Corpus-Paul

["Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>]

Dear Liz,
Thanks for your feedback. You copied or wrote:
>> >[Someone wrote]
>> >Agreed. But Paul did criticise "Judaism", though he did not say that it
> But
>> >so far the best explanation to me for Paul's criticism of the Law is
>> >that the life under the law, though it looks innocent, leads people
>> >eventually to death. That is, Israel in the OT period was in fact under
>> >bondage of the law, and they needed to die to the law in order to bear
>> >fruits for God.
>
>Mark Nanos wrote
>> I do not share your view of how law works psychologically.
>
>I agreed and found wonderful and fascinating everything
>you are saying.  It seems to me that it is Paul's view, tho, not the
>poster's  view, that the law led to death, or to sin. Paul says he woudn't
>ever have coveted had he not known about the law against coveting.  (which
>makes no sense to me, psychologically)Perhaps you would explain your view on
>this.

I don't read Paul this way, so I don't think Paul is the one who has said
this (e.g., in Rom. 7 where the covetous comment is found). I know, of
course, that many of his readers have taken him to have done so.

The short answer from my point of view is something like this. I would
never have known (or been) speeding if the law had not said what speeding
was. The first time I get a ticket I may plead innocence, ignorance, etc.
But the second time I am stopped by the same officer for the same speed at
the same location, such a plea is no longer true (is Clinton on this
list?). Did the law make me "want" to speed; or did it just make speeding
speeding? I could want to go fast without any law calling this speeding. I
could want to speed because it is speeding. But I suggest that the latter
is not what Paul is talking about. For one who receives the Law as good, as
God's gift, (even spiritual!) the desire is to do it.

Rather, I believe Paul is dealing with the way the boundaried identity as a
Jewish person is affecting his (and Peter's at Antioch) response to giving
gentiles the goods on equal terms. Like the laborers who began early in the
day, it is difficult to accept equal results with those
Johnnies-come-lately who have labored much less (cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric
2.9-10 on envy). This is of course not a Jewish problem, per se, but a
human one characteristic of membership in any group (between groups and
within groups). Paul happens to be a Jewish person, so that is where we
read of his social dilemmas. I have tried to explain what I think he is
talking about in Romans 7, e.g., in Mystery. In a response to a review by
Elizabeth Elliott that appears in the 98 Critical Reviews of Books in
Religion I have elaborated on this theme as well. Philip Esler, a lawyer
himself, has a brief but helpful discussion in his new book, Galatians,
Routledge, 1998.

Regards,
Mark Nanos