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  • From: Antonio Jerez <antonio.jerez AT privat.utfors.se>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Paul and the Law
  • Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 18:23:34 +0100



Dear Mark,
You wrote:

>Dear Antonio,
> I think it may be time to delete most the text of former
> comments. As far as I can see my challenge to the idea of spiritual
> "proselytes" (spiritual Israel or Israelites) in Paul's language has
> not been met. You may find them and such ideas in later Christian
> writings and think this expresses Paul's ideology, but that is not
> the same as finding them explicit in Paul's argument, of which you
> have presented no evidence. Ambiguous references (e.g., Gal. 6:16) do
> not carry your argument very far, can be easily argued to the
> opposite conclusion. As far as I can see the theme to which you
> appeal is not implicit throughout Paul's argumentation, as would be
> required for the thesis to stand, but actually the opposite theme
> appears to be implicit throughout.

I think that we can be agreed that the theme of the gentile-christians in
Pauls letters being Israelites, wether "spirititual" or fleshly ones, is not
explicit
in the letters if not for Gal. 6:16, which as you say appears to be an
ambigious
expression in greek. My case (and i suppose Terry Donaldson´s) largely
depends on reading between the lines and interpreting a thing like the
tree metaphor in chapter 11 pretty literally. Maybe Paul wasn´t out to
show that the gentiles had become "Israelites" by being grafted into the
same tree as Israel, but in that case his choice of metaphor could certainly
have been a better one.

> Terry has written to me off-list
> to note that he is unable to contribute further the conversation
> presently. Perhaps we will hear from him later.

I certainly hope so, since I do not think I am better qualified than himself
to
defend his own thesis.

>If you wish to make
> arguments from his work that is fine, but I do not think that this is
> required of me, since I disagree on this point, and I am familiar
> with what he has written. I suggest that you reconsider that he has
> set out several eschatological models from which a person or group
> might assess the "present" situation in view of expectations for the
> "awaited" age to come; we have found Paul to work within different
> models. Argument about this issue might be productive.

I don´t doubt at all that you are familiar with his work, but what I am not
familiar with are all your specifik counterarguments to his arguments,
both about the "proselyte" question and Paul´s attitude versus the Law.
Have you written any review of his book where you get into the details?
If so I would be intererested to know where. I also have doubts that your
model about Paul's "righteous gentiles" really fit into any of the
eschatological
models that Terry presented in such an admirably clear form at the beginning
of his book. I don´t see how the advise Paul gives to his gentiles in 1 Cor.
8:8-10
And 10:19-33 fits with any model we have about righteous gentiles, not even
the
prescriptions at the Apostolic council.


> On my reading of Paul, and after consideration of many arguments by
> other interpreters, Paul writes to and of gentiles, i.e.,
> representatives of Nations other than Israel, who have joined with
> Israelites in the worship of the One God of Israel as the One God of
> all humankind to form a new community of Israel and the Nations. Paul
> argues for this as appropriate on the basis of the meaning of the
> actions of God in Christ, which have brought the dawn of the age
> Israelites await of serving as a light to the Nations. Some
> Israelites (the remnant) are engaging in this task, such as Paul, on
> behalf of all Israelites, not against them, and eventually all of
> them will realize their present error of judgment and join with the
> remnant. Somehow gentiles are also now a part of this task, oddly
> enough. They should thus think and behave accordingly as righteous
> gentiles who understand who they are in relation to what God has been
> seeking to do on behalf of all humankind by way of Israel and her
> Christ, so that these other Israelites will be moved to reconsider
> the meaning of Jesus Christ for themselves.

The problem I have with this is that the texts I indicated earlier in 1
Corinthians
do not seem to show that Paul´s gentiles are really required to behave as
righteous gentiles under all circumstances.

>Paul does write things that Jewish people such as myself find
>offensive (this is surely not a point you need to make for my sake!),

I had no idea that you were Jewish until now.

