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The Purpose of Romans: Is It an Apology of Paul or a letter of His Self-Introduction?

Since F.C. Baur in the middle of the 19th century, modern exegetes have been inclined to think that most of the Pauline epistles should be read in the light of historical situations, especially under a serious consideration for Paul's (alleged) trouble with the Judaizing Jerusalem Church leaders. Recent scholarship has also been moving toward understanding the Romans as an 'apology' for his gospel or a letter of 'self-introduction.' They have assumed that Paul felt himself and his gospel under attack, among the leaders of the Primitive Church and/or in the Roman church, then needing to be justified. But was there indeed any theological confrontation between Paul and the Jerusalem church leadership? When the descriptions about the reciprocal agreement regarding the understanding of the gospel among them in Gal 2 and about the friendly reception of Paul by the Jerusalem church in Acts 15 and 21 are fully considered, it is highly improbable that there really happened Paul's demonstration of theological apology. And was it necessary for Paul to write a letter of theological self-introduction to the Roman church because of being suspected of his gospel or his apostleship? In Romans we cannot find any statements of self-justification, but we see rather authoritative teachings in every passage. A series of controversial questions found in dozens of verses like 2:1-5,17; 3:1-3 and so on cannot be references to real situations but to diatribe questions raised by an imaginary interlocutor only for rhetorical purpose. In comparison with the last generation, today there is a growing number of scholars who in the section Rom 14:1-15:13 rightly see the real occasion for the letter. The issue is whether the ceremonial commandments of the law should be kept or not by believers. In view of the abnormally long treatment of a practical theme in one and a half chapters, even in the last part of the body of the letter, here one must not fail to notice a hermeneutical significance for the discussion of the purpose of Romans. In other words, the situation of the divided community of the Roman church caused through their different views of the observance of the law came to lead a result that Paul wrote them Romans, a copious book-letter, where he as an apostle of the Gentiles explains the gospel especially in connection with the law and the problem of the preference of Israel. So Romans is best explained as an 'apostolic pastoral letter.'