Corpus-Paul

["Roy E. Ciampa" <Roy_Ciampa AT compuserve.com>]

>[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."

[snip]

[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. 

[Roy now]
Lest there be some misunderstanding, I am not saying that he is against the
"Way" of the DSS community, but that he is against the teaching of the
Jewish Christian teachers in Galatia whose teaching may have reflected some
similar ideas regarding justification by works of the law (even if their
version of the works of the law was different than that of Qumran).  I am
not suggesting that Paul has the Qumran community, 4QMMT or any other DSS
in mind.

[Moon]
But as Liz observed the DSS communinities are not representatives of
Judaism. 

[Roy]
Ugh!!  I am very interested in finding out who gets to decide which Jewish
communities are representative of Judaism and which ones are not.  I
briefly discuss Sanders' approach to this in my _Presence and Function of
Scripture in Galatians_ pp. 288-291.  Paul is does not represent Judaism. 
Qumran does not represent Judaism.  I would guess the John the Baptiser
would not, nor would the Zealots, and is there anyone else?  For it sounds
like a way of making judgments of a more theological or political type than
of an historical type.  Rabbincal Judaism, the version that won out, seems
to be the standard of comparison.  [2000 years from now who will decide
whether Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians or Pentacostals will be
considered representatives of Christianity in the later 20th century?  Or
perhaps those groups will be the ones that survive and by hindsight it will
be thought that Catholics, Orthodox and Reformed Protestants are not
representative of late 20th century Christianity??]

It seems to me that in Second Temple Judaism "righteousness" is covenant
language and those who are in the covenant and live according to the
standards of the covenant (the halakha) are righteous and those outside the
covenant or who (though being Jews) are perceived to be in flagrant
violation of the covenant are the "sinners" (a term that Jews of the period
seem to have used just as much for other Jews as they did for Gentiles).  I
think this view would fit most Jewish groups (those that represent Judaism
and those that do not!) of the period.

The difference now for Paul is that in the New Covenant one enters by faith
and remains by faith (which must be reflected in the Christ-like behavior
that the Spirit manifests in the believers' lives).  Still, the righteous
are those who are in the covenant (by faith now) and who live by the
standards of that covenant.

I would agree with most of what Moon says, except that I would not limit
the works of the law to Jewish identity markers such as circumcision and
food laws, but see it as the wider concept of halakha which would certainly
include those things and in certain cases those would be _the_ halakhic
issues at stake.

Regards,

Roy