Corpus-Paul

[Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>]

Hello Moon,

You’ve offered a lot to consider. I will respond at
points where you especially grabbed my attention:

> Your position makes the referent of "we" and "you"
> in 
> 3:10-14, 3:23-29, or 4:1-10, the same, i.e. the
> Gentiles.
> It  reminds me of LLoyd Gaston, who said on p. 70,
> Paul and the Torah,
> that "does that mean that Paul so identifies with
> the Gentiles
> to whom he is sent that he himself in  a sense HAS
> BECOME
> a GENTILE?". 

While I follow Gaston in many respects, comments like
this raise my hackles. Paul remained Jewish and never
“thought of himself as a Gentile” in any sense -- even
if his rhetoric could be construed as implying that on
linguistic grounds. I know it’s hazardous to bring
Acts into the picture, but assuming for the sake of
argument that texts like Acts 21:26 and 16:3 are
historically accurate, when coupled with those like
Rom. 3:2,9:4-5,11:1,14:1-15:6, Philip. 3:4b-6, etc.,
it’s clear that Paul’s heritage continued to impinge
on his identity as a Christ-believer.

> Q1. It seems to be strange linguistically speaking
> to use different
> pronouns "we" and "you" to refer to the same group
> in the same paragraph,
> e.g. 3.25-26, and 4:6.

It does seem strange, admittedly, but Paul thrived on
linguistic imprecisions (maybe to give later exegetes
something to argue over). Seriously, with the “we’s”
Paul includes himself with his converts -- though he
himself had never experienced the Torah as a “curse”
(3:13) anymore than he had ever lived as a pagan (4:3)
-- in the way religious leaders naturally identify
with their own flock, while the “you’s” emphasize that
the new age has dawned precisely for the benefit of
these Gentiles (“we” no longer appropriate for this
particular emphasis). Maybe this doesn’t seem very
strange after all.

> Here the boy under the pedagogue was the dear son of
> the father, the heir
> to
> the father. He was temporarily under the pedagogue.
> Though the body 
> did not like the pedagogue time to time, actually
> the pedagogue was the
> symbol that the boy belonged to the father who was
> rich and powerful.
> SO WITH US the JEWS! They were dear sons of God the
> Father, but when they
> were
> very young, they were enslaved by the pedagogue.
> Because the Gentiles were
> not sons of God the Father at all, the pedagogue
> analogy does not apply to them.

Yikes! Nihls Dahl warned against treating Judaism as
hyper-exclusivistic. I don’t agree at all with the way
you’ve stated this. Granted that some first-century
Jews had extremist notions, most believed Yahweh was
the God of Gentiles and would provide for them. How
this would happen, and under what conditions, was
where controversy set in. 

> I wonder
> what is your position
> on the works of the law. . .
> I take the works of the
> Law as the deeds
> commanded by the Law which identify the Jewish
> people as Jewish, as the
> people of God. The works of the Law includes of
> course circumcision,
> dietary
> laws, as James Dunn argued. 

I agree with Dunn’s (and your) interpretation of
“works of the law” as referring to Jewish identity
markers as opposed to “deeds in general”. This has
been Dunn’s significant contribution to the ongoing
debate. But there are those texts which speak of the
law as a whole, which unfortunately Dunn doesn’t like
to acknowledge. (Thus, for instance, his exegesis
works well for Rom. 3-4, but not for Rom. 5-8.)


To sum up, we probably agree more than disagree, Moon.
But our disagreement hinges on a crucial point: My
conviction is that whenever Paul speaks of the law in
a negative way, he does so only in so far as how it
effects Gentiles (so Gaston and Gager -- though I do
depart from their own interpretations on several
points). This point of disagreement effects how we’re
inclined to speculate about Paul’s relationship to the
other apostles. . . and how they, in turn, were
inclined to see him.

Thanks for the lengthy post, Moon. These are the kind
of issues I need to get sorted out as I pull together
ideas for a historical novel on Paul.

Best wishes, and please get that sleep you need.

Loren Rosson III,
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com

 


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