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Letter to the Romans Benjamin Friedlander Let me be a Jewish poet after the fashion of Paul, who spoke new meanings with old words, and brought new conclusions to old meanings, saving the old conclusions for a new people, preparing a new future for the old people. Each pure life, each variety, fossilizes in public and accentuates the number of firmaments. —Kim Rosenfeld It is a strange language of trust, where individuals know each other intimately at the moment of betrayal. —Benjamin Hollander To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints The broad outline of Paul’s life comes from his own letters, and from Luke’s account in the book of Acts. A diaspora Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, Paul (born Saul) was a Pharisee, trained in scripture by Gamaliel the elder. Early on, he fiercely opposed the adherents of Jesus, condemning Stephen to death and overseeing the destruction of churches. Then, a visionary encounter on the road to Damascus shifted his loyalties. Traveling from Jerusalem with the high priest’s authority, intending to make further arrests, he saw a blinding light, and heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”Asking who spoke, he was told:“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting; but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” Three days later, when his sight had returned, Paul accepted baptism and became an apostle, founding congregations throughout the Greek-speaking world. His particular mission became preaching to the Gentiles, perhaps because, Letter to the Romans 419 born outside Palestine (in Tarsus,in present-day Turkey),he had the requisite language skills and cosmopolitan experience. Arrested many times, he was a controversial figure, even among the followers of Jesus. According to legend, his last arrest ended in execution after several years in prison, but Luke is silent on this all-important point, and Clement, who knew Paul in Philippi, assumes a long, illustrious career. Strange strange strange the ways of the Word in its illustrious career, imprisoned as spirit or set free as flesh. I am not ashamed of the gospel:it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek Some have described Paul’s baptism as a conversion, but this missionary language implies that he abandoned one religion for another, an anachronistic , obscuring way of framing what is most radical in his theology: anachronistic , because Christianity as such did not exist in Paul’s lifetime; obscuring , because the interdependence of Gentile and Jew is precisely what his letters advocate. Did he remain a Jew until the end of his life? And what do we mean by “Jew” when we ask this question? Paul himself conceived of his teaching as the answer to a call,wording that casts him in the tradition of the prophets.Echoing Jeremiah,he writes in Galatians : “For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it; and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But . . . he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles”(1:13–15). The passage is equivocal. When Paul speaks of his “former life in Judaism,” he may well mean that he has left Judaism behind, but his phraseology also permits us to conceive of a present life that is still Jewish, although antagonistic to tradition. And perhaps the passage is less equivocal than paradoxical: identifying with the prophets to articulate a dis-identification with his fathers, to whom the prophets preached, Paul sets forth to preach among the Gentiles. A “calling,” then, and not a “conversion.” But a calling within Judaism? Or a calling away? 420 Friedlander Sad thoughts have fled, Trouble and doubt, and now strange reveries And odd caprices fill us in their stead. —Emma Lazarus Therefore you have no excuse,O man,whoever you are,when you judge another ; for in passing judgment upon him you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things Paul’s letters are the oldest books in the New Testament and take up about one quarter of the...

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