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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Gal 4:8-10 (To Mark Nanos)
  • Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 13:42:54 -0500


Dear Moon,
You have once again composed an excellent venue for discussion, clearly setting out several issues. I will delete our agreements, such as your portrayal of the Law and Paul, and move to the disagreements about 4:8-10. Further discussion of any points is welcome.

To you, "turnin back to the weak and poor stoicheia" indicates that the
addresses were considering going back to paganism because the Jewish
community would not accept them as full members unless they get
circumcision.

May I just clarify that they were not, in my view, turning away from continuing to believe in Christ, or from continued active participation as members in this Jewish subgroup of believers in Christ, or from active participation as guests within the larger Jewish communities. But they were turning back to participation "also" in those pagan practices they had been convinced by Paul to turn away from, since they were, according to the Christ-good news, no longer merely pagan guests, but full members, but according to the influencers in their lives who react to this change, merely guests, and thus still pagans, obliged to continue doing public pagan stuff at least until they become identified as proselyte candidates. I do not think, however, that they were considering returning to believing as pagans, just complying with public expectations based on their present identity according to prevailing public norms. I think this subtle but important distinction in my construction has been missed in several replies, and I must be more careful to state state this clearly in the future.

The traditional interpretation was that it still talks about
the addressee's getting circumcision.

You seem to have a priori hesitance about taking "returning to the weak
and poor stoicheia" to mean getting circumcised, which I respect and
appreciate.
I learned through your posts and discussions with you that you would never
accept the interpretations of the Law that find some faults with the Law.
It seems typical of Jewish scholars who study the New Testament.
To me, you seem quite different from other Jewish scholars we know in that
whereas they would find faults with Paul in grossly misunderstanding the
Law, you would say, "no, Paul would not have meant that if understood in
context."

Yes.

[snip; you have well set out my view]

Now, I have my own hesitance with respect to your interpretation. The
topic of "returning to paganism" is too abrupt in the context of the
paragraph 3:1- 4:11.

May I just point out before continuing to copy your argument that there are several assumption here that I will challenge below.

Throughout 3:1- 4:4:7, Paul was arguing that the Law
was a temporary barrier. "The Law was added because of transgressions
until the seed to whom the promise [to Abraham] referred had come."
(3:19) "Before this faith came, we [the Jews] were held prisoners by the
Law, locked up until faith should be revealed" ((3:23) "Now that the faith
has come, we [the Jews] are no longer under the Law, [but under the bigger
scheme of the faith, i.e. Christ, so that we do not need to discriminate
the Gentiles based on the Law]" (3:25) "When we [the Jews]were children,
we were enslaved under the stoicheia of the world [ enslaved by the
barrier derived from the Law that forced us to discriminate the Gentiles]
"(4:3)

All this leads to the conclusion in 3:28, "There is neither Jews nor
Greek, slave nore free, male nore female, for you are all one in Christ
Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are ABRAHAM's SEED." In summary
the Law had a temporary role as the boundary marker for the people of God,
the children of Abraham. But now in Christ, the Law is no longer the
boundary marker for the people of God, the children of Abraham, but
Christ. [This does not say that the Law can the boundary marker for the
Jews as a subgroup of the people of God.]

While I would argue several points differently, leaving aside the message of this section of Paul's letter, there are several structural matters that must be attended to at this point, since your conclusions will rely upon the results of observations that I believe should be qualified.

I do not see 3:1--4:11 as one undifferentiated discourse. 3:1-5 is situational discourse, directly ridiculing the addressees, but at v. 6 Paul then begins to explain his point by way of narrative discourse, to tell stories around the theme of Abraham (who is obviously not involved in Galatia, although alternative interpretations of the stories of Abraham likely are, since he is fundamental for issues of Jewish and proselyte identity in Jewish communal contexts). This series of arguments/stories continues until 4:7, with several climatic points and applications, but overall with the conclusion that gentiles such as the addressees are children of Abraham, full heirs and members of the people of God on equal standing with Jewish children of Abraham. Then he begins the transition to situational discourse in 4:8, and in fact makes his first explicit request of the addressees in this letter in v. 12. There is a transitional quality to vv. 8-11, from narrative to situation, but overall this is a situational discourse unit, followed by another unit from vv. 12-20.



