Corpus-Paul

[Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>]

List members --

I have recently finished reading Philip Esler's
"Conflict and Identity in Romans", which is the book
on Romans I've been waiting to see for years. Since
the list has been dormant lately, I decided to write a
review and invite discussion. The book was actually
published last year in November, and it is a sequel to
Esler's 1998 publication on Galatians written for the
Routledge New Testament Readings series. My apologies
in advance for the length, but I want to do the book
justice.

Philip Esler used social-identity theory to explain
Galatians, and he now uses recategorization theory to
account for Romans. They are sibling models, to be
sure, but whereas the former focuses on relationships
between groups, the latter does so within groups. So
in the earlier letter, the Judean influencers must be
degraded (in line with the canons of an honor-shame
culture) and their tradition radically reinterpreted
for the benefit of Paul's Gentiles. In the second
letter, the mixed group of Judean and Gentile
Christ-believers, conflicted over ethnic pride, must
be "taken down" to the same level, but in such a way
that neither group feels that its ethnic identity is
erased in the process.

Esler draws on the work of social theorists who have
shown that recategorization is successful only when
the different ethnic groups within a movement have
equal status in a different way -- since if they were
equal in the same way, they would simply continue to
compete in a fashion destructive of unity (see p 144).
This is why the last thing Paul wants to say in Romans
is, "In Christ there is neither Judean nor Greek", as
he did in Galatians. Contra Daniel Boyarin, Paul is
not attempting to erase ethnic distinctions -- at
least not in Romans.

So, for instance, Paul claims that just as Gentiles
are under the domain of sin without the Torah
(1:18-2:5), Judeans are under its power with the Torah
(2:17-3:20) -- and the transition text stresses the
impartiality of God in punishing members of each
ethnic group, "the Judean and the Greek", those under
the law and those not under the law (2:6-16).
Likewise, just as Gentile Christ-believers have been
liberated from the power of sin which ruled them as
immoral pagans (6:15-23), Judean Christ-believers have
been liberated from the power of sin which ruled them
through the law (7:1-25). Judeans need to recognize
that Gentiles are God's elect and heirs to the
promises of Abraham (9:1-11:12), but Gentiles should
understand that these benefits are a means to an end
-- to provoke Judeans to reacquire what is really
theirs (11:13-32). 

These days it's the force of fashion to interpret
Romans as having the Gentile group in its sights, but
I've always believed that various parts of the letter
target one group or the other. Esler has confirmed my
convictions by accounting for this in terms of
recategorization theory. I could quibble about his
particular breakdowns. For instance, I've argued in
the past that Rom 7:7-25 has both Judeans (vv 7-13)
and Gentiles (vv 14-25) in view. But in any case, the
point is that successful recategorization requires
careful attention to all ethnic groups involved. "The
establishment of a common ingroup identity will only
succeed if the two subgroups concerned do not feel
that their distinctive identities are threatened in
the process -- this is the 'equal status - different
dimensions condition' that is a prerequisite to
successful recategorization" (p 219). 

This, says Esler, accounts for Paul's treatment of
Abraham in Rom 4 and the Torah's purpose in Rom 7.
Abraham is a prototype for Judeans and Gentiles who
have faith, against the polarizing implication of Gal
3:6-9 that Judeans have been disinherited. He became
circumcised in order to seal his faith-righteousness,
precisely in order to become the ancestor of two
different ethnic groups (4:11-12). And the Torah is
holy and passive in its relationship to sin, against
the perverse claim in Gal 3:19-26 that it actively
confined people under sin. Sin used the law to its
advantage, and the Torah, though given for the promise
of life, was unable to do the job God gave it
(7:10-11). This may raise questions about God's
competency, but it exonerates him of perversity. 

So far so good, but no sooner does Esler establish
these more palatable interpretations than undercut
them by advancing two startling claims: (1) that it is
wrong to speak of salvation-history in Rom 4 and 9-11;
and (2) that the law is completely obsolete for
Christ-believers in Rom 7-8 and 13:8-10. Is Romans so
much like Galatians after all? Let's consider.

(1) As mentioned above, Rom 4:1-17 improves over Gal
3:6-9. But not much, as it turns out, because
faith-righteousness displaces the covenant as much as
before. Esler is worth quoting at length:

"Those who see Paul's thought in terms of the
fulfillment or climax of the covenant [Wright, Dunn,
etc] must explain its outright replacement by
faith-righteousness... Paul's argument is radical. He
is saying that Judeans trace descent from Abraham not
in virtue of his circumcision, but from the
faith-righteousness he had prior to it and of which
circumcision was merely a sign... Since Abraham's seed
are those who are righteous by faith and no one,
except Abraham himself, appears to fit this category
until the possibility arose of faith in Christ, it
follows (even though Paul does not mention it) that we
have a period between Abraham and Paul's time when the
promise was not fulfilled by anyone; it was de futuro
only. This would seem to produce barren ground for
notions of 'salvation history' or 'the climax of the
covenant'... Paul does agree that in Christ God
fulfilled the promises made to Abraham (but in Rom
4:11 deletes the word 'covenant' from his source in
Gen 17:11)... Yet the centuries between Moses and
Christ comprised a period of unrelieved gloom." (pp
189, 190, 192, 193, 286)

My question is whether such an audacious assault on
the contemporary understanding of Abraham can support
Esler's recategorization thesis, which depends on
maintaining something pleasing (and preserving) to the
ethnic group in question. The above commentary may
well apply to Galatians, but it shouldn't for Romans
-- unless there is a nuance to recategorization theory
I'm missing.

