Corpus-Paul

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

Dear list members,
This is a thread that can go on endlessly, to which I do not object, but
because of which I want to make a contribution that is less directly tied to
the give and take of replying to specific earlier posts. I hope those
interested will find be able to overcome the length this seems to me to
require at the very least.

I have tried to raise the problem of context, of language usage, and by Paul
in particular, that is, within the canon of texts scholars today attribute
to Paul. (The exchange with Dieter Mitternacht is an example of a discussion
of the context of the language in question.) Appeal to the Christian canon
is useful if one wants to answer the question what Christians thought fit
within the circle of truth in the third or fourth century, but I want to
know what Paul might have thought he was communicating, and what his
audiences might have thought he meant (whether I believe that Paul speaks
for God in the texts we have [and believe to have been written by
secretaries for him, although none of his original manuscripts are available
and thus scribes were at least involved over the course of hundreds of years
of copying] is irrelevant to that question. However, whatever one's canon,
the reason that citing versus and supposing the plain meaning to the one
citing is the plain meaning to others, besides being naïve and arrogant,
fails to account for the fact that there are tensions between statements in
each of these canons, sometimes what seem to be and may be downright
contradictions, and these make it clear that there is a need for
interpretation. The question is not that there is language one can mount for
a point, but what did that language mean in its own context(s), which is not
self-evident, as should be clear to anyone who has visited a library or
bookstore: there is more than one interpretation for everything. Among
gentlemen and women, it should also be clear with the conversation partner
in this forum has stated a different interpretation of that language. It
should also be of concern what effects prior interpretations have had on
people other than one's self or group.

It is clear to me that Paul continued to use the Torah to teach from, and
that he understood that it was authoritative for those he addressed in his
letters. Do I need to argue this? He cites Torah to legitimate his
arguments, and he appeals to Torah as normative--according to his
interpretation of it, of course--for even Torah requires this exercise, and
cannot simply be quoted so that the meaning is self evident! (Gal 4:21: he
writes "Do you not hear the Torah" rather than "Do you not realize that the
Torah is irrelevant," and then proceeds to give what to most commentators
seems to be a rather novel interpretation of the language of Torah.) Also,
e.g., he does not teach specifically that no graven image of God or gods is
to be made, and many other such examples of what he does not teach
specifically in these letters and yet is generally assumed to be understood
to be normative could be mentioned; yet I assume that is because Torah norms
were norms for Christ-believing not-under-Torah people, that is,
Christ-believing non-Jews, non-Israelites. Is that sufficient enough
explanation of the point to move on? (I am trying not to complicate this by
building upon a point that is itself too controversial.)

This continued use of Torah by Paul and his audiences, including non-Jews
whom he addressed directly, at least raises the question that must be
answered when reading Rom 10:4 or Gal 3:25, e.g.: in what way has the Torah
completed (fulfilled, finished, ended, or whatever way you translate the
words) its purpose in Christ. Is that fair enough? That takes attending to
the context of the statement and the words used in that statement in order
to figure out in what way Torah is to be understood to have done that, and
moreover, to ponder what ways it might imply that Torah no longer functions,
if that is what the language should seem to the interpreter to imply. It
cannot mean that the Torah does not function any more after Christ, period;
right?

I do not expect everyone to agree about the context of the rhetoric in
Galatians or Romans. So I will try to make basic points about which I hope
most can agree. The rhetorical issue in Galatians is whether
Christ-believing non-Jews should or even can become proselytes, that is,
become members of Israel, Jews, Torah-people (members of the Mosaic
covenant), the righteous ones of God, all synonymous terms of identifying
that differentiate a certain people descended from Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob/Israel from members of the other nations, Gentiles, non-Torah-people,
not the righteous ones of God. So although not Mosaic-covenant people, Paul
believes that in Christ these non-Jews have become Abraham's children,
members of the righteous ones of God. OK?

It thus makes sense to me that the issue in the text of 3:25 and surrounding
verses/argument is whether the Torah's purpose of "confining" (v. 23) the
identity of the righteous ones, the descendents of Abraham, to Jews,
Israelites, members of the Mosaic covenant, and thereby protecting and
guiding them as does a pedagogos, still continues after the coming of
Christ, whereby those outside of that covenant identity can be understood to
share the standing of co-heirs, fellow children of Abraham, associate
righteous ones of God. In that sense has not something changed according to
Paul's proclamation of the meaning of Jesus Christ for humankind, for Israel
and for the other nations too? In other words, it is the particular function
of Torah's confining and protecting from the outsider that is no longer
warranted, because the identity of the righteous ones is no longer confined
to members of the Mosaic covenant. But does that mean that members of the
Mosaic covenant have had that covenant revoked or made void? Why would it?

Does it not mean simply that they would change their perception of those not
within that (Abrahamic) covenant but expressing faith in that covenant's
Christ, so that they would not need to become members of Israel, or the
Mosaic covenant, Jewish proselytes, in order to become members of the
righteous ones? Then one can no longer tell which (men) are the righteous
ones in the "flesh," that is, by whether circumcised or not (by for example,
viewing them in the shower after a game), but it would require hearing a
"confession" of what they believed, breadth/spirit (saying whether they are
members), in order to know this (that is the contrast of flesh and breath I
suggest at work, but I hope not to distract by making it).

It seems to me that Paul labors to convince his non-Jewish addressees in
Galatia that this is the way it should be, even if some other Jewish
teachers suggest that it is not the case, and thus they must resist that
(majority) perception of identity, and instead trust Paul's teaching that
the terms for identity have changed. Identity as Torah-protected people no
longer defines all the people who belong to God as righteous ones, as
children of Abraham. Kinship extends not "only" to the natural descendants,
but "also" to fictive kin in Christ.

