Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

corpus-paul - Re: The Mystery of Romans: the theme of- - restoration of Israel

corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Corpus-Paul

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT home.com>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: The Mystery of Romans: the theme of- - restoration of Israel
  • Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2002 08:58:43 -0600


Moon,
I will try to answer a few of your questions below your remarks. Other
comments are omitted for clarity.

> Mark,
> let me introduce into our discussion what Daniel Boyarin says in
> his book "A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity". The reason
> is that I am sort of convinced by his argument that Paul redefines
> Israel, which implies that he allegorizes the restoration of Israel.

In essence, this is the difference between us; I am not only not convinced,
I disagree. There are so many issues that are a part of our dissimilar views
to try to cover now or in this format.

>
> He said, in p.202:
>
> As he himself says, "I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means.
> I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of
> Benjamin."
> (rom. 11.1). This, however, is not proof that Paul's theology
> is not supercessionist, for the historical understanding of Israel
> has been entirely superseded in the new, allegorical interpretation.

I do not believe that the metaphor of the olive tree should be applied too
broadly. In fact, it is looking backwards and asking questions from that
perspective that undermines its original purpose. That was to censure
Gentile arrogance, not to allegorize Israel per se. It is a tool in his
larger argument that Israel HAS STUMBLED but HAS NOT FALLEN, although it is
a problematic choice, since it uses the language that many Israelite
branches HAVE BEEN CUT OFF. So it is at cross purposes with Paul's point
when later interpreters use it to conclude that Paul believed Israel had
been CUT OFF = STUMBLED SO AS TO FALL.

> On the same page, he says:
>
> As I have already argued, supersession can be understood in two ways.
> Although Paul argues against one version of supersession, I will suggest
> yet again on the basis of Roman 11 that from a Jewish perspective,
> his theology is nevertheless supersessionist. At the very site of Paul's
> main argument for tolerance of Jews, I find the focal point of his
> ultimate
> and unintended devaluation of Jewish difference.
>
> He has basically two kinds of argument for his case.
>
> The first arguement: the redefinition of the remanant.
>
> P. 203, he says:
>
> Now the crux of Paul's argument is for the continuing significance of
> the Jewish people. If the Christian part [i.e. the remnant that
> believes in Jesus, my comment] is holy, so is the rest [of the Jewish
> people]. Paul, however, subtly shifts the ground upon which
> he is standing. On the one hand, he argues that the Christian
> Jews are merely a saving remnant, such as the one that the same
> prophetic texts would speak of from Elijah to Jeremiah. Here, however,
> is where the shift comes in, for the saving remant is no longer, as it
> was in the prophets, those Jews who are FAITHFUL to the COMMANDMENTS, the
> WORKS OF THE TORAH, but is NOW DEFINED BY GRACE ALONE [i.e. the grace
> through
> Jesus, my comment]

I do not agree with this assessment. It hangs upon the notion that Paul and
the other Christ-believing Jews did not remain faithful to the commandments
as essential. I argue otherwise; so I do not find his conclusion convincing.

>
> For the prophets as well, it was clear that a remnant would persist
> through history that would gurantee the salvation of all Israel
> at the end-time, so in a sense Paul has CHANGED NOTHING, but for those
> very prophets the remnant was defined by faithfulness to works - all
> works, circumcision and charity [Boyarin accepts the "covenantal nomism"
> of Sanders and Dunn as basically valid, my comment] - while for Paul
> the ground has explicitly shifted from works to a new, arbitrary
> election of some of Israel who have been chosen to have faith in Christ
> now.
>
> Although ultimately God has not abandoned the original election by grace
> of Israel, a NEW ACT OF GRACE has taken place which REPLACES those who
> are faithful to the original covenant WITH those who have faith in
> Christ as the remnant of Israel.

I do not follow the logic here, nor find Paul to be replacing any Israelites
with any Gentiles. In my view, the act of grace which Paul declares is--for
Paul--one promised by the prophets for Israel and then carried by Israel to
the nations. It is for Israel and the nations a fulfillment, in process, but
not a replacement. Paul is one of those messengers of and for historical
Israel, although his special role in that process is primarily the Gentile
announcement. But that is part of a two-step plan. For even that step is
subordinate to the interest in Israel's restoration, a point that is not
taken seriously enough in most interpretations of Paul in Rom. 11 (see esp.
vv. 13-16). It is not a point that I believe most interpreters believe to
represent Paul's true intentions.


> The second argument: The Gentile believers do not have an independent
> status but should be grafted into Israel of God. [Although grafting
> is based on the practice of the works of the Law, but faith in Christ]
>
> P. 204, he says:
>
> The root remains Israel, and just as in the case of a graft, the root
> stock defines what the plant, in some sense, is and gives it nutriment,
> so also the new plant of Christians remain DEFINED AS ISRAEL.

