Читать книгу Paul Among the Gentiles: A "Radical" Reading of Romans - Jacob P. B. Mortensen - Страница 21

In this introductory or preliminary chapter, I wish to draw attention to the question of terminology with respect to the radical perspective on Paul. I will not explore actual historical circumstances or texts in this chapter, but I will examine what other radical scholars have proposed as suitable designations for Paul’s addressees. The uniting characteristic of all these scholars is their attention to Paul’s addressees, and the firm conviction that Paul addressed non-Jews exclusively – the Gentiles.1 Radical scholars claim that, in particular, this would be Paul’s way of proclaiming Judaism. But how do we conceptualize this group of people who obviously attended some kind of Jewish gathering, led and founded by a Christ-believing Jew, living out, or practising, very Jewish ways of life and thought, without being actual Jews?

It seems as though scholars have always used the title of ‘Christians’ to identify Paul’s addressees.2 Sometimes, we even refer to the study of ‘Christian Origins’ or ‘Early (Formative) Christianity’ as what Paul engaged in. But from the perspective of a radical reading of Romans, some of the traditional terminology should be reconsidered to avoid misleading scholars to draw anachronistic or otherwise erroneous conclusions.3 The incentive to not draw anachronistic conclusions also works from perspectives other than the radical. But we must consider whether any descriptions work from an intrinsic perspective, and if none do, how we may most suitably redefine some of the traditional terminology. These reconsidered words and expressions may help us to better grasp what was going on in the mid-first-century Mediterranean world. The obvious reason for doing this is that nowhere does Paul designate his addressees as Christians;4 neither does he designate any group as Jewish–Christian or Gentile–Christian.5 Furthermore, he never speaks of himself as a Christian (χριστιανός).6 Consequently, if we continue to use these designations in our efforts to understand Paul in his historical setting, we reuse (and reinforce) politically powerful terms that are anachronistic and misleading. If we do not identify and draw attention to this aspect of our scholarly work, we may end up using these designations for contemporary needs in the formation of religious identities. Only by critically evaluating these designations can they help us to describe the Jewish and Greco-Roman society in which Paul moved.

The radical perspective argues that it would be more historically accurate to try to reach an understanding of the kind of Judaism Paul was concerned with in his letters, based on ancient Jewish uses of ‘Jew’ and ‘Judaism’, than to describe what he was doing with terms he never applied to himself or others. In extension of this, we should be aware of the fact that if Paul did not use a term that would distinguish his movement from Judaism, then he probably preached a form of Judaism, which included the incorporation of Gentiles qua non-Jews into Judaism. Thus, titles that would more fittingly describe the identities Paul navigates would be ‘Christ-believing Gentiles’ or ‘Gentiles-in-Christ’, even though the relation of these Gentiles to Judaism would be very vaguely illuminated by such a designation. The title, ‘Gentiles-in-Christ’ would also be an etic term, as differentiated from an emic one. Other and more nuanced possibilities have been proposed, especially by proponents of the radical perspective. I now turn to these. Essentially, the crucial task of determining terminology comes down to this: Which terms best describe the reality we try to grasp?