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  • From: "伊藤明生" <akioitojapan AT nrm.root.or.jp>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: the law of faith/the law of works?
  • Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 14:06:50 +0900


Dr. McGinn,
Thanks for asking and sorry for being unclear.
I am thinking of the expressions in Rom 3:27. Traditionally the nomos here
was taken to refer to a principle rather than the Jewish law. However, most
of recent commentaries seem to understand it in terms of the Jerwish law:
the nomos pistews is understood as the Jewish law seen in terms of faith,
and the nomos ergwn as the Jewish law seen in terms of works. In the
cobntext of 3:27 the question of the Jewish law is central as can be seen in
3:31. I am wondering if it legitimate to take the nomos pistews as the
Jewish law concerning faith, and the nomos ergwn as the Jewish law
concerning works in analogy with the ho nomos tou andros in Rom 7:2, which
probably refers to the Jewish law concerning man(marriage). This
construction of the nomos with a genitive noun is, as far as I can tell, the
most common and natural way to interepret tht phrases in the Hellenistic
literature like Josephus.
Then the next question concerns how ths understanding fits into the context
of Rom 3. I do not know about the phrases in Rom 8:2, but at least here in
Rom 3:27 Paul next turns to the biblical passages coincerning Abraham in
chapter 4. We can probably call the passages cocnerning Abraham treated in
Rom 4 as the Jewish law concering faith. The connection between 3:27-31 and
ch.4 is obvious. Paul has started a new section in view of establishing the
lsast sentence of ch. 3. The thesis of ch.4 is that we establish, not anull,
the (Jewish) law by faith. Paul has started with the reference to the
exclusion of boasting both in 3:27 and 4:2.
To me the above makes some sense. My question to the listers would be how
this sounds like. Is this so obvious that everyone has taken it for granted?
Or is this so stranged that no one has never dreamed of? Or this does not
make sense at all to most/all of you?

Akio ITOU
Tokyo Christian University
Associate Professor




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