Corpus-Paul

["Mark D. Nanos" <mark AT marknanos.com>]

Ian,
Thanks for the clarification and discussion. I am out of time for this, but
will try to follow if something new arises from the discussion.

I started to question what was conveyed in Paul's ethnikws language when
noticing that zhs is in the present tense, but that when Paul is addressing
Peter, he is presently eating with Jews only, so it did not make sense as
commonly understood, and by you, for me. He should have written, "you were
living gentiley" before returning to "living Jewishly" if that was to be
clearly communicated, not you "are living gentiley." So I began to search
for a way to make sense of this language. Landed on "living gentiley" =
"standing before God on the same terms as Gentiles do," which is how Paul's
argument seems to proceed thereafter. More along this line in that essay in
Galatians Debate, also discussion of usage of ioudai¨zein.
Regards,
Mark
-- 
Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
Soebbing Visiting Scholar, Rockhurst University
Lecturer, University of Kansas
Co-Moderator, Corpus Paulinum
http://www.marknanos.com



on 3/28/06 2:51 PM, Ian Scott at iscott2 AT uwo.ca wrote:

> Mark,
> 
> Let me offer a heart-felt apology that my rhetoric made me seem closed to
> discussion. I raised the issue here in part because I was interested in a
> more direct discussion with people who read Paul in the way you do. In
> hindsight I can see that you're right about the way I used terms like
> "clear." I hope that this isn't an indication of my "need" to read a text in
> a certain way, but rather of my perception that some of your readings don't
> do as much justice to the text as you suggest. I hope that such disagreement
> can be maintained in a friendly and, yes, open manner. Unfortunately, email
> does not always communicate tone of voice well, particularly when one
> doesn't edit posts as carefully as one might edit a print publication. I
> will certainly re-visit your chapter in the "Galatians Debate." While I
> don't expect us to reach consensus on this issue, I do find the process of
> debate very valuable. Not only is it stimulating (and challenging to my own
> position), but I find that I often learn much about exactly where my
> disagreement with others lies. That is, I think, as much as we can often
> hope for in terms of "progress" in textual interpretation.
> 
> Let me offer my own parting comment, I hope in an open and collegial tone.
> General considerations about justification language aside, I think much of
> our disagreement revolves around the question of how Paul would have likely
> used the phrase "ethnikws zhs." You maintain that to "live in a Gentile
> manner" could mean simply to "maintain equal identity for non-Jews apart
> from proselyte conversion." I remain unconvinced that Paul's phrase can
> plausibly be stretched this far. This is because a) language about how one
> "lives" is usually used in this literature to refer to practices rather than
> abstract theology or attitudes; and b) it is Peter's own activity which Paul
> identifies as "ethnikws," not the activity of the Gentiles in the community.
> If Peter's conviction about the equal identity for non-Jews is the issue in
> Antioch, then I think Paul's phrase here points to that attitude's being
> manifested in some concrete *practices* of Peter's which are recognized as
> "non-Jewish" and indeed in conflict with an ordinary Jewish identity. One
> might suggest that the practice here is the eating of common meals with
> un-circumcized Gentiles, but as you say Aristeas suggests this might not in
> itself have been seen as breaking any boundaries. This is why I think
> Peter's "living like a Gentile" must have involved the violation of more
> standard boundary markers, and since common meals are involved in the
> Antioch dispute food laws are a natural candidate.
> 
> Thanks again for a brief, but stimulating exchange. I look forward to more
> in the future.
> 
> Respectfully,
> 
> Ian
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Ian W. Scott
> Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
> King's University College
> London, Ontario, CANADA
> iscott2 AT uwo.ca
> --------------------------------------------------------
> The Online Critical Pseudepigrapha: http://www.purl.org/net/ocp
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Please visit my web-site at http://www.ian-w-scott.com
>  
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: corpus-paul-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:corpus-paul-
>> bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Mark D. Nanos
>> Sent: March 28, 2006 3:08 PM
>> To: Corpus Paul
>> Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] The Antioch Incident
>> 
>> Ian,
>> I have to bow out, but not before trying to clarify the issue and saying
>> that I do not find it productive when one discussion partner insists that
>> their view is based on "clear statements" when it is the translation and
>> interpretation of the statements that is under discussion. It is hard to
>> imagine an open dialogue partner who is interested in the text instead of
>> in
>> needing the text to be read in a certain way. Can it be dialogue?
>> 
>> I have argued why the references are most likely to circumcision and
>> proselyte conversion in the published work to which I referred. And in the
>> essay in Galatians Debate to each of the phrases to which you refer here.
>> If
>> you are open to a challenge to your view, which is widely held, of course,
>> you will find it therein.
>> 
>> When you read Paul citing "the just shall live by faith" (however
>> translated), do you take that to mean how they eat or how they stand
>> before
>> God, justified? Language is multi-dimension, as you know doubt know but in
>> this exchange seem unwilling to allow. If justification/legitimation
>> before
>> God as part of the family of righteous ones is allowed, then the phrase to
>> which you refer is not about behaving like a Gentile in matters of diet,
>> e.g., but about standing before God on the same terms, regardless of
>> whether
>> Jew or non-Jew, as the following verses in Gal 2 seem to indicate to be at
>> stake (v. 16: "even we [Jews] have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to
>> be
>> justified by faith of/in Christ..."). (see my Debate essay on Antioch for
>> more.)
>> 
>> The boundary-marker I see implied in this language relates to non-Jews
>> becoming Jews or not, and how Jews who believe "also" in Christ, just like
>> them, are to regard them and behave toward and with them based upon that
>> shared identity in Christ. There are no "clear statements about the
>> non-Jewish lifestyle being led by Jews in Antioch," only interpretations
>> to
>> that effect. On my reading, these Jews (and Jewish subgroups) do lead what
>> would be regarded as deviant (according to most Jewish communal
>> definitions)
>> lifestyles to the degree that they maintain equal identity for non-Jews
>> apart from proselyte conversion, because of the work of Christ, no matter
>> how much they otherwise are zealous for scrupulous Torah-observance in
>> things like diet. I think they would need to be that, because they have
>> enough trouble with their Gentile inclusion program without being open to
>> having the charge provable that they disregard dietary codes (rather than
>> simply having their own group definitions on some points, because of their
>> belief in the gospel inclusion of non-Jews at meals as equals). In that
>> case
>> it is not about food, which would presumably be kosher, but people.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Mark
>> --
>> Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
>> Soebbing Visiting Scholar, Rockhurst University
>> Lecturer, University of Kansas
>> Co-Moderator, Corpus Paulinum
>> http://www.marknanos.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> on 3/28/06 12:19 PM, Ian Scott at iscott2 AT uwo.ca wrote:
>> 
>>> Thanks Mark and Loren for your quick responses. Let me emphasize, first
>> the
>>> speculative nature of your alternatives. There is actually nothing in
>> the
>>> passage that says the issue is circumcision, even if (as you say) there
>> is
>>> also nothing which explicitly says the issue is about what food is
>> eaten.
>>> The fact that circumcision is used as a distinguishing mark of
>> Jewishness in
>>> 2:12 does not in itself demonstrate that circumcision was the only issue
>>> under discussion in Antioch. In fact, since Paul has just described Jews
>> as
>>> "the circumcision" in his discussion of the Jerusalem meeting (2:7, 8,
>> 9), I
>>> think it highly problematic to assume that the label here implies
>> anything
>>> about the issues under debate in Antioch. This may simply be Paul's
>> label
>>> for "ethnic Jews," a label which arises from other circumstances but
>> which
>>> come conveniently to hand at the moment.
>>> 
>>> More importantly, though, Paul's statement that Peter and Barnabas live
>>> "ethnikws" and not "Ioudaikws" indicates that the debate in Antioch was
>> not
>>> simply about how Gentile proselytes act -- it was about how circumcized
>> Jews
>>> act as well. At the very least, Paul is indicating that Peter, Barnabas
>> and
>>> the others at Antioch had not been adhering to practices which were
>> commonly
>>> regarded as basic markers of Jewish identity. Moreover, Paul's statement
>>> that they "live" in a non-Jewish way would seem to imply that it is
>> their
>>> general lifestyle that is at issue, and not simply one specific
>> practice.
