Keith Blackburn did a paper last semester on Romans 12:20 on that well known expression about "heaping coals of fire" on the head of your enemy. He had heard a nice "this is what this really meant" story and wanted to verify or discount it.
So I dug out Robert Jewett's relatively recent Romans commentary, quickly on its way to become the commentary on my list of Ken's Picks, although I want to use it a little more before committing. (By the way, I wrote too much on my second Paul book so Wesleyan Publishing House is probably going to split it in two, making the next volume, Paul: Soldier of Peace, entirely on Romans.)
So here's the situation as best I can figure it out. First, Paul is quoting Proverbs 25:22. Since Proverbs draws on some Egyptian literature, it is likely that it alludes to an Egyptian practice of a repentant person carrying a thing with hot coals in it on their heads to symbolize their repentance. The idea of the Proverb would thus be to feed and give drink to your enemy so that he or she will repent of their animosity toward you.
Of course Paul is unlikely to know the Egyptian background of the Proverb, which makes that information irrelevant for interpreting Romans (this is a key point of learning that many "scholars" do not even get. Doing a Hebrew word study or contextual exegesis of an OT passage is irrelevant to the interpretation of a NT passage that engages the OT if the NT author isn't likely to have known such things. By and large, the NT authors used the Greek OT and didn't read the OT using historical methods).
So there may have been interpretive traditions around that Paul had in mind, ones that we apparently have no information about. On the other hand, Paul may have been in the same boat we are as far as reading the verse in context. We can tell the context is about something positive, not negative. We can tell you are doing something good for your enemy, and it is moving them toward reconciliation with you.
And this is exactly the meaning Paul sees in Romans 12:20 as the Spirit leads him to write to the Romans. It is possible, although we cannot really say, that the expression was just as much a dead metaphor for Paul at the time as it is for us. We pretty much get what it is saying without really knowing where it came from.
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2 comments:
This sounds like our "ideal" foreign policy lately! The real world does not work like this. Should the Israelis disarm in the face of the "terrorists"? Do you think after all the negotiation with the Palestianians, that these would began to be reconciled? Or would it mean the beginning of the "end" of Israel?
People that are abusive/power hungry aren't open to "reconcilliation". They just want power and to accomplish their goal and they will use whoever is available/willing to accomplish their ends. And those that are so spritually arrogant as to think that "doing good" will be penance toward God, won't be "warmed", but self satisfied. One has just justified their view of themselves and their view of you.
I heard Ray Vanderlaan teach that the coals represent God's presence. He came to this conclusion using the rule of first use, pointing out that in Genesis 15:17 "a smoking firepot with a blazing torch" appeared representing God's presence. Also, smoke and fire are used throughout scripture to represent God's presence.
It sure makes for a good and memorable teaching point - that when we are wronged we should respond by heaping the goodness of God on the wrongdoer - but I'm not sure Paul or the writer of Proverbs had this metaphor in mind when they used "coals".
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