4:3 needs attention in relation to 4:9. Here "being under the Law"
(3:25)is described as "enslaved under the stoicheia of the world". In 4:9
Paul
asks "do you wish to be enslaved by the weak and poor stoicheia again"?
So, the reader who remembers 4:3 could be inclined to link "enslaved by
the weak and poor stoicheia" to "enslaved under the stoicheia of the
world", thereby to "being under the Law".

I admit that I am not clear on this passage in Gal. 4:3, and of the many ways to interpret stoicheia that have been offered I have not yet decided which to choose as most likely Paul's usage. And I agree that a reader would most likely pick up the interplay. But since I think the meaning in 4:8-10 for the addressees would be in pagan terms, I am still presently inclined to take the meaning at 4:3 at an ironic level, or setting one up anyway. I just don't believe that Paul meant being a Law-person meant being imprisoned under pagan spirits, based on everything else he says about the law. Since I have still not attended to all of this midrashic discourse in chs. 3 and 4, I must admit that I do not know what he might have meant. But the connection between 4:3 and 4:9 is not made in the same or same kind of discourse unit.


4:8-9 talks about the former state i.e. paganism the Galatians were in
before they came to know God. They would not have wanted to go back to
that state, unless they had wanted to foresake Christ. They would have
learned to hate the "weak and poor stoicheia", from which they escaped.
So, when Paul said, "You did well when you deserted the weak and poor
stoicheia. But how come you are returning back to them? Do you wish to
serve them all over again?", they would have been shocked. So far Paul
was rebuking the Galatians for their trying to be under the Law by getting
circumcised.

But not if what they have been contemplating changing is taking as necessary the counsel of the influencers and other influential pagan family and friends that they need to maintain pagan public practices, whatever else they might now believe! Would not a pagan feels some constraints for such a departure from communal norms, especially if those were not being unanimously affirmed by everyone in their new social group, and particularly by the representatives of the status quo? It is new members/guests and those at the margins who are most vulnerable to such status ambiguity.

And not if they know Paul to practice Law, and to have led them to do so to the degree that was normal for righteous gentiles of these locations, whatever that was. Why would they even imagine such a meaning, if that was the case? The traditional view is a result of a presupposition about Paul that I do not share, as you noted in your snipped comments.

Now suddenly Paul said, "how come do you want to go back to the weak and
poor stoicheia and serve them?". Then the Galatians would have asked
themselves, "is being under the Law basically the same thing as
as going back to the weak and poor stoicheia of paganism?". I think Paul
did not mean that the two are the same thing but meant that they have
the same effect of deserting Christ whom they believed in.

But the Galatian addressees did not think that they were turning away from Christ; that is Paul's accusation of the logical result of trying to take this other course along with faith in the gospel of Christ he had proclaimed; and it is rhetorically constructed to be a shocking revelation.


But could Paul, as a Jew, say that being under the Law by getting
circumcised is not different from returing back to the weak and poor
stoicheia?

No, except to make an ironic association to undermine their naivete, and I admit that this could be at work in some way.

Why not especially after he said, "when we [the Jews]
were children, we were enslaved under the stoicheia of the world" (4:3)?
Moreover, Paul said several things which normal Jews would not even
think of to prevent the Galatians from getting into "under the Law"
by getting circumcised. For examples,
"Now that faith has come, we [the Jews] are no longer under the Law",
or "Before this faith came, we [the Jews] were held prisoners by the
Law".
or "Christ redeemed us [the Jews] from the curse of the Law".

I can imagine other Jewish coalitions believing that the end of ages had dawned would say similar things, understanding that these statements are qualified, and not absolute, for example, to make a point of the equality of inclusion of gentiles, as this group claims to be the case at the dawning of the end of the ages.


So, whereas I find it quite interesting that Galatians were considering
going back to paganism because they were not accepted as full members into
the Jewish community, the contextual indicators surround
Gal 4:8-10 force me to accept the traditional interpretation.

I hope you will not decide just yet! You noted at the beginning that the meaning I am arguing for at 4:8-10 is too abrupt a change in rhetorical direction. But I suggest that it is not. What is determinative is the construction of the situation. If the situation is as I have suggested, then the previous situational rhetoric of 1:6-9 and 3:1-5 is similarly concerned with this contrast. So while 4:8 seems a long way into Paul's argument, much of the letter has consisted to this point of narrative material that should be qualified, and then the closeness of the argument to the situation I have proposed can readily be seen. At least I can see it!

Regards,
Mark Nanos





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