Esler on Romans

In view of Turkel’s fawning reliance Esler, consider the following:

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Though viewing the letter through this particular lens of modern social psychology is
helpful, the applicability of this model is largely predicated upon two crucial points. First,
Esler’s interpretation rests upon the presence of a fundamental conflict between “Judean”
and “non-Judean Christ-followers” based upon their different ethnic identities. Yet this
observation is primarily developed not from the text of Romans but from Esler’s own
social and historical description. Though supported by his exegesis of the text later in his
work, it seems that the fundamental issue of ethnic conflict should derive primarily from
the text itself. Second, the theoretical model Esler has chosen does explain how Paul can
continue to address Judeans and Gentiles as “in Christ,” that is, two subgroups within a
larger superordinate group. Yet as Esler’s conclusions are considered by others it will be
interesting to see if this insight derives more from the model suggested than from the text
itself. That is to ask whether Paul truly is working along the line of good social
psychology by working to maintain each subgroup’s ethnic identity rather than to create a
“third race,” substituting the radically new identity “in Christ” over against other
identities. Esler has contributed to our understanding of Romans by foregrounding the
issue of ethic conflict; however, his argument seems to be supported more by his chosen
model rather than from the text.

http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/4471_4659.pdf

In writing Conflict and Identity, Esler purports to be responding not only to the need for a
social-scientific reading of Romans, but pointedly to the various forms of ethnic violence
that have erupted of late in parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. His is an argument for the
theoretical understanding of ethnic identity, in a world marked by the Bosnia war, the
Rwandan genocide, the Northern Ireland conflict, the ongoing struggle between
Palestinians and Israelis, and the border war between India and Pakistan (10). Esler
argues that, in the face of such turmoil, Romans becomes relevant as “a communication
in which the theological truth of the oneness of God who righteouses [sic] all without
distinction constitutes the foundation of the common identity advocated by Paul” (365).

While the sentiment around this choice is admirable, I contend Esler’s choice here is
problematic for a number of reasons. First, there is the question of the use of the word
Judean itself. Esler notes that the practice of naming people by their location was a Greek
one, possibly one adopted by the Romans (63). Granted there is evidence of the word’s
use by Philo and Josephus. However, the Josephus argument is one of a historical shift in
the use of the term and does necessarily have to speak to location; it may as easily speak
to a shift in culture and practice such that the Ioudaioi were more like Josephus’s
contemporaries than were the Ebraioi (64). The Philo argument shows that Ioudaioi had a
strong affinity toward Jerusalem. However, they still held their adopted cities as patri,
as Esler himself reports (65).

But what really challenges Esler’s argument is Paul’s own usage of self-referential ethnic
terminology in Romans. Paul uses the term Ioudaios rather generically, to refer to those
who “rely on the law, boast of their relationship to God, etc.” (2:17). It is the term that he
uses to differentiate between a group of people and the “Greeks.” The word may refer to
ethnicity; however, it does not necessarily have to be an ethnicity named by a location. If,
as Philo describes, one could be a Ioudaios but still hold that one’s pater and, from that one’s
primary (or salient) ethnicity is related to one’s city of birth, rather than to
Jerusalem, then such a person was Ioudaios by practice and affiliation, and as a
consequence by societal acceptance and/or stigma. However, that person did not
necessarily originate from, nor was that person necessarily ethnically related to Judea (as
Esler tries to argue, even in the case of circumcised proselytes [153]!).

Paul uses a rather more pointed ethnic term to describe a person with specific
geographical ties to Judea: Israelites (9:4; 11:1). It is the term Paul uses to refer to
himself and to his own people, a particularly telling choice in light of Paul’s self-
identification as a Benjaminite, thus a descendent of a southern, Judean tribe, and even
more telling if Paul is in fact a native of Tarsus, as Luke suggests. Paul’s choice of ethnic
nomenclature combined with Esler’s insistence of the translation “Judean” results in the
strange geographic and historic confusion of Esler using the words “Israelites” and
“Judeans” as synonyms, interchangeably without comment (see esp. 178ff.), an equation
that will surely puzzle students of the northern and southern kingdoms.

Perhaps more seriously, Esler’s insistence on the use of “Judean” as a means of naming
The Ioudaioi avoids the social-scientific questions of power, status, and honor/shame
behind the naming and self-naming of groups. As persons of the African diaspora within
the United States will attest, what a group names itself and what the society names a
group are frequently two different matters, and study of the acceptance or rejection of a
commonly used societal name—“African,” “Negro,” “colored,” “Black,” “Afro-
American,” “African American”—whether geographically specific or not may require a
more nuanced approach to the whole question of naming and power both within and
outside of the Roman context.

Moreover, the question emerges: If a Ioudaios is a “Judean,” then what is a “Jew”? If
those of the first century are Judean, when do their descendants become Jews? And when
they do become Jews, do they then take on the entire anachronistic history, whether they
are from the medieval or postmodern eras? The dichotomy seems more an attempt to
apologize for Christianity’s mistreatment of Jews in light of our own scriptures than a
true historical argument. Interestingly, no similar argument has been made for
“Egyptians,” although the history of anti-Egyptian rhetoric in the ancient texts is as
strong as is the anti-Ioudaios rhetoric in some parts of the New Testament. Yet even at
the time of the Suez Crisis, no credible argument was ever put forth from biblical studies
that we divorce the term Aiguptioi from those currently living in the nation called Egypt,
lest we anachronistically attribute a history to them that hinders our biblical interpretation.

http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/4471_4517.pdf