Paul and the Law: Mark Nanos, Brian Rosner, and the Common-Law Tradition

In this paper I tried to sort out how the Paul-within-Judaism reading of Paul and the Law, articulated by Mark Nanos, can be reconciled with aspects of a more traditional view, represented by Brian Rosner's Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God.

I argued that for Paul biblical law resembles a common-law tradition more than a statutory-law tradition. This argument makes sense of why Paul is sometimes critical and sometimes strongly in favour of biblical law. I expanded on this argument in "An Emerging Account of Biblical Law."

Abstract: This paper examines recent input by both Mark Nanos and Brian Rosner on the issue of Paul and the law. It highlights what it believes to be two crucial, but mutually exclusive, insights from each of the two positions. Nanos’s input is that Paul positively approves of the law because he did not find anything inherently wrong with either Judaism or the Jewish way of life, including Torah observance. Rosner’s input is that Paul’s negative assessment of the law is related to legalism. Because these positions are entrenched due to divergent views on Judaism, this study advances the conversation in the debate by offering an insight from contemporary legal theory that makes it possible to bring together the best insights of Rosner and Nanos on this issue. It outlines the difference between statutory and common-law legal systems, with reference to a study by Joshua Berman. It also demonstrates the impact of a common-law view on Pauline paraenesis on Christian ethics. 

"It would be a mistake to assume that the only alternative to Nanos’s ideal, keeping the letter of the law, is Rosner’s solution, overthrowing and replacing the law entirely. If the law is a common law, we can maintain both." (p. 177)

"This article is a tentative exploration into the possibility of moving a heavily-entrenched debate forward by re-examining the conception of the nature of law in early Christianity. 

. . . [I provide] a way of appreciating the important contributions of both Mark Nanos and Brian Rosner. 

• We can acknowledge with Nanos that Paul could not imagine obedience to God apart from the law, the Torah. His own obedience involved being a faithful Jew following the Jewish messiah. And Paul also envisioned and prescribed Torah-oriented obedience for his Gentile converts. They could not remain in their pagan way of life, and the only alternative that Paul would have known to paganism was Judaism.

• We can also see, with Rosner, that Paul did not view the law as merely a set of strict codes that circumscribed obedience for God’s people for all times, in all places. Rather, the law itself is part of a trajectory of ethical behaviour, a common-law tradition that begins not at Sinai but as far back as creation itself." (p. 177)

“Paul and the Law: Mark Nanos, Brian Rosner, and the Common-Law Tradition.” Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 11 (2015) 153–77.

This paper is available at the Journal's website, so just follow this link.