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  • From: "Mesfin Atlaye" <mesfin AT idirect.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Gal. 6:11
  • Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 22:19:48 -0400


Dear Dr. Nanos,

Thank you so much for your helpful response to my inquiry of the writer of
the Galatian letter. Thank you also for the bibliography. My struggle still
stands with the usage of the aorist EGRAPSA in 6:11. Many have translated
the aorist indicative with a present meaning assuming that Paul used
secretary in all his letters. I understand that in antiquities both literate
and illiterate people used secretaries for various reasons and Paul was no
exception (Rom. 16:22). Such well educated man as Cicero often used
secretary but sometimes he himself wrote with his own hand.

There is also a so-called epistolary aorist in the NT (Act. 23: 30,Eph.
6:22, Phil. 2:28, etc.) where sometimes the writer puts himself in the place
of the reader and describes what is present to him in the past tense. I
don't think if there is a particular grammatical rule for such usage.
However, whenever the epistolary aorist is used elsewhere in NT, the meaning
is unambiguous. But not so with the EGRAPSA of Gal.6:11. E. R. Richards
agrees that without 6:11 the argument for Paul's usage of a secretary for
Galatians is weak (The Secretary, 182). That is my point. Could Paul write a
letter? Could Galatians be Paul's personal letter written with his own
distinctive hand?

Let's see it from another side. When Tertius, Paul's secretary of Romans,
wrote, "I, Tertius, the one who wrote (punctiliary participle) the letter
greet you in the Lord" (Rom.16:22) we know he did not take the pen just at
that point but he was referring to himself as the writer of the entire
letter. In the same manner, when Paul says "see in how large letters I wrote
to you with my own hand," why not we take that to mean Paul was referring to
everything he wrote up to that point (and all the way to the end)?

Regards.

Mesfin Atlaye
Toronto





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