Critical Assessment of Rosner's "Paul and the Law", Part 3

Who is the Christian of whom Rosner speaks?

Perhaps this will appear to you to be a quite unusual question at first. Of course Christians are followers of Jesus Christ both Jew and Gentile you might say. This certainly seems to be the way Rosner is using the term. He states in the conclusion: “although Jews are under the law, believers in Christ are not” (p. 418). This understanding of identity in Paul however is anachronistic and false. It is true that in one place Paul distinguishes Jew, Gentile and the ekklesia of God (1 Cor 10:32). But this type of categorization is exceptional and whatever it might mean, it does not denote the so-called “third race” theology prevalent in the some circles today. Paul’s categories for identity are binary sets: Jew and Greek, male and female, and slave and free (Gal 3:28). For the sake of argument, even if the term "church" were taken as a category for Paul alongside the ethnic distinctions, the term "Christian" was not.

Rosner’s study exhibits this common category error and consequently the thinking does not reflect the complexity of the issue adequately. The result of this weakness is that his conclusion that “a major shift in the way the people of God relate to the law” has occurred for Paul cannot be sustained. While it may be true, the argument in this essay is too weak to establish it.

Let me put my point in a simple a question: Was a Jewish believer in Jesus at the time of Paul a Jew or a Christian?

Critical Assessment of Rosner's "Paul and the Law", Part 2

Before I discuss the essay in any of its details, which I'll do, I want to address a few of the key assumptions Rosner brings to the essay. Now I write this well aware that Brian is reading these posts. So I hope to be irenic in my evaluation and that the points I raise will spur on the conversation. Moreover, I trust that Brian will feel comfortable pointing out errors, when there are such, in my representation of his perspective. I think it is good to write with the awareness that the person along with whom you are thinking is present. And I want to thank Brian for an interesting and thought provoking essay. So here we go.

First, there is an assumption that one can create affirmations of Paul’s thought from non-assertions. Rosner refers to this kind of evidence as “implicit” and treats it on the same level with Paul’s, one might say, “explicit” evidence. However, whatever the “implicit” evidence might offer it is in no way equal in weight to the explicit. The whole essay is an argument from silence. Perhaps in no other situation does ones larger construct of Paul come into play than when one seeks to create a “compelling story” (p. 417) from silence. And for this reason it is just as well that implicit evidence is “largely overlooked in treatments of Paul” (p. 417).

Second, to refer to the implicit evidence as “omissions” is to interpret the evidence, non-evidence really, before actually reading it. To label the so-called silences as “omissions” reveals a position on the question before setting out to answer it. It assumes at least in part that Paul decided to leave out something he might have on other occasions or times included. Anyone who has preached the same message to different audiences will understand that one may “omit” information in one setting that was appropriate in another. However, why should we characterize the non-evidence as omissions? By the way, I’m even having trouble knowing what terms to use to refer to Rosner’s evidence.

One other assumption, although this bleeds over into point of view, is the categories with which this essay functions. Rosner seems boil the groups down to either Jew or Christian and concludes that Paul says one thing about Jews and another about Chrsitians. This bipolar perspective on the constituency of Paul’s communities and early Christianity is in need of critical evaluation. Paul himself stands as one who is BOTH a Jew and a believer in Jesus. Paul’s language about himself in the context of Romans 2, which is the focus of Rosner’s essay, moves easily between Jew (notice the first person references – e.g. 2:5) and Christ believer. These then are not airtight categories of identity. Thus, the bottom line is Rosner’s assessment at the end of the day falls down primarily because of its lack of sophistication with respect to Paul’s understanding, and indeed the situation on the ground in the first century, of Christian identity.

Critical Assessment of Rosner's "Paul and the Law", Part 1

I will write a few posts in response to Brian Rosner's recent article in JSNT. The title of the article is “Paul and the Law: What he Does not Say” (32.4, pp. 405-19). Here's the first set up post.

Rosner notes three kinds of evidence in Paul’s letters that have a bearing on one’s view of Paul’s understanding of the relationship of the law to the Christian: what Paul says, what Paul does with the law and what Paul does not say about the law. As his starting point, Rosner refers to a quotation from Betz’ Galatians commentary, claiming that Paul never says Christians are to “keep” or “obey” the Torah. He affirms Betz’s idea that Paul carefully distinguishes between the ‘doing’ of the Torah which is not required of Christians and the ‘fulfilling’ of the Torah which is.

