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  • From: "David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT compuserve.com>
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] Questions on Galatians
  • Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 22:32:23 -0400

Loren Rosson III says:

>>Just because they seem like oil and water to you doesn't mean they did for
Paul. History is full of religious leaders, charismatics, fanatics,
what-have-you, who make outrageous claims, superimposing new theologies on
older ones, telling us the sun rises at midnight.<<

These differences are obvious enough to have driven a good deal of 19th
century Pauline scholarship, if Schweitzer is any indication (_Paul and His
Interpreters_). If the differences and contradictions were not as severe as
I suggest, how do we explain the advent of Dutch Radical movement? Look how
many volumes have been written before them by the likes of Luther or Calvin,
just to bring closure to the theology expressed in the Paulines. It might be
an interesting experiment, though, to find other ancient authors who
composed impromptu treatises to see how and what kinds of inconsistencies in
themes and arguments we can discover in them. I do not think we will find
too many with characteristics like that of the Paulines (and we can restrict
those to the "big five" if you want) that will not also be considered
composite documents by the classical critics.

>>Christianity took on pagan elements (let alone maintain Judaic elements),
and I'm amazed that you've been driven to a conspiratorial "evil editor
theory" over the tension you espy between Christological atonement theology
and Abraham-faith.<<

That "evil" was my tongue-in-cheek way of poking fun at myself, and also
pokes fun at conspiracy theories in general. I do not in fact require any
evil political or religious conspiracies, no "creation out of nothing" by
Constantine's spin doctors, etc. Whether it is the Jesus movement and its
factions or Paul's movement, I see natural social-psychological processes
driving their doctrinal development and their understanding of their
historical foundations. I do not even require anything as radical as the
social phenomenon proposed by Gerd Theissen, which have been at least
tentatively adopted by a fair number of NT critics.

>>Paul's theology is complex, surely, but not "incredibly" so (interesting
how you and I live in different worlds on the question of what constitutes
"incredible"). If an eternal skeptic like me can make sense of Paul's
theology as the outgrowth of someone who had new ideas which needed to be
tied back to his Judaic faith -- believe me, it isn't as wild as you're
making it out to be.<<

No, no, I meant to say it was "inedible." At least I have found it difficult
to swallow, but I cannot imagine that I am alone.

>>Perhaps few have been able to appreciate Paul's rhetorical technique
because he didn't use it with the level of discipline and precision you seem
to demand. He often wrote (or dictated) in the heat of the moment. If only
he could have known that his letters would be preserved for posterity (or
for moderns who espy contradiction and tension everywhere they look)...<<

Personally, I have looked at the "occasional letter" explanation as
something akin to an excuse for our natural inclination to accept scripture
at face value. Actually, I have very low expectations for the level of
rhetorical skill that Paul might exhibit. Philip H. Kern's _Rhetoric in
Galatians_ (Cambridge U.P., 1998) provides some examples of attempts to
discern the rhetorical devices employed by the author of Galatians,
illustrating the wide range of conflicting opinions as to the types and
functions of the basic rhetorical units employed in the book.

Mark Nanos, for his part, had done his homework before writing _Irony of
Galatians_, and he at least sees some rhetorical techniques being employed,
mainly revolving around his use of irony. What I am critical of, though, are
those researchers who explain the apparent contradictions and contrasts in
the corpus as part of an elaborate rhetorical strategy designed almost to
shock and confuse the reader until s/he is steered to a predetermined
conclusion. The reader, believing they came to the conclusion on their own,
are doubly convinced when the writer finally endorses the same position.

>>By the way, thanks for my pointing out my "logical fallacy", though I
don't think I was "distracting" anyone from the real point I was making to
you... Do you?<<

That was just the name it possessed in the source I used:
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm

Peas,

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA






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