Gaca and Welborn 2005; and at greater length and reproducing many relevant texts (from which I have drawn most patristic opinions mentioned in this commentary), Bray 1998; for readings through history more broadly, Greenman and Larsen 2005; also ad loc. in Fitzmyer 1993.
1. Richards 2004: 165.
2. Richards 2004: 169.
3. Anderson 1999: 113, noting that Paul departed from conventional epistolary expectations here (cf. also Malherbe 1977: 16; Demetrius Eloc. 4.228).
4. The comparison is limited; see Elliott 2008: 17.
5. For some recent nuanced discussions of Paul and rhetoric, see e.g., Porter 1997: 561–67, 584–85; Reed 1997: 182–91; Anderson 1999: 114–26, 280–81; Bird 2008; Keener 2008b: 221.
6. For Paul having more training than many suppose, see Hock 2003.
7. For one typology regarding assimilation, accommodation, and acculturation, see Barclay 1995.
8. Earlier scholars with more nuanced views include Moore (1971) and Bonsirven (1964); in Pauline scholarship, Longenecker (1976) also showed analogies in a covenant nomist pattern in Paul’s and other early Jewish thought.
9. See e.g., Räisänen 1983; Hübner 1984; Dunn 1992; Watson 2007.
10. Among other works, see e.g., Gathercole 2002; Thielman 1987, 1994; Talbert 2001; Cairus 2004; Seifrid 1992: 78–135; Quarles 1996; Hagner 1993; Eskola 1998: 28–60; idem 2002; Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid 2001; esp. Avemarie 1996 (particularly 36–43); see also discussion in Bird 2007. Sanders 2009 has forcefully reiterated and explained what he intended as the primary point of his argument; for the weighty intellectual history of his approach, see Sanders 2008: 18–25.
11. Historically, cf. e.g., Vidler 1974: 279.
12. Many have noted this greater prominence in Romans and Galatians (cf. also Ephesians), especially since Stendahl 1976 (esp. 2–4).
13. In Galatia, Paul’s opponents possibly meant merely the former; if so, Paul prefers a rigorous consistency that identifies membership in the covenant with salvation.
14. See discussion in Keener 1992: 19–69; additional background in idem 2000a.
15. For the point-by-point, sequential comparison, see Dunn 1988: 1:197.
16. See Leon 1960; Lampe 2003a; essays in Donfried and Richardson 1998.
17. See Suetonius Tib. 36; Josephus Ant. 18.84; idem J.W. 2.80.
18. See Clarke 1994: 464–66; Garnsey and Saller 1987: 83; for estimates approaching a million, see Stambaugh 1988: 89; Packer 1967: 87; below a quarter million, Rohrbaugh 1991: 133. For earlier periods, with over one hundred thousand adult citizens (thus not counting children, slaves, and non-citizen residents), see e.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. rom. 5.20.1; 5.75.3; 6.96.4; 9.15.2; 9.36.3; cf. Plutarch Caesar 55.3; Suetonius Jul. 41. Some estimates are much higher (e.g., Carcopino 1940: 20–21). Ancients could speak either of the area inside the city walls (e.g., Pliny the Elder Nat. 3.5.66) or of larger Rome (idem 3.5.67).
19. Jeffers 1998: 131. In Rome as a whole, rich and poor often lived side by side, the latter especially in crowded tenements, with the poorest tending to live higher up in the sometimes flimsy and flammable structures.
20. Mostly regular Gentile names, including many that recall names of deities (but without polytheistic intent; they likewise used some Roman decorations, but preferred distinctive Jewish symbols like the menorah to major Roman ones). Only about 15 percent have traditional Semitic names.
21. Leon 1960: 76.
22. See e.g., Juvenal Sat. 14.100–104; see especially Gager 1983; Sevenster 1975.
23. So also Ambrosiaster in the fourth century, who believed that the founders expected law observance (Lane 1998: 203). Paul assumes a high degree of biblical literacy and familiarity with Jewish tradition (though cf. also Galatians), and the many travelers to the capital carried new ideas there quickly.
24. Rome’s synagogues had many Godfearers to begin with; proselytism and attraction to Judaism constituted major causes of resentment among traditional Romans against Roman Judaism (see Parkes 1979: 25–26; Gager 1983: 55–56). For proselytes in Rome, see e.g., Leon 1960: 250–56. Nanos (1996) argues that the believers in Rome, who are Gentiles, remain in the synagogues, so that Paul encourages them to honor Jewish concerns.
25. Although views of Romans’ purpose diverge widely (see Donfried 1991), the apparent majority of contemporary scholars (e.g., Wiefel, Sanders, Stendahl, Dunn, Lung-Kwong) rightly recognize that Jewish-Gentile tensions are a factor in Romans. Even if the Roman church was completely Gentile by this period, its relationship to Judaism (as an intrinsic part of its heritage) remains key (cf. discussion in Das 2007). Some think that Jewish antipathy toward Gentile governments in Judea may also affect the situation (cf. Rom 13:1–7); most northern Mediterranean Jews, however, stayed clear of hints of resistance.
26. Because the Jewish-Gentile barrier was one established in Scripture itself, Paul’s emphasis on ethnic unity would have even greater implications for any other ethnic divisions (e.g., Keener 2003c: esp. 208–10); it has also been applied against nationalism (e.g., Schlatter 1995: 31, in the context of rising German nationalism) and ethnocentric imperialism (Jewett cites South African Bishop John William Colenso in 1863).
27. Origen Comm. Rom. on 16:3 (Bray 1998: 370).
28. See Reasoner 2005: xxv, and sources cited there. Other early readers recognized that Paul sought to reconcile discord in the church (Theodoret of Cyr Interp. Rom. on 15:33; Pelagius Comm. Rom. on 15:33; Bray 1998: 368) and that tensions over the law inform the differences between the groups in Rom 14 (Ambrosiaster Commentary on Paul’s Epistles on Rom 14:1; Theodoret of Cyr Interp. Rom. on 14:1;
