Decades ago, Werner G. Kümmel described the historical problem of Romans as its “double character”: concerned with issues of Torah and the destiny of Israel, the letter is explicitly addressed not to Jews but to Gentiles. At stake in the numerous answers given to that question is nothing less than the purpose of Paul’s most important letter. In The So-Called Jew in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, nine Pauline scholars focus their attention on the rhetoric of diatribe and characterization in the opening chapters of the letter, asking what Paul means by the “so-called Jew” in Romans 2 and where else in the letter’s argumentation that figure appears or is implied. Each component of Paul’s argument is closely examined with particular attention to the theological problems that arise in each.
I’m looking forward to working through the text and reviewing it for the Stone-Campbell Journal.
I recently also had the privilege of reviewing Rafael’s prior If You Call Yourself a Jew: Reappraising Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Wipf & Stock, 2014). I very much appreciate the argument that Rafael brings out in that volume. Rafael has very kindly received the review, though he rightly notes some lingering questions that tend to make me lean in a bit different direction. But, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what in the new Fortress volume may speak to those or other related matters. As H.-G. Gadamer reflects,
We say we “conduct” a conversation, but the more genuine a conversation is, the less its conduct lies within the will of either partner. Thus a genuine conversation is never the one that we wanted to conduct. Rather, it is generally more correct to say that we fall into conversation, or even that we become involved in it. The way one word follows another, with the conversation taking its own twists and reaching its own conclusion, may well be conducted in some way, but the partners conversing are far less leaders of it than the led. (Truth and Method, 401; underlining added)
Pieter Lasman, “The Triumph of Mordechai” (1624; Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
In 1 Sam 15:3, Samuel commands Saul, the son of Kish, “Go, and strike Amalek, and devote to destruction everything that is his. Do not take pity on him, but kill man and woman, child and infant, ox and lamb, camel and donkey” (לך והכיתה את־עמלק והחרמתם את־כל־אשר־לו ולא תחמל עליו והמתה מאיש עד־אשה מעלל ועד־יונק משור ועד־שה מגמל ועד־חמור).1 Unfortunately, Saul’s subsequent engagement with the Amalekites heeded only Samuel’s order to “go and strike Amalek” (לך והכיתה את־עמלק).2 Saul “did devote to destruction” (החרים) the Amalekite people but captured alive Agag, the king.3 Indeed, “Saul and the people had pity on Agag and on the best of the flock and the herd and their choice offspring, on the lambs, and on everything good, and they did not accept devoting them to destruction, but every despised and weak thing they devoted to destruction” (ויחמל שאול והעם על־אגג ועל־מיטב הצאן והבקר והמשנים ועל־הכרים ועל־כל־הטוב ולא אבו החרימם וכל־המלאכה נמבזה ונמס אתה החרימו).4 Thus, Saul becomes the object of Samuel’s ire and forfeits the continuation of his kingdom.5
The task of Agag’s execution then fell to Samuel to perform.6 Yet, not even in this case was the army’s previously defective destruction of the Amalekites completed.7 Rather, the people found themselves continuing to reap the fruits of this disobedience when “King Ahasuerus exalted Haman, son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, and he lifted him up, and he set him on his throne over all the officials who were with him” (גדל המלך אחשורוש את־המן בן־המדתא האגגי וינשאהו וישם את־כסאו מעל כל־השרים אשר אתו).8 Here too there was a descendant of Kish—Mordecai, by name—to oppose the Agagite.9 Yet, in this case, the son of Kish does not fail to fulfill his charge thoroughly.10
After Esther exposes Haman’s plot to Ahasuerus, the king has Haman executed and commissions Mordecai to write as he pleases in behalf of the Jews defense on the still fixed day of destruction Haman had arranged.11 Mordecai’s decree against the Jews’ attackers is similarly thorough to Haman’s against the Jews, permitting the Jews “to destroy and to kill and to exterminate any force of a people or province that oppressed them—small children and women—and to plunder their goods” (להשמיד ולהרג ולאבד את־כל־חיל עם ומדינה הצרים אתם טף ונשים ושללם לבוז).12 Carrying out Mordecai’s decree in the king’s name on Adar 13–14, the Jews decisively defeat those who assault them.13 In contrast with the decree’s permission “to plunder” (לבוז),14 however, the mt three times directly denies that the Jews engaged in plunder.15 This avoidance of plunder is consistent both in Susa itself16 and “in the king’s provinces” (במדינות המלך).17 This consistency suggests that Mordecai’s message, circulated both in Susa and in the provinces, lies behind the Jews’ practice in this regard.18 Hence, the various activities prescribed in Esth 8:11b would be subordinate to Mordecai’s primary instructions for the Jews “to assemble and to make a stand for their lives” (להקהל ולעמד על־נפשם).19 Because the Jews successfully repelled their attackers, there was no defensive value in the activity of plunder.20
In its three-fold affirmation that the Jews avoided plunder, the mt draws still a further contrast between Mordecai and Saul, who had found occasion to engage in plunder contrary to Samuel’s command.21 Even so does the final “savior and constant benefactor” (σωτὴρ καὶ διὰ παντὸς εὐεργέτης)22 obtain vindication for himself and his people over those who stand against them.23 Nor yet does he himself even gather plunder but rather consistently commends “godliness with contentment” (ἡ εὐσέβεια μετὰ αὐταρκείας).24
15Esth 9:10, 15–16; Jobes, “Esther 1,” 165; Phillips, “Mordecai,” 480. The Greek versions, by contrast, tend to agree with the mt in the latter two cases (Esth 9:15–16) and to describe the Jews as engaging in plunder in the first instance (Esth 9:10). The Lucianic recension appears to recount a consistent engagement in plundering, and 108 suggests plundering at least in Esth 9:16. The Hexaplaric tradition omits any reference to plundering in Esth 9:16, whether affirmative or negative, and agrees with the mt in portraying the Jews as refraining from plunder in Esth 9:10, 15 (Hanhart et al., Septuaginta). For discussion of Esther’s Greek versions, see Jobes, “Esther 5.”
In addition to Boccaccini and Segovia’s Paul the Jew, inbox recently saw the arrival from Fortress Press of a review copy of Rafael Rodríguez and Matthew Thiessen’s edited volume The So-Called Jew in Paul’s Letter to the Romans (2016). According to the book’s blurb: