Corpus-Paul

["Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT comcast.net>]

on 11/14/04 11:42 AM, lejeune AT comcast.net at lejeune AT comcast.net wrote:

> Gallant wrote:
> Moreover, Paul speaks in 11.19ff of the breaking off of branches; surely it
> is not overstating the case to call this a "fall."
> 
> Billy:
> It seems to me that he makes this expicit in 11.22 "indeed on the ones
> having-fallen, severity." Here, it is the same root as in 11.11.

Billy,
Good point. This is an interesting case. Does it mean that the some of v. 11
have fallen, contrary to how Paul answered the rhetorical question in v. 11?
Here we have an anomaly. Can the way the verb is used in v. 22 help sort
this out in the direction for which I have argued? Or is there some other
way to understand what Paul is doing that resolves the matter in that
direction?

This is an aorist active participle, which generally expresses action prior
in time to the action of the main verb, and thus translates as "having..."
(Voelz). So "having fallen."

"...on the one hand, severity toward those having fallen, but.... if they
would not persist for unfaithfulness they will be grafted in, for God is
able to graft them in again."

The conditional situation that the metaphor of the pruned branches poses
accounts for this kind of language (note that the metaphor opens with a
conditional clause: "but if" in v. 17), which, as I wrote before,
unfortunately undermines the temporary active sense maintained in the
metaphor of stumbling but not yet fallen that Paul worked with before
introducing the pruning metaphor. Now he mixes the metaphor from earlier
(falling is not about limbs, pruning is) into the terms of the later
conditional one (pruning/grafting metaphor). This is confusing, and can be
read in the way you suggest.

I think that it is not what Paul meant; instead, the implications of the
pruning metaphor (which is hypothetical or conditional) brought about the
use of different contextual language to express the argument. For the
pruning metaphor does not permit the division of conditions as stumbling vs.
falling that the walking metaphor allowed. Either a limb is pruned, or it is
not. If he mixed the metaphors, as he did here, he should have substituted
"stumbling/stumbled" here for "pruned," in my view, to stay on point with
the walking metaphor.

Within the tree metaphor he should have written: "...on the one hand,
severity toward those having been 'pruned'..." and in my view, to mix
metaphors consistent with the earlier and later (see below) metaphorical
language, he should have written: "on the one hand, severity toward those
'stumbling'...."

But he did not. Am I wrong then about authorial intent? Maybe. Anomalies
like this provide space that demonstrates the role of the interpreter;
interpretive intent, if you will.

Note also that the next metaphor is introduced in v. 25, that of hardening.
This is not stumbling/fallen or pruned/not pruned, but hardened as in
calloused. It is closer to stumbling, in that it is not a final state like
fallen or pruned, and the usage indicates a temporary condition that will be
resolved with restoration. I think this also argues for stumbling as the
state in view, not falleness.

But if it is taken to be that Paul regards some as fallen, two things that
continue to mitigate the idea that Paul sees this as Israel's state. First,
as already argued, the issue is about some Israelites, even if many is the
case. The issue is not the state of "Israel," but of "some." Second,
following from this, the issue is not the replacement of Israel, if it is
(the conditional, within the metaphorical language of the tree) replacement
of some. It is both limited, leaving the covenant with "Israel" intact, and
it is temporary, being a state that God somehow designed to bring
non-Israelites in so that these some eventually join the remnant in restored
Israel.

> 
> Nanos:
> ...the covenant [of grace] with Israel is still in effect, exemplified in 
> the
> remnant on behalf of the whole...
> 
> Remnant might be too strong a word for this. It seems to me that the word
> means "all that is left" so there is no longer a whole to represent.
>
This point cannot be so easily dismissed, since it is the motif to which
Paul points; hence, the questions you ask below [cut] do not yet arise for
me.

How does your reading account for Paul's future oriented concern for and
certainty of the "restoration of all Israel"? Is not your position that the
remnant is all Israel to be restored?

How does your reading account for Paul's mission to the nations in order to
"save" this "some" who are stumbling, instead of relegating them to a final
state outside (vv. 13-14)?

How does your reading account for the glorious prospect of "fullness" (v.
12) and "life from the dead" (v. 15)?

How does your reading account for the first fruits metaphorical reference of
v. 16?

How do you account for the message of vv. 27-32, that the disobedient some
may [now] receive mercy, albeit strangely enough somehow by way of the mercy
shown to the non-Israelites, because the gifts and call of God are
irrevocable, and they remain beloved since called, for the sake of the
fathers?

Regards,
Mark
-- 
Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
Rockhurst University
Co-Moderator
http://home.comcast.net/~nanosmd/