Corpus-Paul

[Bob MacDonald <bobmacdonald AT shaw.ca>]

Loren wrote: >>Nanos, by contrast, has argued that Romans
and
Galatians show Paul as having non-Christian Jews in
view, and that Paul's fellow Christian Jews (Peter,
James, etc) were on the same page with him -- indeed
that they agreed with Paul's circumcision-free gospel
(applied to Gentiles), <<

There is a never ending set of opinions to read on whom Paul
was addressing. I am just in the middle of Dunn's big book
on the Theology of Paul the Apostle. He mentions that
several of Paul's sections in the letter were confessional
formulae - e.g. 1:3-4. 3:21-26, etc. If he appeals to shared
formulaic ways of understanding, he knows his audience will
understand the formulae.  What audience would understand?

Recently, a small group that I studied with had a young
woman read the entire epistle out loud to us at one
sitting -

I noted two things in the reading 1. the striking repeated
appeal to Christ in the opening. My unstated response was
this could not have been addressed to non-believers in
Christ. 2. the repeated refrains appealing to the
sacrificial nature of the death of Jesus - e.g. whom God put
forward as an expiation by his blood.

Could Paul's audience include non Christ-believing Jews as
Nanos implies? This postulate is needed in order for Nanos'
interpretation of the weak and the strong to hold. Esler
disagrees stating that the synagogue prayer houses (as
unearthed in Ostia) were separate and distinct from the
house churches. Nanos implies that Paul and company were
still fully Jewish in that first century - no concept at all
of a separate identity 'called out' of Judaism - just the
people of God from all nations called to praise.

Bob

Bob MacDonald
http://bobmacdonald.gx.ca
Victoria, B.C., Canada