Corpus-Paul

[Frich107 AT aol.com]

Mark,

Thanks for your e-mail. Sorry about my mis-reading of 'Mystery'. Having 
re-read your arguments, perhaps with a more alery frame of mind, I see my 
mistake. Although I remain unsure that I agree with your reading of the 
'weak' being Torah obervant Jews, as opposed to Torah observant Jewish 
Christians, I can follow your line of thought well, and am almost persuaded.

You speak of the disputable things being those that Paul mentions in chapter 
14 (and I would certainly agree with that). Would you limit these things that 
were being discussed/disputed in the synagogue in Rome to those issues alone, 
or do you think they would be wider ranging? In particular, would you not 
feel it reasonable to postulate that another issue of disagreement would 
likely be the identity of Jesus?

I suppose the one major stumbling block in your argument for me is the common 
ground that you discuss. You speak of that being related to the quotation 
that Paul makes from Isaiah 45, and hence is being able to worship God 
together (in the synagogue context). Now undoubtedly that would be common 
ground between Christians and Jews in First Century Rome. However, would Paul 
really be speaking to the Roman Christians, asking them to not just accept 
Jews but worship with them when they had a rather different view of Jesus' 
identity? It is the thought of worship being the shared ground without 
agreement about Jesus that I find hard to accept. Maybe I am being 
anachronistic here.

Regards,

Fred Rich.
Ph.D. Student,
Department of Biblical Studies,
University of Sheffield.