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The Just Shall Live by Faith--or "by his Faithfulness?"
A Study of the Use of Habakkuk 2:4 in the New Testament
A Paper Read at the ETS Annual Meeting (November 2002)
Copyright © 2002, by Ellis R. Brotzman
Professor of Old Testament
Tyndale Theological Seminary
The Netherlands
The theme for this year's annual meeting is "Evangelical Christianity and Other
Religions." There is probably no doctrine more defining for the evangelical Christian faith than
justification by grace through faith. In both Romans and Galatians Paul writes that "the just shall
live by faith."
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Both statements are considered to be quotes of the words of Hab. 2:4. And yet
there are serious questions about the correspondence between Habakkuk's text and Paul's
quotation. In the first place, did Paul misunderstand the OT text? Habakkuk's text is usually
translated "the righteous will live by his
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faith" (NASB). At least one modern version, the New
Jerusalem Bible, reads "the upright will live through faithfulness."
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"Faith-fulness" is also
offered as a marginal reading in several other modern English versions (e.g. NIV, NASB, RSV,
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Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11. Hab. 2:4 is also quoted in Heb. 10:37-38. Because of time constraints,
and because the quote in Heb. 10 appears to be less problematic than Paul's use, this paper will
consider only the two Pauline citations of Hab. 2:4.
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Italics are used by the author to emphasize certain words in the biblical texts that are cited.
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TEV reads "but those who are righteous will live because they are faithful to God."