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  • From: Anders Eriksson <aeriks2 AT emory.edu>
  • To: corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Paul as Good and Nice Guy
  • Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 09:33:42 -0400 (EDT)


Dear Mark Nanos

Yes you are communicating and you are doing it eloquently, but maybe not
quite on the issue with which I am concerned.

You have pointed out the cultural differences between the ancient
Mediterranean society and our present context. (I have myself recently
encountered the very same example you mentioned about the strange US custom
of staring at and comenting about our baby in shopping malls.) Cultural
differences certainly contribute to make Paul different, strange and hard
to understand. The social scientific interpretation influenced by
anthropology has done a lot the last fifteen years to point out such
differences, and thereby paint a picture of a Paul who is a foreigner to
our modern western culture. The agonistic culture he lived in would
probably have viewed his rhetorical praxis differently than our modern
western culture which places such a premium on tolerance. The difficult
circumstances of defending one interpretation of messianic Judaism as
against prevaling interpretations of it can make us symphatetic to the
rhetorical task he faced.

BUt the question I am asking falls more into the arena of the ideological
texture of a text, than the question you ask, which falls into the social
cultural texture of a text (terms taken from Vernon Robbins Tapestry of
Early Christian Discourse). This arena of interpretation asks questions
like my own location to the text, my subjectivity (do I like Paul?, what is
my pre-understanding of the text?). It also raises the issue of the
reception history of the text, an issue you brought up in your comments
about the picture of Paul presented by the majority of Christian exegetes
which has made Paul very hard to understand for Jewish interpreters (by the
way, I understand your work to involve presenting a picture of Paul which
is cleansed from much of this later dogmatic Christian framework).

But the ideological texture also involves asking questions about the power
relations established in the text. The typical question here is "who
benefits from this"? Yonder Gillihan raised this issue in his response to
me:

"Is it easier to put aside Paul's claims if we can write him off
as "not nice", just as we might ignore some modern preacher's sermon?
What would be the theological benefit of reconstructing his personality as
"nice"?

It is the power relations establiblished in Paul's text which has made me a
little uncomfortable the last year. When Paul makes his rhetorical
dissociations (Perelman), dividing the world into two opposing halves like
justification by faith or by work, he leaves no middle ground. And most of
the followers of Jesus at the time might have wanted some kind of
compromise solution. Or when he claims that he is the true prophet of God
and that rival claims of other "christian" prophets are not true,
indirectly associating them with non-God (Cf 1 Cor 15:34). Or when he
claims that if someone does not recognize this [i.e. that his prohibition
for women not to speak in church is inspired by God] then they will not be
recognized [by God at the judgment] 1 Cor 14:38. In such cases I have come
to feel uncomfortable with the authority claims Paul makes for himself. Is
he mis-using his apostolic authority? Or is he legitimately using his
power to quench opposition?

As biblical interpreters we have been used to asking historical and
theological questions. We have not been used to ask ideological questions.
Some of us are still uncomfortable asking such questions.

Anders Eriksson
University of Lund, Sweden
Visiting Research Scholar at Emory University







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