I find this both a mistaken understanding of the natural world upon which
Paul's metaphor hangs, and a mistaken application of the metaphor, although
it is a reading widely shared. I do not believe that the church or any
individual or group of non-Israelite Christ-believers represents Israel for
Paul, but that the remnant of Israelites and these representatives of the
nations together manifest the community of the future (the new community
creation), of the end of the ages in the midst of the present age. The
differences are not collapsed, but the usual discrimination these social
boundaries represent is to be denied. Hence his letters of instruction and
challenge to these Christ-believing Gentiles to remain Gentiles yet
understand themselves as equals.


> The Old Israel has been superseded and replaced by a New Israel
> [which consists of Jew and Gentile believers in Christ], precisely
> , as claimed, because Israel itself has not been superseded.
> The claim of some scholars, therefore, that the notion of the Church
> as a New Israel that superseded the old first appears in Justin Martyr
> seems to me falsified by this passage. Paul holds out to the Jews
> the possibility of reinclusion into the community of faith by
> renouncing their "difference" and becoming the same and one
> with the grafted Israel of gentile and Jewish believers in Christ,
> but if they do not, they can only be figured as the dead and discarded
> branches of the original olive tree. There is, on the one hand,
> what I take to be a genuine, sincre passion for human (re)unification
> and certainly a valid critique of "Jewish particularism", but on the
> other hand, since the unification of humankind is predicated on sameness
> through faith in Christ, those humans who choose difference end up
> effectively hon-human.

I do not find Paul's metaphor to run along this line, nor the thrust of his
application of it, so I do not find the argument convincing. See comments
above.

> In summary he says, p. 206:
>
> Precisely because we understand "grace" and "works" as sociological
> markers, we must understand Romans 11:5-6 as reflecting a replacement
> of the historical , physical Jewish tribe, with its cultural practices,
> by another kind of community, defined by grace. Indeed it has always been
> the case that only part of Israel are the elect, but election until
> now has been defined through commitment to Israel's historical practice
> and memory. No longer: The remnant is now defined through its graceful
> acceptance of Christ. No longer Israel according to the flesh, but Israel
> according to the spirit - that Israel signified by the physical and
> historical one.

I do not follow this argument at all. They may function as sociological
markers, but the target audience is Gentiles, not Jews. (To evaluate
historical social boundary disputes you must carefully define the parties
and dispute; the same words can mean different things in different contexts
and to different people from different points of involvement and view). The
matter is addressed because the question arises about the standing of
Gentiles by "grace" if not also standing by works, i.e., as proselytes, part
of empirical Israel according to the terms of identity of the present age
(either Israel, with includes proselytes, or non-Israel=pagans). Paul
upholds something controversial, but not NEW nor a REPLACEMENT of something
else, but a foretaste of that which was promised beforehand. It is whether
Paul is correct about that which the controversy turned around, in my view.
See Gal. 5:11: is it the present age approach to Gentiles, making them
proselytes of Israel, or the end of ages approach, when they as
representatives of the nations alongside Israel worship the One God, indeed
as one community representing all humankind. Proposing policies that follow
from this position creates the friction between the Christ-believing Jewish
coalition and other Jewish groups. Hence, Paul says he was persecuted (i.e.,
disciplined by Jewish authorities for non-compliance with prevailing norms)
when he did not bring these Gentiles into these Jewish subgroups as
proselytes=as part of Israel, but as representatives of the nations=not part
of Israel, but of the Creator God's ultimate community of all humankind,
toward which Israel is a servant in the present age.

> Indeed Christ is the goal of the Law. I do agree with Boyarin that
> if Christ is the fulfillment of the Law, some notion of supersession is
> involved in this fulfillment.

Depends upon how the terms are defined. I do not agree that this is implied,
although I do recognize that it can be (is usually) taken in this direction.
Is it supersessionist if the goal of a classroom is to prepare students to
get all of the answers correct and someone does that? or is it merely
fulfillment of the intention for the training as exemplified in that
student? Does this mean that the need for training for other students ceases
to exist?

If Law is training in the art of Love (per Heschel), then I do not see that
being truly loving would be a supersessionist proposition, or mean that the
Law's way of defining love was not for other Israelites. The point Paul
makes with such language is that it was not and is not still for
non-Israelites what it is for Israelites. Paul declares these Gentiles to
have the goods apart from being Israelites, but this does not mean that
Israelites are in the same situation. For Israelites it involves both this
and that. But such differences are difficult to maintain in the present age,
and lead to discrimination, or policies designed to eliminate the
differences (i.e., in Christian tradition, supersessionism; in Jewish
tradition, relegation to non-representative of Judaism=a new religion that
is not Jewish and thus not a serious proposition to engage). But at that
time it was leading to boundary formation and the dynamics that follow to
reconcile differences or their representatives; when those do not work to
bring together as one, they lead to separation. That is what happened, and
the legacy we must be careful not to pre-suppose in our approach to Paul's
language composed in the 40's and 50's, although it may be what we conclude
that he said/meant. I do not think so.

Regards,
Mark
--
Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
313 NE Landings Dr.
Lee's Summit, MO 64064
USA
nanosmd AT home.com




  • Re: The Mystery of Romans: the theme of- - restoration of Israel, Mark D. Nanos, 01/04/2002

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page