Corpus-Paul

["Gary Burnett" <gwburn AT ntlworld.com>]

I'm thinking about the background to Romans and specifically about the level
of tension between Jews & Gentiles in the Roman church.

The generally accepted background these days for Romans is based on the
expulsion and then subsequent return of Jews to Rome due to an edict of
Claudius around 49. You're all familiar with this - Suetonius's report about
the disturbance amongst the Jews due to "Chrestus", which most scholars take
to mean Christ and therefore that there was a serious enough dispute between
Jewish followers of Jesus and other Jews that Claudius expelled the lot of
them. And so, after Claudius, when the returning Christian Jews come back to
Rome to find a gentile church which was rapidly losing touch with its Jewish
roots, all sorts of tensions arose. Hence Paul in his letter in circa 57 has
to deal with Gentile superiority, appeal to the Gentiles not to lose their
Jewish roots and to present his ideas about God's future for Israel.

And, of course, with this background taken for granted, chapter 14's strong
and weak seem to fit nicely into the 2 groups of Jewish & Gentile Christians
who are increasingly polarised.

But in Acts 28, where after arriving in Rome around 60 and being welcomed by
the Romans Christians, Paul meets with the
Jewish leaders. He's worried about what they've heard about him from
Jerusalem. Not only, it transpires, have they not heard anything negative
about him - they seem very vague about the Roman Christian group. They've
heard negative rumours about the Jesus "sect", and want Paul to explain
about it. But they really appear not to be familiar with the Christians in
their own city.

Which seems rather strange, given that within the last 10-12 years, on the
Chrestus=Christ hypthesis, there was a major blow up within the Jewish
community over this sect. So, how do we explain this?

There certainly was an explusion of Jews from Rome - Acts 18 referring to
Aquila & Prisca specifically supports Suetonius. But how does this tally
with Acts 28?

1. Luke tells the story in Acts 28 in a certain way so as to make Paul
appear the real founder of the Roman church; or has the Jewish leaders
deliberately sounding vague so as to encourage Paul to give his point of
view about the Christians
2. Chrestus does not mean Christ and so the dispute in 49 was not to do with
the Jewish Christians.

Mark Nanos, for one, assumes the latter, which suits his purposes, given he
proposes a Christian group in Rome which was still very much part of the
synagogue.

I'm interested, then, in any comments you might have on this.

And what puzzles me further about all this is this: let's assume the
Chrestus=Christ idea. Most scholars assume that when the exiled Jewish
Christians came back to Rome they didn't fit in well with a new
Gentile-looking church and that tensions began to simmer. But how realistic
is this, I wonder? If these Jewish Christians had, indeed been exiled for
having had such a fierce allegience to Jesus that it had caused a serious
disturbance with fellow Jews - having  a faith in Jesus that was obviously
deemed to be in opposition to Judaism - then why would their return have
caused any problem for their fellow believers? These people patently weren't
"Judaisers" - surely they would have been welcomed with open arms by the
remaining members of the church, having stood up for their faith and
suffered for it. So it seems to me that a Claudius/Chrestus=Christ exile
doesn't lead at all logically to the idea of Jew-Gentile tensions within the
Roman church by the time of Paul's letter.

Actually to posit Jew-Gentile tensions at Rome, you might be better off not
holding to the Chrestus=Christ idea, because then that gives you some
latitude for making suppositions about the outlook of the returning Jews who
were Christians.

Anyway, there are some thoughts - I'd be interested in your responses...


Gary W Burnett
Queens University Belfast



----- Original Message -----
From: "Corpus-paul digest" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
To: "corpus-paul digest recipients" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 4:00 AM
Subject: corpus-paul digest: October 27, 2002


> CORPUS-PAUL Digest for Sunday, October 27, 2002.
>
> 1. Re: Antitheses
> 2. Re: Antitheses
> 3. Re: Antitheses
> 4. Re: Antitheses
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: Re: Antitheses
> From: "Stephen C. Carlson" <scarlson AT mindspring.com>
> Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 01:27:15 -0400
> X-Message-Number: 1
>
> At 09:57 PM 10/23/02 -0700, Peter Kirby wrote:
> >Other than the assumption of authenticity (and scholarly opinion), what
> >would indicate that the Pastorals were written before 140?
>
> Well, there's not a whole lot to go on, but the church government
> espoused in the Pastorals appears more primitive than the monarchical
> episcopate championed by Ignatius in the early second century.  This
> approach, of course, may raise more questions that it can answer.
>
> Stephen Carlson
> --
> Stephen C. Carlson                        mailto:scarlson AT mindspring.com
> Synoptic Problem Home Page   http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/
> "Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: Re: Antitheses
> From: Billy Evans <biblewje AT comcast.net>
> Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 13:13:09 -0600
> X-Message-Number: 2
>
> on 10/26/02 11:27 PM, Stephen C. Carlson at scarlson AT mindspring.com wrote:
>
> > At 09:57 PM 10/23/02 -0700, Peter Kirby wrote:
> >> Other than the assumption of authenticity (and scholarly opinion), what
> >> would indicate that the Pastorals were written before 140?
> >
> > Well, there's not a whole lot to go on, but the church government
> > espoused in the Pastorals appears more primitive than the monarchical
> > episcopate championed by Ignatius in the early second century.  This
> > approach, of course, may raise more questions that it can answer.
> >
> > Stephen Carlson
> > --
> > Stephen C. Carlson                        mailto:scarlson AT mindspring.com
> > Synoptic Problem Home Page   http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/
> > "Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35
> >
> > ---
> > You are currently subscribed to corpus-paul as: biblewje AT comcast.net
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>
> didn't Lightfoot settle this question?
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: Re: Antitheses
> From: Peter Kirby <kirby AT earthlink.net>
> Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 11:44:41 -0800
> X-Message-Number: 3
>
> On Sunday 27 October 2002 11:13 am, Billy Evans wrote:
> > didn't Lightfoot settle this question?
>
> Do you have a book and page number?
>
> --=20
> Peter Kirby (Student at Fullerton College, CA)
> 11:43am up 57 min, Mandrake Linux 9.0, kernel 2.4.19-16mdk on AMD Athlon =
> 750
> Web Site: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/
>
> When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know=
>  a
> thing, to allow that you do not know it - this is knowledge. -- Confucius
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: Re: Antitheses
> From: Billy Evans <biblewje AT comcast.net>
> Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 15:18:43 -0600
> X-Message-Number: 4
>
> on 10/27/02 1:44 PM, Peter Kirby at kirby AT earthlink.net wrote:
>
> > On Sunday 27 October 2002 11:13 am, Billy Evans wrote:
> >> didn't Lightfoot settle this question?
> >
> > Do you have a book and page number?
>  The ref wasn't where I thought it was but I found one that stated what
Dodd
> and Lightfoot would argue for:  if gnostic ideas were not what the
pastorals
> were addressing, there is no reason to doubt a 1st century date.  (ISBE
> 3:685) What Lightfoot did was to show quotations in the apostolic fathers
> but I have no idea where I saw it right now.  I'll keep thinking.  Of
> course, I don't think a late date would make a lot of sense regarding Paul
> telling Tim to lead in spite of his age.  Someone could fictionalize that
to
> endorse their own youthful aspirations for leadership but wouldn't someone
> have caught him and a tome have been written about the incident?
>
> only a probably to be sure but that is the postmodern limitation is it
not?
>
> billy
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
> END OF DIGEST
>
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