Corpus-Paul

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

Jim,
I will be surprised if Edgar is confused by my argument that the observation
depends upon circularity. Edgar? What you propose does make sense as one
hypothesis, but no more than that. There are many interesting features to
consider; let me note a few.

You ask a good question that bears some consideration: "How will OT texts be
any more authoritative for non [J]ews than would Homer or Socrates?" (some
might wonder why one capitalizes Homer and Socrates and not Jews, so I have
provided that in the citation and marked it with [].) Indeed, it would imply
something in the direction you apparently wish to go if in the ones where he
does not quote Scripture he made a lot of citations of Homer or other
normative Greek thinkers; but he does not. Curious, really. It does seem
that it would have been effective to work with citations of Stoics, Cynics,
and so on, when dealing with Hellenes. Many interpreters of Paul certainly
find it useful. But for a couple of maxims, he is silent. Why?

It is certainly not clear that when Paul does not cite Scripture that there
is "no point in it." Could be the case. Maybe these letters are from later
in the development of the communities, and thus there own language has begun
to emerge. Maybe his own authorial voice is sufficient to make the points he
wishes to make. Perhaps his authority is not in question. Romans is a case
where he wrote to a community or communities he did not found and had not
visited. Galatians was written to communities in turmoil about becoming
Jewish proselytes, so the use of Scripture would make sense, even if not
addressed to Jews, because addressed to a Jewish exigence. Maybe these other
cases without citation do not have those features, and thus, the need for
citation is not the same. Citations do take up space, so why use them unless
the point requires an authoritative voice in addition to the author's own?

But there is another interesting issue to raise. Perhaps the reason Paul
cites Scripture in certain cases and not others is because he is the one
socializing certain non-Jews into Jewish cultural norms. Perhaps he views
these communities as expressions of Judaism. Or perhaps in some cases they
have been so socialized into Judaism prior to Paul's involvement, and not in
others. Or perhaps in some cases they are subgroups of Jewish communities
and in others they are not, perhaps because there are no Jewish communities
there? And so on.

I think my point still stands: we do not know from the use of Scripture or
not whether there were Jews within the target audiences or not. But we do
know that in the cases where he did cite Scripture to authorize his views,
that this implies that the role of Torah has not ended in an absolute sense
for Paul or for his addressees after the coming of Christ, which undermines
the way many read Paul's language in Rom 10:4 and Gal 3:24-25, so that the
sense in which Torah has been fulfilled in Christ must be sorted out.

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


on 1/18/05 9:04 AM, Jim West at jwest AT highland.net wrote:

> Mark D Nanos wrote:
> 
>> So Romans aside, how does one know that there are not Jews in the mix in 
>> the
>> letters where no Scripture is quoted, but only in the ones where it is,
>> except on the basis that Scripture is quoted or not?
>>  
>> 
> Your answer here seems to suggest something that doesn't quite wash:
> 
>> What do we know? No doubt he chooses to use Scripture because he believes 
>> it
>> is compelling, authoritative for his audience of non-Jews,
>> 
> How will OT texts be any more authoritative for non jews than would
> Homer or Socrates?  It makes perfect sense to suggest that Paul doesn't
> use OT texts with non Jews because there is no point in it- just as it
> makes perfect sense to suggest he uses OT texts for Jewish audiences
> precisely because they will "get it".  Gentiles won't "get it" so theres
> no point in using it.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Jim
>