Brian Rosner on Paul and the Law (Review by Gupta)

Last updated on: May 12, 2014 at 5:46 pm by Nijay Gupta

Brian Rosner on Paul and the Law (Review by Gupta) 2014-05-12T17:46:51-08:00 Nijay Gupta

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Brian S. Rosner should be a name that is familiar to many of you. He is one of the editors of the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology and has co-written the 1 Corinthians commentary in the Pillar series (with Roy Ciampa). His areas of specialty include Paul’s ethics and Paul’s use of Scripture.

Thus, I was very excited to read his latest offering, Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God (IVP, 2013). Even though many scholars have made an attempt to explain the very difficult matter of how the apostle Paul understands the Jewish law, Rosner offers an accessible and insightful approach to this subject. In particular, he brings to the table of discussion (1) an emphasis on Paul’s ethics and (2) an explicit willingness to attend to material not only in Galatians and Romans, but across the whole Pauline corpus (and with special attention to 1 Corinthians as the subtitle of the book suggests; 1 Cor 7:19).

First I will give a quick overview of Rosner’s main argument(s), and then I will offer a few personal reflections. In my estimation, even though this book is meant mostly as an expert guide to the subject without the desire to make new waves, I think Rosner’s project is distinctive based on three key theses or claims.

#1: Paul did not divide the Jewish law into parts and retrieve only one part (e.g., civil, ceremonial, and moral). Rather, he rejected it all as one thing, and retrieved it all as something else (see below). For Rosner, Paul’s approach to the ongoing validity of the law was not a where (which parts are still valid), but a how (a hermeneutical shift). This may not seem earth-shattering, but some scholars have argued that Paul selects only portions of Torah that have an ongoing formative function. Rosner (rightly) argues that Paul continued to embrace the whole Old Testament, but simply re-appropriated it (all).

#2: Paul clearly repudiated the Jewish law as law-covenant and replaced its law-covenant functions. It is important to note what Rosner is arguing against. Rosner resists readings that see Paul as setting up two-ways of justification, one based on Torah-covenant for Jews, and a separate one for Gentiles through Christ. No, Rosner argues that Paul rejects Torah as covenantal law for anyone (Jews included) and we see a variety of language that seems to take the place of law-covenant language in Paul. Where Jews would normally talk about “walking in the law,” for example, Paul says “walk by the Spirit” or “walk in the newness of law.”

#3: If #2 is the negative (deconstructive) aspect of how Paul approaches Torah, what is the positive dimension? Rosner argues that Paul re-appropriates Torah as (a) prophecy and (b) wisdom. Paul reads as Scripture the whole of the Old Testament, but re-reads it, as it were, as witness to the person and work of Christ. Secondly, Rosner wrote a monograph on 1 Corinthians arguing (persuasively, as many scholars affirm) that Paul does tend to point to Scripture when he wants to give counsel on living rightly before God, but Paul does not cite OT commands or laws to promote obedience. Rather, Paul offers examples or alludes to moral teaching from the OT to teach his converts. In this book, we see a shorter form of that argument.

Strengths

There is no question that Rosner’s above arguments, on a basic level, are a sensible and helpful way to teach about Paul and law, particularly how Paul could be so negative sometimes (see pt. #2), but also quote from and allude to Scripture positively so often (see #3). In fact, this will probably be my go-to framework for how I explain the “Paul and the law” situation when I discuss this topic with my students.

I will also mention that chapters are relatively short and easy to read, there are numerous helpful charts, and Rosner includes these outstanding little one-paragraph summaries at the end of each chapter. Would that all books had such a handy feature!!!

Weaknesses

I have a few concerns with this work, but they are far from outweighing the strengths. Still, I will mention them in case they are of interest. Firstly, this did not come across to me as a polished, final work on this subject, but more of an exploratory volume. Rosner includes lots of case studies to try and defend a point, but because some of these points have a long history of debate, I am not sure he has provided enough evidence to make his case fully convincing. For example, he tries to argue that Paul reads the Old Testament as wisdom. I think his argument makes sense in theory, but it is hard to see if Paul or his readers would have thought of it that way. Rosner looks at the kind of language that is used in wisdom literature and finds some of it in Paul, but, again, some of these correlations are more suggestive than solid proof. Perhaps Rosner felt that the book would have carried on too long for the series to permit, but given how controversial the subject matter, it may have been warranted.

Secondly, I felt that on a few occasions Rosner’s terminology was fuzzy. For example, Rosner almost interchanged prophecy and testimony/witness in chapter five. Most of what he wrote about in that chapter seemed to me to fit the language of testimony/witness appropriately (i.e., Torah bears witness to the gospel), but the language of prophecy seemed to confuse things more than it did help. Understandably, Paul does use the language of prophecy, but I also feared that some readers might take “law as prophecy” to mean messianic prophecies, which Rosner doesn’t mean (for all occasions of his testimonial use of Scripture). Another example of the fuzzy terminology regards the next chapter (six), where he seems to interchange “wisdom” and “ethics.” Obviously both have to do with the life lived, but I would have appreciated clarity on what the difference might be, especially since “wisdom” might be a category easier to identify in Paul than “ethics” (mostly due to modern scholarly constructions about what ethics is).

Finally, I want to come back to the subtitle of the book: “Keeping the commandments of God.” This phrasing comes from 1 Cor 7:19: “For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.”

Rosner argues (as he has already done so in his 1 Cor commentary) that “keeping the commandments of God” refers (ironically) not to Torah obedience, but to obedience to apostolic instruction (see p. 39, 218-219). In Rosner’s favor, we do see occasions where Paul uses entole in reference to apostolic teaching, but never is it associated with the commands of God. Sometimes it is connected to the will of the Lord Jesus (so 1 Cor 14:37), but I think it goes too far to (1) take the unique statement about “commandments of God” in the same direction and (2) have the very striking statement of 1 Cor 7:19 climax with Paul’s own teaching (neither circumcision nor uncircumcision count, what counts is what I am writing). I think it makes better sense to see this as an appeal to obedience to what God commands in a more general sense (all-encompassing), especially in contrast to simply being circumcised or uncircumcised (see David Garland, BEC).

OK, that’s all the notes I have, but I wanted to repeat that this is a very useful approach to Paul and I look forward to the journal reviews to see how it is received more widely. My guess is that most evangelicals will be quite happy with it, but I would be especially interested in getting feedback from people like Mark Nanos and James D.G. Dunn who would, I image, be more critical.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

May 11, 2014

Video Resource: Luke Timothy Johnson - Learning the Living Jesus (Gupta)

Next Post

May 13, 2014 Where Do You Stand on Greek Verb Tense-Forms - Take the Poll (Gupta)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category (Mis)Understanding Philippians 10 Things I Can't Live Without 2023 New Books 30 OT HB Scholars to Read and Follow 5 Books Series 50-2-Follow Academia Christian Theologians to Read and Follow Cruciform Scripture: Contributor Reflections Crux Sola TV Editors Behind Great Books in NT Studies Education Gendering the Holy Spirit Gupta FB Live Lectures In Faith and Doubt In Their Own Words Living the King Jesus Gospel My Top 6 OT Commentaries New Testament Resource Guide New Word Biblical Themes Nijay's A Very Library Christmas Shopping Guide Notes from an Editor Notes on New Books NTRG OT in the NT Paul Seminary Now The Bible in God's World The Word Felt Among Us SPENCER Translating Philippians Uncategorized Why I Use Accordance Women in Ministry

Select a Month March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 May 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz