Corpus-Paul

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

Jon, thank you for commenting on my post. The issue of my post was whether 
the language of "being righteoused by faith not by (works of) the law"
could have been employed in the context of explicit or implicit DEBATE WITH 
Judaism and the "right wing" Jewish Christ-believers who thought it was 
essential to observe Torah to be in the covenant with God. This issue
is closely related to the issue of the "center of Paul's thought".

I had better avoid the expression "in the context of Jew-Gentile Social
 Relations", because the expression might imply that the issue was 
not really important. I have changed it to "in the context of debate with
Judaism". The nature of that debate is not yet solved. The thread on Gal 
2:16 on the list discusses that issue in depth. But regardless of your
opinion as to what was the real issue in that debate, we can discuss this 
issue.

About the law in Paul, by the way, I once had a view similar to yours, and 
it is certainly one way to read Paul if we had only Paul's letters. But
studies such as Sanders' shed some light to the situation of Paul's time, 
so that we may have a better chance to understand Paul's language.

Cheers!
Moon-Ryul Jung
Assistant Professor
Dept of Computer Science'
Soongsil University
Seoul, Korea        

or Jewish-Gentile church relations: One practical consequence of
abolishing Torah is that Jews have to give up on looking down their noses 
at
Gentiles. That is an important pastoral issue, but, in theological or 
other
doctrinal terms, it is merely a side issue. The fact that Paul cajoles in
these terms to get Jews to allow Gentiles full status in no way softens
Paul's antinomianism. Nor does this provide any hint that Paul somehow
upholds Torah-keeping for Jewish converts and has a second-track called 
sole
fide for Gentiles. To read Paul in that way grossly strains his texts.