If You Call Yourself a Jew: Reappraising Paul's Letter to the Romans

by Rafael Rodríguez

If You Call Yourself a Jew reads Romans as a dialogue between Paul and a Gentile proselyte to Judaism. This fresh reading brings Romans into focus as Paul's exposition of the revelation of God's righteousness--his faithfulness to his covenant promises to Abraham, which climaxed in the announcement that ""in you all the tribes of the earth will be blessed"" (Gen 12:3). Paul insists that the righteousness of God is revealed, ""for the Jew first as well as for the Greek,"" not through Torah but through the faith(fullness) of Jesus. Torah and the prophets provide corroborating witness for God's righteousness, but Gentiles who bend their necks to Torah's yoke miss the actual mechanism for finding peace with God. Paul found in the story of Jesus the image of complete faith in/faithfulness to God; in Jesus' resurrection he found the image of God's complete faithfulness, ""for the Jew first as well as for the Greek."" Whereas Torah resulted in curse and death, it also anticipated the unconditional faithfulness of God for both Jew and Gentile. For Paul, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the account of the outworking of God's faithfulness: the end of Torah's curses and the fulfillment of its blessings. ""Rodriguez presents a fresh challenge to many stale assumptions about reading Romans. He provides a cogent case that Paul is writing to Gentile Christians, and what is more, that Paul's imaginary opponent who appears throughout the letter is not a Jew but is in fact a Gentile convert to Judaism. . . . It makes for a stimulating volume on Paul's most famous letter."" --Michael F. Bird, Ridley Melbourne Mission and Ministry College, Melbourne, Australia ""Building upon the work of Stanley Stowers and Runar Thorsteinsson, Rafael Rodriguez provides a novel reading of Romans: throughout this letter Paul addresses a judaizing Gentile interlocutor. Those looking to move beyond 'Lutheran' and 'New Perspective' readings of Paul will find in If You Call Yourself a Jew a more historically plausible and theologically fruitful reading of Romans."" --Matthew Thiessen, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO ""Rodriguez joins those Pauline interpreters who have taken seriously Paul's assertion that he writes specifically to Gentiles. What is significant about his approach is that he provides a careful analysis of the diatribe style questions that feature in significant sections of the letter. His radical thesis that the interlocutor is of Gentile ethnicity but views himself as a Jew, and teaches Gentiles, is provocative and challenging but illustrated with sustained argument. A fine volume to spark interest in Paul's skillful rhetoric."" --William S. Campbell, University of Wales Trinity St. David, Lampeter, UK Rafael Rodriguez is Professor of New Testament at Johnson University, Knoxville, Tennessee. He is the author of Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance, and Text (2010) and Oral Tradition and the New Testament: A Guide for the Perplexed (2014).

Genres: Christian

338 pages, Hardcover

First published October 29, 2014

Reviews

[Lee Irons · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Thorsteinsson takes Paul’s imaginary interlocutor throughout Romans to be a Gentile who is considering becoming a proselyte, Rodríguez takes Paul’s imaginary interlocutor to be a Gentile who has become a proselyte. He is not merely considering it but has actually submitted to circumcision, has taken on the yoke of the law, and therefore “calls [him]self a Jew” (Rom 2:17). Rodríguez claims in his preface that this understanding “makes all the difference” in how own interprets the epistle as a whole and “avoids and/or solves a number of perennial problems” (pp. x-xi). He then attempts to show this by giving a running exposition of the letter as a whole, though not the detailed verse-by-verse exegesis one would find in a commentary.

My evaluation is largely negative. First, I don’t think it is necessary to view Paul’s imaginary interlocutor as having the same profile (whether Jew, Gentile, proselyte, or whatever) throughout the book. Rodríguez follows Thorsteinsson on this point, but I’m not convinced.

Second, while I agree with Rodríguez (and Stowers and Das) that the encoded audience of Romans is Gentile, I struggle to understand how the interlocutor can stand in for or represent the Gentile audience if the interlocutor is a proselyte, which would in effect make him a Jew at least in terms of religion. True, he is ethnically Gentile but in religious terms he is no longer a Gentile but a Jew. How can an imaginary Jew, who presumably is not a believer in Jesus the Messiah, function as a rhetorical device for Paul to engage in dialogue or diatribe in a way that will resonate with his Gentile Christian audience?

Third, the portions of Romans in which Paul engages with the hypothetical interlocutor are too limited to expect that reconceiving the profile of the interlocutor will revolutionize our reading of the whole letter. The interlocutor is present mainly in the beginning of the letter (2:1 – 3:9), although an interlocutor of some sort pops up at points in Romans 9-11 (e.g., 9:19-20), but, again, I’m not sure he is the same person as the earlier one.

Fourth, Rodríguez makes a bold interpretive move when he argues that Paul takes on the character of the imaginary proselyte in Romans 7. I agree that Romans 7 is not autobiographical but speech in character (as argued well by Stowers). However, to say that the figure in Romans 7 is a proselyte (not just a Gentile God-fearer who is attracted to the Jewish law and attempting to keep the moral parts of it) is going too far. There is little in Romans 7 to indicate that the “I” has been circumcised. Also, it is hard to understand why Paul would assume the character of the very person he had been arguing against up to that point.

Finally, I must point out my dissatisfaction with Rodríguez’s overall “new perspective-ish” approach to Romans. His reading of Romans is influenced by N. T. Wright, Robert Jewett, James D. G. Dunn, Katherine Grieb, and others in that vein. He interprets “the righteousness of God” as “God’s covenant faithfulness to Israel in spite of Israel’s unfaithfulness,” and takes “the faith of Jesus Christ” as a subjective genitive meaning “the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.” (Note that James D. G. Dunn is a rare NPP scholar who defends the traditional objective genitive interpretation of pistis Christou). These two key phrases are interconnected, yielding a concept such as: “God’s covenant faithfulness has been revealed in the faithfulness of Christ.”

As a side note, it would be nice if the scholars who adopt this approach to Romans would provide a more detailed exposition of the conceptual linkage between the two faithfulnesses, that of God and that of Christ. How does the faithfulness of Christ “reveal” the faithfulness of God? What is the mechanism of this? Furthermore, why is the faithfulness of God denoted using the word dikaiosynē and the faithfulness of Christ by the word pistis? If Paul wanted to link them, why did he use different words? And, then, why does he confuse us by later separating the two words when he speaks of dikaiosynē as something that is received by pistis, or when he speaks of the dikaiosynē of pistis (the righteousness of faith)?

I know that this approach is becoming more and more in vogue these days, but I still hold to the old perspective reading and think it makes better sense of Romans both at the grammatical and semantic level and at the larger theological level. I would argue that “the righteousness of God apart from the law” is the same thing as “the righteousness of faith” in Romans. In other words, we receive the status of righteousness “before God” (Rom 2:13) as a gift from God, received by faith, apart from doing what the law requires. This gift of righteousness is based on the atoning death of Christ (Rom 3:21-26), so that God might be just when he reckons sinners as righteous in his sight.

One question that kept coming to mind as I read Rodríguez’s book, was, “How much of his fresh reading of Romans is indebted to the covenant-faithfulness theory, and how much is dependent on his taking the interlocutor as a proselyte?” I felt that there were long stretches of his exposition that did not depend on the proselyte theory (which is not surprising since the epistle has long stretches where the interlocutor is absent) but that did depend quite heavily on the covenant-faithfulness theory.

Although I am critical of the book, I don’t want to give the impression that I do not appreciate anything about it. There are three strands of his argument that I agree with. First, I am totally convinced (along with Stowers and Das) that the encoded readers of Romans are Gentile believers in Rome.

Second, I agree with much of Rodríguez’s approach to Romans 6-7. He views this section of the letter as Paul’s effort to dissuade his Gentile audience from submitting to the law. As God-fearers who had formerly been attracted to the monotheism and morality of Judaism, they looked, even after their conversion to Christ, with longing to the law as if it might enable them to keep sin in check and assist them in becoming more righteous. Paul shows that the law only stirs up sin and makes it worse, and that the true power for godliness comes from Christ and the Spirit.

Third, I agree with his argument that Paul views the inclusion of the Gentiles in the people of God as part and parcel of the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel. This last point includes his interpretation of “all Israel” in Rom 11:26 as the Israel of God, including Jews and Gentiles, an interpretation that N. T. Wright also advocates (one of the exegetical points in Romans where I agree with Wright).

[Jonathan Caldwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a thoughtful, unconventional take on Romans. Rodriguez argues that Paul's audience is Gentile and Paul is saying it would be foolish to take up the yoke of the Law in an effort to be saved. He reads the entire letter as a conversation with a gentile interlocutor(s). The title, "If You Call Yourself a Jew," is a reference to Gentiles who have proselytized. There are a few weak spots in the argumentation but it is good to wrestle with some of his argument/suggestions. It certainly makes Romans 7 easier to understand. I think his reading of Romans provides a smoother flow to Paul's argument, but it is certainly not a typical reading of Romans.

Full disclosure: Dr. Rodriguez is a professor of mine at Johnson University.

[Josh Washington · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is a really good book to get some really up to date arguments on Romans and references to a great many of the main players in its interpretation. The author has a very wide range of knowledge of Romans scholars including Barclay, Barrett, Barth, Bird, Bultmann, Campbell, Cranfield, Das, DeSilva, Donaldson, Dunn, Evans, Fitzmyer, Gathercole, Grenz, Hays, Jewett, Kasemann, Longenecker, Moo, Morris, Nanos, Porter, Schreiner, Silva, Song, Stendahl, Stowers, Witherington and of course Wright. These are the ones I recognise. There are many more.

I don’t agree with everything Rodriguez says, but I agree with a lot. He has challenged some of my key assumptions about the membership of the Romans churches and the identity of the interlocutor.

He is reasonably sympathetic to the New Perspective on Paul.

Throughout his interpretation, he continually interacts with what Paul’s arguments mean in the context with his diatribe with the interlocutor. Not many people do that in my opinion.

I would recommend the book for academics and lay ministers.

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