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  • From: Steve Black <sdblack AT rogers.com>
  • To: dhindley AT compuserve.com, Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] The Apostle to the Greek Israelites
  • Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2006 16:13:27 -0500


On Feb 4, 2006, at 3:22 PM, <dhindley AT compuserve.com> wrote:

I believe my 3 earlier attempts at sending this yesterday and the day before were not delivered. I have trouble responding to list
emails or sometimes even sending new messages to the list through CompuServe when I use a hotel's high speed internet. Sorry about
any possible duplications.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Hindley [mailto:dhindley AT compuserve.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 11:23 PM
To: 'Corpus-Paul'
Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] The Apostle to the Greek Israelites

Steve,

What practical difference would distinguish a "Judean (Israelite)" from a "Greek (Israelite)"? If it is circumcision on the 8th day
(as Paul claims he had been), there may have been many persons of Judean heritage who had been slaves or descendants of slaves, most
of whom would not have had the benefit of proper, if any, circumcision.

This would imply that Paul is only speaking to slaves when he speaks of circumcision. The rest of his Jewish audience would have been scratching their heads wondering why Paul was making such a big deal over something that only related to limited number of people in the assemblies.

If this were a issue that had any weight of importance, we would expect to find something about the need for Jews to be circumcised in either Philo or Josephus, I would think. Is there any such interest in this issue with these authors.

It is fairly easy to construct plausible scenarios - they key to getting these scenarios accepted is, of course, evidence!


What about persons of Judean descent, living far from home
(there were several Jewish colonies established by Syrian rulers) whose parents had lapsed into Greek ways and never had them
circumcised? Those among the latter class, who had not been circumcised on the 8th day, I suppose could get a "2nd class"
circumcision and adopt as many ancestral traditions (Sabbath observance, diet, etc) as practical.

What evidence is there about Jewish communities in Galatia? In Antioch? In Damascus? In Corinth? These are the Jews that Paul would have been addressing, many of whom were not and had likely never been slaves!

As far as Juvenal goes, I'm not sure that he can bring to light the situation of Paul's time.

Hope you are well

Steve Black
Trinity College
The Toronto School of Theology





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