Corpus-Paul

["Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>]

Dear Moon,
Thank you for the several appreciative statements. I appreciate your
interest and willingness to reconsider deeply interested, even
ideologically loaded matters, for someone who approaches this differently
than many of the important and persuasive voices of which you are aware.
Your willingness to listen has led me to spend much more time in this than
I should, and much time as well for others who may read these lengthy
posts. But let me take up your question below.

>[Moon]
>(a) Doesn't Gal 2:16
>> >   ("We Jews also believed in Christ Jesus, in order to
>> >    be justified by faith in Christ and not by the "works of the law")
>> >indicate that Paul and Peter deserted Judaism which taught
>> >that one is righteoused by doing the "works of the law", the identity
>> >markers
>> >of being Jew?
>>
>> Mark Nanos replied:
>> I do not see desertion from Judaism here. The question is how gentiles are
>> to be included among the righteous ones, a status reserved for Israelites
>> in the present age by the covenant offered by God. The traditional way was
>> by proselyte conversion.
>
[Moon]
>How do you interprete Paul's statement quoted above? The statement seems
>to
>imply that Paul and Peter, Jews,  gave up the way of "the works of the
>law".
>"We also (Paul and Peter, Jews)....".

Mark Nanos now replies again:
The statement is part of an argument; an appeal to a shared premise among
the Jewish Christ-believers Paul and Peter (and the others who had
withdrawn) that there was no cause for this kind of discrimination within
this group between Jewish people and non-Jewish people. While different,
they stood equal in the sight of God and each other through Christ, not
through Jewish identity (hence there was no reason for the gentiles to
become Jewish, or for the Jewish people involved to act as though the
gentiles should). But that Jewish identity is still standing for themselves
is part of the premise of the argument, and had provoked the misguided
withdrawal on the terms of their faith in Christ and its interpretation
among themselves on this point. It was because Jewish identity still
mattered that Peter sought acceptance on the traditional terms (face saving
among peers, which Paul calls fear), and it was because it still mattered
that Paul could make this statement, and those around it which constitute
the argument. (E.g., v. 17: "Has Christ made us (Jews by nature) sinners
(i.e., gentiles)" has no teeth as an argumentative premise if indeed he
has!).

Paul is not saying they gave up the works of the law, but that they came to
their position on faith in Christ, which they had then, by this time,
already realized altered their view of gentiles who also believed (he
justified, i.e., made righteous ones, by faith in/of Christ). It would be
backwards for them to now let a judgment of gentiles based on works of law
undermine the judgment of gentiles they had realized by the revelation of
Christ. That is, that while the difference among the nations and Israel
remained, the discrimination did not: all could now be righteous ones of
God by faith in Christ, and thus equals in this regard. The question
revolves around the decision about the time: is it the time when God is
restoring Israel and declaring through her light to all of the nations? And
does this mean that the nations become Israel, or that Israel and the
nations now together worship together the One God of all humankind, indeed
of all of creation? That is the question that their faith in Christ has
altered their position on, and thus their behavior with regard to gentiles
(people of the nations) who turned to worship God through faith in/of
Christ.

While they had not thought they were made righteous by works of law before,
but by the actions of covenant by a gracious God to whom they were thus
committed to behave righteously (i.e., observing Torah, which is training
in the art of love [thank you Abraham Heschel]), it would imply that they
believed they were righteous ones because Israelites, if this was the basis
of discrimination now, since they believe this covenant God has acted
toward both Israel and the nations in Christ making both righteous now in
the same way (and thus creating a new social identity among themselves).

This argumentative position is thus predicated not on some absolute that
other Jewish people believe, but upon an implied premise that arises only
within this group (as far as Paul is concerned in this argument anyway)
when it is violated by the kind of discrimination along the boundary line
between Israelites and non-Israelites within this group, which Peter's
withdrawal represented. In other words, this language reflects the results
of the unique proposition around which this group is formed, and is not set
against the propositions of other Jewish groups per se, but only where
their assumptions of reality and those of this group intersect and create
this tension. Actually, it is only when this leads to action by other
Jewish interest groups that the problem arises. This action is viewed as
interference, from the point of view of the social control agents of this
group like Paul in Antioch but Paul and the "pillar" apostles in Jerusalem.
At least that is how I take his autobiographical statements here. And I
think he applies them to the Galatian situation, where he believes a
similar kind of interference by non-Christ-believing Jewish interest groups
is also the exigence (note that this identification of those influencing
the Galatians is an important premise of my view against the consensus, and
informs not only the interpretation of the Galatians situation as
intra-Jewish rather than inter-Christian, but also therefore of the
rhetorical purpose of this autobiographical narrative). This argument will
constitute an important part of my forthcoming (God willing) Irony of
Galatians: The Intra-Jewish Context of Paul's Addressees, Fortress Press,
2001.

Faith in Christ and works of Law are not necessarily in conflict, but
Peter's withdrawal has put them in conflict in this instance. Paul is not
calling for the dismissal of halakhah, but appealing to a new
interpretation within these groups on the status of gentiles and thus of
the way to interact with them. Torah need not be violated, they can all eat
Jewishly, but they do not all become Jewish (I am using Jewish and
Israelite interchangeably).

If they were all eating Jewishly at Antioch and Peter was still intimidated
into withdrawing because of an interpretation of Jewish honor that was
threatened thereby, then he has gone against the interpretation of Jewish
honor within this group of Christ-believers, an agreement to which he was
an important party (2:1-10), and upon which terms he had been "walking"
(i.e., doing halakhah: eating in this case; v. 12).

The works of Law here is not about eating Jewishly or not, but about
identification as Jewish/Israelite people or not: is faith in/of Christ
reserved for Israel, or is it for all of the other nations too? Does it
mark a step in Israel's restoration only, or is this step in Israel's
restoration a step in the awaited restoration of all of humankind? Paul is
saying that Peter's misstep undermines the latter choices, but it is these
that they both believe are the case. Thus Paul accuses Peter of hypocrisy,
of walking with a masked face so that what he really believes is not
evident, because he wants to save face with another Jewish interest group
(the ones for/from circumcision) that does not maintain the
Christ-believing view; but he does not accuse him of apostasy or heresy,
i.e., of believing what this other interest group believes against the
beliefs of this group of which he has been a part, that is, in Christ and
the principles which thus follow (for gentile inclusion as equals without
becoming proselytes, which Paul calls the truth of the gospel: vv. 2, 5,
14). This is a new way of doing things, and it is not popular with Jewish
people or groups who do not share the premise upon which it is predicated,
i.e., faith in/of Christ. That is the point of Paul's turn from a
representative of the traditional way of regarding this to a new way based
on the revelation of Christ to himself (1:13-16), the point around which
this entire autobiographical narrative turns.

I hope this is clear. I have labored the point because it is not so obvious
on the surface of one verse, since we come to it with our guns already
loaded. I hope I have clarified some of the context of this statement in a
way that makes my different view clear and perhaps persuasive. I have
written about this particular point in the appendix in Mystery of Romans
entitled Peter's hypocrisy (Gal. 2) in the Light of Paul's Anxiety (Rom.
7). Perhaps if you read this it will help you understand my way of
interpreting this passage and incident, and unpack some more of the
assumptions of the tradition views, and my own.

Regards,
Mark Nanos
Kansas City and
Postgraduate student at Univ. of St. Andrews