Читать книгу Paul Among the Gentiles: A "Radical" Reading of Romans - Jacob P. B. Mortensen - Страница 24

In one of her several articles on Paul and his Gentile addressees,1 Paula Fredriksen approaches the problem of the Gentiles from the perspective of ancient Jewish apocalyptic beliefs.2 Some of the ancient apocalyptic traditions directly addressed the fate of the non-Jews at the onset of Israel’s eschatological redemption. These traditions were mixed, though. Some were adverse, some were favourable, and sometimes both adverse and favourable traditions appeared in the same text.3 However, according to Fredriksen, what mattered to Paul and the early Jesus movement were the eschatological traditions that foretold the inclusion of the Gentiles (or the nations) with a reassembled Israel (e.g. Isa 2:2–4; 25:6; Mic 4:1ff.). In the traditions somehow informing Paul’s beliefs, this could be expressed thus: ‘In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying ’Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”’ (Zech 8:23) Or the Gentiles themselves might be described as carrying the Jews in exile back to Jerusalem (Ps. Sol. 7:31–41). Or the Gentiles would be described as burying their idols because ‘all people shall direct their sight to the path of uprightness’ (1 Enoch 91:14).

It may be conceptually difficult to distinguish between the inclusive eschatological traditions receiving Gentiles into the family of Israel, and the non-eschatological Jewish practice of receiving Gentiles into diaspora synagogues. But Fredriksen argues for a crucial difference: From the point of view of Jewish synagogues, the proselytes (i.e. circumcised or converted Gentiles) were no longer Gentiles – they were Jews of a special kind (though not historical-ethnic Jews). But the synagogue’s God-fearers (or Judaizers) were still ‘active’ Gentiles (or pagans as Fredriksen prefers). From an inside, Jewish perspective, everyone who had not converted to Judaism – despite how sympathetic they might have been – was considered Gentile (or pagan). They might still worship their own native gods, even if they also worshiped the one God of Israel. The dividing line now is that when the Lord of the universe reveals himself in glory and the day of wrath arrives, as the eschatological traditions describe it, the nations (or Gentiles) will destroy their idols, repudiate their gods, and worship Israel’s God together with Israel. This means that in the eschatological texts of the Hebrew Bible, the category of an uncircumcised Gentile worshipping with Israel is a theoretical or hypothetical possibility in the last days. The Gentiles worshipping with Israel in these final days assume the position of ex-pagan pagans, or ex-pagan Gentiles. According to the apocalyptic texts, the destruction of their idols would not imply that these Gentiles converted to Judaism. The Gentiles do not convert, but they do turn (στρέφω). When, in the last days, God redeems Israel, the Gentiles (or the nations) will turn from the lesser gods – whose images they worship – and turn to the one God of Israel (cf. Isa 45:22; Tob 14:6). Fredriksen takes this to be the background of Paul’s claims to his Gentile addressees, quintessentially expressed thus: ‘You turned to God from idols, to serve the true and living god’ (ἐπεστρέψατε, 1 Thess 1:9).

By describing the ‘turning’ Gentiles as ex-pagan pagans or ex-pagan Gentiles, Fredriksen makes a pun on the two English words for the single Greek ἔθνη.4 The two English words have different connotations. ‘Gentile’ connotes ethnicity, and implies that the person in question is defined as a non-Jew. ‘Pagan’ connotes religious affiliation, and implies that the person in question is neither a Christian nor a Jew. However, Greek does not make this distinction, and in the time of Paul, a pagan would be a Gentile and a Gentile would be a pagan, with the exception of converted proselytes. Consequently, by putting ‘pagan’ and ‘Gentile’ next to each other in one word, and further adding ‘ex-’, Fredriksen identifies the inadequacy of (any) translation of ἔθνη as either ‘pagan’ or ‘Gentile’, while noting the anachronism of any distinction between ethnicity and religion at the time of Paul. In ancient societies, ethnicity was religion, which makes it impossible for us, today, to distinguish between pagan and Gentile. Nevertheless, Fredriksen chooses to emphasize the bond between cult and ethnicity by translating ἔθνη as ‘pagan’. But this only works in tandem with an explicit ‘distinct-but-together’ relationship between Israel and the nations/Gentiles/pagans in the eschatological times.