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  • From: Antonio Jerez <antonio.jerez AT privat.utfors.se>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Paul as apostate (was:Paul Not a Pharisee?)
  • Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 22:12:31 +0100


Dear Mark Nanos,
I had at first thought of replying immediately to your latest message in
our ongoing discussion, but then I changed my mind. The
reason is that I started reading your book "The mystery of
Romans" a couple of days ago and have been immersed in
it during my spare time. Now I believe it might be better if I wait
with replying to your earlier message until I've finished reading
the book, since your book appear to answer a lot of the questions
I have been trying to straighten out about your overall thesis. I have
got through about half of the book and have found a lot of interesting
thoughts to chew on. Some things, like your reading of Romans 9-11
strike me as basically right, though I think you overlook a small
detail that is very important for understanding Paul's view on the "Church"
visavi Israel. I hope to return to this in a later message during the weekend.

So as not to leave emptyhanded today I still think I will discuss one
particular chapter of your book that I found full of ideas that run against
the stream - chapter 3 "Who were the "weak" and the "strong" in Rome.
As you point out the conventional wisdom among pauline experts seem
to be that the "strong" are lawfree christian-gentiles who in some way
disdain their jewish-christian brethren who don't want to give up the Law
for pure faith in Jesus Christ. I must admit that I have myself been wedded
to the conventional wisdom - until now. Your arguments made me rethink
quite a lot since yesterday and today I became quite convinced that there
you may very well have got it right when you claim that the "weak" are
not jewish-christians but non-christian Jews in Rome who stuck to the Law
and didn't believe in Jesus Christ. So it happened that I was on your side
until just a couple of hours ago this Thursday evening. That was when I sat
down again in my sofa and tried to reread Romans again through your
"lenses". And that was when I got into trouble. I tried, and I tried but I
simply
couldn't get a totally coherent picture of Paul's rethoric when I read chapter
1-11 with your interpretation of the identity of "weak" and "strong" in mind.
To see that "weak" as Jews didn't make sense to me in light of what Paul
says in those chapters. But then I still couldn't make much more sense out
of the old notion that the "weak" were Jewish-Christians. Then it suddenly
struck me: what if both the conventional wisdom and Mark Nanos have got
it wrong? What if BOTH the "weak" and the "strong" are christian-gentiles in
the Roman "Church"? I took a look again at the footnotes in chapter 3 in your
book to see if some scholar had earlier proposed this, and I found that one
such scholar had indeed. On page 87 you write:
" A few scholars suggest, although without convincing even those who call
attention to the suggestion, that the "weak" were actually Christian gentiles
who had not made a complete break from Gnostic or other pagan backgrounds"

The footnote continues: " While several authors cite Rauer's suggestion that
the "weak" were Christian gentiles and while thy may note that it is
inavisable
to allow this thesis to have been largely ignored, they all end up dissmissing
his thesis after a briew review because it simply fails to work".

So I notice after reading the passage in Mark's book that Rauer's thesis
has not convinced a single scholar. But what if Rauer has actually got it
half right? What if the "weak" were actually Christian gentiles, but not of
the kind Rauer imagines - a kind of gnostics? What if we imagine the
"weak" as being Christian gentiles but of a totally different bent - Christian
gentiles who were very, very "Jewish" in ther leanings, far more "Jewish"
than the "strong" who were also Christian gentiles, but of a more Law-free
sort. This is the thaught that suddenly struck me in the sofa tonight. And so
far I think this reading of Romans 14 makes most sense of both the situation
in the Roman Church, the Roman churches relations with more "orthodox"
Jews, their synagogues and Paul's "Law-free" gospel.
I think Mark Nanos may already guess what I am hinting at. The key to
the solution is our agreed premise that there were gentiles who associated
with the Jews in differing degrees and were further away or closer to the
ultimate step of circumcision.

Best wishes

Antonio Jerez
Göteborg, Sweden





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