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Jewish-Gentile Continuity in Paul: Torah and/or Faith? (Romans 9:1–5)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Eldon Jay Epp
Affiliation:
Case Western Reserve University

Extract

Judging from his relatively few surviving letters, Paul—whether as Jew or Christian—was a person with both outer and inner conflicts. We know much less than we would like about these external confrontations and inner struggles, but time and again his letters show evidence of his wrestling with one or another serious ambivalence. Actually, it is not often a present struggle that is portrayed or revealed, for Paul writes with a remarkable maturity and with the confidence of one who has moved well beyond the tossing and turning of a continuing inner struggle. Yet at times, most notably in Romans 9–11, Paul's simple statement of a mature judgment still evokes, in the very restating of his conclusions, the intensity of the original ambivalence and conflict. A further indication that Paul was this kind of person is found, if only incidentally, in his dialectical mode of thinking: if he mentions “death,” at once he thinks of “life”; if he refers to “flesh,” immediately “spirit” crosses his mind, or if he speaks of “slaves” or “slavery,” then “sons” or “freedom” is instantly present.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1986

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References

* Krister Stendahl, who served as major adviser for my Ph.D. program and to whom I owe so large a debt, was accustomed to characterize modern biblical scholarship as the transference of footnotes from other books and articles to our own (or words to that effect). A plea of “no contest” to such a charge would be automatic from this quarter, for my own publications are replete with the traditional scholarly apparatus of footnotes and endnotes; therefore, as a tribute—however inadequate—to Professor Stendahl, the present essay eschews entirely that genre. This is not to say that I owe nothing to others; far from it, though here I shall claim only to have employed standard reference works and to have looked again at Stendahl's provocative Paul Among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976).Google Scholar