The article’s purpose is to use Paul’s silences as a means of ascertaining his view on a Christians relationship to the Torah. He wishes to extend Betz observation. To this end he turns his attention to Romans 2:17-29 as a test case and lists some 10 things Paul says about the Mosaic law and the Jew.

Jews:

• rely on the law (17a)
• boast in the law (v. 23)
• know God’s will through the law (v. 18)
• are educated in the law (v. 18),
• have light, knowledge and truth because of the law (vv. 19-20)
• are to do the law (v. 25)
• (by implication) are to observe the righteous requirements of the law (v. 26)
• keep the law (v. 27);
• occasionally transgress the law (vv. 23, 25, 27)
• possess the (law as) written code (v. 27).

The article sets out to answer on simple question: “Does Paul say the same things of believers in Christ in relation to the law?” (p. 406). The bulk of the essay then takes each item in the list in turn and discusses the silence of Paul on this point with respect to Christians. At times drawing antithetical relationships between what Paul says about a Jew and what he says to a Christian (e.g. Christians rely on Christ not the law).

Rosner concludes his essay thusly, “Paul never says that Christians relate to the law in any of these ways” (p. 417). For him the only reasonable implication from this evidence is “a major shift in the way the people of God relate to the law” has happened (p. 417). “The Law of Moses”, says Rosner, “is much more of a focus for Jews than for Christians and the two groups relate to the law quite differently. The evidence of omission is fully in line with Paul’s perspective that, although Jews are under the law, believers in Christ are not” (pp. 417-18).

Paul and the Law in Redemptive-History

Over at Berith Road, Steven Coxhead has an interesting post on Justification by Works of Law in Pauline Perspective. I enjoyed teaching on this subject since I find that most undergraduate students have a default understanding of the law that is quasi-Marcionite. I often set an exam question, "According to Paul, is the law a bad thing that has been done away with, or a good thing that has been fulfilled?" I categorically reject the idea that the Mosaic law is a republication of a covenant of works and it has to be related positively to the Abrahamic covenant (as Coxhead notes). In my view, the purpose of the law was to be a temporary administration of God's grace to govern God's people until the promised seed of Abraham came, to cocoon God's promises around Israel and to protract Israel's capacity to worship God, to point out the reality of sin and the holiness of God, and to intimate the ministries of the Christ. Thus the law was guardian to lead God's people until Christ and to lead them to Christ. Still, Paul can also identify the law as part of an unholy triad comprising of law-sin-death. The law is also bound up with the old age that is passing away and is not the instrument that will ultimately realize the fulfllment of the Abrahamic promises.

Salvation and "Paul's Judaism"

When I say "Paul's Judaism" do you think of (a) the Judaism known to Paul, or (b) Paul's own beliefs and practices as an expression within Judaism? It is an interesting question and it was Mark Nanos who inspired the thought in me and I've been musing on this subject for a while now. Along with Mark and several others, I'm down to speak at a conference in Leuven, Belgium on New Perspectives on Paul and the Jews and I've finally completed my paper for that event. I've attached a draft here. Comments welcomed below.

Paul's View of the Law: Where Should the Study Begin?

When considering the question of Paul's view of the Law one is immediately confronted with a host of preliminary issues and questions. One such issue, for example, is the question of the referent of the term nomos: Does nomos refer to the Mosaic legislation, to the Mosaic Covenant, to a generic principle, to all the above and more?

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One question however that is not often considered adequately in my view is the question of where such a study should begin. This question is not insignificant since where one begins has a large influence on what one concludes.

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As I approach the subject I have been surprised that very few if any interpreters begin with Paul's view of the end. What I mean is few begin with a discussion of the function of the Law for end-time judgment/salvation. In Romans 2:5-16 Paul asserts the abiding function of the Law for eschatological judgment ("the doers of the Law will be justified"). If Paul maintains that the Law continues to function as the criteria for judgment at the end of the age, should that not affect one's interpretation of Paul's view of its validity in the present? Would not beginning here preclude or at the very least significantly nuance interpretations which present Paul's theology as a fundamental antithesis between works and faith?