Corpus-Paul

[Edgar Krentz <ekrentz AT sbcglobal.net>]

Mark Nanos wrote

Mark Nanos wrote to Tim Gabbert [only words of Maerk are cit ed below]:

> Tim,
> You begin by stating a view to be mine that I do not hold. A few comments 
> follow.

> 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).
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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?
> 
> > 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. 
> 
> 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?
> 
> Regards,
> Mark

I want to say this as clearly as I can. Mark Nanos is a good exegete and a 
good interpeter of
Paul. His books on Romans and Galatians have much to teach all Christian 
interpreters of Paul.

In some ways I initiated part of this discussion with my comments on Pauline 
letters that do not
cite the Torah. I want to say bluntly, Paul is not one who says Jews and 
Jewish Christians should
not observe the law.

I do hav e differences with Mark about the value of historical 
reconstructions of dates, etc.,
sinced history is among other things a narrative. And a narrative depends on 
chronology.

One mus respect variant readings of Paul, study them, and arrive at one's own 
conclusions without
any kind of denigration of others. Hence my remarks abouut Mark.

Peace, Ed Krentz


=====
Edgar and Becky Krentz
Christ Seminary Seminex Prof. of NT Emeritus
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
1100 E. 55th Street
Chicago, IL 60615

ekrentz AT sbcglobal.net