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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>
  • To: corpus-paul
  • Subject: Re: Paul and the Law
  • Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2000 21:37:1


Dear Antonio,
I am not surprised by your affinity for Donaldson's approach based upon
what you have expressed in earlier posts. He has written a very good book,
and I think the strength of the work is in how he sets out the
eschatological models so nicely (as he had in an earlier article or two).
But has he made the case that Christ-believing gentiles are proselytes?
That is the issue. If so, then they are part of some kind of new
configuration of Israel which excludes Israelites not of this coalition
from being Israelites any longer, and Paul's vision of the church is
supersessionist.

I think that Paul argues against this change of identity for these
gentiles, and thus that the other model of Israel and the Nations still
identifiably different in the age to come is Paul's view of this new
creation community in the midst of the present age bearing witness that the
age to come has dawned. If these gentiles do not complete proselyte
conversion (circumcision for males) and are not under Torah so that they
are not endebted to observe the whole Law, then what is the purpose for
their idenity as proselytes? In what way are they Israelites, or why? Is
salvation only reserved for Israel, or is Israel's role as the righteous
ones on behalf of all of humankind, all of creation actually? Is it not as
Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, male and female, remaining in the state
of fleshly identity vis-a-vis human categories of differentiation (the
cosmos), but regarding each other as equals apart from the categorical
discrimination of the present age (crucified to the world) that is the
centerpiece of his call to community in Galatians?

On the matter of the identity of the weak or strong in faith in Romans
14--15 I await your argument; as well as other comments you indicate to be
forthcoming.

Regards,
Mark Nanos
Kansas City




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