morrison puts it forcefully:

"If we are to be a party to Paul's communication with the Roman church in Rome we must enter into a world in which we cannot make radical distinctions between myth and history, material and spiritual, as we do today. It was a well known fact in antiquity that the same word was used, not only to indicate 'both' spiritual and material elements, but to symbolize the inseparable relationship between the spiritual and material worlds. "

The point is that in addition to the human ἐξουσίαι we moderns so readily read into the text, Paul also has in mind the underlying spiritual reality and the forces behind the earthly powers and principalities, rulers and authorities. As N.T. Wright comments, it is unlikely that Paul ever made a clean distinction between the earthly and heavenly dimensions of civic authority, even if here the human elements are emphasized predominantly.

What does Paul have to say elsewhere regarding the powers and principalities that stand behind the ἐξουσίαι? Elsewhere in Romans (8:38-39), Paul displays his contempt for the ἀρχαὶ and δυνάμεις (“rulers” and “powers”) which he says are utterly impotent in the face of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Likewise, and even more forcefully, in Colossians 2:15, Paul declares that Christ has “disarmed the rulers and authorities (ἀρχὰς and ἐξουσίας) and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” Again and again, Paul tells us that the powers have been rendered impotent and defeated by Christ, and that they, in their service of darkness and death, no longer have the last word. These are the implications the word ἐξουσίαι would have carried for Paul and his Roman readers. Thus, even though the powers and authorities have been disarmed and robbed of their sting, Christians are still to be “subordinated” to them. To find out why, we must read on in Romans 13.

[Rob A]

Romans 13:1b: οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἐξουσία εἰ μὴ ὑπὸ θεοῦ, αἱ δὲ οὖσαι ὑπὸ θεοῦ τεταγμέναι εἰσίν. Literally: for there is no authority except under God, and those that are (or, exist) are ordered under God.
The prepositions are crucial in this clause. The twin use of ὑπὸ here hearkens back to the connotation of “order” we observed above. It is not the agential use, in which case we would translate it “by,” as in most modern English translations. Paul declares that no authority presently existing has not been “ordered” under God. The participle τεταγμέναι is another form of τασσω, which we noted above means “order,” or “set into place.” Countless generations of English translations have lost this sense, instead translating the participle as “ordained” (KJV), “established” (NIV), or “instituted” (NRSV). The difference is crucial. John Howard Yoder puts it this way:

"God is not said to create or institute or ordain the powers that be, but only to order them, to put them in order, sovereignly to tell them where they belong, what is their place. It is not as if there was a time when there was no government and then God made government through a new creative intervention; there has been hierarchy and authority and power since human society existed. Its exercise has involved domination, disrespect for human dignity, and real or potential violence ever since sin has existed. Nor is it that by ordering this realm God specifically, morally approves of what a government does. The sergeant does not produce the soldiers he drills; the librarian does not create nor approve of the book she or he catalogs and shelves. Likewise God does not take responsibility for the existence of the rebellious “powers that be” or for their shape or identity; they already are. What the text says is that God orders them, brings them into line, providentially and permissively lines them up with divine purposes."

Here is the key point at which the conservative reading of Romans 13 misses the mark. This observation puts the lie to all claims that the civil authorities are a providential creation of God. Thus, what Paul is saying here is not that we must subordinate ourselves to the governing authorities because God set them up to rule over us— rather, we are to be subordinated to them because they themselves have been brought under God’s control. They are, in effect, “ordered under” God because of what Christ has done in disarming the powers. God uses them unwittingly, unjust and perverted as they may be, to powerfully bring about the fulfillment of his divine plans. In the same way he used the brutality of the armies of Israel and those of Israel’s enemies for his redemptive purposes throughout the Old Testament, so too even the idolatrous might of the Roman Empire could be held in its proper place by God.

Romans 13:2a: ὥστε ὁ ἀντιτασσόμενος τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ τῇ τοῦ θεοῦ διαταγῇ ἀνθέστηκεν, Literally: So then the one who is ordered-against the authority stands against the order of God…
In verse two, the emphasis on order continues unabated. ἀντιτασσόμενος is a participle combining “anti” with τασσω for a combined word literally meaning “order against.” The person who allows him or herself to be “ordered against” the authority (instead of “ordered under,” as in verse 1) is consequently standing against the “order” of God. διαταγῇ is simply the a noun form of τασσω. It is God’s order which is being resisted by the one who orders herself or himself against the authorities, since they themselves have been ordered under God because of God’s saving actions in the Christ event. Setting one’s own order in opposition to the order God has brought about is idolatrous, and as the second half of the verse goes on to say, will incur judgment.

Reading further into the passage, and here we must recall that the context of Romans 13:1-7 explicitly includes Romans 12:9-21 and 13:8-10 as well, another textual observation enables us to further clarify the role of human government in God’s plans. The government is used providentially by God to restrict evil so that his people can live faithfully with at least a modicum of safety. 13:4b reads “He is God's servant, an avenger (ἔκδικος) of wrath (ὀργὴν) to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” These words are important, because looking back in the passage, 12:19 explicitly denies the prerogative of vengeance and violence to God’s people using the same words: “Do not take revenge (ἐκδικοῦντες), my friends, but leave room for God's wrath (ὀργῇ), for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge (ἐκδίκησις); I will repay,’ says the Lord.” Several observations follow from the identical vocabulary usage in these two verses, so close to one another in the passage. (1.) The Christian is denied the prerogative of revenge. This is because, as the quote from Deuteronomy 32:35 in Romans 12:19 makes clear, vengeance belongs to the Lord alone, and to take vengeance and violence into our own hands without explicit sanction from God is to transgress the boundaries God has imposed on human morality. (2.) 12:19 says to “leave room for God’s wrath (ὀργῇ), and 13:4b relates that the governmental exercise of coercion is one of the modes through which God exercises his wrath (ὀργὴν). (3.) The unnamed ruler in this passage is God’s “servant,” and designated “avenger” (ἔκδικος). Thus, the function that is forbidden for Christians is said to be exercised by the rulers.

It will not do, as the tradition since Augustine has suggested, to posit the denial of revenge to be binding on Christians in the sphere of “private morality” while claiming that Christians acting as governmental agents are required to carry out God’s vengeance in the sphere of “public morality.” This is because such dualistic designations are the product of philosophical innovations attempting to confine religion’s applicability only to one’s “private” life. Similarly, Martin Luther’s “two kingdom” theology had the unfortunate effect of planting the unbiblical notion that Christians can serve two masters simultaneously at the very heart of Reformation theology. These thought patterns are entirely foreign to the world of the biblical writers. Rather, the message Paul is sending here is clear— Christians are to have nothing to do with the coercive violence of the state. State violence is in God’s providential hands, “ordering” and controlling the violence of human beings, but it is not a function to be engaged in by Christians. Yoder, comparing the two verses we have just examined, puts it this way,
It is inconceivable that these two verses, using such similar language, should be meant to be read independently of one another. This makes it clear that the function exercised by government is not the function to be exercised by Christians.

That God can take the evil of human beings and turn it around for his own glory and the outworking of his providential purposes is not in dispute; indeed, we saw it at work as far back as Joseph’s recognition of this fact in Genesis 45:5-9 and 50:20. What we must come to realize is that Romans 13 was written with this idea explicitly in mind. While God uses the evil of state violence to restrict the domain of human evil in the world, the vocation of the Christian church is not to fight evil through these evil means; rather we are called to transform evil into good with the prophetic voice of the Word of God and the suffering love which he modeled for us. Or, as Paul puts it, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).

Further discrediting the nationalistic reading of Romans 13:1-7 is a simple historical observation. This passage has often been invoked by both skeptics and naïve Christians alike as justification for a simplistic view of blind obedience to the state, but it is hard to imagine a more flagrantly decontextualized reading of this passage. The nameless “authority” Paul speaks of in Romans 13 is not some idealized ruler, setting forth the vision of what government ought to be like in a perfect world. The “authority” is concretely, the despotic pagan emperor Nero, with whom the Christians of Rome would have been intimately familiar. The fact that Paul calls Nero God’s “servant” is especially significant. For Paul, it puts him firmly within an established Jewish tradition that admired God's use of his “instrument” Assyria in Isaiah 8, or his use of his “servant” Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 27:6), or his “anointed” (i.e. literally, “messiah”- Isaiah 45:1), Cyrus. In the Hebrew Scriptures, God frequently uses pagan kings and armies to accomplish his wrathful purposes, and this is precisely the function Paul is alluding to by calling the despotic emperor Nero God's “servant” in Romans 13:1. That very same “servant” would later put Paul to death during the terrible persecution in Rome in the mid to late A.D. 60's. While Nero may or may not have yet reached the heights of his psychosis by the time Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, recent memory would have reminded the Romans of the madness of Caligula and the despotism of Nero’s other predecessors. They too, are affirmed as God’s unwitting “servants.” In this context, Romans 12 and 13 function as “a call to a nonresistant attitude toward a tyrannical government. This is the immediate and concrete meaning of the text; how strange then to make it the classic proof for the duty of Christians to kill.”

The conservative reading of Romans 13:1-7 has resulted in, on one hand, the legitimization of totalitarian regimes by imperial apologists of all stripes, and on the other hand, the dismissal of Pauline thought as hopelessly outmoded and naïve by liberal interpreters. It has been the goal of this section to demonstrate that it is not Romans 13 itself which is to blame, but the unfortunate misreading of Romans 13 which has occurred on all sides of the ideological spectrum. Some of this is due to the accidents of history, others to malicious exploitation of the biblical text and those who value it. Christians can no more cut Romans 13 out of the canon than we can rid ourselves of our annoying “in-laws”: both are part of our family and our heritage. As Wright puts it in his discussion of this pericope, “Exegesis, and the determination to live at least with its results, and perhaps even by them, is always a risk, part of the risk of an incarnational religion or faith.” We must reclaim Romans 13 from both the tyrants and the cultured despisers, and read it with fresh eyes as it truly is, not through the mistaken interpretive lenses bequeathed to us by the centuries. Doing so may well help us discover a new “two kingdoms” theology, one which recognizes the fallen nature of the kingdom of the “powers that be,” and seeks to overwhelm them with the light of the inbreaking kingdom of God.

[Porter Doran]

Originally Posted by glasshaus

I frankly disagree. Neither Christ nor Paul taught that we are to call attention to our good deeds other than to avoid offending people unless it must be done.

This would have sufficed.

Originally Posted by Rob A

4. The major interpretive trend is to remove 13:1-7 from its context, isolating it from the crucial material in chapter 12, and essentially making this pericope into a stand-alone short treatise on the authority of the state.

Excellent observation. And thanks for the write-up -- I particularly applaud your refusing to be trapped by the artificial limits the statist apologists set for the argument (viz., reading this proof-text without reading the letter or Paul overall).

Originally Posted by glasshaus

... This is the NIV. New King James? ... Contemporary English Version. ...

The bloodless committees of scholars and church-watchdogs that substitute for a translator nowadays are finding it more and more irresistible to translate by explanation. The only versions I know that are free of this cowardly vice are King James's Version (and some of its predecessors), Richmond Lattimore's New Testament, and perhaps a new Evangelistarion by some Californian Greek monks that I ran across a year or two ago. All others I have read are tendentious, are Christianist, are made for hunting up modern doctrines in.

However, version aside, the reader who will not read ( 1 ) all of Jesus often and above all and ( 2 ) Paul's essays whole as he intended them -- i.e., the reader who is tempted to indulge the laziness of examining proof texts -- will never know more than the promulgators of those texts want him to know. He will approach them with a sort of fuzzy awe, turn with a slight desperation or at least anticipation to the proffered commentary, and then ease into the warm damp satisfaction of supposed understanding. He will think no further on the matter than to recall the commentary if he ever again runs across the proof-text. Read this way, and you will be statist, anarchist, Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Jew -- just as luck throws proof-texts at your life. You will be a eunuch made so of men: an intellectual castrate, a religious slave.

Now, I note that you rejected my thesis out-of-hand. Therefore I'll make this offer to other readers of the thread: Read the first letter of Peter, and, upon reaching the second chapter, begin to realize his thesis in that chapter and the next one or two. If you can encapsulate it in a sentence or two, and if that sentence or two is materially different from my thesis above, then I am on pins-and-needles till I hear it. I am. Thank you for expanding my mind.

It's really worth noting that e.g. this passage's misinterpretration were the tools of the European kings'-men -- the preachers paid by king or aristocracy to palliate the abuse of the people. How such proof-texts also became American currency is not rationally explicable. As so much of American conservatism, in the new world these seem a height of absurd. I have noticed that, to the American preachers who wield them, they seem to have become proof-texts to apologize for a political party -- i.e., having no king, our most-permanent institutions are (oh police and) the parties, and the new king's-men are party-men. I have recently heard a conservative parent of a friend berate Pres. Obama for "disobeying" the passage we are discussing. In short -- if hermeneutics cannot convince you, let sheer absurdity convince you that this passage cannot cause Paul to bear the weight of conservative statist apologies.

[Andy Alexis-Baker]

Originally Posted by tmamone

Okay, I'm sure this has been discussed before, but since I'm new I hope you don't mind me bringing this up again.

So here it is: how would Christian anarchists interpret Romans 13:1-7--

Hi there. Well, the context is kind of important. Romans 12 talks about not conforming to the world and ends with not returning evil for evil but return good to one's persecutors. Then it moves to a concrete case of a persecutor to love. The text does not in the Greek say God "created" the state but only "ordered" it, that is, puts it in its proper place like a librarian does a book (she does not write the book, but puts it on the proper shelf and in a proper context). (Rob, I think, has a few good points on this).

That is one way to read it that I think is helpful. Its not a central text in the canon. There are more passages critical of "state" authorities than not. Revelation is essentially an anti-imperial tract that seethes with anger at the Roman state for its persecutions and seduction of Christians to idolatry.

Another way to read it might be to ask who the authorities are that Paul is discussing. It is not really clear that it is the Roman authorities. It could be that he is talking about some Jewish authorities. Mark Nanos thinks so in his book Mystery of the Romans.

That is another option, though I am less sure about it, though intrigued.

Jacques Ellul's Anarchy and Christianity might be a good read for you if you have not seen it. He goes over a lot of these types of passages. It is not a very long book, less than 150 pages and is accessible.