Corpus-Paul

[Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>]

Ian wrote:

>I hope this gives some idea of why one pauline
>scholar has not been significantly moved by Nanos'
>book. I think we need to be careful about
>imputing hidden (and sinister?) motives to other
>scholars and focus instead on the substantive
>arguments they make (there have, after all,
>been reviews of Nanos' books).

Ian,

I agree that caution is needed here, and I was not
trying to imply that everyone but Nanos is governed by
the need for foils. For instance, Philip Esler and
Francis Watson (in very different ways) posit a
sharply sectarian Paul hostitle to the Jerusalem
pillars. But I see no evidence of implicit foils
running through their work. So my criticisms don't
apply to them (as just two examples that come to
mind), though they do read Paul in an opposite way
from Nanos. Scholars like James Dunn and Tom Wright,
on the other hand, are a different matter. Much as I
respect their informed judgment -- and indeed much as
I agree with some of their exegesis of key Pauline
texts -- they sometimes use language which implicitly
devalues Judaic practices, which they erroneously
ascribe to Paul. I recall quite a lot of it in Dunn's
commentary on Romans (though I don’t have it handy at
the moment). The "Irony of Dunn" is that he falls into
certain rhetorical traps reminiscent of the Old
Perspective even while advocating the New. 

Thanks for presenting your own criticism of Mark's
work. I hope he will respond.

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com


        
                
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