Читать книгу Paul Among the Gentiles: A "Radical" Reading of Romans - Jacob P. B. Mortensen - Страница 14

Mark Nanos’s work significantly challenges traditional scholarly work on Paul. I specify ‘traditional’, because Nanos did not receive formal doctoral training before writing his first book on Paul. Besides, he worked from an outspoken Jewish perspective, rather than from an ‘objective’ academic one.1 This may mean that he sees things more clearly than traditionally trained scholars, but it may also mean that he misinterprets fundamental Pauline truisms. However, if Nanos’s analyses of Romans and Galatians are correct, his work demands a complete rethinking of these letters, and of our perception of Paul’s missionary work.

In his book, The Mystery of Romans (1996), Nanos addresses three things (primarily): First, he discusses who the ‘weak’ and the ‘strong’ in Rome were (cf. Rom 14:1–15:6).2 Second, he discusses what the ‘mystery’ of Rom 11:25–27 was.3 Third, he discusses who the governing authorities to which Paul refers in Rom 13:1–7 were.4 In each of the three cases, Nanos flips the traditional discussion on its head, and surprises with innovative solutions. According to Nanos, the ‘weak’ of Rom 14:1–15:6 were not Christ-believing Jews. Nanos argues that the ‘weak in faith’ is a respectful reference to the Jews in Rome who did not believe that Christ was the Messiah.5 Paul refers to them as ‘weak’ because they have not yet recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and they do not recognize righteous Gentiles to be co-participants in divine blessing. The mystery of Romans 11 does not concern God’s hidden plan of salvation, but concerns the jealousy of Jews observing Paul’s missionary success with the Gentiles. These non-Christ-believing Jews recognized the eschatological ingathering of the nations, and became jealous, because these other wanted to participate in Israel’s calling to be a light to the nations. Finally, the authorities who should be respected are not Roman imperial powers, but synagogue leaders (Rom 13:1–7). Nanos gathers together these conclusions in the major claim of his book: under the synagogue authority, Christian Gentiles in Rome developed a subgroup identity born of ethnic superiority and Christ-believing Gentile exclusivism.6 Hence, the Jewish ethnocentrism that James Dunn argues is the object of Paul’s criticism of Judaism7 is turned on its head by Nanos, and instead concerns Christ-believing Gentiles’ ethnocentrism and exclusive position, vis-à-vis the Jews before God.

Nanos’s interpretation presents a Paul who worked within Jewish communities as a law-observant Jew. Paul addressed his message to Gentiles, because of his commission to the Gentiles as apostle, because of God’s work through Christ. But Nanos holds that Paul did not break with the basic conceptions that characterized Judaism in the first century CE. Paul neither created a new religion nor became a law-free apostle. On the contrary, Paul firmly believed that the (Mosaic) law represents God’s gift to Israel, and that a Jew observes the law as a response to God’s mercy. Thus, Nanos’s thinking clearly converges with Sanders’ interpretation and presentation of ‘covenantal nomism’. Nanos also presents such a Jewish Paul that he rejects a ‘two covenant’ solution. Because Paul was so Jewish, and because Paul believed that Christ was the awaited Jewish Messiah, Jews and Gentiles come together in the Jewish salvation through the Messiah. However, Jews remain within the covenant relationship with God, which the Messiah comes to reaffirm. Gentiles do not become Jews, and they do not become part of Israel’s covenant, but they are still saved because of the Jewish Messiah. Hence, Mark Nanos’s interpretation presents a Paul who is thoroughly Jewish, and there is no sign in it of Christianity.