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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Christianity in Rome
  • Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 19:36:00 -0500


I had written:
><<Obviously there were Christ-believers in Rome to whom Paul wrote, but how
>their community or communities was/were constructed or labeled is a matter
>for discussion. I have argued at length from the rhetoric of Romans (in The
>Mystery of Romans) that they were a part of the synagogue communities of
>Rome. There is no material or literary proof of which I am aware that
>indicates otherwise. Paul does not ever call them or anyone else
>Christians; rather he knows Jewish and non-Jewish people, which fits a
>Jewish communal point of view precisely. Peter Lampe has argued that they
>met in homes and in the same parts of the city as the Jewish people; the
>identification is logical on this historical information as well. Most
>people recognize that there was a time when this movement was wholly
>Jewish; I suggest that we have in Romans literary evidence of just such a
>time.>>

To which Jon Peter replied:
>You can surely see how one might read Mark's statements and yours together
>as being arguments against a self-identified Christian community in Rome at
>the time of Paul's letter.

Jon,
I think you are missing the point here. Of course this group has a social
identity based upon a shared faith in Christ among themselves, and thus a
social boundary defines this group with regard to other groups and people
who do not share this view. At least that is what Paul's letter clearly
implies! (we have no "historical" evidence of this group's identity outside
of this "rhetorical" data [Paul's letter to the Romans] from the 50's). But
the point is that this identity still takes place initially within a Jewish
understanding of their group identity: they believe Jesus is the
Christ/Messiah of Israel and Savior of the World, a wholly Jewish point of
view.

Perhaps this might help you think about how group boundaries work and thus
make it possible to label this coalition of believers in Christ a Judaism
or wholly Jewish group initially. To oversimplify the varieties of Judaisms
of the period, one might ask: Did the Pharisees and Sadducees or Essenes
not have some group boundaries based upon beliefs and practices that
differentiated themselves? Of course they did, or they would not exist by
way of differentiating labels. But were they Jewish groups or non-Jewish
groups? Were not these Jewish groups, like Christian groups later,
asserting that they were the best representative of God's word, will, etc.,
rather than creating a new social identity outside of the existing Jewish
(or Christian) orbit? That Christianity later became an institution outside
of and over against Judaism is clear, but when, how, why; these are matters
for consideration. That believers in Jesus as the Messiah of Israel were
bounded or identified as different from other Jewish people and groups is
clear, but that they at first considered this a wholly Jewish move and
identity is also clear. Paul argued on that his work represented a remnant
labor on behalf of and not over against Israel (Rom. 11), that he and Peter
were still identifiably Jewish while some other members of this group were
not (Gal. 2:15-16), even in the midst of asserting that they were now equal
within this Jewish subgroup of believers in Jesus Christ.

The difference is defined within Jewish parameters, by way of Scripture and
experience which is understood by themselves to demonstrate the arrival of
the time anticipated in the Jewish Scriptures and communities. Other Jewish
groups disagree about what time it is, and thus what one should believe
about this Jesus or the experiences being taken to legitimate these faith
claims in him. But they do not necessarily disagree about what will be
appropriate when that time comes.

It is a matter of differences of opinion among Jewish groups. This group
functions as a coalition, involved in a temporary task of enlightening
Israel first and also the nations of what they believe, that the appointed
time has come in this Jesus the Christ, as promised and anticipated. Israel
will be restored and all of the nations turn to the worship of her God as
the One God of all humankind. That is what I mean by a wholly Jewish even
if distinct identity.

Since you have used the word sect in your description (below), I assume you
are working with sect typologies of Brian Wilson, since that is what NT
discussions have generally been built around in recent years. Within this
system what this group represents at first is a reform group, seeking to
convince the larger whole of their point of view. Again, a wholly Jewish
identity, even if one that includes the conviction as central to its
identity around Jesus: he is for them the Jewish Messiah, a wholly Jewish
point of view for defining what is going on in the world from their
perspective. For example, although not a perfect example if stretched too
far, Wesley thought he was improving Anglicanism and worked wholly within
it at first; it is only later (perhaps after his death?) that we can speak
of Wesley's groups as a separate institutional group instead of a reform
movement or kind of Anglicanism (please correct if not the case or
otherwise bad parallel for this point).

When Paul argues vehemently against the view that Israel has fallen from
the way things may appear to some non-Jewish people addressed in Romans,
however, people seeking to understand themselves in Jewish terms as
righteous ones, he argues that things are not as they might appear to
themselves. Israel has not fallen, but is represented by those Jewish
people who believe in Jesus as Messiah of Israel, the remnant. That is a
Jewish group identity appealed to make his case. So he observes that some
are stumbling, in a process that somehow benefits these gentile addressees,
but argues that that does not mean that God has rejected them. That is a
wholly Jewish way to try and reduce the dissonance, the difference between
what Paul and members of this Judaism believe is going on and what appears
to be taking place at the present time if described from a perspective not
plugged into this way of seeing reality, i.e., that of non-Jewish people
who have come into this movement without being Israelites and thus without
such a perspective through which to understand how things appear.

