Corpus-Paul

["John Brand" <jbrand AT gvsd.mb.ca>]

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?

> John, I still do not see where you have demonstrated anything about
> the term Christos.

John responds:
Thanks for the feedback, Tim. I'll have to review this and try again
at a later date.

Tim wrote:
I stand by what I said: I see no evidence that the
> ancient Greco-Roman world had any particular expectation about *this
> term.*  (Nor do I have any idea why you think 'logos' and 'mashiach'
> are related. But even if they were, Paul doesn't use either term in a
> fashion resembling your description.)

John responds:
'Terms" are pointers, are they not? Logos is a primary concept in
Greco-Roman philosophy from Heraclietus through to Cicero. I will
have to work on the terminology for ho Logos and Christos and its
affinity with Matreya for this list. It is almost a given in mystical
circles which is why I have no problem accepting the notion that Paul
would have taken advantage of it in his day to point to the living
Christ.

Logos was transformed into philosophical discourse starting with he
pre-Socratics.  I have suggested in another post that Paul takes
advantage of this in Romans 1-2. There is an affinity between
Cicero's theology/philosophy in his Laws and Romans along the
following lines:

1. It affirms that Lex est ratio (latin ratio = Greek logos) 'Law is
the highest reason, inherent in nature, which enjoins what ought to
be done and forbids the opposite. When reason is fully formed in the
human mind, it, too, is law. So … [law's] function is to enjoin right
action and to forbid wrong doing.' (Laws.I.19)
2. It affirms that this Law is that which is common between man and
God: 'reason is present in both man and God, there is a primordial
partnership in reason between man and God. But those who share reason
also share right reason; and since that is law, we men must also be
thought of as partners with the gods in law … and they do in fact
obey this celestial system, the divine mind, and the all powerful
God. Hence this whole universe must be thought of as a single
community shared by gods and men' (Laws.I.23).
3. It affirms that 'corrupt habits and foolish opinions … twist and
turn aside our feeble minds from their original paths' (Ibid.29 cf.
Heraclietus fragments 1,2) so that there is a difference between
those who are wise and those who are foolish; or, there is a
difference between those have been turned aside by corrupt habits and
those who have attained moral excellence by using nature as guide
(Ibid.30).
4. It affirms that the highest moral virtue is when a wise man
'loves the other person as much as he loves himself' (Ibid.,34). 'The
essential feature of friendship is that, the moment one partner
prefers to have something for himself rather than for the other, it
vanishes' (Ibid., 34).

Does this help us at all in understanding how the Gentile could be
justified without Torah?

Tim wrote:
>
> As for sundry broader expectations (not denoted by the term) that you
> delineate - I guess I just have to ask, "So what?" The real question
> is how far Paul's message meets and/or challenges those expectations.

John Brand responds:
I would be interested in your own response to this in light of the
reference to Cicero above.

Tim wrote:
> Naturally, any expectation of a coming individual who will improve the
> state of affairs is going to have *some* overlap with any other. I
> don't think anyone has ever denied that. But none of this helps us
> understand Paul much, if at all. It may help us understand how some of
> his initial hearers may have heard some of what he said, and also how
> they may have been confronted by it. But beyond that, all we can do is
> guess at Paul's missional preaching by means of the content of his
> letters - unless, of course, we give credence to the reliability of
> the testimony of Acts (as I do).

John responds:
I give credence to Acts as well and would site Paul's quoting the pre-
Socratics in Acts 17 as evidence that he understood the Greco-Romans
world which he sought to influence and started by affirming their
quest in his attempt to present Christ as crucified and resurrected.

Tim writes:
>
> We need to beware of "parallelomania." And in this case, we don't even
> have the terminology square.

John responds:
I am aware of the "Parallelomania" article written by Sandmel JBL
(1962). It was written as a response to the reaction of liberal
schools to archeological discoveries such as the tablets of the Epic
of Gilgamesh. For example, Jensen concluded that all classics are a
take off of the Epic. Dahood and Clifford Wilson saw Ugarit
everywhere during the early part of the 20th Century.

