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  • From: Jeff Krantz <jkrantz AT optonline.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Gal 2:17
  • Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 00:41:04 -0400


As a place of beginning, this initial statement leaves a great deal to be
desired from my point of view.

>402 All human persons are sinners under the law born as such being
>offspring of Adam (cf. Rom. 5,12, 18-19).

>This was a Second Temple Jewish teaching deduced from what was taught by
St.
>Paul, if this method is accepted as valid. The Pauline doctrine regarding
>justification is an expansion on this teaching.

Indeed, "if this method is accepted as valid."

I wonder what any other listers might have to say about Stanley Stowers' _A
Rereading_of_Romans_ and his take on the anachronicity of this particular
way of reading. He maintains (convincingly to this amateur reader) that in
fact first century Judaism did not maintain that sin began with Adam, but
rather that the story of humankind since Adam was one of a "decline of
civilization," a retreat from a golden age.(See his section on "The Absence
of Adam" beginning on page 86.)

Now, I admit that I find Stowers difficult at times, and regret that he
works so hard to make Paul into a Philo-like apologist. (He gives so very
little attention to the mystical side of Paul's experience, (versus Ashton)
so that Paul's letters become much too dry.) But still, he adds a great deal
to the discourse on Romans.

Any discussion that begins with our Catechetical needs, rather than the text
itself and the "encoded readers" (Ah, how I wish that rhetorical exegetes
could avoid all the jargon...) is difficult for me to accept. Granted,
Sanders and Neusner may not be in full agreement, but Sanders' critique of
Christianity's desire to form its image of First Century Judaism to serve
its own doctrinal needs is not a critique with which Neusner quibbled (at
least, as far as I can see.)

I would be happy to see other listers' opinions of Stowers' work.

Yours,

Jeff Krantz


(The Rev.) Jeffrey H. Krantz
Church of the Advent, Westbury, NY
http://www.agapenetwork.org/adventwestbury.htm
Mercer School of Theology







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