Corpus-Paul

[Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>]

"Some respected Christian scholars regard Jewish
history as a playground for their frolics of
fancy...such scholarly apologias align with dogma in
portraying Jews as the stray sheep who should see the
light of reason about Christianity's enduring
Judaistic underpinnings at long last: Why, not only
was Jesus perfectly Jewish, so was Paul!" (Tibor
Krausz, reviewer of Bruce Chilton's "Rabbi Paul";
cited in Mark Nanos' new article)
__________________________________________

List moderator Mark Nanos has just put a new paper on
his website, called "A Torah-Observant Paul? What
Difference Could It Make for Christian/Jewish
Relations Today?", and since it relates directly to
the issue of contemporary agendas over Paul's
Jewishness, I thought I would pick up the recent
thread on "Symbolic Paul". Mark's article may be found
here --

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/nanosmd/Boston-Torah-Obs-5-9-05.pdf

-- and I would encourage list members to read
thoroughly before going through any of my following
remarks. (I sent some of these remarks to Mark
off-list, with modifications, before he put the
article up on his site.)

In this well-written article, Nanos is upfront about
his agenda to promote better Jewish-Christian
relations with a better understanding of a
Torah-observant Paul. He suggests the following
approach (see pp 15-16):

      (1) Whatever Paul argues should be read as
issuing from the hand of one who is Torah observant. 
      (2) In almost all cases, whatever Paul argues
should not be universalized. One might attach the
phrase "for Christian Gentiles" to virtually every
proposition Paul upholds, rather than filling in "for
every person" or "for every Christian".
      (3) Paul's concerns address these Gentiles and
their concerns. They arise in most cases from
marginalization within Jewish communities and Roman
society.
      (4) An interpreter should give equal weight to
the "pro-Jewish" passages in Paul's letters (i.e. Rom
3:2, 7:14, 9:4-5, 11:1-32; I Cor 7:17-24, etc.) when
considering the "anti-Jewish" passages (Gal. 3:10,
6:15, Rom. 9:6-10:21; Philip 3:7-11, II Cor 3, etc.).

This four-fold approach seems to be valid and flawed
at once.

(1) While Paul does appear to have remained
Torah-observant in some contexts, he does not in
others, on which see more below on the subject of I
Cor 9:19-23.

(2)/(3) There is much to be said for these twin
assumptions when applied to many parts of the Pauline
corpus. But they can also be problematic (and beg
questions), especially in Romans, much of which likely
targets Judeans, and much of which does appear to
universalize certain ideas about Torah. If, for
instance, the function of Rom 9:6-10:21 is to
legitimate Christian Judeans in the face of pressure
and/or stigmatization from unbelieving Israel (so
Esler), then 9:30-10:8 tells Judeans that the Torah
declares itself a dead-end project, period. And if
Adam is in view in Rom 7:7-13 -- with the section
addressed to those who "know the law" (7:1) -- then
Paul's comments about Torah apply phenomenologically
to "commandments", and have Judeans in view to boot. 

(4) One must certainly give equal weight to
"pro-Jewish" texts as much as "anti-Jewish" texts (my
terms, not Nanos', which are problematic, but the gist
follows), but Mark has the arrows pointing in a
direction which implicitly favors an emphasis on the
"pro-Jewish" set. The inverse needs to be spelled out
too: that an interpreter should give equal weight to
"anti-Jewish" texts as much as "pro-Jewish" texts. Do
we emphasize Rom 11:1-32 over Rom 9:6-10:21, or
vice-versa, or both in equal measure?

Nanos' four-fold approach puts one in mind of similar
strategies found in Gager's Reinventing Paul. As
tested assumptions they sometimes work, but sometimes
fail. Agenda-driven as they are, the failures don't
surprise.

Mark believes that "Paul's ostensible undermining of
Jewish Torah and election was just that, apparent, for
it arose in rhetoric developed to raise the self- and
group-esteem of Gentiles among whom the advantages of
being Jewish were not in doubt. They needed to be
persuaded that they were not thereby disadvantaged."
(p 50) In my view, however, the undermining of Torah
and election was very real, since it arose in contexts
which required (as Paul saw it) a direct assault on
Israelite heritage. Apocalyptics like Jesus and Paul
are legendary for pulling the rug out from under
tradition, and some go further than others when
situations draw them into it.

And the Gentile situation dragged Paul pretty far
afield. Unlike Mark, I think Paul meant what he said
in I Cor 9:19-23 by "living outside the law in order
to win those outside the law". People in antiquity
distrusted those from outside their groups (so Context
Group members like Richard Rohrbaugh tell us), and
Paul would have had to develop a way of creating
solidarity and trust between himself and the Gentiles
he was evangelizing. The only way to do this would
have been to adopt Gentile ways. Naturally Judeans
would have construed him as disloyal (hence the
lashes), which is probably why Paul is so defensive
over his Jewishness later in II Corinthians.

I'm having trouble understanding Mark's
"dad-the-fisherman" and "professor-to-student"
analogies as applied to I Cor 9:19-23 (pp 37-38).
Modern-day fathers and professors can be very casual
and versatile in their roles as such; they indeed
often become friends as much as mentors. Is Paul's
missionary strategy to Gentiles in the ancient
Mediterranean really comparable? If he remained
Torah-observant, as Mark believes, just **how** did he
become as one outside the law? By simply accepting
Gentile behavior and "being chummy"? Judeans were by
and large tolerant of Gentiles anyway -- the very
point of Mark's objection against scholars like Dunn.
The section on I Cor 9:19-23 is probably the weakest
in the article.

As in the Jesus-field (so Bill Arnal), Paul's
Jewishness has become a battleground over which
scholars wield the authority of this "Jewishness"
(however construed) to buttress one's stance in
contemporary debates. On the one hand, Christians may
now "legitimately" cast Jews as "stray sheep who
should see the light about Christianity's Judaic
underpinnings" (Krausz), while on the other, Jews may
indict Christians for misunderstanding a more tolerant
and Torah-friendly apostle. But perhaps Paul's
historical position on the law and election needn't
serve as a symbol "for" or "against" Jewish people at
all. Either approach makes him less real, and more a
symbolic paradigm if anything; it's also hangover from
an old Christology (ironically) which dictates that
Jesus and Paul must be "right" about things and
legitimate the way we feel. At the end of the day,
Paul is a voice among many. We take from him what we
can; what we can take may not always be what we hoped
to find.

So again, Mark, thumbs up for a great article. The
issues you raise are as important as those discussed
by Arnal in Symbolic Jesus. My approach obviously
leans more towards his than yours. (We don't need to
get an accentuated Jewishness out of figures like
Jesus and Paul.) But if we disagree on specifics, and
what exactly our agendas should be, we're aiming at
the same thing: respect for one another in today's
world. Paul is rather alien to me, but I've learned to
appreciate him on his own terms. "Not needing him",
paradoxically, helps enable one to do this.

Comments from others -- Bob, Tim, (Mark, Bill!),
anyone -- are welcome.

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com


                
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