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corpus-paul - Re: hUPO NOMON in Rom 6:14-15: Cranfield vs. James Dunn vs. X

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  • From: Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: hUPO NOMON in Rom 6:14-15: Cranfield vs. James Dunn vs. X
  • Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 05:20:36 -0800 (PST)


Moon,

Forgive my delay in responding. I had to leave town
yesterday.

[Loren]
With contexts such as 5:12-21 and 7:7-13 framing the
argument of Rom. 5-8 as a whole, we’re dealing with
the over-arching epoch of Adam rather than the more
specific one of Abraham/Moses. “The government of the
law” seems too restrictive to apply in such a context.

[Moon]
I agree that Paul's language in 5:12-21, 7:7-13
could be interpreted to talk about the over-arching
"slave-like" epoch of Adam. That is the usual reading
of the texts. Such an interpretation has the "side
effect" of making "if you are under the Law, sin will
be the master of you"
hold. It also requires hUPO NOMON to mean more than
"under the government of the Law", e.g. to mean "
under the tyranny of the Law" or something like that.
Both of these side effects are at odd with the
standard Jewish understanding of Judaism, as you know.
For example, Mark Nanos, as a Jewish scholar, would
not accept any interpretations that have these side
effects.


[Loren, now]

While I admire Mark’s work and continue to learn very
much from him, I believe he falls into the trap which
ensnares many Romans exegetes as he forces the entire
letter -- each chapter, each verse, it seems --
through a single interpretive sieve. In his case, the
“sieve” is a unified church/synagogue. I agree with
Mark's reconstructed scenario, just as I agree with
his particular interpretations of Rom. 4:18-25,
11:13-32, 14:1-15:13 as applied to this context. But
we should bear in mind that Paul was addressing not
only a particular situation in Rome, but also his own
basic beliefs, and these on top of rather thorny
dilemmas. I imagine Paul sitting in Corinth on that
fateful March of 57, anxious about his impending trip
to Jerusalem, pondering God’s consistency with the
purposes of election (Rom 9:6-29) justification (Rom.
9:30-10:21), and the salvation and redemption of all
Israel (Rom. 11:1-12). I imagine, in fact, that these
arguments of Rom. 9:1-11:12 were especially prepared
for his collegues, who were no doubt plagued by the
same issues. Then I imagine Paul torn over the
specific crisis mentioned above -- which he’s learned
of only through the grapevine, occuring in a
church(/synagogue) he didn’t have a hand in founding
-- a crisis which called forth the statements of Rom.
11:13-32 and 14:1-15:13. Then we have his basic
doctrine of justification laid out in Rom. 2-4 --
arguments which would perhaps have had more bearing on
the Galatian crisis than the Roman one, but important
enough to repeat just in case the Jewish body
miscontrued the admonishments against Gentiles in
11:13-32 and 14:1-15:13. And, on top of all that, we
have the problematic Rom. 5-8, which I think must be
framed against Paul’s basic eschatological beliefs
about the resurrection -- which he would naturally
have wanted to share with those church/synagogue
members he had neither seen nor preached to. He thus
tells them that with Christ’s death and resurrection,
the age of Adam is coming to a close (Rom. 5); that a
believer who has baptized into Christ’s death has
already begun to overcome the powers of the present
age -- and has thus (partly) died to sin, death, and
(indeed!) the law (6:1-7:6).

Romans will no doubt continue to befuddle those who
insist on using one particular sitz-im-leben (or one
interpretive framework) for the entire letter. But
Paul, like any human being, was capable of speaking
not only to specific situations at hand, but to more
general issues as well, each of which would speak well
enough TO the situation at hand.

Moon, thanks for your well-considered thoughts
throughout this thread. They’ve helped me clarify my
own.

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com

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