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  • From: Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] The Apostle to the Greek Israelites
  • Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 15:31:48 -0800 (PST)

Doug,

> BUT - what on earth do they make of, for example Rom
> 9-11, where the
> opposite of ETHNE is ISRAEL, not IOUDAIOI, and many
> such other examples.

Actually, they argue that Gentiles are acknowledged in
Rom 11:13-32 (though that's the only place). Never
having recruited Gentiles himself, Paul is aware of a
Gentile presence in the Roman church (the founding of
which he had nothing to do with) and he targets them
with a disdainful olive tree metaphor. It implies
little good about the Gentiles. In this Malina and
Pilch follow Philip Esler -- and rightly I think --
who demonstrated that the paticular grafting technique
evoked here suggests branches that would not likely
bear edible fruit. (see Conflict and Identity in
Romans, pp 298-305). (Note: Malina and Pilch, p 274,
cite the wrong page number for Esler.)

The contrasts throughout Rom 9:1-11:12 basically play
off Greek Israelite against Judean Israelite, not
always convincingly admittedly, and again, it's a
question of evidence for this supposedly widespread
Diaspora "Judaism" which didn't hold to circumcision.
Though notice, as the authors do, that in Rom 9:4-5
Paul lists what he considers to be the defining
characteristics of Israelites -- the adoption, the
glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the
worship, the promises, the patriarchs, and the
messiah. He "makes no mention of common language,
circumcision, or homeland" (p 265) -- or indeed
anything distinctive of Judean Israelites. He lists
general commonalities shared by the whole house of
Israel.

There's a lot of excellent stuff in this commentary,
and of course anything written by the Context Group
folk is worth shelling out the bucks for. I'm simply
calling attention to the grandest claim staked out in
this book -- and what will surely be the most controversial.

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/

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