Paul, His People And Racial Terminology

ABSTRACT

In the debates about Christian identity recent approaches in attempting to overcome spiritual/flesh dichotomies have argued for the usefulness of ethnic and racial paradigms in analyses of Pauline letters. Whilst sympathetic to such intentions this article challenges the hermeneutical presuppositions on which the use of the concept of race and ethno-racial terminology is built and demonstrates the anachronism in the use of racial concepts for antiquity and in the Pauline letters in particular. Rather than being a contribution to the overcoming of racism, the use of race as a paradigm in Pauline scholarship re-inscribes this highly problematic concept, including its overtones of anti-Judaism.

Keywords:

• race
• racism
• ethnicity
• Christian identity
• Pauline interpretation