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  • From: Jim Hester <hester AT jasper.uor.edu>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Sanders and the "New" Perspective
  • Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 12:13:00 -0700


Mark Nanos wrote:

> But why would he do so in a letter to faraway Galatia, or Rome, to where the
> texts with such language were sent, and moreover, to non-Jews who could
> hardly be expected to know about these rare sectarian documents? Would
> Jewish people in those locations either have those kinds of views, or would
> they have any idea what Paul was writing about?
>
> The historical critic who is now aware of these texts may, ironically, have
> the disadvantage of not recognizing that not every detail was as widely
> available to the text-writers (and readers) own contemporaries! I have been
> finding this kind of interesting result at several places in recent
> exegetical works on Galatians.

Mark and Karl!

For what it is worth I find myself agreeing with Mark's point but would
re-cast it slightly.

The issue for me is audience because to be successful an argument must be
completed by an audience. The use of the phrase "works of the law" is
meaningless outside the framework of the argument even if some in Galatia
were to have heard it within another context. Whatever it meant to the
Qumran community, for example, it could not have had the same meaning to the
Galatian community because the rhetorical situations were different.

Mark asked on another topic about rhetorical figures in Paul's writings.
Typically I resist suggestions for creating such catalogs because they smack
more of historical or form criticism than rhetorical criticism, but I want
to float an idea that makes use of a figure.

The phrase "works of the law" appears six times in Galatians -- that's not
news to anyone, just an observation. ISTM that within the context of the
argument of Galatians it can be described as an example of the figure
"antonomasia," i.e. a descriptive phrase used for a proper name. That
raises the question, what proper name? Circumcision.

I haven't given any thought to how the two occurrences of the phrase in
Romans are used, but because the rhetorical and argumentative situations of
Romans are different, its function in the argument would be different.
Therefore, I don't believe it serves any good purpose to try to judge the
rhetorical function of the phrase in Romans from an analysis of its function
in Galatians, unless it could be shown that it has become a fantasy theme in
Paul's paideia.

Enuff said!
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