Corpus-Paul

[Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>]

W S Campbell wrote:

> Just a very hasty comment on Philip Esler's
> 'Romans'; Loren, thanks for the 
> review and for the comparison with Mark Nanos's
> work.

You're welcome, and thanks for your input. I hope
others will be moved to comment. A few points below.

> [Esler's] recognition that Rom:2:1ff. continues the
> address to the non-Judean 
> interlocutor of 1:19-32 is very significant...
> there have been very few interpreters of Romans who
> follow him and, what I take to be, the plain sense 
> of the Greek at this point - Stanley Stowers is a 
> notable exception. Esler's comment is marvellous - 
> he says - "Others see a non-Judean interlocutor(in 
> 2:1f.). The latter position is correct, and the 
> widespread support for the former is a cause for
> wonder" (p.151).

I agree that Esler's treatment of Rom 1:18-2:5 is
spot-on. Why many scholars see Judeans in sight here
is beyond me. As he points out, the tradition of Sodom
(not Adam) is in view. I cannot see Adam being invoked
in 1:23.

In fact, I agree with most of Esler's breakdowns,
though I would say 4:18-25 edges into different
rhetorical territory than 4:1-17 (pace Nanos). Also,
Esler sees all of 7:1-25 as concerned with Judeans,
but I see a shift at v 14, as Paul leaves behind the
rhetorical personage of Adam (vv 7-13), and invokes a
pagan-like persona like Medea (vv 14-25).
(Interestingly, Esler denies that Adam lies behind the
rhetorical "I" in vv 7-13). Other than these two
quibbles, I think he's pretty much got it right.

But Esler has many "marvellous" and witty pieces of
commentary, as you note, William, especially when in
the process of demolishing certain idiocies which
don't seem to go away. Take, for instance, his
response to those who maintain that Paul said, "God
gave the law in order to produce trangressions" in Gal
3:19-26 and/or Rom 5:20-21. "Given this view, we might
observe, Paul considered that God had commanded the
Israelites to worship him alone in order that they
would serve Baal and Chemosh, to honor their parents
in order that they would shame them, not to kill in
order that they would engage in homicide... We will
leave aside the extent to which such a notion
constitues an acceptable affront to common sense,
ancient or modern, or attributes to God so unique a
perversity as a law-giver as to cause us to wonder
whether 'God' is the right word to use of such an
entity." (Galatians, p 196)

This cannot be Paul's argument -- not even in
Galatians, says Esler, because the pedagogue metaphor
refutes this. Pedagogues protected boys from harm,
educated them in proper behavior, and punished them
for wayward behavior -- and were certainly not given
by parents to produce bad behavior in children. So,
like Esler, I'm puzzled as to why so many interpreters
prefer perversity here.
 
No sooner do I agree with Esler, however, than I must
disagree somewhat, because Paul does in fact come
close enough to perversity that I'm not sure the
pedagogue metaphor saves him in the end. The law was
given to protect the Jewish people from immorality,
guide them in holy living, and punish them for
breaking its commandments. So far so good. But that
doesn't stop Paul from adding the perverse twist that
sin actually increases (or is heightened) because of
this, and this is was the law's "key" purpose as
intended by God. Judeans may sin less as adherents of
the law, but when they do transgress, their sin is
greater by virtue of the fact that transgressors of
the law "know better and have less excuse" than
immoralists ignorant of the law. (Esler himself uses
the analogy of someone who misleads the public about
the nutritional value of food, the offense being even
greater if there is legislation prohibitting this.) In
other words, Gal 3:19-26 states that God intended the
law to protect, educate, and punish, while also
intending the end result -- confining people to sin in
a manner worse than if there had been no law. The
pedagogue metaphor is ambiguous, even if not as
perverse as some theologians have made it out to be. 

So Gal 3:19-26 is slippery. On the one hand, God did
not intend the law to provoke transgression and sin.
But he did intend sin to be accentuated when
transgression occurred -- "so that" he may save on
another basis, that of faith. Such an offensive view
squares with Esler's use of social identity theory in
Galatians. In Romans, Paul tries to dig himself out of
the hole (recategorization theory now coming on stage)
by exonerating God at the expense of his sovereignty
-- shifting the blame for sin away from God and the
law and onto the power Sin itself (Rom 7:7-25). 

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH 
rossoiii AT yahoo.com


                
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