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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT comcast.net>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] More questions on Galatians
  • Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 05:28:59 -0500

Dear Vince,
A few comments below your queries.

> 1.&#65279; When speaking about Paul’s opponents at Galatia Brown says,
> “Paul and the preachers
> were at one in proclaiming that what God had accomplished through Jesus the
> Messiah in
> terms of justification and the gift of the Spirit was for both Jews and
> Gentiles”
> (_Introduction, 469). I can understand that these preachers tried to
> convert Gentiles, but
> what makes him think that they were also preaching Jesus as the Messiah?
> Further,
> according to Paul they did not find justification brought by Jesus, but by
> following the law.

One, I agree with you, and do not see the evidence to support the widely
held view that the influencers are preaching Jesus as the Messiah.

Two, I do not think that these influential people are best described as
opponents, however much Paul opposes their influence among his addressees.
And "judaizers," which you use below, is objectionable for many reasons. It
is a verb describing what non-Jews do, they become or behave like Jews, not
what Jews do when seeking to make proselytes. And it carries a negative
valence toward Jewish interests; note, Christians do not speak of
missionizers or proselytizers when speaking of Christian missions of which
they approve, but missionaries. So it is not good to use for historical
description, and not nice, although apparently this has not been often
recognized. A number of Christian interpreters have pointed this out in
recent years.

Three, I do not see any evidence that they preach "justification... by
following the law," and I think this often argued approach is mistaken (it
is a hypothesis to be tested, nevertheless). If justification is preached by
them (I suppose that it is more correctly the gaining of standing as
righteous ones, i.e., identity, and not the usual Christian theological
sense of justification), then it is by "becoming proselytes," not by
behaving a certain way (anymore than that is the case in preaching Jesus as
the Messiah, which implies the obligation to behave accordingly, if you
believe this claim).

Skipping over your #2, which involves many elements in a response.

> 3. In 5:11 Paul says: “But my friends, why am I still being
> persecuted if I am still preaching
> circumcision?” Well the answer must be, “I guess you are not preaching
> circumcision.”
> To which I can only imagine Paul responding, “Exactly!” Would they not
> know this
> already? The best hypothesis I can come up with is that someone told
> them that Paul
> changed his ways and now was preaching circumcision. Can anyone offer
> some clarification?

One, methodologically, there is no "well the answer must be" in historical
work, especially when dealing with this kind of rhetorical document.
Likewise, it is not prudent to only imagine one possible way that Paul is
thinking in his response, but to hypothesize several (better, as you request
in #3 below), many even, and then test them.

Two, there is no reason to suppose that they do not know that Paul does not
preach proselyte conversion, many reasons to suppose that they are quite
clear about that, and have been from the time he was among them. About 5
times in the letter Paul writes that what he is saying is something he has
told them before. The logic of this is one of the tests any hypothesis must
undertake.

Three, several hypotheses have been proposed. One is as you suggest, but
that is not common, since not many interpreters suppose Paul to being doing
so, so it would not be a very convincing case for the influencers to try to
make about him.

Most interpretations of this are based on prior decisions about the
influencers' identity and mission: that they are from outside of Galatia,
that they oppose Paul's (supposed) "Law-free Gospel," that they represent
(or misrepresent) the Jerusalem church's views, and so on. So it is not so
easy to list them all, as they vary based upon these kinds of details. I
have discussed each of these at length in Irony of Galatians. Howard, in
Paul: Crisis in Galatia, has a very useful discussion of this matter too.
For a sampling (perhaps list members will add to this sample):

-Some interpreters suggest that the influencers have argued that Paul
just failed to tell them about this matter, perhaps he had not gotten to it
yet, or for other reasons.

-There are discussions about whether this implies that Paul had made
proselytes at some point after his faith in Christ, or if it was something
that characterized his life prior to that point. (T. Donaldson has a nice
paper on this, not sure if published, but see his Paul book perhaps. He
focused on the element of "still.") Either way, it is still a topic for
interpretation whether the influencers are making any comment about Paul
making proselytes in the past or present.

-In agreement with some other interpreters (although perhaps for different
reasons than most of them), I think that Paul makes this comment to serve
his own rhetorical purpose, not in response to some kind of claim or
accusation about him. Whether he made proselytes after Christ-faith or only
before is not at issue; I think it is clear to the addressees that he does
not do so any longer, and did not already when among them.

Rather, Paul is identifying with the plight of the addressees, non-Jews
tempted to become proselytes so that they can avoid the negative
consequences of holding to an identity that is not acceptable according to
prevailing norms.

Note, in 5:11 Paul writes that he is persecuted (suffering disciplinary
action) not for faith in Christ, but for not making proselytes of non-Jews
who believe in him, who must then suffer for this nonconformist view of who
they are and to what they are entitled. So too Paul has suffered for holding
to a policy (of identifying them) in a way that is not according to the
prevailing norms. The point is to identify with each other as marginalized
for this view (4:12), and thus not to capitulate to the prevailing view, but
"out of faithfulness to the spirit wait for the hope of righteousness"
(5:5). (D. Mitternacht has a nice essay on this matter of identifying with
them in suffering in The Galatians Debate.)

Regards,
Mark
--
Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
Co-Moderator





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