Corpus-Paul

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

on 1/18/05 3:28 PM, Tim Gallant at tim AT rabbisaul.com wrote:

> ... My present aim is simply
> to note what I see as a fundamental inconsistency in your post. You begin by
> complaining that others are presupposing a canon which you do not
> presuppose, and observing that Paul must be read on his own terms rather
> than through the lens of either 16th century Reformation debates or 3rd-4th
> century concerns of Christian orthodoxy versus heretics. And since this is
> purely an exegetical list, I have a great deal of sympathy for that,
> although I also suggest that no reading of a text is done in a vacuum.
> 
> And it is precisely here where I see your post as fundamentally
> inconsistent. You repudiate a later confessional Christian presupposition as
> a proper way to interpret Paul, but it appears to me that what it comes down
> to in the end is a sort relativistic postmodern reading of Paul that you
> wish to advocate. Insisting that it is legitimate to read Paul as saying
> that Gentiles can be saved through Christ without the law, in addition to
> Jews being saved through the covenant without Christ is, it seems to me, a
> peculiar way of reading a first-century Jewish text, not least when Paul
> uses exclusive language all over the place.

Tim,
You begin by stating a view to be mine that I do not hold, and follow with
several others, so that it is a straw man of your creation. I would expect
that to be inconsistent. A few comments follow.

In short, 
1) you are dealing with a model of salvation in which to frame my comments
that I do not believe reflects the first-century context and ideas of Paul
or of my historical portrait of him. I never proposed that Paul did not hold
that all humans should confess Jesus as Christ. What that has to do with
notions of salvation is another matter, but not one I have discussed for you
to critique as you seem to think you are doing.
2) you are mixing two different parts of my message:
    a) an exegetical discussion of the language of the text and
    b) a hermeneutical challenge to the moral purpose to which one's
exegetical conclusions are put (in other words, if one believes that the
historical Paul said that Judaism is now obsolete, but since Judaism is
still a living religion some two thousand years later, the modern
interpreter still has a moral obligation to how that is and has been stated
and used, including consideration of stating disagreement with Paul, or at
least ways to mitigate the disrespect for the life of Jewish people that it
has and can lead to. This can include contextualizing Paul's comments within
the framework of what he apparently thought was developing within his
lifetime, but did not; that is, there are exegetical alternatives to explore
in view of present day moral concerns that send one back to the text).

> 
> My point here is not that you must agree with Paul's exclusive vision
> regarding Jesus of Nazareth. I am aware that you are not a Christian. But
> let's not cast Paul either as a postmodernist, nor as a 1st century pagan
> who thought that all sorts of religions were legitimate.

I do not believe I have done either, hence, this is a straw man argument as
far as I can see. I will clip what follows from that move.

> I have selected only a very small sampling of the evidence, because I do not
> want to belabour the point here. And I am well aware that it is not pleasant
> for a Jew to be told Paul's message, that his salvation is only to be found
> through Jesus.

Why do you conclude that? (since that judgment depends upon an assumption of
that Jewish person's acceptance of the authority of your interpretation, or
even of Paul's, while at the same time assuming that they have not accepted
it.) Of course, it can be stated in very unpleasant ways, and the idea is
not generous  to the other, to say the least. But I don't remember bringing
up the topic related to the historical Paul (who could be quite unpleasant
in disagreement). If I were to discuss it, I would nevertheless challenge
the way you construct Paul's language, and soteriological categories for
applying it. But I don't think the post you are replying to did so.

I do think that your use of Paul's voice (as you interpret it) for today is
unpleasant, and I do wish you would reconsider that use on moral grounds of
respecting the other as you would have the other respect the nobility of
your own faith decisions, since these are faith decisions, and not matters
of fact that can be empirically proven. We can (should) do that in the 21st
century. I think that there is a good warrant for doing so, in that Paul
calls for just that kind of moral behavior on the basis of living in the
Spirit, even if his rhetoric does not itself always live up to that ideal.
Exegesis of his texts on love of the neighbor can be used to open up,
instead of close down hermeneutical options.

One other point on your assumption that this is unpleasant for a Jew. It is
common for Jews to regard Paul as a renegade, apostate, and perpetuator of
harm, to say the least. That portrait can be very useful, since it makes
what he has written of little interest. He is beyond the pale, and what he
had to say no threat.

I have been challenging my fellow Jews to reconsider that portrait,
dependent upon traditional Christian interests in how Paul is interpreted,
which have needed something to be wrong with Judaism for something to be
right with Christianity. Of course, the minority Jewish community creates a
counter-narrative. I want to challenge that cycle not only at the level of
how Paul's voice is used today, but at the level of the historical
interpretation of Paul's texts, upon which that harmful portrait of
Paul--and spiral of defining each other over against the other--depends.

We should try to let Paul be Paul as far as we can. There is some risk in
this for Jewish people (just as for Christian people), for then there is the
need to consider what he was doing as possibly a viable kind of Judaism
(obviously also a risk to traditional Christian prejudices about Judaism as
something other and lower). And so on...

But I believe it is both historically responsible to re-read him with our
new historical methods and sensibilities, and that the benefits of new ways
of engaging each other (Jews and Christians) respectfully, by way of
allowing each other to speak for our faiths instead of from polemic and
reaction (including that of the NT), are likely to be greater than the
downside risks.

> But if the issue is Pauline exegesis, I think it is only fair
> that we not denude Paul of what he actually says.

Indeed, and the way you have put this suggests that I think otherwise. We
can never be entirely objective, but we can try to be. I am comfortable
stating that I am constructing Paul without needing to find what he says
agreeable, and that I am perhaps more free to do that than you are! It does
not bother me to disagree with what I find Paul to say, although it is
easier to work with him if he says what I like him to say; but how about
you? Are you free to find him to say say something other than your faith
position has supposed him to say, when what he was formerly understood to
say is now found wanting, but forms the basis of that faith position itself?

> Disagree with him if you
> will, but please do not say that he simply sweepingly presupposes the
> salvation of his people apart from Christ.

As I wrote, I think I made a clear move from exegesis to hermeneutics.
Disagree with (my interpretation of) him if you will, but please do not
suppose that you speak for him without interpretation.

> As I said, you may not like that message. But it's Paul's message. Please
> let us not, in the name of Paul, say his message was something else.

I do not think that your message is so clearly Paul's, but I do agree that
we should try our best to make the distinction between what we think he
meant and what we think a moral person should uphold as right today,
regardless of one's interpretation of Paul's historical voice. Please do
not, in the name of Paul, say that his message cannot be something else
besides your own interpretation of it.

> And now I must say one more thing. Respect for the other does not
> necessarily entail assuming that everyone is equally right and every opinion
> equally valid.

And who suggested that it did?

No one is able to be entirely objective, and we all benefit from having
oversights made known, but I go to great effort to read Paul as Paul. I make
that a part of my challenge to Jewish readers of Paul as well as Christians,
for it is not fair to any historical figure to do otherwise. Are you open to
finding him other than you have supposed? Although I would not write what I
do about Paul if I did not believe it to be probable, I do not need to be
right about Paul; do you?

Now, in addition to the matter of how Paul's voice has and should be used,
however it is understood historically, a subject of great interest to me,
what I was hoping for was some interaction with my exegetical argument about
the historical meaning of the passages that were being discussed, Rom 10:4
and Gal 3:24-25.

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