Aside from this question, we should also allow for some other factors when hearing Paul. First, Paul is ready to use reductio ad absurdum where necessary (cf. e.g., Rom 2:17–24); ancient polemic could focus on a weakness in an opposing position that its supporters might not regard as fundamental to or characteristic of the position. Moreover, the center of Paul’s argument is not simply any gracious act, but God’s grace specifically in Christ, which was for Paul (and for other Christians) the climax of salvific history. This specific understanding of grace informs the distinction of his position from that of contemporaries who rejected his understanding of Christ. Finally, Paul is often addressing not Judaism as a whole, but (especially in Galatians) the demands of some fellow Jewish Christians who sought to accommodate the strictest Jewish expectations for full converts to Judaism. It was the status of Gentile converts that generated the conflict most starkly (hence the increased prominence of righteousness by faith in letters addressing Gentile believers’ relation to Judaism).12
Thus, most Jews welcomed Gentile interest in Judaism and even affirmed the future “salvation” of monotheistic, sexually pure Gentiles, yet believed that sharing in Israel’s covenant required circumcision and acceptance of the law, including those parts specific to Israel. Jews could keep the law as a natural part of their culture regardless of the question of salvation. By contrast, for Gentiles to keep it as a condition for belonging to the covenant, and still more (on some particularly strict views) for salvation,13 was to demand new “works” as a condition for inclusion rather than simply a sign of inner transformation. (One might compare Western missionaries one or two centuries ago obligating new believers in some parts of the world to adopt Western names and dress to confirm their conversion to Christianity.) Although ethnically distinctive markers in the law are not the only ones Paul addresses (his language is too broad for that), these are the features that provoked the most complaint in Rome and that seem a central problem in the practical relation of Roman believers addressed in Romans 14.
For Paul, to insist on maintaining literally all the distinctives mandated specifically for ancient Israel was to ignore the climax of salvation history, what God had accomplished in Christ. He treated outward circumcision as secondary to the spiritual covenant commitment it signified, and insisted that the new covenant in the heart obviated the details of the earlier covenant that merely prepared the way for it. From Paul’s perspective, this was simply following his own biblical Jewish faith to its logical conclusion, in light of the coming of Christ and the Spirit. Many of his contemporaries understandably disagreed, and their debates (albeit usually from the Pauline side) surface repeatedly in the nt texts.
Paul, Judaism, and Rhetoric
Our problems reconciling what we know of ancient Judaism with Paul’s arguments stem not only from the diversity of ancient Judaism but from our unfamiliarity with ancient rhetoric. Polemic regularly caricatured opponents, sometimes using hyperbole to reduce their position to the absurd (see e.g., Matt 23:24). An ancient audience could recognize and appreciate such strategies (except when recycling the language polemically themselves).
Most scholars today recognize that Paul sometimes employs ad hoc arguments (e.g., in 1 Cor 11:3–16).14 Some such arguments appear in Romans, where, for example, his caricature of a distinctly unreliable Jewish teacher (2:17–24) and his recycling of several more general texts to regard all Jews as sinful (the Psalm texts in 3:10–20) would not actually condemn every individual Jewish person. To notice this apparent anomaly is not to suggest that Paul would have relinquished his view that all people were sinners (a view that most Jews shared anyway), but to suggest that if had he written for a modern audience he sometimes would have used a different style of argumentation. His rhetoric, no less than his use of Greek language, is constructed to appeal specifically within a particular cultural setting. Such polemical rhetoric was expected and necessary for successful debate in Paul’s day. Indeed, Paul fashions his polemic in such a way that even his detractors would have been forced to condemn the figure he caricatures. Today we can learn from Paul’s message while aesthetically appreciating his plethora of figures of speech and rhetorical devices that displayed his brilliance while holding his original audience’s attention.
Some of Paul’s arguments reflect earlier Christian tradition, and some may have generated such tradition. For example, the polemic regarding true children of Abraham (4:11–17; cf. 9:6–13) reflects a debate already found in the early Palestinian gospel tradition (Matt 3:9/Luke 3:8; cf. John 8:39–41). Likewise, Paul’s treatment of faith and works (here or more generally) seems to have been caricatured (either to exploit it or to denigrate it; cf. 3:8), inviting a rejoinder to that caricature in Jas 2:18–24.15
The Setting of the Church in Rome
Even letter-essays sometimes addressed the receiver’s situation or interests (e.g., the need for consolation), and other sorts of letters did so even more regularly. Ancient orators and writers tried to be sensitive to the settings they were addressing, and (contrary to what some scholars argue in the case of Romans) Paul is no exception. Paul writes this letter from Corinth (cf. Rom 16:1; Acts 20:2–3), a colony closely tied with Rome (e.g., merchants regularly traveled between them). Given the list of people Paul knew in Rome (see Rom 16:3–15), he was undoubtedly well-informed about issues there. This does not mean that Paul lacks interest in larger principles (he does in fact work from a larger argument that resembles some of his preaching elsewhere); rather, he brings those principles to bear pastorally on a local situation.
Jews in Rome16
Estimates of Rome’s Jewish population tend to run between about twenty thousand and fifty thousand; such estimates are at best educated guesses, but they probably suggest the right order of magnitude.17 Estimates of Rome’s population also vary, from perhaps a quarter of a million (extrapolated from water supplies) to over a million for its metropolitan area (extrapolated, in my opinion more reliably, from concrete census figures from ancient historians).18 It is at any rate clear that the Jewish community was a small minority, though significant among the Greek-speaking minority immigrant populations from the eastern Roman Empire.
Jewish people lived together in several suburbs of the city, generally in mostly ethnically segregated neighborhoods. The majority remained in their original area, Transtiberinum (what is today Trastevere), across the Tiber from the city’s center. Archaeology indicates that most Jews there were poor; many probably worked at the Tiber’s docks.19 Nevertheless, there were well-to-do members. We know the names of three to five Roman synagogues from this period, which appear to have been connected only loosely, since Rome did not allow any unifying leadership as, e.g., in Alexandria. Archaeological evidence suggests that many had settled from various parts of the Diaspora and were thus fairly diverse. This loose structure may have helped facilitate the free spread of the message about Jesus in some of the synagogues.
Over half of Rome’s Jews have Latin names.20 A large number probably descended from Jewish slaves originally brought to Rome by Pompey over a century earlier, then bought and freed by Jews already living in Rome (Philo Embassy