1. Of these three, of course, my general interpretation of Paul is closest to that of Dunn. See also Carras 1992, and Campbell (1992, 156n.53). [BACK]

2. See Goodman (1992, 72), who is skeptical about the scope of such exclusivist notions. See also Sanders 1976. [BACK]

3. My version of this argument is slightly different from that of Dunn himself. [BACK]

4. Cf. also the text cited by Dunn from the Wisdom of Solomon 15:1ff. (Dunn 1988, 83). [BACK]

5. For “boast” (καυχάομαι) in the sense of “have confidence” see discussion above in Chapter 3. This further strengthens Sanders's complete rejection of the view that what Paul found wrong with Judaism was the self-righteousness that keeping the law allegedly promoted. [BACK]

6. See 2 Apoc. Bar. 48:22–24, cited in Dunn (1988, 110). [BACK]

7. I have specifically used the feminine pronouns here to emphasize another attractive aspect of Paul's spiritualization, namely, his at least partial transcendence of exclusive religious androcentrism. [BACK]

8. This chapter is a scandal for interpretation only if one has adopted the Lutheran theology, whereby attempting to perform God's will with the body is itself a form of sin! Cf. also Snodgrass 1986. See also next paragraph. [BACK]

9. This case has been best argued by Alan Segal, in an unpublished paper. [BACK]

10. I am puzzled by Dunn's remark that “within the Pharisaic Judaism with which Paul was most familiar, such Gentiles were probably only tolerated and were counted acceptable to God only when they actually became members of the covenant people as proselytes” (1988, 99). [BACK]

11. Note that, in a sense, this interpretation of Paul in Romans 2 is the precise obverse of the “Lutheran” one, for Paul here is denying salvation by “grace” to the Jew owing to the free election of God and insisting that only through works will the Jew be saved, as in 2:13, “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.” On this verse, which has been a scandal to much Protestant interpretation, see now the excellent discussion in Snodgrass 1986. [BACK]

12. I am nonplussed by Sanders's gloss:

The true Jew is one who keeps the law, who does not make an external show, who may not be physically circumcised “in the flesh”), but who is circumcised internally, in secret; it is a spiritual, not a literal, circumcision of the heart (en tōi kryptōi…kai peritomē kardias en pneumati ou grammati).…Thus far we have seen no evidence that at any point in Romans 2 does Paul step outside the Jewish perspective.

But Sanders surely knows how slippery the term “the Jewish perspective” is, and in this case, aside from Philo's allegorists, I know of no other first-century Jews who would regard one who is only circumcised spiritually as a “true Jew.” Indeed, I would suggest that Paul himself is here very close in spirit to Philo's allegorizers, and is therefore no less “Jewish” than they are. The difference between arguing that those who glory in Christ, as opposed to those who contemplate the One, are circumcised—or even that those who love their neighbors are circumcised—seems (from my Jewish perspective) trivial compared with the difference between all of those views and a view that insists that only those whose foreskins have been cut off are circumcised. In general, one of the few moments in Sanders's work with which I find myself in near total disagreement is his interpretation of Romans 2 (123–35). I hope that my interpretation obviates the need to state, “Romans 2 remains the instance in which Paul goes beyond inconsistency or variety of argument and explanation to true self-contradiction” (147). Similarly, in an otherwise very interesting and thoughtful work, Campbell makes what is to me one simply astonishing remark, namely, that “the fact that Paul concludes chapter 2 with a description of ‘the true Jew’ is further proof that he neither views Judaism from a sectarian stance, nor is his image of the Jew consistently negative” (Campbell 1992, 141). I trust that the reasons for my astonishment will be, by now, transparent. [BACK]

13. Although translations of the text customarily add silently the adjectives “true” or “real” before “Jew” and “circumcision” in the passage, these qualifiers are not there in the Greek. Paul is arguing that a Jew is defined by circumcision of the heart, and nothing else. [BACK]

14. “If there is a negative ring to the words διὰ γράμματος καὶ περιτομῆς, it is due to the fact that it is only the possession of the scrolls of the law, and only physical circumcision, which the Jew in question can claim in his favor. We may compare Paul's words in v. 20: ‘having the form (μόρφωσιν) of knowledge and truth in the law.’ The choice of the word ‘letter,’ like that of ‘form’ in v. 20, does indeed stress that it is only the written scrolls, the external form, which the Jew in question possesses, while he lacks the righteous observance to which possession of the ‘letter’ obligates; but the fault lies in what he lacks, not in what he possesses” (Westerholm 1984, 234–35). [BACK]

