Romans - Introduction(2)

Additional Background Information

(Most of the following is summarised from Keener).

Romans is the longest letter in the New Testament and we need to remember that they didn’t have word processors in those days! It was produced by Paul dictating it to a scribe, Tertius, who wrote it down on papyrus. It has been estimated that the cost in today’s terms would have been about £1500 (Keener). The average length of a letter in those days was about 87 words. The average length of Paul’s letters is about 2500 words, Romans is over 7000 words. So Romans was a significant entity. Romans is sometimes thought to be a difficult book, and does indeed deal with deep matters and is one of the most profound items of literature in existence. However, it was also written to normal people and is designed to be understood by normal people.

There were two key types of education in the Greco-Roman world: philosophy and rhetoric. Rhetoric was concerned with communication and persuasion and was the dominant form and the rhetorical form of argument was common in society. We see this in Romans where Paul addresses rhetorical questions (“someone will say ....”), and it is possible that Paul may have had some training in rhetoric. However, his main cultural background was Judaism and the Law.

A key theme of Romans, and indeed of the whole of the New Testament, is that Jesus is the fulfilment of the Old Testament. He is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament, and Christianity, therefore, is the natural continuation of Judaism. Judaism itself was very diverse. In the New Testament we see the distinction between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees believed in a resurrection, and expected a messiah. So at one level Paul could be seen as a Pharisee who realised that the Messiah had now come, whereas most Pharisees failed to see this at all.

The common Christian view of the Pharisees is that they believed in a works righteousness. While there is some truth in this, it is far from being a complete picture. They believed that they were saved by grace, and works confirmed their place in the covenant. The “new perspective” has emphasised this aspect. While the new perspective may over emphasise somethings, the simplistic “everything is works” view of Judaism is too simplistic. The truth is probably that Judaism involved both grace and works righteousness.

The fundamental point of difference between Paul (and the gospel) and Judaism was the centrality of the grace that God has shown, and exercised, in Christ, and the all encompassing effect of that grace. 

At the time that Romans was written, the city of Rome had a population of between a quarter of a million and one million, and somewhere between 20 and 50 thousand Jews. Roman culture was reasonably accepting of diversity, though Jews did face some prejudice. This was partly as a result of their success in winning converts. Particular aspects which brought resentment were circumcision, the Sabbath and food customs. The Jews themselves were open to the dominant culture, this together with their Jewish roots made them a ripe target for evangelisation. The Jews had been expelled from Rome in AD 49 (Acts 18:2), this expulsion order was repealed in AD 54. One outcome of this was that Gentiles probably comprised the majority of Christians. Anyway, the church probably consisted mostly of Gentiles, but with a significant number of Jewish believers, and certainly a significant Jewish influences. So Paul could assume a reasonable knowledge of the Old Testament and its background. Paul’s letter deals with the relationship between Jewish and Gentile believers, and with how the gospel fits in with the Old Testament.

Romans and Galatians are the two letters where Paul addresses the relationship of the gospel and the Old Testament in most depth. However, the tenor of the two letters is quite different. Galatians is much more personal and polemical, whereas Romans is more “academic”.