The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
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The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

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ARAMAIC AND TARGUMIC ANTECEDENTS OF PAULINE 'JUSTIFICATION' Bruce Chilton In his monograph on Rom. 3.21-26, Douglas Campbell observed that the concept of 'justification' has been seen by modern interpreters more as a corollary than as a principal category within the Pauline argument. 1 Within his own reading of the passage, Campbell emphasized that the participial phrase, SiKaio-ujxevoi 8copeav IT\ cunov X

380 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context righteousness before God, is not really present within the section', since SiKaiov^ievoi is 'broader than this, being completely dominated in context by the ideas of eschatology and salvation'. 5 Campbell is aware that he is joining the company of Adolf Deissmann and Albert Schweitzer in arguing as he does, as well as Krister Stendahl, Nils Dahl and E.P. Sanders. 6 Each of these scholars characterized the principal argument, within which justification appears as corollary, in a distinctive manner. Campbell argues, as may be seen in his paraphrase of the passage, for 'an eschatological dimension within God's righteousness—and this seems particularly evocative of the righteousness language of Isaiah'. 7 In the reading he defends, Campbell joins a consensus of critics in positing an almost exclusive focus on the ethics of ultimate salvation within Paul's position: 8 Thus the rightwizing of the believer is the completion of the revelation of God's righteousness in Christ. God reveals his salvation in order that he might actually save—and such a statement seems a fitting finale to the passage. The language of 'rightwizing' here is not incidental; it is an example of jargon manifesting an author's ideology. For Campbell, the Pauline Christ is the power of Isaiah's righteousness, the engine of an ethical orientation no longer dominated by 'works of the law'. Scholars of the historical Jesus are routinely warned of casting their subject into their own image, but it may be that Paulinists are even more prone to that failing. In this instance, there is an indication of a procedural failing when Campbell observes that the language of justification is shared with Paul's 'Jewish precursors', 9 but does not explore what those 'precursors' said. The work cites Quintilian, Cicero, the author of the Rhetorica ad Herrennium, Demetrius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Aristotle, Pseudo-Aristotle, Plato, Longinus, Tacitus, Hermogenes, and Philodemus, 10 in order to explicate Paul's syntax, but contents itself with general speculations, together with, at most, a 5. Campbell, Rhetoric, p. 202. 6. Cf. Campbell, Rhetoric, pp. 142-43. 7. Cf. Campbell, Rhetoric, p. 159, citing Isa. 5.16; 9.7; 11.5; 16.5; 29.9; 32.16,17; 33.5,6; 41.2; 42.6,7; 45.8,13,24; 46.12,13; 51.5,6,8; 56.1; 59.11,14,17; 61.10,11; 62.1,2; 63.1. 8. Campbell, Rhetoric, p. 170, here commenting particularly on the end of v. 26. 9. Cf. Campbell, Rhetoric, p. 144. 10. Cf. Campbell, Rhetoric, pp. 77-79.

ARAMAIC AND TARGUMIC ANTECEDENTS OF PAULINE<br />

'JUSTIFICATION'<br />

Bruce Chilton<br />

In his monograph on Rom. 3.21-26, Douglas Campbell observed that<br />

the concept of 'justification' has been seen by modern <strong>in</strong>terpreters<br />

more as a corollary than as a pr<strong>in</strong>cipal category with<strong>in</strong> the Paul<strong>in</strong>e<br />

argument. 1 With<strong>in</strong> his own read<strong>in</strong>g of the passage, Campbell emphasized<br />

that the participial phrase, SiKaio-ujxevoi 8copeav IT\ cunov<br />

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