Abstract
This collection of Mark D. Nanos’s essays, like all of Nanos’s writing, makes you think and it never stops making you think long after you have set the book down. I am not equally persuaded by all of the arguments presented in the six essays that comprise this book, but I am equally challenged by all of them and equally impressed by the way Nanos challenges status quo arguments. His ability to propose different viewpoints on texts whose meanings are assumed to be settled is bracing and welcome and stems from a simple alteration of vision: Paul was a Jew and remained a Jew after becoming a follower of Jesus. While this understanding of Paul is more commonly accepted now than it was when some of these essays were written, Nanos’s insights remain fresh.
This book is made up of essays previously published elsewhere, some in journals and some in harder to find volumes of essays on Paul, but they can be divided into three groups of articles. The first two, “The polytheist identity of the ‘weak’ and Paul’s strategy to ‘gain’ them: A new reading of 1 Corinthians 8:1-11:1”; and “Why the ‘weak’ in 1 Corinthians 8–10 were not Christ-believers,” make much the same argument regarding the so-called “weak” in 1 Corinthians, that is, that they were not Christ-believers but polytheists. The second two essays, “Paul’s relationship to Torah in light of his strategy ‘to become everything to everyone’ (1 Corinthians 9:19–23)” and “Was Paul a ‘liar’ for the Gospel? The case for a new interpretation of Paul’s ‘becoming everything to everyone’ in 1 Corinthians 9:19–23,” both contend that Paul did not change his religious behaviour depending upon which group he was addressing, but rather, changes his rhetorical strategy depending upon whom he was addressing. The final two essays, on Philippians, “Paul’s reversal of Jews calling gentiles ‘dogs’ (Philippians 3:2): 1600 years of an ideological tale wagging an exegetical dog?” and “Paul’s polemic in Philippians 3 as Jewish-subgroup vilification of local non-Jewish cultic and philosophical alternatives,” both argue that the metaphorical “dogs” in Philippians 3 is not a reference to Jews but to one or another polytheist or philosophical group, such as devotees of Artemis or Cynics. There are, therefore, three overarching arguments to be assessed in this book.
I am not yet convinced by the first two essays that the “weak” in 1 Corinthians 8-10 are polytheists, Nanos’s substitute for “pagans” to describe those who are not Jews or Christ-believers of any sort, but it is not easy to dismiss his arguments. He has raised serious questions about long unquestioned verities and he might be right. One of my questions has to do with whether “impaired,” Nanos’s translation for the Greek asthenēs, is better than “weak.” Nanos offers an explanation for using it (“impaired highlights that they are being objectified by Paul (if not already by his audience as well) to be unable to function in the way that he expects of those with properly working sensibilities, lacking the proper sense of what is true about the divine,” [4]), but “weak” is a better translation of the word generally and also seems to suggest an inability to function with true knowledge. Yet, Nanos’s contention that “the impaired” are not Christ-believers and so “Paul’s concern is not that the impaired will revert to idolatry, but that they will never turn away from it” (13) continues to intrigue me. The biggest question for me, however, is whether Paul is truly using the language of brother and sister to contrast Christ-believers with polytheists. It seems more likely to me that it does refer to Christ-believing brothers and sisters who might stumble in weakness if they see other Christ-believers participating in the consumption of idol meat. Nanos wonders why Christ-believers who would have already rejected many gods would engage in such behaviour, but this suggests that once one “converts” to a particular belief or set of beliefs, one’s commitment never wanes or wavers, that once a Christ-believer always a Christ-believer. This does not seem to be in tune with religious practice, ancient or modern, which is often syncretistic.
The second set of essays considers 1 Corinthians 9:19–23 and proposes a persuasive reading. Nanos argues in both that Paul the Jew is not sometimes following the Torah and sometimes not in becoming “everything to everyone,” but that this claim is better understood as a rhetorical strategy to win his interlocutors to Christ. Paul would not, says Nanos, adopt a strategy of “misleading others to win them to the Gospel” (55). Instead of “lifestyle adaptability,” in a sense lying about who he is and how he lives, when Paul says he “became like” a Jew, or like someone outside the Law it “signifies how Paul reasons like and relates his convictions like, how he engages like, how he rhetorically meets people where they are, according to their own worldviews and premises” (77). Nanos offers an example of such behaviour from Paul on the Areopagus in Acts 17 (78–81), and while he acknowledges the historical issues with respects to Acts and Paul, I agree with Nanos that this offers a convincing example of how Paul might have operated rhetorically. The second essay dealing with this passage, “Was Paul a ‘liar’ for the Gospel?” focuses more on the ethical issues a traditional interpretation creates for presenting Paul, quite frankly, as a liar. Nanos states that only a model of rhetorical adaptability frees Paul from the ethical conundrum of Paul changing his behaviour depending upon his audience.
The final group of essays is on Philippians 3:2 and whether we ought to consider Paul’s use of “dogs,” especially in conjunction with the “mutilation” and the “evil workers,” to refer to “Judaizers” or Jews more generally. Nanos compiles evidence to demonstrate that these terms were not used in antiquity by Jews to describe Gentiles and that Paul is not “turning the tables” (my phrase) by using these descriptors to refer to his fellow Jews. In chapter five, Nanos proposes that Cynics, whose name literally means “dogs” in Greek, are the group whom Paul has in mind (133-137). Even more convincing, regardless of what position one takes on the referent for “dogs,” is his desire to have this language cease to be used with respect to Jews and to repudiate Paul’s usage of characterizing opponents, whoever they might be, with the use of such language. Chapter six deals with Philippians 3 also and Nanos situates Paul as writing “from within Judaism not Christianity” (146). Nanos here expands the possibility that “dogs” might designate other gods, goddesses, cults, and philosophical schools, such as Cybele, Diana, or Hecate, although Cynics remain the most likely explanation for him (166–182). Though Nanos is willing to consider a number of possible referents, Philippians 3 in his mind “appears to revolve around the choice that Paul calls his audience in Philippi to make between the ‘pagan’ cultural alternatives that remain attractive” (184) and the “Jewish cultural values that their commitment to Jesus as Christ should compel them” (184). This is convincing.
Overall, the book is thought-provoking in each of the three groupings of essays, though it does suffer from duplication and repetitiveness of argument due to the commonality of the essays in each subgroup. On the question of considering Paul as a Jew, Nanos was one of the forerunners who has allowed so much of the present research on Paul to flourish. These essays show how this change of vision allows one to consider other perspectives on topics long considered settled, whether they convince in each particular case or not.