However, I have also paid close attention to the work of the
Longman/Hallo school which advocates depth of study. Similarities and
differences are to be highlighted. This is not an attempt to
repudiate the comparative method but to define and broaden it by
wedding the comparative approach to the contrastive (two schools that
developed in the history of archeological research).

Tremper Longman III suggests the following guidelines in analyzing
the veracity of a comparison:

(1) Similarities/Contrasts should be carefully noted in the texts
or concepts being compared,
(2) Evaluate a given text within its literary context (i.e. the
Flood Narratives should not be evaluated by seeing parallels between
one ark, one person saved, three birds, sacrifice, etc. and then a
conclusion drawn without taking into account the theological
patterning of Genesis 1-11)
(3) Chronological Proximity: The closer the works are in time,
the more valid the comparison and vice versa.
(4) Geographical Proximity: The argument is stronger if the two
cultures are in geographic proximity to one another.
(5) Linguistic Proximity: The more similar the languages the more
valid the comparison.
(6) Generic Proximity: A consideration of the Genre of the
literature

All six of these criteria can be used to substantiate the parallel
between the works of Cicero and the Epistle of Paul to the Romans.
Should this not indicate our allowing the parallels to help us in our
understanding of Romans, the Jew/Gentile issues Paul sought to
address, and how he sought to bridge the gap between these two
cultures in conflict?

Tim wrote:
> As for the mysteries, they were by no means universally accepted, as
> far as I can tell. It seems to me that far more often, Paul's message
> impinges upon the imperial cult and the imperial claim to absolute
> authority, than upon the mysteries.

John responds:
We should take this caveat in a case by case manner. Romans seems to
lean to the philosophical or higher culture of Rome. Ephesians is a
home to Mystery cult of Diana and the superstition is mirrored in
Acts. Paul uses the term 'mystery' in a manner that would be
recognizable to those from such a culture. It is helpful IMO to note
the affinities and use them to interpret how Paul is applying the
message of Christ to these people.

Colossians moves in the direction of the mystical thread in Greco-
Roman thought. F.F. Bruce narrowed it down to Merkabah mysticism
which is still extant in our own day. Can we learn anything from how
Paul handles this situation? I think we can.

Tim wrote:
> > But the bottom line is that in all of his letters, Paul presupposes a
> world of thought governed by the Old Testament Scriptures (or, if you
> will, an Old Testament Scripture-world re-visioned through Christ and
> the Spirit).

John responds:
I don't think that the word 'governed' is as appropriate. Paul sought
IMO to 'win' the Gentile to his OT thought. He did so by moving
generously into their culture and affirming what they believed as
pointing to Christ. This may not be useful to you, Tim; but it is
very useful to me in how I approach our post-modern world.

Tim wrote:
> > If we want to understand how Paul's hearers would have heard him
> (particularly on first hearing), we will need to study the matters you
> bring up, to a greater or lesser degree (presuming their accuracy, and
> it looks to me like you are running together a bunch of things). But
> if we want to understand Paul himself, we will need to dig into
> contemporary Jewish thought and, more definitively, the Old Testament.
> We can only guess at how good he was at bridging the gap between the
> two, which may be an interesting exercise, but I doubt it will get us
> all that far as exegetes.

John responds:
F.F. Bruce's method for Colossians is to go from the unique problem
that Paul addresses and then into the  culture to find affinities. He
comes up with merkabah and I think his argument is sound. This has
aided me a great deal in my understanding of Colossians. I have used
the Longman/Hallo method to further my interpretation of the rest of
Paul's epistles but I realize that this is not everyone's 'cup of
tea.'

Thanks for the interaction, Tim.

Regards,

John Brand

B.A. (Providence College, 1980)
M.Min. (Providence Seminary, 1990)