11 - Testing the teleological reading

Summary

We have tried to trace what the implied author is saying to the implied audience, and especially to the narratee, in Rom. 1.16–4.25. Before we can offer that as our reading of what Paul was intending the Romans to hear, it must pass the tests we established in chapter 9.

1. It must account for all of the text, making sense of it as coherent communication accessible to the intended audience, and overcoming the intractable problems we identified in chapter 2.

2. It must function as part of the whole meaning of Romans. It must work as the first step of the preaching we hypothesized in chapter 7, accommodating the passages not obviously related to the Jew-Gentile issue, or correct our hypothesis. It must be compatible with the justification theology as a related element of meaning in Rom. 1.16–4.25, or demonstrate very convincingly that we were wrong in believing that the tradition of exegesis has not been a tradition of eisegesis.

3. It must either be something we can accept that Paul could have said in the situation or force us to ask reasonable questions about our understanding of the situation and/or of Paul.

Test 1 – making sense of all of the text

The teleological reading has made sense of all of the text as speech with its quality of linearity.