Corpus-Paul

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: moon-ryul jung [mailto:moon AT saint.soongsil.ac.kr]
> Sent: Monday, May 24, 1999 7:46 PM
> To: Corpus-paul
> Subject: RE:(Roy, Mark, Liz,...) Gal 2:16
>
Dear Moon,
You wrote:

 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.

I still have not explained things very well, I see. In Rabbinic thought and
in all Jewish thought of the period, you have to obey all the law to be
considered RIGHTEOUS, i.e., to be a tsaddik, a "saint," in Paul's
terminology.  But in Rabbinic thought you do not have to be righteous to
have a share in the world to come, or to belong to the covenant.  That is
the point of the dictum that "All Israel has a share in the world to come."
Even the non-righteous.

Being righteous means something different to Paul than it does at least in
Rabbinic Judaism, but your idea is interesting that it may have the same
meaning to Paul as to the DSS community.

It seems from Paul's letters that some Jews boast of the law, but don't
follow it. This suggests that it is not just in Rabbinic thought, but in the
thought of many Jews at the time, that possession of the law, i.e, having
the identity markers of being Jewish, guaranteed a place in the world to
come, or a place in God's favor, and that following the whole of the law
wasn't required.

Moon continues:
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.

I think this is right. This is an issue of Jewish-Christian identity
markers.  I think the term "righteoused" served as an identity marker in
Paul's mind for the Christian.  When a person converts to Judaism, he not
only takes on the identity markers of being Jewish, circumcision, the
holidays, etc. against which Paul fulminated. He also takes on the mores,
customs and habits of the Jewish people.  Somehow I suspect that Paul
expected converts to Christianity to do this as well. I think this is what
Paul meant by being righteoused, I think he thought they would be made
righteous according to what the Jew meant by the term. Not keep the dietary
laws, but keep Jewish sexual and social mores. Righteous behavior would then
be the identity marker for Christians in a way it wasn't for Jews. For Paul,
one was "righteoused" by faith, not by the law, but this state of being
righteoused had to be revealed in the way a person acted.

Liz
>
> Respectfully,
> Moon-Ryul Jung
> Assistant Professor
> Dept of Computer Science
> Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea
>
Lisbeth S. Fried
Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
New York University
51 Washington Sq. S.
New York, NY 10012
lqf9256 AT is3.nyu.edu
lizfried AT umich.edu