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  • From: "Jon Peter" <jnp AT home.com>
  • To: "Corpus Paulinum" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: FW: Re: Neil Elliot, "Liberating Paul"
  • Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 12:20:51 -0700





>
> >
> > Jeffrey, I think you are taking off too hard on the espionage bit
instead of
> > listening to what I have been saying. My point is simply that Paul's
> > writings in support of authority can be interpreted as disinformation.
This
> > is entirely an *exegetical* assertion from me. It is not one for which I
> > ever claimed to have support in Roman historical documents.
>
> As I see it, I **have** been listening to what you've been saying. Is
not your
> exegetical assertion about what Paul is doing in Rom 13 based upon a
particular
> reconstruction of the circumstances in Rome that would have convinced
Paul of the
> necessity of adopting such a strategy?
>


No, it isn't. That's our misunderstanding. Here is what I wrote yesterday as
my explanation for Paul's methods:

"Paul's need to conform to this scriptural archetype is
all-important to him and to the Gospel writers -- perhaps even more so than
the practical need to disinform the authorities year-to-year. But we're
probably way off-topic now."

I should have put this in all caps. In other words, Paul writes
disinformatively not because he has knowledge of spying, but because he
needs to conform to the esoterical scriptural model dictated by being a
purveyor of the Gospel. Such a necessity is explained and emphatically
stressed in Mt ch 13.3-35. eg "Therefore speak I to them in parables:
because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they
understand."

The Hebrew word mashal to which the Greek word parabole refers has a much
broader sense than as a category of specific literary device. It connotes
esotericism or insider secrets being disguised. Again in Mt "All these
things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable
spake he not unto themÂ…that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which
have been kept secret from the foundation of the world." The "things kept
secret" = chiydah or hidden matters of a kind unique to holy writ.


This need in Paul to practice esoteric writing is one of my exegetical
assumptions. I bring this view to all of Paul's writings and to other canon
as an inherent possibility that cannot simply be brushed aside. Yes, this
makes interpretation uncertain. The essential aim in the writers'
technique -- a uniquely Hebrew scriptural one -- is to hide certain
information from one portion of the audience (people like ourselves), while
simultaneously conveying it to another portion. The deciphering keys have
been provided to a limited few. Unfortunately, we today cannot be assured of
what those keys were. Some of us think we have a good idea though. Of course
we (I) may be deluded in this. That's the best any of us can do.

Again, the proposition of esotericism/disinformation going on here cannot be
categorically excluded in most biblical texts.

Thus you perhaps see that our tangent about spies and eavesdroppers,
and
your insistence that I produce evidence of same, has been a waste of time
and energy. The esoteric method I describe would be necessitated regardless
of whether Paul knew of specific enemies or not, and regardless of whether
they actually existed.

As a point of fact, however, the esoteric gospel by its nature does produce
such enemies, largely real but also partly imagined / exaggerated. Enemies
are in fact ubiquitous and presumed to be so, by the Christian leadership,
based on a dualistic cosmological outlook.

So, at any rate, you see why I asked you to stop going on about spies whom I
cannot document, and whom I now wish I'd never mentioned even in play. You
were not paying close attention to me before when I wrote about conforming
to archetypes. And perhaps I should have elaborated more forcefully.


>
> And with these remarks, I think I have said all that can I can say on the
matter.
>

Sorry you feel that way, but your peeve was based on a misunderstanding. I
hope you will change your mind in view of my latest clarifications.


With apologies and best regards,

Jon





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