Defining some important terms is mandatory for the sake of clarity and consistency. The following three groups of words will be defined below: 1) Torah/Nomos/Law; 2) Identity and Boundaries; and 3) Moral, Ethics and Ethos.
1.4.1 Torah (νόμος) Law
According to John Meier ( 2009:27), the root of the problem of correctly understanding the meaning of
Torah can be traced back to etymology. Meaning derived through etymological study is rejected because
it is not “a sure guide to later usage and meaning” (Meier, 2009:27). For instance, the etymological study of the word “Torah” is dependent on the Hebrew word yrh meaning to “throw”, to “cast” or “toss” therefore the meaning is assumed to be a symbol of casting a lot to know God’s will, or to throw a figure or a hand to show a direction. It is understood as an oracle in the sense of the prophets of Israel who claim that what they announce is the word of God (Meier, 2009:27). Torah is sometimes understood as
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“divine instruction” or “divine directive” that is, every single teaching or direction that came through the priests and prophets (Lev 6:2, Exod 18:16). This concept of Torah perceives Torah as “a huge written corpus” (Meier, 2009:28). Therefore, Torah is the teaching, instruction, and direction given by God to his people through his prophets, and priests in written form particularly in the form of the revelation given to Moses at Mount Sinai.
The Greek word nomos has a wider range of meanings in ancient Greek. The standard English word “law”, therefore, does not appropriately represent the scope of its meaning, since in ancient Greek the word “nomos was used in various and often overlapping contexts that included religion, civil society and law, philosophy, cosmology, and royal ideology” (Meier, 2009:38). The Gospels, however, used the word in a number of different senses: “the nomos contains laws that command (e.g., Matt 22:36–40), narratives that recount the origins of Israel (e.g., with “Moses” as a surrogate for “the Law”, John 3:14; 6:31–32), and prophecies that point forward to Jesus (Matt 11:13)” (Meier, 2009:38).
Both in Paul and Matthew, nomos refers to the Law of Moses. In this research, nomos and Torah will be understood as referring to the Law of Moses in the sense of teaching or instruction (and therefore not first and foremost as legalistic concept) serving as “covenant obligation” as it is understood by James Dunn (1998:131–133). To identify it clearly, the English word ‘Law’ will be employed and the first letter will be consistently capitalized in order to differentiate it from other sense.
1.4.2 Identity and Boundaries
Fundamentally, “identity involves people’s explicit or implicit response to the question of: ‘who are you?’ It is self-definition of individual, small group, larger social group…[It] comprises ‘How you act as being’ interpersonal and intergroup interaction and the social recognition or otherwise that these actions receive from other individual or group” (Vignoles et al., 2011:2). D.F. Tolmie (2006:242) also defines identity in a similar fashion, “Identity refers to the way in which the members of a community view themselves and why they do so.” According to Judith M. Lieu (2004:12), identity entails “the idea of boundedness, of sameness and difference, of continuity, perhaps of degree of homogeneity, and recognition by self and by others.” Lieu (2004:13) adds, “the description of the self-demands the description of the other; ‘us’ implies ‘them’; the positive invites or presupposes the negative.” In this research, identity refers to the self-definition, and self-understanding of Jesus followers, and the Jesus followers defining others and they being seen or defined by others in light of the summary of the Law.
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There are two major perspectives on the concept of identity: identity theory and social identity theory. The former is a micro-sociological theory that aims at explaining individuals based on role-related behaviour. It therefore focuses on role identity, identity salience and commitment while the latter is a socio-psychological theory which attempts to explain group process and intergroup relationships (Hogg
et al., 1995: 225; 258). Their difference lies in their disciplinary root: identity theory is sociological while
social identity theory is a psychological concept. Social science scholars are currently arguing that their difference is a matter of emphasis and discipline root; therefore, both theories can possibly be used.
There is no intention at this stage of the research to present a detailed discussion on the complexity of both theories. A brief description of both will be sufficient for the present purpose. For identity theory, “self reflects the wider social structure insofar as self is a collection of identities from the role position occupied by the person” (Hogg et al., 1995:259). Social identity theory predicates its theory on a two- foundation socio-cognitive process: self-categorization and self-enhancement. While self-categorization “sharpens intergroup boundaries by producing group–distinctive stereotypical and normative perception and actions, and assigns people, including self, to the contextually relevant category”, self-enhancement “guides the social categorization process such that in-group norms and stereotypes largely favour the in- group” (Hogg et al., 1995:260). The self-enhancement is achieved in groups by comparing relevant out- group in a way that favours the in-group. This evaluative perception against the other creates positive self-concept within the in-group. In this study, social identity theory is followed insofar as it almost always includes both the personal as well as the group role in studying identity construction. Not least, its focus on the group identity is germane to the present study.
Boundaries are an integral part of the idea of identity, because “it is boundaries that both enclose those who share what is common and exclude those who belong outside, that both ensure continuity and coherence, and safeguard against contamination or invasion” (Lieu, 2004:98). In Judaism, the boundary markers are circumcision, food laws, and the Sabbath, which are mainly national boundaries. Boundary
and boundary markers in this research refer to particular traits of Jesus followers that are shared among
insiders and are used to exclude outsiders based on the summary of the Law in Romans and the Gospel of Matthew.
1.4.3 Morals, Ethics and Ethos
One of the ways in which identity is constructed is through moral commitments. Meeks states,“Making morals and making community are essentially one, indistinguishable process” (as cited by Horrell,
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2005:29). Etymologically, ethics and morality have the same meaning. Ethics comes from the Greek word ethos meaning “custom” whereas morality comes from the Latin word mos or moris meaning “custom” (Babor, 2006:2). However, philosophically, ethics as a theoretical science gives principles or a basis of right or wrong actions whereas morality actualizes the theory. According to Tolmie (2006:242), ethics “refers to an underlying theological substructure in particular, the principle or ethical pointers which serve as guidelines as to how one should act” and ethos “refers to the things that humankind do, actions that could be viewed as morally right or wrong. It is a lifestyle (italics his).” Ethos emphasises the way of life, the ways in which morality is actually practiced. This research retains the etymological similarity between ethics and morality with a simple distinction between ethics and ethos made by Tolmie. It focuses primarily on ethics (morality) as a fixed set of morals. However, both ethics and ethos will be discussed as a means of identity construction of the community but in the sense of lifestyle or a way of life as understood by Warren Carter (2000:7–11).