Corpus-Paul

["Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>]

>Ray Pickett wrote:
>But I have digressed from the point I did want to make, namely that if
>one suspends the developmental theories and brackets out the issue of
>escatology (and grants that how Paul deals with it is profoundly shaped
>by situation), it is amazing how much Galatians and 1 Thess. have in
>common. Both letters are addressed to Gentile congregations who have
>turned to God from idols (1 Thess. 1:9; Gal. 4:8-10). Both refer to
>situations of persecution or suffering (1 Thess. 1:6; 3:3-4; Gal. 3:4 -
>Paul uses pasxw - in both contexts I assume he is referring to the price
>paid for being a Christian in a pagan context). Both letters use pistis
>language (though Thess. doesn't use dik language). Both give a great
>deal of emphasis to the Spirit (1 Thess. 1:5; 4:8; 5:19; Gal. 3:5; 4:6;
>5:5, 16ff.). Both use familial language, emphasize the importance of
>love for one another, and provide vice/virtue lists which underline the
>control of the passions as a primary issue. This is just a cursory
>comparison that could be further elaborated upon I think. Although these
>letters have very different "feels', it strikes me that the ethos they
>each describe are very similar (both offer glimpses of Pauline
>Christianity in a pagan context), and the sense of what Christian praxis
>might be is not all that different. These common elements often get
>obscured by devolopmental thoeries.

Ray,
Thanks for the other comments as well, but I would like to offer a
suggestion on how we might continue to think about the interesting
comparisons you offer here.
In noting that both gentile congregations are suffering in some way
socially for their practice of Christ-faith, I would suggest that much more
can be made of the implied situational differences, but that they are not
both concerned with "a pagan context."

In 1 Thess. it seems the social problem is with those "pagans" within whose
social domain they remain. And the letter does not take-up matters of
Jewish identity such as justification by faith or flesh and spirit (the
latter I take to be of the same nature, namely, do we know one another in
status terms by the cut in the flesh that renders one a part [or not] of
Israel, or by the confession of the faith [spirit], which renders one a
part of this new community in-Christ, whether members of Isreal or not). Is
this because their is no social pressure in Jewish communal terms to
establish their identity as "righteous ones," i.e., proselytes?

On the other hand, in Galatians the implied situation concerns their lack
of proper entry into the Jewish (Israelite) community(s), that is, their
not having gained proselyte identity, but only "guest" status, perhaps as
"righteous gentiles." If this is the case, then the social dynamics are
very different, so too would one expect to be the rhetorical approaches,
regardless of chronology between the two. Here I take Paul's language to
justify the equality of these gentiles within a Jewish social situation in
terms that are not shared by those who are not part of this subgroup of
Christ-believers. Thus the justification of the gospel by which their
identity has been established. Paul seeks to make these out-group gentiles
(by way of the terms of identity/boundary definitions of the in-group or
dominant [Jewish] community[s] within which these gentiles now claim
equality) see themselves as in-group equals (children of Abraham, of God)
by way of Christ, arguing that the dawning of the age to come, when this is
expected among (some) Jewish people, has already begun. This larger Jewish
community within which these gentiles are part of the Christ-confessing
subgroup is itself probably an out-group or minority in social terms, since
we are talking about communities in Galatia, wherever that may be. I
suspect this is why the boundary concerns of the larger Jewish community
are being engaged in response to the status innovations with regard to
these gentiles. At least that appears to be the case in the Antioch
incident to which Paul appeals. But the interesting thing is that in
Galatians matters of concern for interactions with the pagan world in which
they had been formerly identified, occupied, etc., is of no apparent
concern. Only how they are to resist the traditional and dominant
communities way of re-identifying them as "righteous ones," and suffer the
marginalization that results. Thus they need to draw together and help one
another, and by faith wait for the hope of righteousness.

As for how this might reflect on the question of sequence, I do not see any
chronology or development implied in Paul's thought, but two very different
situations for which he constructs responses. But if I had to argue which
logically would be expected in communal terms, that is, if these two
letters had been sent to the same city, I would think the subgroup identity
within a Jewish community would likely precede a social situation in which
Jewish identity terms were not as great a concern, if at all. But alas,
they were sent to two different places, two different social situations.

Regards,
Mark Nanos