15. Alan Segal has clarified the issue thoroughly (1990, 192–201). [BACK]

16. A not atypical early modern Rabbi, Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Kotzk would say: “Too many Jews are concerned about a blood-spot on an egg and not a blood-spot on a ruble.” But every egg in the Rabbi's house was punctiliously examined for blood-spots! [BACK]

17. “According to 2 Cor. 3:7–18, when God's Spirit-inscribed people encounter Scripture, a transformation occurs that is fundamentally hermeneutical in character” (Hays 1989, 131). [BACK]

18. In my article (Boyarin 1990a) I have argued that the Rabbis of the talmudic period generally did not believe in a wholly non-corporeal Godhead, so God could be present in the world without an Incarnation. For a similar analogy (in a startlingly different context) between “incarnation” of divinity and a semiotics that requires going beyond the material, physical language, see Manganaro (1992, 43–44). [BACK]

19. Wright translates this simply, “which glory was fading,” and argues that it is not part of the argument of v. 7 but a foretaste of the argument to come in v. 11 (Wright 1992a, 178). [BACK]

20. Hooker (1981, 298 and 308n.7) notes commentators who have previously adopted this view but simply dismisses it (without argument) with “there are great difficulties with this interpretation.” For Hooker's other objection—“He has told us that Israel could not gaze on Moses' glory: how, then, does it come about that Christians can now gaze on the overwhelming glory which belongs to Christ”—see below. [BACK]

21. I think that Hays loses his way a bit on pp. 142–43, where he needlessly complicates the discussion by arguing that Paul is suggesting a dissimile between himself (and other Christians) and Moses, because “Moses' unveiled encounters with the Lord were intermittent, punctuated by times of withdrawal and veiling.” I see nothing in the passage which qualifies or discredits Moses' experience even with respect to Paul; rather, the experience being deprecated is that of the Israelites to whom Moses turned and who would/could not see his glory. Further, there is no difficulty occasioned by the veil being moved from over Moses' face to the hearts of the Israelites (pace Hays, 145), because the veil always and only existed to prevent the Israelites from seeing that which they could not stand, and never to prevent Moses from seeing anything. I find, therefore, the turn in v. 16 less dramatic than Hays (147) does. [BACK]

22. In Chapter 3 above, I have argued that the typology/allegory opposition is not a valid one—hence my somewhat slippery language here. [BACK]

23. I note now the similarity of much of this reading with that of Wright (1992a, 180). [BACK]

24. This does not preclude Wright's interesting suggestion that Paul is proposing that the Corinthians will see God's glory on each other's faces, just as the Israelites, I would add, would have seen God's glory on Moses' face had they had the strength. Wright's view is enhanced considerably by the good sense it makes of τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα in v. 18. [BACK]

25. I thus see much more virtue in Hooker's interpretation than does Wright (1992a, 181). She attends much more carefully than he does, in this instance, to the biblical text Paul is interpreting. Note the modification of Hooker's view implied by my account. She writes that Paul does not bother to prove his assumption that the glory faded, because he was not writing to Jews (300). In fact, what I am suggesting is that it is at least as possible that Jewish interpreters read this way also, without the typology, of course, and it was only in reaction to Paul's use of this interpretation that it was rejected in Jewish circles. [BACK]

26. I dissent, therefore, from Hooker's reading also which contrasts Moses himself to the Christians (303). See above n.21. [BACK]

27. Although, as I will detail below, I do not agree with those scholars who hold that there was controversy within Judaism as to the necessity of circumcision for converts, I do think that the Judaizers, quasi-Jews, God-fearers, and even apparently the relatively large numbers of converts to Judaism in the Roman period blurred both the extension and intension of the signifiers “Jew” and “Israel.” Symptomatic perhaps of this confusion is the following statement from Dio Cassius: “I do not know the origin of this name [Jews], but it is applied to all men, even foreigners, who follow their customs. This race is found among Romans” (qu. in Gager 1983, 91). What I find remarkable about this passage is its self-contradiction: Anyone who follows the customs of the Jews is termed a Jew, but the Jews are nevertheless designated a race. Unless “race” means something very different from what we take it to mean—and, of course, I am aware that it did not refer to genotype, but presumably it had some genealogical connotation—these two sentences are in tension with each other and thus themselves a sign of contestation. This will be further discussed in the final chapter. [BACK]