It is sad to learn that another giant New Testament scholar, Ralph P.
Martin passed away recently. I remember writing an essay on Paul’s
extraordinary hymn in Philippians 2.5-11 back in 1995, in which I was greatly
indebted to Martin’s PhD dissertation later published as Carmen Christi: Philippians ii.5-11 in Recent Interpretation and in the
Setting of Early Christian Worship (SNTS Monograph Series Vol 4. Cambridge:
University Press, 1967). His other major contribution to the New Testament
scholarship was his service as co-editor for World Biblical Commentary Series
and IVP New Testament Dictionary Series. WBC series, IVPNTD series and other
Martin’s works have been influencing my reflections on New Testament as it is
clear in the list of bibliography cited at the end of my essays and
dissertation. Among my earliest collection of books in the area of New
Testament Studies indeed are two volumes of Martin’s work on New Testament Foundations (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1975, 1978). These volumes had helped me greatly in enlightening my ‘weekly’
sermons during my undergraduate years in Bogor. And now on my bookshelf stands
Ralph Martin's work, The Worship of God: Some Theological, Pastoral and Practical Reflections (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982).
In the following paragraphs is a comprehensive obituary written by IVP
senior editor Daniel G. Reid to remember Ralph P. Martin (http://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/Martin-RalphObit.pdf)
Ralph P. Martin (1925-2013) passed away Monday, February 25, 2013,
in his home in Southport, England, from lymphoma. Born in Anfield, Liverpool,
England, he attended Anfield Road School and then The Liverpool Collegiate. His
early education was interrupted in 1939 by the war, and he was conscripted to
work in the coal mines of Lancashire as one of the “Bevin Boys.” This was not
an auspicious start for a future New Testament scholar. However, after the war
he pursued ministerial training at Manchester Baptist College and in 1949
earned his B.A. at the University of Manchester. In the midst of early pastoral
ministries in Baptist churches in Gloucester (1949-53) and Dunstable (1953-59)
he earned his M.A. at Manchester in 1956, writing a thesis on “Eucharistic
Teaching in 1 Corinthians” under T. W. Manson. From 1959 to 1965 Martin was
lecturer in theology at London Bible College, and in 1963 he completed his
Ph.D. at King’s College, University of London, under D. E. Nineham. His thesis
was later published as Carmen Christi: Philippians ii.5-11 in Recent
Interpretation and in the Setting of Early Christian Worship (SNTSMS 4;
Cambridge University Press, 1967). Following a year (1964-65) as visiting
professor at Bethel College and Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, Martin became
lecturer in New Testament at the University of Manchester from 1965 to 1969.
There he was a colleague of fellow New Testament scholar, F. F. Bruce.
In 1969 Martin joined the faculty of Fuller Theological Seminary
in Pasadena, California, where he would serve as professor of New Testament
from 1969 to 1988, and director of the graduate studies program beginning in
1979. His retirement from Fuller was premature, necessitated by a decline in
his wife Lily’s health. The Martins returned to England, taking up residence in
Southport, and he served as professor associate in biblical studies at the
University of Sheffield for several years. After Lily’s death in 1995 he
continued his writing, editing and teaching at Fuller Theological Seminary
(beginning in 1995 as Distinguished Scholar in Residence), the Graduate School
of Theology of Azusa Pacific University, and Logos Evangelical Seminary.
Throughout his academic career he stayed involved in preaching, teaching
laypeople and other pastoral ministry.
Martin was a significant figure in the post-World War 2 resurgence
of British evangelical scholarship associated with the Tyndale Fellowship and
Tyndale House, Cambridge. The publication of Carmen Christi justly
established him as an authority on the Christ hymn of Philippians (the book was
reissued by Eerdmans in 1983 and as A Hymn of Christ by InterVarsity
Press in 1997, each edition with an extended preface covering the passing
decades of scholarship). And that work remains a touchstone for any serious
study of Philippians 2, despite the mushrooming of studies produced in the
four-plus decades since its publication. In his 1997 preface Martin concluded
by saying that this latest survey of scholarship was “the outcome of my latest
lucubrations; and I mean it to be final.” But his interest in Philippians 2 was
not final, for an edited volume (with Brian J. Dodd), Where Christology
Began: Essays on Philippians 2 (Westminster John Knox), appeared in 1998,
contributing further to the literature, and he jointly revised his friend
Gerald F. Hawthorne’s volume on Philippians in the Word Biblical
Commentary (2004).