Similarly, in Gal. 2 when Paul argues with Peter and appeals to their
shared identity as Jewish people yet also believers in Christ just like the
gentiles in view, he is arguing from a shared Jewish group identity within
which their faith in Christ takes place. There is more than one boundary at
work in a group's identity. What they or are not is worked out in the
context of all of the other groups' identities. Initially this group was a
Jewish group from their own perspective and that of other Jewish groups in
their response. Eventually other Jewish groups found fault with them, or
the other way around, on Jewish terms of defining what a Jewish group could
or could not be like. This was different in every time and place.
Apparently some Jewish groups believing in Christ continued for centuries.
That other groups believing in Christ might have later disassociated with
them because they were still "Jewish" groups only helps to define the fact
that boundaries are defined where identities are contested, in this case
who legitimately represents the boundaries of a later institution that was
not regarding itself as Judaism but Christianity.

>
>I would counter both of you by saying that "Christ-believers" are **by
>definition** an independent community. Their members were initiated with
>baptism. They received the Holy Spirit, they sang hymns to Christ, they
>shared their material goods and they took communion. They followed apostolic
>guidance. These standard rites and practices were in place pre-64 and are
>referred to in the NT. Other Jews didn't do these things.

Really? First, did not the Jerusalem Jewish believers in Jesus also do
these things, as well as observe the Law, including Temple worship? Are not
these practices derived from Jewish practices and beliefs? Second, how do
you know that other Jewish groups not believing in Christ did not have
initiation rites (have your read the Qumran documents?; or do you not know
of proselyte conversion rituals?), or experience the Holy Spirit, or sing
hymns to God, or share material goods (a commandment), or engage in
communal table-fellowship (what about Sabbath and Passover and other
festivals like Booths, and in their home-synagogue meetings, and in the
Temple). How about the guidance of the various leaders in Jerusalem or in
these groups. That Jesus becomes part of their belief and practice is not
disputed, but that this means it is no longer a Judaism is a non-sequitur.
>
>Additional labels for the membership were in use as well, such as "brothers"
>"disciples" and followers of "the Way."
>
>Note also Mark N's very strong statement above: "There is no material or
>literary proof of which I am aware that indicates otherwise" I would
>submit that virtually all of the NT indicates otherwise. It is evidence of a
>self-identified movement of Christ-believers, using special rituals, offices
>and vocabulary.

But this is circular. I think that all of Paul's letter's indicate evidence
of a movement of Christ-believers still identifying themselves, on Paul's
teaching, as a Judaism. That is circular too. So what have you or I proved
by this? At least my view has going for itself at the very least the fact
that Paul still identifies himself as a Jew, and those to whom and about
whom he writes in terms of a Jewish/Israelite way to express identity and
not a (later) "Christian" way, that is, as Jews/Israelites and
gentiles/representatives of the other nations. By the way, that Paul has
been punished within the parameters of Jewish courts (he says 39 lashes 5
different times; 2 Cor. 11:24) is an indication that other Jewish groups
regard his as one of their own, yet a sinner (it appears to me, for
maintaining that gentiles in Christ are full members without becoming
proselytes; Gal. 5:11). Perhaps my view is not so circular after all. He
himself, other insiders such as Peter in Antioch (implied in Paul's appeal
in Gal. 2:15), and outsiders to this coalition all regard it as a Jewish
expression of identity (interest group) functioning within the Jewish
communities, however, differentiated by faith in Jesus as Christ from other
Jewish interest groups. I make no appologies for appealing to my complete
work on Romans, easily available in print, arguing this case (The Mystery
of Romans, Fortress, 1996); if you choose not to read it, fine. But this
format is not the place to restate all of the evidence, methodologies, or
arguments.
>
>Mark also said: "Most people recognize that there was a time when this
>movement was wholly
>Jewish; I suggest that we have in Romans literary evidence of just such a
>time."
>
>That's quite a whopping assertion. Mark N. did not follow-up with any
>argument except to say that "Paul does not call them "Christians"" From this,
>Mark mistakenly concluded that no sense of separation in self-identity
>existed. However, as I replied to Mark in a previous correction, the
>"Christian" label was first applied by outsiders disparagingly, and we
>should not expect Christ-believers to use it on themselves initially. The
>absence of the "Christian" label in the Romans letter does not mean Paul
>didn't consider Christ-believers a distinct sect. Paul's preferred label is
>'hagios' (saints) used 7 times in Romans.

Really? Don't you see that identifying themselves by the labels brothers or
holy ones (saints) or the way are already and wholly "way"s of identifying
themselves within Judaism, since these are labels for identity within the
Judaisms of the time? Yet in spite of your comments that they did not refer
to themselves a Christians you insist that we must. Do you not see the
irony of situation here? I have already commented on your (mis?)use of
sectarianism above.

Regards,
Mark Nanos
Kansas City






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