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  • From: "David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT compuserve.com>
  • To: <nanosmd AT comcast.net>, "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] Gal 5:12
  • Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 19:24:19 -0500

Mark Nanos says:

>>Perhaps I am missing some other point you wish to make?<<

No. As usual, my comments are pointless. <g>

As I mentioned, it was from memory. In fact, it may have been Elli who
stated the idea and you who commented on it. I still seem to recall having
come away thinking you were in some sort of essential agreement with it.
Personally, my opinion closely follows your at this moment, but back then I
was on the fence.

Ahhh, I found it. Sept 2000, and two issues were being discussed: whether
circumcision was being compared to a return to pagan values, and whether Gal
4:10 ("You observe days, and months, and seasons, and years") referred to
Jewish or pagan calendar practices.

Yes, I see that you were opposed to the first idea, but on the fence on the
other (i.e., one post - 9/19/00 - says one cannot ignore Paul's "concern
with Jewish time-keeping" expressed in 1 Cor 16:8, "I will stay in Ephesus
until Pentecost," yet another - 9/20/00 - says that considering Gal 4:10 a
reference to a pagan calendar lent itself to "constructing the identity of
Paul").

Now that I think of it, I may be thinking of my feelings about the calendar
question, as I was convinced then (as now) that the calendar was a Jewish
one. Of course, I have a different perspective on the question of the belief
systems that may have motivated Paul. As a result, the "identity" I
construct for him will differ significantly from that of most.

At least in my pitiful view there is no necessity to find a way to integrate
the Christ dogma into a psychological profile that might explain Paul's
compulsion to reinvent the fundamental basis upon which Jews and believing
Gentiles should associate. To me, Paul is in the middle of the conflict of
views over how Gentiles should worship the Jewish God, the most readily
available example of which is to be found in Josephus' story of the
conversions of Queen Helena, and her sons Izatus and Monobazus, of Adiabene.

This conflict, I think, was acrimonious enough to allow for some pretty
harsh rhetoric. Sarcastically wishing, half-seriously I suppose, that
advocates of full circumcision "cut themselves off" rather than continue
troubling folks who Paul did not feel *needed* to convert fully, is mirrored
by the Jewish "fundamentalist" types operating in Judaea, who cornered
Gentiles who had shown an interest in reading the Jewish scriptures, and
forced them to choose between circumcision and death. Now *that* is *real*
acrimony, where "cutting off" has both literal (of foreskin) and figurative
(death) connotations!

Respectfully,

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA

PS: Personally, I have no problem seeing a Jesus movement that developed,
over time, the Christ dogma found in passages of Paul's letters, but feel
this movement intersected with Paul's Jewish-Gentile reconciliation movement
a decade or two after Paul's time, modifying its literature along the way
integrate their dogma about Christ into Paul's message to Gentiles who were
faithful to the Jewish God and His premises to Abraham. While I think you
have done a marvelous job of distilling the message of Jewish-Gentile
reconciliation from Paul's undisputed letters, and respect your decision to
accept the letters at face value (including the Christ dogma), I have
trouble finding the way by which you try to integrate these two messages to
be convincing.






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