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  • From: Frich107 AT aol.com
  • To: corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Ambiguous irony in Galatians 1 & 2
  • Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 03:19:48 EDT

Dear Mark,

Thanks for your further post on these issues. I shall comment below on some
of your response.

[Fred wrote]

> Is it not possible that there is also an element of inconsistency here
>with Paul? Could he be writing/dictating the letter while he is feeling very
>heated about the whole situation in Galatia, and so not necessarily argue
everything
>logically, or in a fully thought out form?

[Mark writes]
>Yes, it is possible. Yet I find Paul's argument, at least in the ironic
>rebuke (i.e., heated expressions) units of the letter to be quite logical,
>and since he employs features of handbook letter styles for irony and
>rebuke, and apparently uses a secretary, there is good reason to suppose
>that however angry or frustrated he may be, he has not hastily written
>a half-baked response. I suppose he is fearful and hurt in the way a parent
>is when supposing or learning of a teenagers compromising considerations or
>choices, "when s/he should know better!" See L. Thuren, Derhetorizing Paul:
>A Dynamic Perspective on Pauline Theology and the Law, Mohr-Siebeck, 2000,
>for a different but sympathetic view.

I think that you have got a good point here, in terms of Paul's usage of some
'handbook' features. If this is so in some places, then it would seem logical
that it may apply also to his use of irony and sarcasm in other places.
Perhaps I overstated the case. Nonetheless, I still think that it may be
possible
for slight inconsistencies to creep into Paul's argument(s), though not as a
result of it being a 'half-baked response' as I suggested by implication in
my
previous post. I am not familiar with Thuren's work, but I shall do my best
to
make myself so. Thanks for the reference.

[Mark writes]
>Deciding about the identity of James as an apostle or not is interesting,
>and not something I have yet addressed in your posts or print. But on the
>"ones from James" in Gal 2 who arrive at Antioch, I have found the various
>identities and ways they are linked with James in the interpretive tradition
>reflects identities and adversarial relationships with Paul that are not
>stated therein.

Ultimately such conjectures as the one I made are arguments from silence.
Having said that, though, perhaps there is a small hint, on Paul's part, that
those from James are having a somewhat negative effect on proceedings, from
Paul's perspective as well as those from certain groups of the Galatian
Christ
believers.

>There is not much to go on in the phrase Paul supplied. The interpreter
>winds up supplying what he or she thinks that the Galatians addressed (and
>the interpreter!) already know about James and these ones.

This is one of my pet hates in commentaries - to see the views of the
interpreter(s) being canonised as those of Paul, or his audience. Yet, I
think that I
am in danger of falling into that trap if I am not careful with my reading of
Galatians here. Thanks for pointing this out.

Regards,
Fred Rich

Ph.D. Student,
Department of Biblical Studies,
University of Sheffield,
Sheffield,
South Yorkshire,
UK.




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