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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT home.com>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: the role of the law in salvation-history
  • Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 12:56:13 -0500


on 10/1/01 12:09 PM, Billy LeJeune at billyl AT wcs.edu wrote:

> Against the inference of 5:3, what would be wrong with my using Gal. 4:
> 25-26 to show that Paul has two Israels in mind. He is a practicing Jew
> from the Israel from above (New Israel or whatever). What do you do with
> Paul turning the historical event upside down to say present day
> Jerusalem is a decendant of Hagar? Is it overstatement? Is this the kind
> of talk in Paul where Wright gets the idea that present day Israel is
> equated with or no better than pagans?

Billy,
I do not think that Paul thought in terms of two Israels. This example is
allegorical. I do not think that for Paul the church is Israel (no new
Israel, true Israel, etc., except for Israelites), but Wright does, and this
is the traditional view, although described slightly differently. That is a
supersessionist approach that I do not think represents Paul; I think he
would be shocked to learn that it was attributed to him.

I think Paul keeps in view two different entities (Israel and the Church).
Historical Israel is distinct from the other nations of God's creation, and
it is the service of restoring all of these nations for which Israel is
chosen to know and live in righteousness. But the dawning of the age to come
in this age brings about a new community--a new creation--wherein, in the
present age, members of Israel and of the nations together worship the One
God of all creations, as will be realized in fullness when the end of the
ages has finally arrived in fullness. In the meantime Israel is in a sense
divided, but not in the sense that the church replaces Israel, just in the
sense that Israel is suffering during this conflicting period of overlapping
ages, and the church, composed of "some" of Israel along with "some" of the
nations together are to manifest in their new community that which they
confess to have dawned. These members of the nations are in some way
associates of Israel without becoming Isrealites, which would require
proselyte conversion, and that Paul denies to the non-Israelite members of
these groups.

In the allegory in Gal. 4 I think the contrast is between the prevailing
traditional convention for including non-Jews, by proselyte conversion, with
the revealed way since the dawning of the age to come in Jesus, by faith
apart from becoming Isrealites. Paul's Law-observant lifestyle is witness to
his continuity with historical Israel, but his policy of bringing in
gentiles and claiming for them full and equal membership, as though
proselytes, but without them becoming proselytes, is witness to his
conviction that the awaited day for Israel is dawning. It is for this
disputed (and dangerous communal) claim toward these non-proselytized
gentiles (which imposes upon all other Israelites who do not share his
conviction) that Paul says he is persecuted (they would say, disciplined),
not for his faith in Jesus Christ per se (see Gal. 5:11).

In the allegory Paul is using dissociating rhetoric (cf. Perelman, New
Rhetoric) to distinguish his Israelite approach (including with him the
other members of this coalition, such as the other apostles) from that of
other Israelites who do not agree about his approach to these gentiles,
non-Israelites. Paul wants these gentiles to trust his understanding of the
right Israelite approach to them over that of the rival Israelite approach
on offer. A Baptist today might try to use such an approach to distinguish
among Baptists, those who are "true" Baptists from the rest of the Baptists.

In short, I think the concerns raised in my previous post are in no way
mitigated by the implications of this allegory. To the degree that Paul is a
practicing Jew, this is as an Israelite of the present and future ages.
Non-Jews are not Israelites now or then, but members of God's creation from
the other nations. Keeping this distinction in view as one reads Paul is, in
my view, one of the most critical principles for reading Paul's rhetoric in
context and not universalizing what he says with particular points in view.

Regards,
Mark

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






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