Review: Solving the Romans Debate

[mikew]

Solving the Romans Debate
by Andrew Das
Fortress Press, 2007

Solving the Romans Debate has become known as the prime advocate to declare that the Romans letter was written solely to a Gentile audience. This is a major variance from historical viewpoints. Since the time that Romans has been viewed with a focus on its occasional nature, much effort has been expended to determine the audience and the purpose of Romans. The perceived audience has been recorded in most of the possible variations: All Jews, mostly gentiles, or all gentiles.

Das begins in chapter 1 with an overview of the issues debated on Romans with a summary of the various purposes as proposed in the recent commentaries on Romans. Such purposes were shown to be inadequate. Upon such weaknesses, Das introduced the investigation and evidence of an exclusively Gentile audience. Such proposal also looks to the largely neglected but ground breaking work of Stowers.

In researching through the commentaries on Romans, one find some writers who advocate a gentile audience. Yet ,there would seem to be a general difficulty for writers to sever their thinking from earlier works written based on a concept of a mixed audience. Andrew Das settles the question in a detailed study that probes the logic of a gentile audience and identifies the weakness in other people's attempts to include Jews.

Das reveals the tendency of many commentators to look at the several Jewish topics ( the Jew and the Law in 2:17-29, the Law in chapter 3, Abraham in chapter 4, the Law in chapter 7, the analysis of Israel in chapters 9 to 11) and then assume from those topics that there must be a Jewish representation in Paul's encoded audience. Das skillfully showed the plausibility of a gentile audience where many other authors would find another alternative.
His approach didn't seem forced but rather just reflected thorough research and analysis.

The analysis of passages in light of a gentile audience is rather a new area of study, but Das offers some explanations. I'm sure that alternative explanations will be proposed once the issue of the audience has been settled.
Here are some alternative views Das proposes:
Rom 2:17-29 (pg 87-89) may be of diatribe style in accord with the viewpoint of Stowers.

Rom 7 :7-25. Das again follows the logic of Stowers in seeing a history of the gentiles within Judaism in Rome

Rom 14-15 (weak and strong) pg 109 Explains the weak as God-fearers. [cf. Moo,pg828-831, considered many options except that of the weak being purely Gentile adherents of certain Jewish laws and customs]

Rom 16 – (pg 90-103)Das suggests alternate options for names and familial phrases to introduce that Paul may not be writing to Jews. The most useful point was on pp. 102-103 that the greetings were second person.

The skillful presentation came through a review of the background of the Roman Church. In agreement with more recent proposals of commentators such as Stowers, he advocated that the audience consisted of two groups: gentiles who had first come through the synagogues and culture of Judaism, and gentiles who followed Christ after the Claudius edict of AD49

The meat of his work consisted of the thorough studies into many first century aspects of Jews, Judaism, Rome and related topics. He brought many facts into consideration regarding the effects of the Claudius edict of AD49 upon the Church in Rome. All this study demonstrated sufficient framework for the Epistle to the Romans to have addressed a purely Gentile audience. Included in this framework was the basis for the assertion that the “weak” of Romans 14 were Gentiles who became adherents of Jewish law and custom.

Finally in the last chapter it was exciting to see a new approach to Romans 7. In the theory promoted by Das, Paul's expression of problems in the face of the Law were shown actually to reflect the God-fearing gentiles' encounter with the Law. So the final chapter became the demonstration of the ability to solve the Roman debate after properly identifying the audience.


The debate may not be fully concluded. Yet the solution to the Romans debate certainly takes on a new light with the effort of Das in Solving the Romans Debate.