embodied in circumcision) is valuable only if one truly keeps the covenant. Gentiles who follow the moral demands of the law, even if they lack knowledge of the written law (or are uncircumcised Godfearers attached to the synagogue), will be reckoned more within the covenant than Jews who break the law. Although Paul again speaks in principle of any Gentile, in practice those who could fulfill this standard, from Paul’s perspective, are those who are in Christ, since they are the ones who have the Spirit (cf. 2:29 with 7:5–6; 8:9).
Scripture supported Paul’s contention that those who violated God’s law were uncircumcised in heart (Rom 2:25; Lev 26:41; Jer 4:4; 9:25–26); Paul goes beyond Scripture simply in arguing the converse, namely, that those who keep God’s law are circumcised in God’s sight (Rom 2:26). Physical circumcision was a dividing issue; many Roman Gentiles criticized Jews for this practice, and it remained a primary barrier for Gentile men desiring to join God’s people. Most Jews did not believe that Gentiles needed to be circumcised to be saved; they needed it only to become members of Israel’s covenant.25 Paul thus prepares here for his later argument about Gentile believers being grafted into Israel’s heritage alongside Jewish believers (4:16; 11:17).26
Literal circumcision appears in far fewer biblical texts than one would expect from its later emphasis (although it is crucial in most of these, especially Gen 17; Ex 4:26; Lev 12:3; Josh 5:2–8);27 but Jewish people emphasized it especially rigorously in the centuries before Paul’s day as a significant distinctive of national identity. Without rejecting physical circumcision, Paul regarded spiritual circumcision (Deut 10:16; 30:6; Lev 26:41; Jer 4:4; 9:25–26; cf. Ezek 44:7, 9) as essential and more crucial than the physical covenant “sign.” Physical circumcision remained acceptable for Jewish believers, but the imposition of circumcision on Gentile believers risked alienating people from the covenant needlessly (cf. 1 Cor 7:18–19; Gal 5:6; 6:15).28 For Paul, the promised gift of the Spirit (2:29) confirmed God’s acceptance of Gentiles into his new covenant, obviating the need for a mere symbol of the covenant that simply pointed to it.29
The genuine Jew, Paul says, seeks his or her praise from God (2:29), like the righteous people of 2:7, 10. Paul might be offering a wordplay that some of his audience would recognize: the name of the Jews’ ancestor “Judah” meant “praise” (though translated differently in Gen 29:35; 49:8). For the contrast between Spirit and letter, see the comment on 7:6.
1. On the style, see Stowers 1981: 122–33.
2. E.g., Isa 22:17; Mic 6:8; Epictetus Disc. 1.1.23 and passim; Marcus Aurelius Med. 5.36.1; 11.15. For the interlocutor including Jews, see e.g., Augustine Exp. prop. Rom. 7–8 (Bray 1998: 52).
3. E.g., Matt 7:1; Polybius 12.23.1, 3; 12.24.5; Seneca Dial. 4.28.6–8; Juvenal Sat. 2.9–10, 20–21; b. Roš. Haš. 16b.
4. Cf. Let. Aris. 187–88; Wis 11:23; 12:10, 19; the fifth benediction of the ’Amida.
5. The connection is uncertain, since “treasure up” did not always carry its originally literal sense (see e.g., Prov 1:18; 2:7; 16:27 lxx).
6. Roman culture valued seeking honor and glory, but the glory Paul emphasizes here is eternal (8:18; 9:23), equivalent to God’s praise at the judgment (2:29). On the honor sense of “glory” (and seeking only honor from God, as in 2:29), see the information in Keener 2003b: 885–86; for other aspects of “glory,” see ibid., 410.
7. Cf. those disobeying the truth about God (1:25) facing wrath (1:18).
8. On divine impartiality, see most thoroughly Bassler 1982. God not discriminating between Jew and Gentile is a theme of Romans (cf. 3:30).
9. E.g., Sir 16:12; Paul here echoes Ps 62:12; Prov 24:12.
10. For one synthesis of how judgment by works and justification only by faith fit in Paul’s concern for reaching Gentiles, see insightfully Boers 1994: 221–24. Those with the law within fulfill righteousness (8:2–4; Gathercole 2002: 223), and are still evaluated for works (14:10; 2 Cor 5:10).
11. One could debate whether his rhetoric is hypothetical here or hyperbolic in 3:9–23 (where he seems to place every individual under sin), his objective being merely to show that both groups (Jew and Gentile) need Christ. But it is doubtful that he thought of morally sentient adults who had not sinned, of Adamites who did not need to be in Christ (5:12–21), or of people of flesh who did not need the Spirit for life (8:2–10).
12. They even have the Spirit “testifying” like the conscience here (8:16), while apparently retaining conscience’s testimony as well (9:1).
13. Already used in Greek-speaking Judaism (e.g., Josephus Ant. 16.103, 212; idem J.W. 4.189, 193; T. Reu. 4:3; Wallis 1974–75; idem 1975).
14. In moral senses, e.g., Xenophon Mem. 4.4.19; Aristotle Rhet. 1.15.6, 1375ab; Cicero Inv. 2.22.65; 2.53.161; Seneca Ben. 4.17.4; Musonius Rufus 16, p. 104.35–36; Epictetus Disc. 2.16.27–28; Horsley 1978. Philo viewed Moses’s law as a written version of the law of nature (Najman 2003).
15. E.g., Jub. 7:20; t. ‘Abod. Zar. 8:4–8; b. Sanh. 56a, bar.; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 12:1; Gen. Rab. 34:8.
16. Reductio ad absurdum was a familiar line of argument (cf. e.g., Lysias Or. 4.5–6, §101; Seneca Ep. Lucil. 83.9; 113.20; Heath 1997: 93–94).
17. See discussion in Forbes 1986; Watson 2003; Keener 2005b: 221–22.
18. On boasting here, cf. Gathercole 2002: 162–88, 215. Given possible allusions to Isa 42:6–7 here, it is not impossible that this Jewish “instructor” is also seeking to reach (and circumcise) Gentiles (cf. Isa 42:6; those in darkness in Rom 1:21), not unlike the teacher in Josephus Ant. 18.82. But this leader of the blind was himself blind and in darkness (cf. Rom 11:8–10).
19. Cf. analogous challenges to hypocrisy in antiquity, e.g., Seneca Controv. 2.6.5; and many other cases of accumulating rhetorical questions, e.g., Lysias Or. 10.22–23, §118; Cicero Phil. 3.6.15; Musonius Rufus 11, p. 80.22–25; 13B, p. 90.13–16; 15, p. 98.25–27; Lucian Tyr. 10. These add rhetorical force (see Dionysius of Halicarnassus Dem. 54).
20.
