Corpus-Paul

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

Dieter,
Comments below yours, having cut other parts out. Your English is very
clear! I just wasn't caught between the two poles you discussed, but two
different ones, so could not sort out the implications of your conclusion on
the question I had in mind.

on 1/13/05 4:45 PM, Dieter Mitternacht at dieter.mitternacht AT teol.lu.se
wrote:

> An article on 
> Galatians by David Flusser comes to mind (it's years ago since I read it 
> and I
> am quoting from memory) where he writes that Gal 2:16 is the most natural
> statement for any Jew. Of course no one is justified by works of the law. 
> Jews
> may have to be reminded of it, but it is not a strange statement.

I think that is correct.

Mark wrote:
>> A.: Does that Jewish person regard the doing of Torah observance, let's say
>> dietary rules, now obsolete with the coming of Christ?

Dieter responded:
> To my mind, these kinds of questions are secondary.

Mark writes:
I appreciate the points you made instead; but even if secondary, it is
valuable to bring this verse to bear on the point, because it reveals the
way Paul's language here is understood to work. As you saw from the
conversation that developed in this thread, that is where the rubber meets
the road, you might say. Based on your agreement about the implications of
5:3 that the addressees knew Paul to be circumcised and thus guarding the
whole Law, what do you make of the language in 3:24-25, that so many have
taken to mean otherwise? Is there a way to understand this so that the role
of the Torah for Jewish Christ-believers is retained? That role was never to
gain salvation, as you know (but the traditional Christian view did not
understand), so in what way are Jews in Christ no longer under it, if that
is what is meant? I had offered one suggestion in my earlier post (no longer
protected from Gentiles joining the family of Abraham without joining
Israel, i.e., by way of proselyte conversion, because the time promised for
Abraham's seed to bless the other nations too had arrived), and wonder how
you managed to make this work out, if some other way.

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