Corpus-Paul

["moon-ryul jung" <moon AT saint.soongsil.ac.kr>]

The debate between Roy and Mark got my attention. I had a discussion
with Mark about the related issue "Jews-Gentile Social Relations". Also,
we discussed Sanders' new perspective on the law on the list. Here I 
would like to link the two debates. It may clarify the issues involved.

[Roy]
But in Galatians 2:16 Paul says that "we [Jews and not Gentile
sinners] also believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith
in Christ, and not by works of the law". It seems to me that it does not
make any sense to say 
 
 "We Jews also believed in Christ Jesus, in order to
  be justified by faith in Christ and not by proselyte conversion for
  gentiles already aggregated by faith into the people of God"!

It seems
clear that according to Gal 2:16ff. works of the law _was_ a phenomenon
that had arisen among the Jews but that they (I personally think Paul is
referring to himself and Peter here, as examples) had decided to follow 
the
way of faith _rather than_ the way of the works of the law.

[Moon] But I wonder how Roy account for the following facts which I quoted 
from the post of Liz:

[Liz]
 (p. 544 of Sanders PPJ): There Sanders says "to be righteous in Jewish
 literature means to obey the Torah and to repent of transgression, but in
 Paul it means to be saved by Christ. Most succinctly, righteousness in
 Judaism is a term which implies the *maintenance of status among the 
group
 of the elect;* in Paul it is a transfer term. In Judaism, that is,
 commitment to the covenant puts one 'in', while obedience (righteousness)
 subsequently keeps one in."

 The difficulty here is that Sanders is now talking about all of  
 Palestinian Judaism and is lumping together what before he had kept  
 separate. According
 to Sanders' index, the term "elect" is found among the DSS and 
 in Enoch. It
 is not found in Rabbinic literature. Both in Enoch and in the DSS you 
have
 a contrast between the elect, those *Jews* who are righteous and "saved"
 vs
 those Jews who are sinners and who will suffer along with the gentiles at
 the end. For the DSS and Enochian communities being righteous is a way of
 maintaining status as part of the elect of *Israel*.

 Rabbinic Judaism does not use this term and does not have this concept. 
In
 Rabbinic Judaism all Jews have a share in the world to come.

[Moon]

 Roy says that the "works of the law" is found in a DSS document and 
 there it means hallakic interpretations of the law. When Paul said
 "one is not righteoused by works of the law but by faith in Christ",
 he is against the "Way" of the DSS community. But as Liz observed
 the DSS communinities are not representatives of Judaism. They
 might have been the "left wing" of Judaism. According to Sanders,
 the mainstream of Judaism can be described by the term "covenantal
 nomism" where keeping the regulations of the law, especially
 circumcision, sabbath, dietary laws, is the identity 
 marks of being a covenant people. The idea that one BECOMES righteous
 by keeping the works of the law seems foreign to covenantal nomism.
 Rather, one becomes righteous by becoming a member of the covenant   
 people, that is, by becoming a Jew. Regardless of what the "works
 of the law" means, Sanders showed, the position that Paul tried 
 to oppose by  employing the term is the covenantal nomism of 
 Paul's time, which  required that one should be a Jew or
 become a Jew to be in the  covenant with God, to be a descendant
 of Abraham.  
  
 If I mimic Roy's paraphrase, in Gal 2:16 Paul might have meant 
 (Mark meant a similar thing, I would think ):
 
 "We Jews also believed in Christ Jesus, in order to
  be justified by faith in Christ and not by the "works of the law", 
  i.e. by being/remaining Jew by  observing the regulations of 
  the law, which are the identity marks of being a Jew".

So, the "works of the law" are the regulations of the law 
interpreted to be the identity marks of being Jew. The most
important among the regulations seemed to be circumcision, which
was required for proselyte conversion. 

I was not sure whether I should accept the interpretation of 
the "works of the law" as the identity marks of being Jew, UNTIL
I understood the significance of Rom 28-30:

(a) For we reckon that a man is righteoused by fatih, apart from works
of the law. (b) Or is he God of Jews only? Is he not also God
of Gentiles? Yes, of Gentiles, too, since after all "God is one"
who will righteous circumcision from faith and uncircumcision through
faith.  

Verse (b) implies that if  a man is righteoused by works of the law
it means that God is God of Jews only. But in fact, God is God of both
Jews and Gentiles, who righteous both circumcision and uncircumcision based 
on the same ground, i.e. faith in Christ.

In sum, even if "the works of the law" is interpreted to refer to the
hallakic interpretations of the law, as Roy claims, it seems to function
in Paul as the identity marks of being Jew, the membership conditions of 
the covenant people. To this Paul opposed. At least, so  far, this makes
sense to me. 

Respectfully,
Moon-Ryul Jung
Assistant Professor
Dept of Computer Science
Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea