Something I have been wondering about recently is the use of judicial language in letters and our interpretation of said letters. Often antique rhetoric (art of persuation) would employ the language of judicial proceedings to describe/persuade the recipient. In fact these authors were not saying their subject matter functioned as law courts, but the language of law courts was the form through which they made their arguement.
Now, this is just some stuff off the top of my head and I’d need some examples for me to be taken seriously. I am just wondering about this over breakfast.
I’ve wondered exactly this about the word ‘justified.’ The word is used all over in the OT to refer to God’s vindication of the righteous before wicked accusers. This is not a judiciary setting at all, but for some reason we ALWAYS assume it’s judiciary when it occurs in the NT. What if it’s just a relational term? That’s what I’m kicking around right now at least.
Exactly. It may be the case that we are to take it that way. I am comic across some non Christian letters that use these legal terms in a way that is persuasive, not legal.
Hank, Edgar, Bob, others – what do you all think? Is it possible? I know I need to provide exAmples, but what’s the ramificatons?
I am looking at cabin for JR tomorrow.
Justification is a legal metaphor, even NT Wright would agree with that. But what Paul uses it for in his letters, especially Galatians and Romans, is to establish one church on the basis of faith in Christ and not circumcision. Before God as sinners, justification/vindication is most definitely a legal concept. But Paul utilizes this concept before the church to demonstrtate on what basis a person is considered part of the people of God. The judicial cannot be cast out or our justification before God is lost. But one cannot also cast out the eccesiological cannot be cast or made secondary because we lose what Paul was doing.
The setting of the contention of the righteous against the wicked is before God as judge of creation. God’s contention with Israel is his lawsuit against Israel in her breaking the covenant. God is taking Israel to court, his court as their judge. In the OT judges are commanded to justify, kings are given that same responsibility, the righteous–namely the widows and orphans and poor. Justice/righteousness and the sdq word group (as well as the Greek dik= word group) is a judicial and legal term.
I think the problem is that we view legal in terms of modern U.S. courts. It’s not.
Hank, that is precisely my point. (Ok, not really, but you are all over it.) There are all kinds of judicial language in the NT, especially when it comes to justification. The question I have and Tom seems to echo, is that given the existence of judicial rhetoric, could it be the case that all of the judicial language we see, especially with justification, have a rhetorical/metaphorical purpose, (as you seem to allow when you talk about a “legal metaphor”) rather than an explicit description of how justification works.
When I use the term “rhetoric,” I am not talking about the use of propaganda or something else that does not correspond to truth or fact. Instead, I am talking about rhetoric in the classical sense of the art of persuasion. Ancient judicial rhetoric was for the purpose of accusation / defense in contradistinction to deliberative rhetoric (persuasion-dissuasion) and epideictic rhetoric (praise and blame). It functioned like a law-court, moving the person to be convinced of very real truths.
I like this quote from you. It encapsulates my worry about all of this as well. It tells us what is at stake. If we look at the judicial language primie facie, we arrive at certain views on justification before God. If we move towards a rhetorical functioning of this language, then we have to rethink things as basic as justification. And that is a big deal. It is not reason to sweep this question under the rug and ignore it, but the very reason I want to look at it.
And all of this could be nothing, it is very possible that all of this is really meant to have a 1:1 correspondence.
Let me clarify what I meant by metaphor. I don’t mean “fiction.” I do think that Paul has in mind how sinners are justified before God in the realm of soteriology. It isn’t mere rhetoric but describes an actual reality. We were sinners but those who trust in Christ and his work are new creations in him by faith with a new righteous status, namely being united to Christ’s righteousness (not necessarily imputed to us but rather us incorporated into it). But Paul employs thid doctrine or belief to combat Jewish exclusivism, possibly Gentile exclusivism in Rome (possibly). This exclusivism undoes the reality created in justification. I meant “metaphor” in that Paul employs his doctrine of justification in a rhetorical fashion to combat false teachings that undermine our unity with Christ and our unity in Christ that is acheived by faith alone.
I don’t think one can say that justification is purly relational (unless I’m misreading Tom). Righteousness is defined by law, namely the law given through Moses. The person who determines who is righteous and who is unrighteous is a judge who decides according to the law of Moses. Even when God contends that Israel/Judah is unrighteous, what defines Israel’Judah’s (un)righteousness is God’s law. In this instance God is acting as both the judge of the contention who decides guilt and righteousness as well as the one who is contending with Israel. This reality from Isaiah, as the text is very much a contention or lawsuit by God against Israel and Judah, ends with the Righteous One, the suffering survant, justifying Israel, restoring her to God and a proper covenantal standing. The servant restored Israel to a real relationship to God. Israel was given a real status of righteous in the eyes of the law of Moses by the death and resurrection of the servant. That is unless you are saying that is is mere rhetoric as well (the whole OT use of covenant lawsuit and other legal terms) is rhetorical. Again I’d like to see you fill this out some more, give some meat to it so that you can explain it in more detail.
I don’t think that you understand how seriously I am using the term rhetoric. I am not talking about mere rhetoric, fiction, or anything without real substance. However, it may be the case that Paul is using the language of the judicial to describe something much deeper. We kick around the term rhetoric all the time, but I don’t get a sense that we (ie. biblical commentators) really appreciate that term. We relegate it to myth or something. I’ve only just gotten those books from the bib. post in from the library, so we will see if I have the stamina to dig anything up.
Part of me, (and perhaps this is my mind right now, as I am up with Meredith) thinks that it is all judicial metaphors to describe some sort of other relationship. It is all relationship, even if it is judicial ones. At 2:15 in the morning, it seems absurd that God relates to us only via courtrooms, or that he is limited by them…
After thinking about what you are trying to get, I think a better way to put it–without all of the negative connotations that comes to mind (at least mine anyways)–would be a rhetorical device. One might be saying I’m splitting hairs but I don’t think rhetorical device is as negative and brings to mind that justification is empty speech (or to me it does). I do think Paul is employing the truth of justification as a rhetorical device to combat exclusivism within the body of Christ. Am I closer to what you are thinking?
Hank,
I think we can at least begin talking about things using rhetorical device. It is hard because rhetoric has such negative connotations today. You are much closer to what I am talking about.