(2) Likewise, having gone out of his way to stress the
more palatable treatment of the law's purpose in Rom
7:7-25 (when compared to Gal 3:19-26), Esler undoes
this by arguing that the law is entirely irrelevant
for Christ-believers, as much in Romans as Galatians.
Against those who see Christ as the "goal" of the law
in Rom 10:4, Esler states: "There is absolutely no
sense that Christ is the 'goal' or 'natural result' of
anything to do with the law... He did not come at the
tail-end of a process of which the law represented the
earlier stages. He was the person who liberated Israel
from the law's mess." (p 285) As in Gal 5:13-6:10, the
texts of Rom 8:1-17 and 13:8-10 may declare the law
fulfilled in the commandment, "You shall love your
neighbor as yourself". But, says Esler, given that
love is the first fruit of the Spirit, Paul is saying
that Christ-believers have access to the best the law
promised but never delivered, by an entirely different
route -- the Spirit (pp 285, 335). With the Spirit
they have achieved the ideal of the law which was
never realized by the law (p 335).

It is true that one can interpret Gal 5:13-6:10 and
Rom 8:1-17; 13:8-10 this way. But what about Rom 3:31?
Here Paul says that the law must actually be upheld --
not fulfilled by a different route provided by the
Spirit. Esler waxes evasive here, saying that Paul is
ultimately "unable to demonstrate the truth of what he
says" in Rom 3:31 (p 170). But Rom 3:31 is precisely
the sort of statement which would support a
recategorization thesis! Perhaps Rom 8:1-17 and
13:8-10 should be interpreted along the same lines;
and perhaps Paul, in Romans, is implying that much of
the law is still in force after all.

Esler is on more firm ground with Rom 14:1-15:13,
which supports a recategorization reading on almost
every level. "Paul plainly views the strong as those
who must give way most. The weak are not to judge
them, but the initiative for resolving disputes rests
with the strong." (p 355) Indeed, opines Esler, if the
weak continue to associate with the synagogues, that
is fine with Paul, whose only interest lay in what
occurred within the Christian house-churches
themselves (p 364). But one wonders if there was more
interaction between synagogue and church. Mark Nanos
(Esler's student) believes that the church in Rome was
still tied to the synagogue, and the language of Rom
14:1-15:13 (especially when taken with Rom 4:18-25)
points to the weak as referring to those outside the
Christ-movement -- "weak in faith", meaning lacking
faith in Israel's messiah, not as if to imply that
Torah-observance itself makes one weak; for about this
Paul says "everyone should be convinced in their own
mind what is right" (Rom 14:5-6).

Esler criticizes Nanos on the basis of Rom 16, which
points to house-gatherings (p 342), and that, contra
Nanos, Judeans did not meet in privately owned homes.
"Nanos is in error here, a lapse explicable in that he
was following specialists on Judean and
Christ-movement architecture who themselves make the
same mistake, and was writing before this view had
been subjected to a recent probing reexamination
against the primary data by Donald Binder and Anders
Runesson." (p 88; and see pp 89-97 for Esler's full
examination of the literary and epigraphical data) I
wonder if Mark would be interested in responding to
these criticisms. 

In conclusion, this is the book on Romans I've been
waiting for, even if I dispute some of Esler's results
-- and even if I still like Mark Nanos' particular
treatment of Rom 14:1-15:13 better than anyone else's.
We can now thoroughly appreciate Paul's most famous
letter through the eyes of those who inhabited the
strange and distant world of the ancient
Mediterranean. We see Paul's eschatology as
"forthcoming-present" more than "future" (Rom
8:18-39). We catch a glimpse of Paul as the victim of
slander and gossip (Rom 3:8) -- the malicious "weapon
of the weak" which crippled people's honor on a daily
basis. We appreciate the dual occasion of the letter
-- Paul's impending missions to Jerusalem and Spain,
intersecting with the ethnic crisis in Rome -- and how
the two are truly inseparable (see pp 128-129). And we
see Paul the Middle-Eastern all too familiar with the
hostile nature of gift-giving, whose collection for
the poor was a "slap in the face" to his colleagues in
Jerusalem (p 131), who really did "feed the hungry in
order to heap burning coals upon the heads of others"
(Rom 12:20).

Esler recognizes that Paul was on a battleground when
he wrote his letters, reinterpreting scripture in
legitimately offensive ways, in line with the canons
of honor-shame. He has explained these battles with
especially insightful uses of anthropological and
social theory. In my view, these sort of approaches
serve us better than, say, trying to interpret Paul on
the basis of "thought patterns abstracted from
rhetorical and social setting" (Tom Wright), or even
worse, by using literary intertextual approaches
(Richard Hays). There's a wide chasm separating us
from the biblical world, and only when we acknowledge
it can we begin to build bridges. Esler's epilogue
would seem to imply that there is indeed all the more
need for such bridges in today's world: "Every
Christian who senses the daunting contemporaneity of
Romans wants to select some area of human experience
where the letter articulates a problem and gives voice
to a solution. For me, Romans reveals its connection
with the taproot of human experience in relation to
violent ethnic conflict in the world." (p 357) This is
about as far cry from Augustinian/Lutheran relevancy
as one can get. The New Perspective is here to stay.

So I heartily recommend the book (along with Esler's
Galatians) to all list members. Furthermore, and
ironically, I recommend them taken in conjunction with
the books on Romans and Galatians written by Esler's
own disciple Mark Nanos -- who comes to some
startlingly different conclusions. Talk about grist
for the mill!

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH 
rossoiii AT yahoo.com



                
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