Corpus-Paul

["kosala@md2" <kosala AT md2.vsnl.net.in>]

It is very interesting to read and follow the discussion on the topic of
Paul as Good and Nice Guy. However I noticed that one very important aspect
was left out, which has also a role to play. It is the personal character
which is expected of every believer:   a new life in Christ. The Scripture
does not allow any believer to find a middle path. Jesus taught that a
believer has to say either YES or NO. No one can serve two masters. Or that
saying where  he teaches that nobody is allowed to be a hinderance to
another's faith life, and it is horrible saying where Jesus desires that
such a person should better hang a Millstone (whose giant structure and its
weight is known to every scholar and those who have visited Israel !)  and
be pushed into the sea and the result is clear.(Lk.17,2 par.)

What Paul was teaching was only a repeatation of Jesus' teaching but in his
own context. Yet the message reamains the same and unchanged. Either- Or.
there is no middle path. You have to believe or not. You have to either nice
or not nice. One cannot be nice to everyone. By being nice to everyone means
we are not true to ourselves.

I will give the blatant example from India. The election for the position of
a Bishop or a big Position in a Church (expecially the mainline churches) is
nothing but POLITIC. There is millions of Rupees that are spent,
though  no one knows who spends:either the Candidate or the people behind
him/her. And at the time of the retirement these   persons are seen to be
Multimillionaires. How does it happen? The context shows that the Pastors
and Evangelists who work in these Churches have to live with great
difficulties with their salaries.
Is it "miracles" from God? NO! they were nice guys. And their riches are its
"REWARDS".

Hence I would say that those who do not love Paul or misunderstand him are
those who have not understood Jesus. I agree that Paul has brought a lot of
changes in the Faith-life of the congregations in the early churches, which
have still their influences. Yet the discussion about him as "nice" or "not
nice" does not suit the time and the context. I have nothing against any
topic or discussion, yet we have to be "mature" in the faith to see and
understand the matter scholarly.

Dr.Kishore Kosala
India


----Original Message-----
From: Anders Eriksson <aeriks2 AT emory.edu>
To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Date: Thursday, May 06, 1999 7:05 AM
Subject: Re: Paul as Good and Nice Guy


>Dear Mark Nanos
>
>I like your retelling the story about how you had to fire one of your
>employees.  There are situations in life when one cannot be nice, when one
>has to draw the line, pronounce an authoritative verdict and expect to be
>obeyed. I believe that many of the situations we encounter in Paul's
>letters are of that nature. Paul had to draw a line, pronounce verdicts
>that would not be gladly accepted by everyone.  In that sense I have come
>to see many of Paul's decisions and attacs on others as  "not nice."
>
>I also agree with you when you stress that it is very difficult to render
>judgments about Paul's behavior.  "We only have a very small slice of his
>life to evaluate, and we must be very careful to put as much "flesh" on it
>as possible before we do."
>
>On the other hand I don't think I have made so many judgments on Paul. I
>have raised the issue, asked questions and invited others to come with the
>answers.  I have never said that our modern conceptions of what is "nice"
>are legitimate in evaluating Paul. I have tried to question those modern
>conceptions, being well aware that the standards that are priviliged in a
>modern Western university setting, like fair presentation of opposing
>viewpoints and tolerance, are hardly applicable for evaluating the
>agonistic culture and the difficult rhetorical circumstances Paul finds
>himself in.
>
>I am not out here to paint Paul as negatively as possible.  Others are
>doing that. As I said in my first post, I still regard Paul as a good guy.
>I want to be symphathetic to what he was trying to achieve. As I have been
>analysing his rhetoric the last few years I have however come to see him as
>manipulative at times and have become increasingly symphatetic to those
>people he tries to quench.  Feminist scholarship and others inspired by
>ideological criticism call these the silent voices in the text. It is also
>one of the emphasises of  socio-rhetorical criticism, which I am here at
>Emory to learn more about.
>
>As to the three texts I mentioned, it might have been necessary to draw the
>lines between the various alternatives on the issue of circumscision in the
>Galatian crisis as clearly as he does, justification by faith versus
>justification by grace. His conversation partners certainly would have
>objected to his description.  Were they by the way the heretics the
>exegetical tradition have made them out to be?  My question about Paul's
>"niceness" is more about the way he uses the rhetorical dissociation.  He
>for example associates his interpretation of the Gospel with the Spirit and
>the alternative interpretation with the flesh. (On this see Steve
>Kraftchicks unpublished dissertation.)  I have been attuned to  such
>rhetorical moves through my research the last few years, but am well aware
>that the majority of Pauline scholars have not been used to see Paul as a
>rhetorical debater.
>
>The two examples from 1 Corinthians, 14:38 and 15:34, stem directly from my
>own research on Paul's argumentation in that letter. Paul here makes
>similar rhetorical dissociations between the good guys and the bad guys.
>In the first case the positive side of the dissociation consists of Paul
>and those who recognize his regulation for women to be silent as a
>prophetic word from God, they will be recognized by God.  The negative side
>of the dissociation consists of those who do not recognize Paul's
>regulation as a word from the Lord, they will not be recognized by God, (I
>take that to imply that they are eternally damned). In short Paul claims
>that if you obey me you will be saved, but if you do not you will be
>damned.
>
>In 15:34 Paul describes those who share his interpretation of the
>resurrection events as those who have knowledge of God. In contrast those
>who do not share his interpretation of the resurrection events are
>described as people who do not have knowledge about God, an obvious pun on
>the claim by some in the Corinthian church to have knowledge, gnosis.  He
>also implies that they are sinning and are  drunk.  He also shames them.
>(On this see the article I have just finished which will be published in
>next issue of Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok - Yes, the article is in English).
>
>I am pleased that our conversation does not seem to develop into mutual
>vilification.  That is otherwise a common development even in academic
>environments.  We are not degrading into some of those bad rhetorical
>practises we see in Paul.  Maybe we are nice and good guys.
>
>
>Anders Eriksson, Th. D.
>
>Research Scholar at Lund University
>Visiting Scholar at Emory University
>Director of the Aphthonius project
>sponsored by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation.
>
>
>
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