lical students) a dense and tightly reasoned theological argument about the rela tionship between the Christian movement and the other/older forms of Judaism (assuming that Paul and other Christians of Jewish background continued to regard themselves as Jews until the schism into two separate communities during the decades after the fall of Jerusalem). Romans 12-15 is, in contrast, more con cerned with practical issues of moral conduct.
A point of dispute among scholars is whether these two halves originally belonged together. OÆNeill argues, for example, that these four chapters were originally a separate handbook of aphorisms or ôproverbsö concerning proper moral conduct for Christians and were inserted into Romans, between chapter 11 and its logical sequel, chapter 16, by a later edi tor. He also offers a hypothetical reconstruction of what Romans may have looked like as Paul originally wrote it. He argues that, although Rom 12:1-2 may state what was an important theo logical concept for the early church, it cannot be used as evi dence to reconstruct PaulÆs own theology.
Many scholars agree that Rom 12-15 appears to be a collection of aphorisms, largely arising out of the experience of the Hellenistic Jewish synagogues, and strung loosely together by associations of concepts, terms, or concerns, as was a normal composition technique for ôwisdomö literature. If so,
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