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  • From: RSBrenchley AT aol.com
  • To: corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Romans 13:1-7
  • Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 04:30:15 EDT


> Despite Tim Harris' (below) and others' statements to the effect that Romans
> 13:1-7 is morally unobjectionable, that passage clearly and unambiguously
> asserts that a ruler serves as God's agent rewarding the virtuous and
> punishing the guilty during this, our mortal, life. Therefore, it does, for
> example, clearly and unambiguously, logically necessessarily, imply that
> Hitler was God's agent, and that his millions of victims were, in accord
> with Romans 13:3, evildoers. Similarly, Stalin's millions of victims were
> evildoers, even though Stalin, unlike Hitler, was not a Christian.
>
> Romans 13:1-7 ought, I think, to be viewed as part of Paul's campaign
> against the Law and for faith as God's post-Crucifixion requirement in
order
> for a person to win salvation in the afterlife. Paul's gospel of Christ
> created a lacuna or void for judgment during our mortal lives. In Judaism,
> God's covenant applied both during, and after, life. Paul ended that, so
> that God's judgment applied only after life. Paul, in Romans 13:7, was
> saying that the ruler was God's agent while we are alive; to Paul, the law
> was no longer directly of divine origin, but God had sub-contracted it to
> the ruler. Romans 13:1-7, therefore, was an important part of Paul's system
> of morality, replacing that of Judaism.
>
> Eric Zuesse
> cettel AT shoreham.net
>

I'm glad you see the objection, but I wonder whether this would have been
possible for a 1st Century Jew. This would imply that God had subcontracted
his divine authority to, say, Antiochus Epiphanes. In this case, the
Maccabees and their successors would presumably have been rebels against God.
Paul may have re-interpreted Judaism in a pretty radical way, but I don't see
him as taking a position which involves such a total rejection as this.

Regards,

Robert Brenchley
RSBrenchley AT aol.com
Birmingham UK




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