>>> Nor, then, is this simply a matter of comparative social status. Paul
>>> regards Peter and Barnabas as having habitually violated Jewish
>>> "boundary-markers" by their lifestyle. Moreover, it is the most visible
>>> (because culturally distinctive) injunctions of Torah which were
>>> consistently treated as "boundary-markers" in this way (circumcision,
>>> Sabbath, food, idolatry).
>>> 
>>> Granted, there still remains a question about why Paul regards Peter and
>>> Barnabas' behaviour as pressuring Gentiles to "Judaize," live like a
>> Jew. As
>>> you note, Mark, one would think they could simply have eaten meals
>> together
>>> in which the food adhered to Jewish regulations. I don't think we can
>> solve
>>> this problem, though, in a way which overlooks Paul's clear statements
>> about
>>> the non-Jewish lifestyle being led by Jews in Antioch.
>>> 
>>> Thanks for the stimulating exchange.
>>> 
>>> Ian
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --------------------------------------------------------
>>> Ian W. Scott
>>> Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
>>> King's University College
>>> London, Ontario, CANADA
>>> iscott2 AT uwo.ca
>>> --------------------------------------------------------
>>> The Online Critical Pseudepigrapha: http://www.purl.org/net/ocp
>>> --------------------------------------------------------
>>> Please visit my web-site at http://www.ian-w-scott.com
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: corpus-paul-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:corpus-paul-
>>>> bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Loren Rosson
>>>> Sent: March 28, 2006 11:59 AM
>>>> To: Corpus-Paul
>>>> Subject: [Corpus-Paul] The Antioch Incident
>>>> 
>>>> Ian wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> It seems to me, though, that Paul's
>>>>> description of the Antioch incident
>>>>> still requires that Paul was at least
>>>>> violating food regulations on a regular
>>>>> basis when he was in mixed communities.
>>>> 
>>>> I would insist -- following Philip Esler and Mark
>>>> Nanos -- that Antioch was emphatically not about food
>>>> laws. It was about circumcision, just as Gal 2:12
>>>> implies, and thus about who ate with whom. The men
>>>> from James were saying in effect that Gentiles had to
>>>> become proselytes in order to share table-fellowship
>>>> on an equal basis with Jewish people. Antioch centered
>>>> on the question of full conversion to Judaism, rather
>>>> than food laws, as if to imply that something "less
>>>> drastic" than circumcision was being imposed by way of
>>>> compromise. As Esler notes, "modern notions of fair
>>>> play" have hindered scholars from interpreting the
>>>> Antioch incident correctly (Galatians, p 137). This
>>>> is, after all, why Paul recounts the incident: it has
>>>> direct bearing on the Galatian crisis (Gal 5:2-3).
>>>> 
>>>> Sharing this remarkable commonality, Esler and Nanos
>>>> draw otherwise opposite conclusions about Antioch.
>>>> Esler thinks the pillars revoked their agreement to
>>>> leave Gentiles free of any obligation to become
>>>> circumcised (Gal 2:1-10). Peter, by withdrawing from
>>>> table-fellowship, went back on his word, prompted by
>>>> the men from James. By the canons of honor-shame, the
>>>> pillars were under no obligation to keep their promise
>>>> to a rival like Paul, and every reason to back-bite
>>>> him for having gotten the better of them with the
>>>> Titus situation. So on this line of thinking, Antioch
>>>> was about back-biting -- the pillars' revenge on Paul.
>>>> 
>>>> Mark sees things differently, believing James'
>>>> delegates to have been non-Christian outsiders who
>>>> didn't agree with James. Peter ended up capitulating
>>>> to outside influence, but only temporarily; the
>>>> pillars remained on the same page with Paul, as they'd
>>>> always been.
>>>> 
>>>> Whether we go in Esler's or Nanos' (or another)
>>>> direction, we need to take seriously that proselyte
>>>> conversion (Gal 2:12 ~ 5:2-3) is what Antioch was
>>>> about. Acts 15 should be held at arm's length and
>>>> dealt with only after Gal 2 is hammered out on its own
>>>> right. Moreover, neither reading *necessarily*
>>>> requires Paul himself to have abandoned Jewish dietary
>>>> laws. (Though with all due respect to Mark, it
>>>> wouldn't surprise me, especially in light of I Cor
>>>> 9:19-23.)
>>>> 
>>>> Note: I recently wrote a blogpost about Antioch, which
>>>> drew some interesting comments:
>>>> 
>>>> http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2006/03/treachery-at-antioch.html
>>>> 
>>>> Best wishes to all,
>>>> 
>>>> Loren Rosson III
>>>> Nashua NH
>>>> http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/
>>>> 
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