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corpus-paul - Re: The theme of Rom 5 - 8

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  • From: "moon-ryul jung" <moon AT sogang.ac.kr>
  • To: corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: The theme of Rom 5 - 8
  • Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 11:27:11 -0400


> Moon,
>
> You mentioned that you have not read Alan Segal's
> "Paul the Convert". I strongly recommend it to you.
> Considering your general approach to Romans and
> Galatians, this book is rather essential reading.

Loren, thanks. I will try.
Here are some comments.

> 1. Paul refers to the prelapsarian period (Adam/Eve in
> Eden). Segal objects that "a personal reading of Rom 7
> would logically rule out this meaning. Moreover,
> Paul's language is clearly inappropriate for a
> description of Paradise". As this happens to be my
> view, I will return to it below.
>
>> 5. Paul refers to his experience with the Torah AFTER
> his conversion. This was the route of Augustine and
> Luther (the chief villains from our "new
> perspective"), and so it's all the more amazing that
> this is the route taken by Segal (as well as Dunn and
> Nanos).............. When Paul quotes the
> tenth commandment, 'thou shalt not covet'...Paul is
> speaking of the covetousness of depending on fleshy
> marks for religious justification...Paul is saying
> that he enjoys doing the ceremonial Torah, but it is a
> trap for him...

> Mark Nanos agrees that Paul speaks personally in Rom
> 7: "Paul's struggle with sin in Rom 7 was with the
> temptation Paul knew to covet the status of
> circumcision and the gift of the Torah, thereby
> excluding the uncircumcised from equality, a struggle
> he was able to overcome only through faith in
> Christ..." ("Mystery of Romans", pp 360-361). But
> Nanos -- rightly, in my view -- rejects Segal's
> assumption that Paul ever chose to give up the Jewish
> ceremonial Torah as a way of escaping this supposed
> "trap". But of course, I disagree with both Nanos and
> Segal that this particular trap is even the subject of
> Rom 7.
>

As I noted in my previous post, I at the moment
conjecture that in Rom 7:1-6, Paul talks about how
"we" the Jews are released from the law so that
they do not require the Gentiles to do the works
of the law and thereby to become Jews, in order to
admitted into the people of God. When they were
in the flesh, they were under the passions of sin
that is due to the law, which were the passions of
sin caused by the fact that they were entrusted the law,
thus being the people of the covenant. Those
passions prevented them from accepting Gentiles as
Gentiles into the grace of God.

But the descriptions of the law in the rest of the chapter,
however, do not seem to be related to this Jewish attitude
due to the posession of the law. Here Paul seems to digress
to defend the law: Although the posession of the law caused
the Jews to adopt exclusivism with respect to the entrance
into the grace of God, it is only because they, as human, were
weak, not because there was something wrong with the law.
Like you, I believe "I" here is purely rhetorical,
rather than reflecting personal experience.
Rom 7:7-25 is a parenthesis, so to speak. It does not add
any contribution to the main flow of the letter, except for
the clarification that the law is not sin.

I am also quite puzzled at the interpretation that
"thou shall not covet" refers to the covetness for
the status of the Law-people. I think Paul illustrates
his point (the law is not sin, but it only lets humans know
what sin is) by means of the commandment that most would
concede they violated.

Rom 8 continues the main theme of the letter, saying that
the requirement of the law are fulfilled in "us" Gentiles
who do not walk according to FLESH (" that is,
who do not rely on the "works of the law") but according to Spirit.
Though "we" Gentiles do not the "works of the law", we
fulfill the requirement of the law! Isn't it a nice
defense of the inclusion of the Gentiles into the people of God?

Yes, the problems of the inclusion of the Gentiles into the
people of God are resolved in Rom 1-4. But in Rom 5-8,
Paul, I think, further explains it and derive implications
from it. This in turn gives his defense of the inclusion of the
Gentiles more sold grounds.

Another reason I want to hold fast to the running thread of
the inclusion of the Gentiles into the grace of God, is that
I would like to make a coherent sense of the letter as an occasional
letter. If the inclusion of the Gentiles into the people of God
was the main issue of the letter, the reader is supposed to
be biased to take statements of the letter to be relevant
to this issue one way or another. This is why the mention of
"we" the UNGODLY, the SINNERS, the ENEMIES in chapter 5 reminds
me of the issue of the inclusion of the Gentiles. In other
contexts, they words would not trigger such a thing. But in
the context of the Roman letter, these words reminds me of
the issue. These words are typically used to decribe the
Gentiles.





> Indeed, option (1) above -- dismissed out of hand by
> Segal -- is the most natural reading! As I've been at
> great pains to argue in past threads, there are too
> many explicit allusions to the Genesis story in Rom
> 7:7-13, and too much exaggerated anguish in Rom
> 7:14-25, to take the chapter seriously from a personal
> point of view. The "I" of Rom 7 seems clearly
> rhetorical, referring to either "Adam" (in vv 7-13) or
> a pagan-persona "Medea" (in vv 14-25). To restrict the
> language of "coveting" in this chapter to mean
> "coveting Jewish status" is as restrictive (if not
> quite as artificial) as option (2), above.
>

Good. But the allusions to Genesis would not make these
passages talk about the universal human plight under the law.
It would be sufficient to take them to clarify that
the law is not sin, even though those who posess the
law may commit the sin of pride by excluding Gentiles as equal.

Thanks for interaction. It helps me clarify myself, and
think more. Thinking is painful. So, I need some triggers
and conversation partners. Thanks for all this.

Moon
Moon R. Jung
Sogang Univ,
Seoul, Korea




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