Analogical Reasoning in Romans 7:2-4: A Woman and the Believers in Rome

(ProQuest Information and Learning: ... denotes formulae omitted.) At the beginning of Romans 7, Paul narrates a brief story about a man who, by his death, liberates a woman from the law that had governed his life. Paul uses this story to illustrate his claim that believers, through the death of Jesus, are dead to the Mosaic law that had governed Jesus's life. Origen calls the narrative an example, Clement of Alexandria an allegory, and Augustine a similitude.1 Most contemporary exegetes identify the passage as some kind of comparison. Although the labels differ, interpretations generally follow the tradition begun with Augustine's dictum: animadvertendum est istam similitudinem in hoc differre ab ea re propter quam adhibita est, "it is noteworthy how this similitude differs from the very subject for which it is employed" (Exp. prop. Rom. 1.36). By relating a woman who is free from the law because of a man's death to Christ-believers' dying to the Mosaic law, Paul apparently produced an asymmetrical figure of speech.2 If indeed this is what Paul has done, then exegetes have no choice except to find methods of analysis that account for the disparity.3 In this article, I suggest an alternative interpretation: Paul's reasoning is symmetrical. The keys that unlock its symmetry are hidden within the ambiguous syntax of the clause ... (v. 2a) and the grammar of the phrase ... (v. 2b). If the first phrase is understood as "bound to the law by way of the man who is alive" and the second as "the law that governs the man," then w. 2ab are the core of Paul's argument and clarify the logic of its movement from contrasting statement (v. 1), via analogy (w. 2-4), to conclusion (w. 4-6). I will trace this trajectory from beginning to end with a brief discussion of the various functions of Rom 7:1, an examination of the analogy, and a short analysis of the concluding verses. I. CONTRAST AND ANTICIPATION (ROMANS 7:1) Throughout Romans 6, Paul's correspondence has characteristics of a lively discussion between himself and the recipients of his letter. At times he even addresses them directly (6:1-3, 15, 16). In 7:1, he continues this conversational style, crafting a bidirectional appeal to the hearer's understanding:4 "Are you ignorant, brethren-for I speak to persons who know the law-that the law rules a person as long as she/he lives?" Simultaneously confronting the Roman communities with a question ("Are you ignorant of the law?") and an assertion ("You know the law!"), Paul contrasts ignorance with knowledge about a specific concept: the law rules a person as long as she/he lives. Although the concept is general enough to encompass the gamut of familiar legislative systems in his day,5 Paul does not presume that his hearers have specific legal knowledge.6 Rather, he writes immediately and specifically what he wants his audience to know about the "law"; that is, iuiio has supreme governing power over the domain of life.7 It is not surprising, then, that Paul reveals neither the ethnicity of the law-knowers he is addressing (i.e., Jews or non-Jews) nor the specific law under discussion.8 He addresses the members of the Roman communities as law-knowing persons with the purpose of inviting them to follow-and understand-his argument.9 Paul places his attempt to compel his hearers to agree with his argument's conclusion strategically. His statement that "the law rules living persons" reinforces the relationship between iuiio and the Roman believers, a relationship he had already declared moot (6:14-15: "you are not under the law"). In form, this contrast echoes Paul's bidirectional appeal to his hearer's knowledge; in function, it anticipates the progressive rationale of his thoughts. He continues with an analogy that features contrasting assertions regarding the authority of ... over life and proceeds to explain why the Mosaic law does not rule believers. II. A SYMMETRICAL NARRATIVE (ROMANS 7:2-3) Comparing the Christ-believers in Rome with a woman who is under the authority of a living man, Paul creates an analogy. …