Martin wrote a number of commentaries, including two early ones on
Philippians, one in the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (1959, rev. ed.
1987) and another in the New Century Bible (1976). Colossians was also a focus
of commentary, with Colossians: The Church’s Lord and the Christian’s
Liberty (1972), Colossians and Philemon in the New Century Bible
(1974) and Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon in the Interpretation
series (1992). But his greatest contribution to the genre was his role as New
Testament editor of the Word Biblical Commentary, a project begun at Fuller
Seminary during the 1970s. In addition to guiding this series through the
decades, he contributed substantial volumes on 2 Corinthians and James.
Students and colleagues were often impressed with Martin’s
encyclopedic knowledge of the New Testament and its Greek text. And his command
of the secondary literature was equally formidable, stocked as it was by
decades of reading and aided by a memory that seemed to recall everything of
importance and many details of lesser significance. This not only informed his
teaching and writing but also his work as editor (with Gerald F. Hawthorne) of
the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters and (with Peter H. Davids) of the
Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments. For the
latter volume it was characteristically Martin’s idea to extend its reach to
the mid-second century, in order to introduce students of the New Testament to
a broader historical context in which the “germination and flowering” of
Christian truth might be viewed.
Martin’s interest in the hymn of Philippians 2 overflowed into a
broader interest in early Christian worship. His early book, Worship in the
Early Church (1964, rev. ed. 1974), long filled a gap in the literature.
And he had a continuing interest in identifying hymns and other pre-formed
material in the New Testament (particularly in Paul), both as apertures into
early Christian worship and as reshaped traditions in their literary contexts.
His later thinking on worship may be observed in The Worship of God (1982)
and his expansive article on “Worship and Liturgy” in the Dictionary of the
Later New Testament and Its Developments.
The range of his work is also exemplified in his Mark:
Evangelist and Theologian (1972), which not only surveyed and analyzed
recent interpretation, but also contributed to the redaction-critical analysis
of the Gospel, and “The Theology of Jude, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter” in The
Theology of the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude (with Andrew Chester,
1994), which explored how these letters offer insight into early Jewish
Christianity. Nor was he hesitant to tackle the larger questions. Martin’s Reconciliation:
A Study of Paul’s Theology (1981) was not simply a thematic study but a bid
to locate the centrum Paulinum in a robust understanding of
reconciliation in all its dimensions. This book, along with J. Christiaan
Beker’s Paul the Apostle, was the subject of a memorable session at the
1981 Annual Meeting of the SBL.
Martin had a speculative mind,
but was always grounded in the text. Among evangelical scholars he was known
for staking out a habitable space between faith and criticism. In posing a
non-Pauline authorship of Ephesians and the Pastorals (where he favored the
hand of Luke), he challenged his students to think beyond the scope of what
they so easily assumed to be the case, yet always with a nuance that
demonstrated a critically informed but confessional faith. Thus in his widely
used introduction, New Testament Foundations (2 vols., 1975, 1978) he
frames Ephesians by suggesting:
"The Epistle to the Ephesians, in our understanding, adds
considerably to our appreciation of Paul’s ministry since it represents and
embodies not only the substance of the apostle’s missionary message, but the
development and extension of that message to a new set of conditions.
Ephesians, with its clearly discerned distinctive, adds a superstructure to the
Pauline kerygmatic base" (NTF, 2:238).
Martin’s moderation in dealing with sensitive issues of New
Testament criticism are a model in a fractious age. And his deft pen, with its
signature clarity and grace, calls for emulation. On his passing, several
younger scholars have commented on their experiences of his generosity and
sincere interest in their work, traits that characterized this true gentleman
and scholar.
Ralph Martin is survived by his wife Doreen, his daughters
Patricia Losie and Elizabeth Knode, seven grandchildren, and seven great
grandchildren.
(A curriculum vitae reminiscences by Leslie C. Allen and a
bibliography of his work, up until 1992, may be found in his Festschrift,
edited by Michael J. Wilkins and Terence Paige, Worship, Theology and
Ministry in the Early Church: Essays in Honor of Ralph P. Martin (JSNTSupp
87; Sheffield, 1992).
