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  • From: Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Re: Questions for Paul
  • Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 08:58:05 -0800 (PST)

Mark Nanos asked the apostle Paul:

[much snipped for summary]
>It does seem to me that the curse wishes of
>Gal 1:8-9 and other such negative comments
>supports [an] understanding of you as
>intolerant and condemning those who have
>views other than yours...Unfortunately, I have
>observed some who seem to relish this opportunity
>to judge the other...Yet there is other language
>in your letters that bespeaks tolerance and respect
>(not least Rom 11)...This language leads me to
suspect
>that those who are so bold to judge do so too quickly
>for your taste. So my question is... Should
>[non-Christians, and Christians who understand things
>differently from you] not be respected for the
>nobility of following their own convictions...

Mark,

I'll take a crack at this, but as myself rather than
Paul this time.

I think there is more than enough evidence pointing to
Paul's respect for **Jewish** non-Christians -- "for
the nobility of following their own convictions", as
you say -- though nothing analoguous to Rom 11:1-32 &
14:1-15:6 which would indicate that Paul respected
Gentile non-Christians for the nobility of following
pagan convictions. But naturally the house of Israel
had to be respected. The apostles were part of it;
it's where Christianity came from.

Within the Christian movement Paul could show degrees
of tolerance depending on the issue, the audience,
what the pillars were urging, (and perhaps how his
hemorrhoids were behaving at the time). If John Hurd
is right about the Corinthian correspondences, he may
have been tolerant of Gentile "libertine" behavior
during his first visit (caught up as he was in the
eschatological enthusaism of his early days), then
subsequently tried enforcing the apostolic decree (the
previous letter now lost to us), then, in I
Corinthians, tried mediating between these two
positions based on concerns, confusion, protests, and
questions "about which so-and-so wrote". Respect for
differences? And what about his concession-statements
about women in I Cor 11?

In honor-shame cultures we should expect a lot of
intolerance, at least on the face of things. Because
the publicly defined self so often coincides with the
group-defined self (what is expected of you; saving
face; maintaining honor) rather than the privately
defined self (what you may really want to say, or how
you may really want to act, instead), it becomes hard
to figure out whether or not one's "intolerance" is
masking or repressing something else (like
compassion). That's why the study of rhetoric becomes
so important, and why for instance your Irony of
Galatians is (in my view) a landmark.

A few ramblings. I'm sure if Paul were to read them,
he'd be fairly intolerant. :)

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com


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