Corpus-Paul

["Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT home.com>]

Moon, Loren, and other participants in this discussion,

I am sorry to be so late to the conversation you had, having been a part of
its beginnings before being away from my computer. I just want to say how
much I enjoyed catching up on it; great work. I especially appreciate the
grammatical logic and the spirit of the effort Moon has made to challenge
the prevailing view, which has not generally (or sufficiently) concerned
itself with how the traditional logic applied to translation and
interpretation has failed to account for Jewish sensibilities on the part of
Paul (if he was still a Jew, that is) or the Jewish people among his target
gentile addressees in Rome, who are an important part of the author's
perception of the exigence provoking this letter. The language of Romans
needs to be grounded in a hypothesized first century context of Jews and
non-Jews if we are to escape the limitations of previous approaches, which
for the most part (IMO) have and continue to read this as though a
theological oration in the Middle Ages among Roman Catholics.

Regards,
Mark
-- 
Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
313 NE Landings Dr.
Lee's Summit, MO 64064
USA
nanosmd AT home.com

on 2/2/01 1:10 AM, moon-ryul jung at moon AT saint.soongsil.ac.kr wrote:

> Dear Loren,
> 
> Now our basic difference is that whereas
> I think we cannot derive "If you are under the Law, sin will be
> the master of you" from "If you are not under the Law but under grace,
> sin will not be the master of you", you thin we can.
> 
> I think it would be interesting what assumptions makes the differenc.
> See below for my comments on your response.
> 
> Let me use logic again to help us. Let U be the set of all situations.
> Let L be the set of situations in which "you are under the Law" holds.
> Let  C(L) be the complement of L with respect to U. C(L) is the set of
> situations in which "you are not under the Law". U is divided into
> L and C(L). 
> 
> U
> -------------------
> |        |         |
> |  L     | C(L)    |
> |        |         |
> -------------------
> 
> Let NLG be the set of situations in which "you are not under the Law
> but under grace" holds. NLG is a subset of C(L). Let G be the
> set of situations in which "you are under grace" holds. NLG is in fact the
> intersection of C(L) and G. IT is not necessarily implied that
> G is contained in C(L). G may overlap both L and C(L).
> Note that logically speaking (a) "you are not under the Law and under
> grace"
> denotes the same set of situations as (b) "you are not under the Law but
> under
> grace". The fact is that we do not normally use (a) in natural language.
> 
> What we know is this:
> The fact that "you" are in NLG, which is a subset of C(L),
> provides the basis for "sin will not be the master of you".
> 
> Suppose that "you" are in L, that is, "you are under the Law".
> It is beyond logic to infer "sin will be the master of you" from
> this assumption.
> 
> [Loren]
> 
>> Your contention is that “under the law” and “under
>> grace” are not exclusive of each other. So my question
>> still stands. If, in the context of Rom. 6, “being
>> under grace” and “being under the law” go
>> significantly hand-in-hand, why did Paul state the
>> matter in a way that makes “grace” and “law” sound
>> like opposites (regardless of nuances in logic)?
>> 
> [Moon]
> Good question. I will answer using the above analysis
> ( I will use the set notations, L, C(L), G).
> 
> The fact that "under the Law" and
> "under grace" are not exclusive of each other is not the
> issue that Paul has in mind here.
> What he wanted to point out was not simply the fact that
> "you are not under the Law" ("you" are C(L)), but
> the fact that "you are under grace" ("you" are in G)
> within C(L). It may be that G ("under grace") is
> a subset of C(L) ("not under the grace"). But not necessarily.
> 
> Consider:
> 
> Mary did not go to the hospitial, but she got medical treatment from
> her friend-doctor.
> 
> Here it is obvious that the medical treatment can be gotten from
> the hospital as well as from the friend. Namely
> "getting medical treatment" is not necessarily a subset of "not
> going to the hospital".
> 
> 
> [Moon]
>>> My attempt is being made under
>>> the assumption that
>>> "under the Law" here should not
>>> be construed as "under the tyranny
>>> of or under the condemnation of
>>> the Law". It should mean here
>>> "under the government of the Law"
>>> (which is positive, at least neutral)
>>> in the same way this phrase is
>>> used in other places.
>> 
> 
> [Loren]
>> I understand what you’re aiming at here. But, at the
>> risk of arguing in a circle, I must repeat that with
>> contexts such as 5:12-21 and 7:7-13 framing the
>> argument of Rom. 5-8 as a whole, we’re dealing with
>> the over-arching epoch of Adam rather than the more
>> specific one of Abraham/Moses. “The government of the
>> law” seems too restrictive to apply in such a context.
>> 
> 
> [Moon]
> I agree that Paul's language in 5:12-21, 7:7-13 could be
> interpreted to talk about the over-arching "slave-like"
> epoch of Adam. That is the usual reading of the texts.
> Such an interpretation has the "side effect"  of making
> "if you are under the Law, sin will be the master of you"
> hold. It also requires hUPO NOMON to mean more than
> "under the government of the Law", e.g. to mean "
> under the tyranny of the Law" or something like that.
> Both of these side effects are at odd with the standard
> Jewish understanding of Judaism, as you know. For example,
> Mark Nanos, as a Jewish scholar, would not accept any interpretations
> that have these side effects. One might say that Paul had a greater
> insight into the nature of the Law than the Jewish scholars of Judaism
> and said things about the Law that they could not say.
> 
> I am, however, trying to find a way to legitimately interpret Paul
> without producing such side effects.
> 
> Moon
> Moon-Ryul Jung
> Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea