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  • From: Jeffrey Krantz <jkrantz AT optonline.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Paul's intelligibility withing his Judaism...
  • Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 15:51:48 -0400


After finishing Neil Elliot's book, _Liberating Paul_, I went back to
have another look at E.P. Sanders' _Paul and Palestinian Judaism_. As
Neil pointed out, there remains in most post-Sanders Pauline scholarship
the question of Paul's intelligibilty in his Jewish context. Sanders
grounds this, at least to the best of my ability to read him, in the
function of "righteousness" within Tannaitic literature (a means of
*remaining* in, the covenant being the vehicle that *gets* one in)
versus the function in Paul, (where it serves to *get* one in, even
though this righteousness is not "earned.")

Neil seems to base most of his response to the question of Paul's
intelligibility on two things, 1) a re-interpretation, a la
Frederickson, of Paul's "conversion", that is only from one
understanding of apocalyptic Judaism to another (from a quietist to an
active one, is my understanding) and 2) that Paul wrote to almost
entirely Gentile churches.

Now, I think that I understand how this works as a response to Sanders
et al, but I'd like to rehearse it here, and if I've misread or
misunderstood, my hope is that someone else on the list familiar with
Neil's book (or maybe even Neil?) can straighten me out. (I do wish
Neil had taken on Sanders more explicitly!)

Okay, here's how I'd read it. 1) The question of apocalypticism in
Paul's thought doesn't seem to play too strongly in this part of the
argument regarding Paul's "intelligibility."

2) Neil suggests that Paul's concern with observance of Torah is an
argument with Gentiles who are trying to *use* observance to "get in" as
Sanders would put it. It is not that he sees that as the proper
understanding of the Jew's relationship to Torah, but that he argues
against it as a Gentile response. (p. 134 in Elliot) Therefore,
intelligibility within Judaism is a misplaced category for this
argument? Paul is essentially silent regarding this.

This may seem painfully obvious to all of you, and I appreciate your
patience. Having been "brought up" in a Sanders/Pauline mode, I'm
trying to make sense of what I'm reading in light of that.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Jeff Krantz

--
Jeffrey H. Krantz
Church of the Advent, Westbury, NY
Mercer School of Theology, Garden City, NY
Homepage http://www.agapenetwork.org






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