It does not follow then from this language in Galatians that the Torah's
role has ended or been fulfilled, except in this specific sense, which is
the sense at issue: whether non-Jews in Christ need to join Israel, i.e.,
become Jewish proselytes, in order to become righteous ones, children of
Abraham. It does not speak to the role of Torah for a Jew whether in Christ
or not except in the sense of accepting the non-Jew in this way. It implies
this prescription for Jews, although not his target audience when writing,
which was instead non-Jews whom he sought to assure that this was, since the
coming of Christ, the correct reading of Torah!--the way that it continues
to function for the righteous ones of God if heard aright, i.e., with Paul.

In Romans, like Galatians, his target audience is not Jews, but non-Jews who
require some assurance that the minority interpretations of Torah upon which
their new group-identity as Christ-believers depends, are correct and should
be maintained. They should not become proselytes. Paul engages in a similar
effort to describe that God is not "only" the God of Jews, but "also" of the
non-Jews who believe in Christ, since the God of Israel is the God of all
the nations (3:29-30), as taught in Torah (v. 31), and expected to be
demonstrated in the age to come, but now made real in Christ in the midst of
the present age. Hence he writes that Torah is not "overthrown," but
"established." The language of ch. 4, dealing precisely with the question of
Abraham and the non-Jewish addressees relationship to him, includes the
interesting statement that the reason Abraham believed while still
uncircumcised was so he could be the father of everyone who believes in
Christ, whether circumcised (as was Abraham and his descendents thereafter,
i.e., Israel, Mosaic covenant people), or not. Paul goes on to explain that
this kinship with Abraham depends on faith so that the promise (of Abraham
being a blessing to all nations, v. 17) could be certain to all Abraham's
descendants, "not only the ones out of Torah, but also the ones out of the
faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all" (of Torah ones and non-Torah
ones) (v. 16b). 

Now when I turn to Rom 10:4 and its context, it is easy to see that the
particular purpose of the Torah to point to Christ so that the members of
the other nations could join Israelites as righteous ones, this both 1)
emphasizes that Paul's universal proposition is not in spite of Torah, but
because of it, and 2), indicates that the specific role of Torah to point
toward this seed of Abraham (Christ and those in him) who would make this
proposition a reality has been fulfilled. The argument he mounts is because
his non-Jewish addressees have run into resistance to this proposition by
other Jewish people who do not agree about the meaning of Jesus Christ as
the one who has fulfilled this role, and he wants to assure his non-Jewish
addressees that they are mistaken, stumbling over this truth claim
presently, but certain to agree in due time, because of God's mysterious way
of having them presently suffer vicariously for the benefit of these
non-Jews, not their own undoing, as they might fear.

So Paul's primary rhetorical concern is not the implications of continued
Torah observance for Jews who believe in Christ or not, except where the
role of identity as Torah-people, children of Abraham and Moses, has been
understood to define the circle of the righteous ones. That has changed,
according to Paul's interpretation of Torah, to which he appeals to make the
argument (no where does he depend upon Torah to support his argument more
than in Rom 9--11). This language in no way implies that the other functions
of Torah for Torah-people, Jews, have in any way been altered, or that they
are themselves now outside of the circle that Torah inscribes. But there are
others within the circle of Abraham's covenant too, although not inside the
circle of the Mosaic covenant made with Israel.

I hope that this at least helps to explain how one can differently read
these texts often cited at one as if self-evidently meaning that Torah in a
comprehensive sense (and thus Judaism) has been erased (finished, ended,
completed, rendered irrelevant, adiaphora, whatever) with the coming of
Christ according to Paul, and thus, according to the one doing the arguing
(so often "shouting" citations, it seems)--as if they were not involved in
making interpretive choices that are not effected by their own identity and
interests and training, and in a policy statement the effects of which, for
Jewish people, who still populate their world, have often been deleterious,
to put it nicely. What would you lose by recognizing there might be some who
do not agree with Paul's proposition because of Christ-faith of this altered
role for defining who are the righteous ones, but who remain "also" but not
"only" the righteous ones? After all, it is this proposition of "also" for
which Paul struggled, in the opposite direction. Is it not making the same
category mistake (according to Paul, that is being made by some Jews) from
the non-Jewish side when you insist on "only" and find no place for "also"?

But I don't want to get off the topic, sorry. As far as I can see, the
alternative usually offered begin by framing the issues in such a way (such
as from the context of the reformers concerns, or the fathers fighting
so-called heresies, or modern dark-souled individualists) that they set up
the global conclusions I find so unconvincing when I look at the texts of
Paul in what I suppose to be the first-century context of his concerns.

The point is that so far I have seen no reason to believe that Paul did
"break the Law" or that he taught Jews, whether in Christ or not, to do so.
The two passages discussed do not tell me that at issue is "Torah" in some
global sense, and not "a specific role of Torah" having to do with how Jews
are set apart from non-Jews as the "only" righteous children of Abraham, in
keeping with the rhetorical context of the letters and specific
argumentative units within them where this language is read. I can read Paul
supposing him to be and to be known by his addressees to be a very
Torah-observant Jew easier than I can read him to have disregarded such
identity and behavior, and to adopt it only when useful to trick Jews into a
faith decision in which they will no longer act that way except to further
the same deceit.

In conclusion, it seems to me, this "also" but not "only" concern (by not
excluding the one when the other gets control of interpretation) is a
fitting way to approach each other especially on this day, which in America,
is set aside to honor the memory of Martin Luther King. Did he mean to argue
that America was to offer equal opportunity for "only" the minority people
who were not experiencing it, or for that freedom for them "also"?

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