Corpus-Paul

[Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>]

Moon, thanks for the observations.

> Romans is a letter addressing a particular 
> problem of the Roman church as is Galatians. 

I agree. I’m persuaded by Mark that in Rome the church
had not yet separated from the synagogue, and that his
audience consisted of Jews and Gentiles, Christians
and non-Christians. 

> That particular problem was the identity crisis
> of Gentile believers with respect to being under
> the government of the 
> Law, in particular, circumcision, 

In Rome the particulars seemed more to involve dietary
laws (14:1-15:13), which Paul actually wanted Gentiles
to abide by so as not to offend their Jewish
associates. This would make the Roman crisis a
mirror-image of the Galatian crisis.

> The Jewish life characterized by hUPO NOMON
> is looked upon  
> not negatively except that it requires the
> Gentiles to get 
> circumcision to get into God's covenant.
> The problem was that they did not see 
> what God was doing at eschaton through 
> Christ. But it does not mean that the Jewish
> life hUPO NOMON was misguided
> and should be put away with in and of itself.
> The life hUPO NOMON was what God requested
> the Jewish people to have, and was good in 
> and of itself. 

I agree with all of this. I’m only questioning that it
is the thrust of chs 5-8.

> We tend to ignore the importance of the 
> distinction 
> between hUPO NOMON and non- hUPO NOMON. 
> But without recognizing the utmost importance of 
> that distinction, it would be easy to 
> universalize the Paul's
> statements on the Law.
       
Good point; I would never want to universalize the
theology in chs 5-8 -- at least, not in the
traditional Lutheran/Augustinian/existenital sense.
The theology of chs 5-8 could be universalized,
however, in an eschatological sense which relates to
Paul’s mystical belief about baptism.

> The Jew-Gentile question was an eschatological
> one as well.

Yes, and the link between the two is made most
explicit in Rom. 3:21-31. 

> Believer's dying at baptism and rising at 
> the end of all things point to the fact that
> the righteousness of God
> has been revealed apart from the Law,

Rom. 3:21!

> and Gentiles can receive God's grace without
> becoming Jews.

Rom. 3:28-30!

> So I see both are closely related. Paul has 
> to establish
> that the righteousness has been revealed without 
> Gentiles becoming the people of the Law, in order to

> say any blessings of the Gentiles in Christ. 

Again, I would agree 100% with your argument if we
were discussing chs 2-4. 


[Loren]
>> Your emphasis
>> on “keeping the law as Law People” gives me the
>> impression that you’re leaning in this direction
>> (somewhat like Dunn). 

[Moon]
> Yes, but I am different from Dunn in that I do 
> not connect "being under the Law, under 
> covenantal nomism" to 
> sin's dominion over them. Dunn says that by 
> sticking to the particularism of the Law, e.g. 
> circumcision, food,days, the Jewish people 
> somehow became victims to sin.

I agree that Dunn is on the wrong track here. But if
he had only realized that the Jewish “particulars of
the law” (circumcision, food, holy days, etc.) were
not the FOCUS of Rom. 5-8, he would not have been led
to a pejorative caricature to begin with -- a
caricature all the more amazing since Dunn, of all
people, takes great pains to avoid these kinds of
anti-Jewish readings. (Perhaps “Anti-Jewish” is a bit
strong.)

I don’t think underscoring an emphasis on covenantal
nomism serves us well in interpreting chs 5-8, which,
as I mentioned before, targets the epoch of Adam
rather than Abraham/Moses. If we understand Rom. 6:14
-- “sin will have no dominion over you if you are not
under the law” -- as referring to the (ideal) state of
a believer in the Kingdom, then we realize that Paul
is not singling out “Jewish commandments” (as he is in
chs 2-4). He is speaking of any commandments, whether
“Noahide” commandments followed by Gentiles (see Rom.
2:14-15, where this idea is discussed in a different
context), or Mosaic commandments followed by Jews. And
if we understand this, then we don’t need to postulate
that Paul doesn’t mean what he says in Rom. 6:14 -- as
you do, when you say:

> The fact that ‘you are under the law’ has 
> nothing to do with the declaration that
> ‘sin will not be the master of you’”.

Do not these two things have everything to do with
each other (as Paul elaborates in 7:7-25)? Isn’t the
eschaton precisely about “putting to death the deeds
of the body so that one may live to God with
perfection” (Rom. 8:13), as was intended from the
start? And since Gentiles are as much in view as Jews
-- for, as you rightly noted at the beginning, God’s
Oneness has everything to do with eschatology -- are
not “Gentile commandments” (Noahide commandments, to
use the anachronism) just as much in view as “Jewish
commandments”? 

> In sum, I need more evidence to accept that the
> life under the Law was and is inherently 
> connected to the life under sin and flesh.

Rom. 5:20-21, 6:14, and 7:7-25 make pretty clear that
Paul believed LIFE under the law was inherently
connected to sin, death, and flesh. But he balked at
the idea that the law ITSELF was one and the same with
these. 5:20-21 and 6:14 perhaps imply this, but 7:7-25
drives a wedge between them. Life under the law, after
all, was part of the epoch of Adam, which is even now
passing away in the interim period between baptism (ch
6) and resurrection (ch 8).

> Hoping for further clarification and fruitful
> discussions.

Yes! Thanks.

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com




__________________________________________________
Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 
a year!  http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/