Corpus-Paul

["Justin Dombrowski" <jedombrowski AT msn.com>]

Thank you Bob, though this doesn't answer the questions I asked. 
Nevertheless, here are follow ups.  See the "JD: ..."

> People who may have been in the assembly when the letter was
> read could have been
> -Jews who had not believed the message of Christ,
> -Jews who had believed (Prisca, Aquila, Andronicus and
> Junia - perhaps the Joanna of the gospels per Richard
> Bauckham in Gospel Women),
> -proselytes
> -Gentile converts to Judaism,
> -God-fearers of various backgrounds,
> -Greeks who had believed the message of Christ (Epaenetus),
> -and other interested Gentiles

JD:  I presume what you mean is those are the people Paul would have 
presumed as his audience, seeing as Paul hadn't been to Rome.  There's a 
difference between "who was in Rome that Paul could've been writing to" and 
"who Paul thought he was writing to" and the latter pertains to the letter, 
not the former, though there's obviously overlap.  This lead's to my 
question:  How do you interpret the "en hois este humeis klhtoi Ihsou 
Xristou" in 1.6?  If Paul had intended to write to pagans or non-believing 
Jews, it seems unlikely that he'd call them "you who are called of Jesus 
Christ." Beyond that, "believing" seems to be the presupposition of the 
whole letter.


> If the letter is addressed to "all God's beloved in Rome" -
> i.e. not a "church", then I do not see this as excluding any
> of the above. I do not know whether chapter 16 belongs to
> Rome or Ephesus; the consensus seems to be Rome.

JD:  Again, how does one interpret 1.6?

> E.g. Nanos page 69: Both formalized Christianity and
> rabbinic Judaism found it necessary to seek to define
> themselves "over against" each other in the second century
> and thereafter, which further suggests that the umbilical
> cord may not have been cut earlier, certainly not as early
> as Paul's letter to Rome between 55-58 C.E.

JD:  That's a mondo tough sell to me at many points.  The question is not 
"whether" the cord was cut, but "how much" it was cut, and whether the Roman 
addressees were in the "cut" part or not, and to my knowledge we actually 
know very little about the climate of Roman Judaism.  It's also not good 
history to move from generals to particulars like that.  I suspect for some 
parts of the community it was "cut" in mid-late 1st c. Rome, but that 
"cut-ness" grew over time.  Furthermore, defining over-against the other is 
only a way in which division manifests itself, and there are other data 
pointing toward elements of division earlier--e.g. in Acts for starters.  So 
I'm suspicious...


> re the weak and the strong, the repetition in chapter 14 of
> these words in chapter 4 as applied to Abraham gives
> substance to the recapitulation - Paul chooses his words
> carefully - can God raise us from the dead as Isaac was so
> raised in a figure? This weak and strong prelude re Abraham
> in chapter 4 finds its power in the instruction not to judge
> one another first approached in chapters 1 and 2, and taken
> up again in chapter 14.

JD:  Could you elaborate?  I really don't understand.  Are you saying 
Abraham being "weak" is akin to ch.14's "weak" individuals?  This seems like 
a stretch to me, especially since Abraham's "weakness" is not his faith, as 
it is the case for those mentioned in ch.14.  Abraham is given precisely as 
an example because he's strong in faith despite his weakness, not because he 
has weak faith.  And his weakness has nothing to do with unbelieving, Torah 
observance, etc. I also don't see the "raising the dead" point with Isaac.