Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Andrew Kimseng Tan on Romans 10

 

 

 

The respective social and cultural textures that underlie “mouth” and “heart” also need to be highlighted if we are to understand how 10:6-9 explains Christ as broker. In Mediterranean culture, the heart refers “to the human capabilities of thinking, judging, evaluating and the like and doing all of these with feelings” (Bruce J. Malina, “Eyes-Heart,” in Pilch and Malina, Handbook of Biblical Social Values, 68). Thus, for Paul, heart is where the human capability for trust (here in 10:9, the object of trust is God) is exercised. As for the social and culture texture that underlies “mouth,” the speech that the mouth utters has great importance. It is the means by which honor, the most sought after limited good in the Mediterranean world, is gained (Jerome H. Neyrey, “Equivocation,” in Pilch and Malina, Handbook of Biblical Social Values, 63). A social and cultural texture underlies the word κυριος (“lord”). In the ancient Roman setting, clients were to address their patrons as lord or dominus (see, e.g., Martial, Ep. 6.88) (in this satire, written between 95 and 98 CE by the Roman poet Marcus Valerius Martialis [b. 38-41 CE), a client who did not address Caecilianus his patron as dominus [lord] forfeited one hundred quadrantes [about six sesterces]. This money was a sportula, a payment [which could take the form of food or money] made by the patron to his client. See Edwin Post, Selected Epigrams of Martial: Edited, with Introduction and Notes [Boston: Ginn, 1908], x). In 10:9, Christians, by addressing with their mouths (στομα) Jesus as Lord (κυριος), are rendering honor to Christ as a patron-broker (Nelson P. Estrada notes that Jesus, in acting as a broker between Israel and God, also functions as a patron to his [Jesus’s] clients. See Estrada, From Followers to Leaders: The Apostles in the Ritual of Status Transformation in Acts 1-2, LNTS 255 [London: Bloomsbury, 2004], 58). That said, however, Christ’s foremost function is that of broker, as 10:1-13 is Paul’s response to the Judeans’ rejection of Christ’s brokerage in 9:30-33. A social and cultural texture underlies the juxtaposition of mouth and heart. Mediterranean culture allows equivocation; that is, one does not have to perform that the mouth utters (Neyrey, “Equivocation,” 63-68). For this reason, Paul adds the role of the heart (Neyrey recognizes the prevailing Mediterranean culture of “equivocation” but also adds that what the Mediterranean world is more concerned about is “the intention of doing something or the plan of doing, which can serve as a substitute for achievement” [ibid., 67]). My point is that these statements about the roles of the mouth and heart in 10:9 after the epexegetical οτι. Some scholars contend that the verb πιστευειν  (“to trust”) refers to belief in a body of knowledge (so most commentators, e.g., Jewett, Romans, 630; Dunn, Romans 9-16, 609; Käsemann, Commentary on Romans, 290-91). The emphasis, however, should be on the object of trust, namely, God (Morgan contents that “propositional belief [secular or religious] is usually marked, in Greek and Latin, by the language of thinking [dokein, nomizein, putare, censere, etc.] rather than that of pistis or fides. An exception in Greek is the phrase pisteuein hoti, ‘to believe that,’ which occurs occasionally in Greek literature, including the New Testament, in the context of both intra-human and divine relations. Pisteuein hoti, however, in the New Testament and beyond, is much less common than pisteuein with the dative or with prepositions of relationship such as eis or en.” She also adds that not only does propositional belief always entail trust and vice versa, but “the focus of both intra-human and divine-human pistis/fides, Graeco-Roman and Christian, is more often than not on relationality” [Roman Faith and Christian Faith, 30]). Several observations bear this out. First, the emphasis of the rhetoric of 9:30-10:13 is trust as opposed to the deeds of the Mosaic law. In particular, the clause πιστευεται εις δικαιοσυνην (“one trusts so as to become righteous”) in 10:10, which explains 10:9, refers to trust in God, as clarified by the recitation of scripture in 10:11: λεγει γαρ η γραφη πας ο πιστευων επαυτω (“for the Scripture says, everyone who trusts in him [God]). Second, 10:9b resembles 4:24-25, as evinced by the common vocabulary of πιστευειν (“to trust”), εγειρειν (“to raise”), and νεκρος (“dead”), and the discussion of Christ’s resurrection. (Andrew Kimseng Tan, The Rhetoric of Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 [Emory Studies in Early Christianity 20; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018], 99-101)