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  • From: "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT mailhost.chi.ameritech.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: justification: a pre-Pauline doctrine?
  • Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 21:19:34 -0500


Liz Fried wrote:

> Along with this I've been wondering about the notion of Natural Law. It is a
> Platonic notion I believe. Conversations recorded in the Talmud between a
> rabbi and a Gentile discuss the notion of Natural Law and compare it with
> the Oral Law. The concept of natural law of course preceded Paul. When Paul
> discusses gentiles who are righteous naturally, could he be referring to the
> Platonic concept of natural law? If so, could this Platonic concept be
> Paul's source for justification without the Torah? (I'm sorry, I don't have
> my NT with me at present, so I can't give you the verses where he refers to
> gentiles keeping the law naturally.)
>

I think it's safe to say that It is more likely, whether or not Plato is the
ultimate
source for the concept of Natural Law (assuming we understand what that is),
that IF
this is what Paul is talking about when he speaks in Rom 2:13-16 of Gentiles
who do
not have the Law nevertheless sometimes "keeping the Law" -- and there is
good reason
(see Dunn) to say that he is not so speaking, that Paul has derived the
concept from
Stoicism which emphasized a connection between the LOGOS by which human beings
reasoned and the LOGOS or world sold which permeated the universe and
provided it with
order.

As to the ultimate source for Paul's belief that justification occurs apart
from
"works of the Law", I would look to his "call" experience as the source for
this, not
Plato. Indeed, is there any evidence at all in Paul -- let alone the kind of
evidence
found in Philo -- for anything in Paul's teaching or thought that smacks of
Paul's
knowing or using the (neo)Platonism that was being promulgated in Paul's
day, even as
a vehicle for promoting what he had to say to those who we might expect to
have been
familiar with it? Does even Luke's portrait of Paul give us this impression?

My money is on "No".

Yours,

Jeffrey
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson
7423 N. Sheridan Road #2A
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000 AT ameritech.net






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