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  • From: "Dieter Mitternacht" <dieter.mitternacht AT teol.lu.se>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: The purpose of the law in salvation-history
  • Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 14:50:51 +0200


Hi Loren (and list)!
Good to hear from you too. Even though I have not been 'visible' on the list
with comments for a while, I am reading and enjoying your and others' input.

I wrote:
> > I agree with Mark Nanos that there is a need for
> > rhetorical criticism with regard to theological
> > assertions in Paul's letters.

Loren replied:
> So do I! In fact, I have argued agressively for
> rhetorical sensitivity to Paul's arguments in the
> past. But in addition to rhetorical criticism, there
> is a need for "psychological" criticism -- NOT because
> we want to place Paul on the psychiatrist's couch,
> only because we want to respect him as a human being
> who had a monumental task ahead of him and no doubt
> had to revise his thought when pressed to account for
> "what God was up to" in the scheme of things.

I am glad you mention psychological criticism, Loren. I agree with you! But I
would hasten to add that the label "psychological criticism" can mean many
things, just as "rhetorical criticism," and "historical criticism," so we
have to be specific in order to know what we are talking about. In my book
"Forum für Sprachlose" (published diss on Galatians) I have been using a few
theories from social psychology, in order to identify possible causes for the
collision of cognitions between Paul and others (among them the influencers
in Galatia) and have then combined my findings with epistolary-rhetorical
insights.

I wrote:
> > What does all this have to do with Paul and the law?
> > Maybe we should be a little more relaxed with regard
> > to Paul's theological assertions, identify obvious
> > exaggerations and take them for what they are. In
> > any case, I don't think that it is a coincidence
> > that the most problematic theological statements of
> > Paul are found in Gal.

Loren replied (in short):
> There is no getting around the fact that in
> these texts, Paul connects sin to God's will, and,
> moreover, that His purpose in doing so was to "confine

> all things under sin" (Gal. 3:22) (or to "imprison all
> people under disobedience" (Rom. 11:32)), "so that the
> promise of faith may be given" (Gal. 3:22) (or "so
> that he may be merciful to all" (Rom. 11:32)).

I think you are putting your finger on important issues.

Loren concluded:
> I'm certainly not arguing that Paul was schizophrenic
> or an incoherently befuddled theologian (contra
> Raisanen), only pointing out that the issue of the
> law's purpose in the history of Israel and the world
> troubled him acutely -- and that the texts of Gal.
> 3:19-22, 3:23-25, Rom. 7:7-13, 7:14-25 evince subtle
> shifts in thought, from negative to progressively
> positive assessments of the relationship between God,
> the law, and sin. In no way, however, do I wish to
> downplay the importance of rhetorical analyses in
> these texts; they have their place too.

Alright, what happens then if we deal with exaggeration of theological
assertion just as we deal with exaggeration with regard to person slander?
Words like 'compel' and 'only' in 6:12, or 'exclude' in 4:17, 'false' in 2:4,
to mention but a few examples, are words that seem unequivocal. Yet they are
part of a rhetorical strategy and it is rather obvious to me that they have
to be treated as rhetorical overstatements with the primary purpose of
connoting rather than denoting (see L.T. Johnson, Anti-Jewish Slander, JBL
108: 433).

If we apply this approach to theological assertions that include expressions
like the ones you mentioned above: 'confine', 'all things,' 'imprison,' what
does that do to our perception? Do we need to assume shifts in thought or
contradiction? I doubt it. My impression of Paul is that he is a 'natural'
with regard to rhetorical skill. He knows what he is doing and, given the
purpose in his mind, he is doing it well. But if you would meet him a year
later at Corinth and ask him what he meant with 'confine', 'imprison' etc. he
may reply: "I had no choice. The stakes were extremely high. It was a matter
of winning it all or loosing it all." In other words, Paul does not need to
change his mind. Instread it was the situaion that required an adequate
response.

I am not saying I like or wish for the implications of this suggestion. But I
think we need to explore the potential parallels between "character slander"
and "law slander" in Gal. Maybe someone else can come up with a nicer
terminology...

Take care
Dieter


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