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  • From: "Tim Gallant" <tim AT rabbisaul.com>
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Did Paul break the Law?
  • Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 12:47:31 -0700

----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT comcast.net>
To: "Corpus Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Did Paul break the Law?


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.

Dr Nanos, thanks for your comments. I guess, to be honest, I really am having some difficulty tracking exactly what your position is, then. I certainly had and have no intention to misrepresent you in any way.

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.

Nor have I put forth what I see to be Paul's notion of salvation. Touche.

:)

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).

I don't see Paul claiming that (non-Christian) Judaism was going to cease being a "living religion." Actually, I presume he thought quite differently, based on my reading of Romans 11; from my understanding of him, he thought that his kinsmen would retain a coherent identity until the full number of the Gentiles (whatever that specifically means) had been brought in, following which the great mass of his people would turn to their Messiah, and God would accomplish the great eschatological deliverance so long awaited (including the resurrection). The historical scenario that would falsify my reading of Paul would not be the present one, but one in which either the preponderance of Jews converted and otherwise things kept on going on as is, or (as so many have attempted) the Jewish people were wiped out apart from the promise being fulfilled. But the present state of things is not a huge hermeneutical problem.

I'm not, of course, saying that the present state of affairs is not a "problem" in other respects. I have come to share a bit of Paul's grief, albeit in such small measure, because I think his outline is poignant and powerful, and the continuing resistance of Jews to their Messiah is profoundly sad.

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.)

I of course intended "non-Christian Jew." In fact, I have a number of Jewish Christians among my personal friends.

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.

It is precisely in language such as this that I think you are, after all, confusing exegesis ("Paul calls for just that kind of moral behavior") and hermeneutics. I think you are imposing upon Paul a reading of "moral behavior" that he was not promoting. And then, because you have imposed that upon Paul, you can say that he didn't always live up to it himself. But what if we took Paul's own rhetoric as part of the evidence of what he considered walking in the Spirit entailed? What if, rather than suggesting that Paul's rhetoric is inconsistent with his "doctrine," we sought to see if in fact his rhetoric serves his doctrine, and that Paul does not speak in his letters in self-contradiction?

I happen to believe that Paul's rhetoric does live up to his "moral ideals" (if that is the best way of describing them). "Respecting the other" is a modern catchword, and while in part it gets at something of Paul, what we generally mean by "respecting the other" is scarcely what Paul would have meant by the term. Respecting the other's faith decisions in Paul's world of thought meant, for example, not blaspheming the other's faith (cf the witness of Acts that Paul did not blaspheme Artemis). It did not mean accepting the other's religion as equally valid, else Paul would never have engaged in his missions. While I can appreciate well enough that the medieval world (and even the world of more recent times) was extremist in how it prosecuted its mission, there is no reason to suppose that the opposite extreme is the right one. If you think I am wrong about Jesus of Nazareth, I don't want you to tell me that "It's okay, because He's right for you." The biblical worldview presupposes the existence of idolatry, and while that is politically incorrect today, I see no reason to abandon the Bible for the sake of what is politically correct.

Exegesis of his texts on love of the neighbor can be used to open up,
instead of close down hermeneutical options.

I agree, but please let's remember that those same texts also define love of neighbour. If the texts are to be anything more than a springboard to leap to our own preferences, we may not empty the terms of content and pretend that "love" necessarily meant for Paul or Jesus what it may mean in our own parlance.

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?

If the question is: Am I ready to hear Paul saying something other than what I have assumed, the answer is: Absolutely. My reading of Paul has shifted dramatically in the past number of years. But unlike you, I am deeply committed to agreeing with him. Meaning, it is my thinking that needs to be changed in the light of his.

As for "freedom," well, again. . . this can be variously defined. I belong to the community of faith which Paul was instrumental in founding, however much it has changed, and at times (as I noted earlier) even perverted his message (cf Rom 9-11 again). I do not pretend to be a neutral reader, but neither are you, as you know. I believe that Paul speaks of the Spirit as the Creator of a new community, and a voice within that community. Therefore, while I often disagree with that community on various readings of Paul (and it has disagreed within itself from the beginning), I do have a different starting point; namely that the Spirit has been present in the Church through those ages, and therefore I am compelled to give more credence to its readings of Paul than I otherwise might. But again - particularly as a Protestant - the text remains the ultimate authority and must correct the readers. If the text is what I believe it is (inspired and infallible), my standpoint of faith is far better than any other. (That standpoint, of course, does not guarantee good exegesis, as we all know.)

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.

And as I wrote in my previous note: None of us do. We all speak from within presuppositional frameworks. That said, texts are not wax noses.

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.

I assume that thread is still open, and I have made some contribution to it. But I won't make further comment in this post.

Thanks for your dialogue. I'm still not entirely clear where you are coming from, but I'm sure the interchange helps.

tim

Tim Gallant
Pastor, Conrad Christian Reformed Church

http://www.timgallant.org
tim | gallant site group





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