Chapter Fourteen: Rereading Romans 1.18-3.20 - Indictment Reconsidered
S.1. Preamble
Strategy: reading J texts with integrity but discarding JT, reading rhetorically and apocalyptically (p519); the 'forward' antitheses from works of law to belief (p520) reprise: Works of law as foundational, natural and cosmic theology (p521); works of law and faith are two antithetical gospels not one sequential gospel (p522); JT locking out other trajectories (p523); J determines "teachers" as Jews not Jewish Christians (p524) taking Paul at his word (p525) apocalyptic reading possible (p526-7): "The argument in Romans 1.18-3.20 is ... a tightly focused, contingent discussion, and not a sweeping, prospective, systematic discussion ...", it is a reduction and absurdum of the teacher's argument (p528; R 1.18-32 speech-in-character or playacting; 1-4 mimics Paul's opponent (p529).
S.2. Textual Voice Reconsidered
Would readers detect the irony (p530)?: live performance (p531); speech-in-character (p532); voice shifts (p533); the anomaly of R 1.18-32 explained by change of voice (p534); Epictetus diatribes (p535); dialogue (p536); locating diatribe; more tactful than polemic prompts audience (p537); gradual, indirect and diplomatic (p538-39). Same technique in 1 Corinthians (p540).
Excursus: Multiple Textual Voices and Hidden Transcripts
Joyce's Ulysses and Gogol's Skaz (p541).
S.3. Romans 1.18-32 - The Teacher's Rhetorical Opening
The Teacher's compact opening: "... the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all (human) ungodliness and wickedness" (p542) in the future present contrasted with R 1.16-17; 1.19-32 six steps: the truth about God is clear; humanity has wickedly suppressed it (543); pagans have embraced other wicked activities; God gives up these pagans to wicked acts; the pagans are given up; culpability emphasised by "approvers"; the importance of Wisdom (p544-45); compared to tele-evangelists (p546-47).
S.4. Romans 2.1-8 - Paul's Universalization
2.1-8 Paul's universalization of the opening's key premise; 2.9-29 the awkward implications; 3.1-20 the humiliating conclusion.
4.1 The Figure in Romans 2.1 (p547): The figure in 2.1 in 1.18-32.
4.2 Universalization (p548).
4.3 The Criteria (p449).
S.5. Romans 2.9-29 - The Awkward Implications (p551)
5.1 Romans 1.9-16 (p551): If soteriology is based on desert, no other consideration counts. The bad Jew and the good pagan (p452); irony (p553); the sinful Jew (p554); R 2.11 cf Deuteronomy 10.17 (p555); pagan ethical code (p556); pagan culpability (p557); lack of Christology in Teacher's argument (p558).
5.2 Romans 2.17-29 (p559): targeting an individual in the elite not generic Jews (p560); the 'seduced' woman and the Jerusalem Temple gift in Josephus in 19 CE (p561); the Teacher holds that the law has ethical advantages for possessors (p562); the pagan downward and upward sequences (p563); the virtue of the Law, 4 Maccabees and Platonic psychology (p564); circumcision (p565); Philo and the circumcision of the heart (p566-67); with the 19 CE depraved sages Paul breaks the link (p569); the Teacher further weakened (p570). The Teacher infers Paul has abandoned pagans; Paul think's Teacher's adherence to circumcision and law too narrow; Paul exploit's the tensions between the Teacher's fairness and ontology (p571).
S.6. Romans 3.1-20 - The Taming of the Teacher
The Teacher's law expertise will be his undoing.
6.1 Romans 3.1-9a: A dialogue between protagonists; the conventional reading puts Paul as answering but he is the questioner signalled in 2.1-5 (p572-76); Teacher views Paul's Gospel as libertine; teacher assumes God's righteousness retributive (p577-78).
6.2 Romans 3.9b-18: Some Jews not all Jews (p580-82); solves the world/Jewish dichotomy over knowledge; other problems solved by rereading (p583).
6.3 Romans 3.19-20: Teacher silenced (p584; Psalm 143.2b: "works of Law" summarises the Teacher's Gospel; no-one will be saved; law cannot change human nature (p585-86).
S.7. A Repunctuation of NRSV Romans 1.18-3.20 (p587-90).
S.8. Summary of the Argument in Propositional Form (p590-96).
Tidying up; fundamental problems with conventional reading solved (p597-600).