James Dunn

James Douglas Grant Dunn (21 October 1939 – 26 June 2020), also known as Jimmy Dunn, was a British New Testament scholar, who was for many years the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology at the University of Durham. He is best known for his work on the New Perspective on Paul, which is also the title of a book he published in 2007.

He worked broadly within the Methodist tradition and was a member of the Church of Scotland and the Methodist Church of Great Britain during his life.

Biography

Dunn was born on 21 October 1939 in Birmingham, England.

He had the following degrees: Bachelor of Science (BSc) in economics and statistics at University of Glasgow, second class honours, 1961. Bachelor of Divinity (BD) at University of Glasgow, 1964, with distinction. He retired in 2003,

For 2002, Dunn was the President of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, an international body for New Testament study. Only three other British scholars had been made President of the body in the preceding 25 years. In 2006 he became a Fellow of the British Academy.

In 2005 a Festschrift was published dedicated to Dunn, comprising articles by 27 New Testament scholars, examining early Christian communities and their beliefs about the Holy Spirit in Christianity. In 2009 another Festschrift was dedicated to Dunn for his 70th birthday, consisting of two forewords by N. T. Wright and Richard B. Hays and 17 articles all written by his former students who went on to have successful careers in either academic and ministerial fields around the world.

Dunn was especially associated with the New Perspective on Paul, along with N. T. Wright, Krister Stendahl, and E. P. Sanders.

Dunn took up Sanders' project of redefining Palestinian Judaism in order to correct the Christian view of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness. In his Parting of the Ways, Dunn highlighted four pillars of first-century Judaism as monotheism, election and land, Torah and Temple. One of the most important differences from Sanders is that Dunn perceives a fundamental coherence and consistency to Paul's thought. He furthermore criticizes Sanders' understanding of the term justification, arguing that Sanders' understanding suffers from an "individualizing exegesis".

Dunn also played an important role in Pentecostal-non-Pentecostal dialogue. His doctoral dissertation on Pentecostalism was later published as the influential Baptism in the Holy Spirit in 1970. Pentecostals' response to Dunn provided an entry point for Pentecostalism in academia and formed the genesis of Pentecostal scholarship. Dunn provides the greatest intellectual conversation partner for Pentecostal scholarship to this day and his work continues to serve as a spokesman for non-Pentecostal viewpoints on the Day of Pentecost in academia and for evangelical community at large.

Dunn also studied the origins of Christianity with special consideration for the oral traditions of early Christian communities, as well as with social memory theory.

Works

Dunn wrote or edited fifty books and numerous papers, including:

Books

Chapters

Journal articles