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  • From: Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: John Gager's "Reinventing Paul"
  • Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 08:22:55 -0700 (PDT)



--- Loren Rosson wrote:

> > Gager hammers home the point that Paul had nothing
> > against the law in so far as how it related to the
> > Jewish people, that all negative devaluations of
> the
> > Torah found in Galatians and Romans applied to
> > Gentiles and Gentiles alone.

--- David Miller wrote:

> How does he deal with Paul's use of the first person
> plural (e.g. Gal 3:13
> "Christ redeemed *us* from the curse of the
> law...")? Does he discuss Phil
> 3:7-9?


Hello David,

Gager believes that Paul uses the rhetorical “we” in
Gal. 3:13 (in the same way he uses the well-known
rhetorical “I” in Rom. 7:7-25). And I agree with Gager
on this point. But no, he does not discuss Philip.
3:7-11 at any length (nor II Cor. 3:7-11, for that
matter, the passage Paul Toseland mentioned in his
insightful posting), which is a serious weakness.
Basically the book is a user-friendly piece geared
toward non-specialists, focusing almost exclusively on
Galatians and Romans. Because of this, some of the
arguments are oversimplified.

I agree with Antonio Jerez that Stendahl, Gaston, and
Gager have been indulging in “wishful thinking” when
it comes to Rom. 11. But despite my aggressive
disagreement with them on this point, I’m glad for
their arguments. Moreover, a two-path plan of
salvation may not be quite as far-fetched as commonly
assumed. We know the Essenes believed in the coming of
at least two messiahs, if not two different paths to
salvation. . . But in any case, Paul’s writings do
speak for themselves. Even Gager acknowledges (on p.
60) that Paul envisions the messiah subjecting
everything to himself at the end of all things (I Cor.
15:24-28), and that for the apostle “there are not two
peoples of God but one” (p. 61). This, of course, is
inconsistent with also insisting that Paul preached
salvation through the messiah as a “special path” for
Gentiles only, but Gager’s inconsistency will serve
the purpose of stimulating further debate and
refinement of theories on both sides.

Loren Rosson III,
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com

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