The Law the curtain, and Paul the man behind it...

I'm writing, not blogging, this week, but that doesn't stop me from posting some thoughts. I was describing Paul and the Law to a Romans class today and here's what leaped from my, by all accounts bizzare, mind:

The Law (understood as the Jewish Law, the ethical part of the Pentateuch) is like a screen from behind which Paul talks to us. When he's talking, he uses the word "Law," but he talks from what seem to us to be different parts of the Law.

Now he says we are not under Law, and he is behind the screen talking from the parts that have to do with things like circumcision and food laws, the parts that have most to do with Jewish ethnic particularity. He just calls it the Law or works of Law.

Then he tells us we do not make void the Law through faith, and he speaks from the parts like the sexual prohibitions of Leviticus 18 or most of the Ten Commandments. But he just calls it the Law or even works of Law.

Then of course sometimes he leaves this reservation. He speaks of Law as the entire Pentateuch, the Law as the literary corpus. Or still again, he can use the word in reference to a "rule," like a "law" in my members.

In short, it's no wonder there are so many books and differing positions on what the Law means for Paul!