>especially his curse and castrations wishes in Galatians. But he was
> not writing to Jewish people who did not share his convictions on the
> topics. Rather he wrote to non-Jewish people who found themselves
> marginalized by his teaching that they are to remain gentiles
> although claim the same rights "as though" proselytes (but not "as"
> proselytes, since they are not to become such in the age to come
> according to the eschatological model Paul now understands to shape
> reality). He was their champion, and his rhetorical interests and the
> context of his addressees interests must be considered in assessing
> his comments when engaged in the task of historical criticism.
>
> Paul's letter's exemplify in-house rhetoric directed to
> Christ-believing gentiles who are suffering for a minority conviction
> within the Jewish communities, who are themselves minority groups
> with interests to protect within the Greco-Roman communities of the
> Diaspora (most letters are to very different groups and situations
> within this framework). But the mail was delivered to another
> address, you might say, and we have become aware of a conversation
> not intended for our consumption that is full of parental persuasive
> techniques engaged in at our expense. Have you never heard (or can
> you not imagine) a conversation within the confines of your home in
> which a parent insulted other children (or parents) appealed to for
> proving the child's case? This occurs when making a point for his or
> her child responding to perceived or real pressure to conform his or
> her behavior with norms that the parent considers much more dangerous
> for his or herself than the child is apparently able to recognize.
> Such is the nature of Galatians as I read it. But the window has been
> left open, you might say, and we have, as the children or parents
> next door, now heard something that was not intended for our hearing,
> and is not really about us perhaps, but rather is said in the
> interest of that parent's child as he or she perceived appropriate
> for the more important rhetorical task of saving his or her child
> from self-inflicted yet socially influenced harm.

All this sounds very well, what what it does appear to boil down to is
that the search we should engage in as historians is not only to find out
what Paul actually says in his letters but also wether he really means what
he appears to be saying. I do not see how we are going to get anywhere
as historians asking the second kind of question since the only one who
can really answer that is Paul himself. To claim that Paul says one thing
but doesn´t really mean it and only may have said it to popp up his doubting
gentiles is, as far as I see it, unsubstantiated guesswork. Or maybe we can
solve the problem by turning Paul into the kind of chameleon a talked about
in an earlier message.

>I will also leave aside replying to your several ad personam
> comments, which are merely informal fallacies that are not arguments
> on the topic, except to state the obvious: any argument (e.g., book)
> should be analyzed by its stated purpose. I would think that you are
> familiar with the difference between, e.g., a topical study of all of
> Paul's letters, a commentary on one of them, and a thematic study
> within a particular letter, although your comments might be taken to
> suggest otherwise. If it is your purpose to be insulting, then that
> has been accomplished. If it is to make a case for your position,
> then it is not a very useful tactic as far as I am concerned, not to
> mention an invitation to terminate a conversation that is taken up by
> choice. Perhaps you would like to restate some argument you think
> useful on the issue, but as presently stated I choose not to reply.

I can assure you that my purpose was never to insult you. I am not
even sure which passages in my message appears to have offended
you so much that you take them as pure ad hominem remarks. May
it have been the part were I critizise your methodology in "The mystery
of Romans"? If so I am hard pressed to see what is insulting (at least
by the standards we latins use) or ad hominem in those specific remarks.
To claim that I believe that you have left out a thorough and penetrating
discussion of too much of the relevant passages in Romans to make
your thesis really convincing is hardly an insult or an ad hominem remark
- specially if I am prepared to argue for it more in detail. You admit
yourself
right at the beginning of your book on page 15 that
"is the methodology of this study doomed to corrupt the larger picture
of Paul and his teachings? Perhaps, but it is a risk that Paul was prepared
to run for his original adressees when he wrote this letter to Rome,
presumably
without attaching his other correspondence in order to balance the picture".
But as I see it you do appear to have "corrupted" the message of Paul in
Romans because of your choice of methodology. I also find it a bit strange
that we as modernday historians should be prepared to take the "risk that
Paul was prepared to run for his original adressees". First of all we don´t
know at all what his original audiences had in the back of their minds. Maybe
they were aquainted with some of Paul´s thoughts beforehand, maybe not.
And why should we historians stop casting glances at Paul´s other letters to
see if there may be similar threads running from the other letters to Romans?
Couldn´t 1 Corinthians 10:19-33 illuminate the problem Paul faced in Rom
14? And why cast glances at Acts to support a case for a Law-abading Paul
but practically ignore all letters except Romans where this Law-abiding Paul
is not that much in sight? A further problem is that I do not even think that
you have
shown that a Torah-abiding Paul is present in Romans. I hope to return to
this later.
I certainly expect the moderators of the list to reprimand me if this and my
earlier
message is deemed to be insulting and ad hominem.

Best wishes

Antonio Jerez
Goteborg, Sweden








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