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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Social context of Galatian's suffering
  • Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 09:53:33 -0500 (CDT)


Ray,
Picking up on your comments in the 'Sequence of 1 Thess. to "early-Paul,"'
but as we have turned to context of Galatians, I have relabeled the subject
heading. I take your overall point of comparison free of developmental
theories, and I think on the issue of Paul arguing in some cases from their
own experience of the Spirit that this was a salient way to make his point,
and that something along the lines of your comments is warranted. I would
like to comment on a few particulars about the situation in Galatia that
you raise.
>
>I concur that Paul is reckoning with a Jewish community in Galatia and
>the challenges of faith in Christ in a pagan environment in
>Thessalonica. Nonetheless, in Gal. 3:1ff.where Paul appeals to their
>initial experience of his preaching and their reception of the Spirit he
>is referring to their "conversion" from paganism. So in 3:4 when he
>asks, rhetorically, "Did you suffer so much in vain?", I take that to be
>an allusion to the price they paid for leaving paganism for Christianity
>("suffer" in the sense of social ostracism).

This is an interesting text. It can certainly be taken, as you do, to mean
that their suffereing was somehow related to the price paid for leaving
paganism in terms of social mechanisms, formal or informal. Surely some
social disruption of an undesirable nature would accompany their move.
Although I would think that they left it not for Christianity, but, at this
point, for a Jewish subgroup believing in Christ.

But it may be taken to suggest that they are now suffering in a Jewish
environement for their expectations and claims of equality, as though they
had acquired proselyte status without having yet done so. This does not
mean that Jewish social control agents are seeking to meddle in the affairs
of or even want to convert gentiles per se, but simply that they are
bringing gentiles who seek full membership and the associated rights and
privileges within their own Jewish communities into line if they think this
can be achieved by some "new innovative revealed" way. It might take much
more than a facial gesture or word for these gentiles to experience the
shame ("suffering") of failed expectations that they are not quite whom
they think they are, in terms set by the "dominant" Jewish community, at
least not yet. While one may note that this is ethnocentric, it is not
exclusive in nature, but rather inclusive. It provides a way to negotiate
the identity boundary of this ethnos, Isreal, for non-Israelites. This to
me is suggested throughout the letter as the situation provoking Paul's
response. For this appears to marginalized gentiles in this subgroup as
good news indeed. It is not the proverbial stumbling block to the faith in
Christ movement, but an attractive way to establish identity as righteous
one. In Galatia gentile believers in Christ want to be circumcised!

As for 3:1-5 in particular, the reference to suffering in v. 4 follows
Paul's ironic dig at those influencing these gentiles so that they want to
now be circumcised, i.e., complete the ritual process of proselyte
conversion. He does this by suggesting that rather than the best interests
of these gentiles as their motive, the addressees have rather been "evil
eyed [BASKANW]" without realizing it. That is, they have been harmed when
they thought they were being helped; looked at enviously when they thought
they were being looked after helpfully. In other words, he attacks their
naivete, which, by the way, seems to indicate no direct opposition to Paul
is already taking place in Galatia. If so, then the suffering that the
addressees have been taking as putting them in their place until they get
their act together, is represented now by Paul as rather intended to "shut
them out," to borrow from the way he puts this social marginalization in
4:17; to enhance their own honor rating by demonstrating the addressees'
liminality (so too 6:12-13), until they complete proselyte conversion.

This seems to be the implied context for the social interaction I take
Paul's rhetoric to address: resist this re-identification as Isrealites,
for you are already righteous ones. Thus choosing to do this subverts the
meaning of Christ's death for you, since this way of gaining status existed
already in the present age, but now, since the coming of Christ, the age to
come has begun wherein Jew and gentile together as equals worship the One
Creator God. No degrading of Jewish identity need be implied, it would
continue for Jewish people and their descendents. But gentiles would become
part of the community of God's people without becoming Israelites. It is
not hard to see why Jewish community social control agents would have some
concerns with this innovation, or its appeal to legitimacy based upon
revelation, and seek to bring its claimants into compliance with safer and
long-established (traditional) norms for dealing with the inclusion of
gentiles within these subgroups.

It is not clear to me that the reference to their having been pagans in 4:8
means that they converted directly from paganism to faith in Christ. This
identity could have been the object of polemical (here ironically twisted)
comments from a Jewish perspective (like Paul's) forever, like a
"freed-person," i.e., former slave, regardless of the passing of time and
experiences. It does seem to clarify that he is addressing non-Jewish
people, former pagans, but it does not rule out that they were already in
some way associated with a Jewish community there, "righteous gentiles." It
is possible that these "converts" to faith in Christ by Paul or others of
this coalition were already on the road to conversion to proselyte status,
or at least in some way righteous gentiles of guest status.

The level of ironic rebuke in this language ("or rather known by God, how
can you...") without knowing the situation first-hand makes interpretation
extremely difficult. Note too the similar ironic casting of the possible
vanity of Paul's labor for them in 4:11, with the ironic question or rebuke
regarding whether their own suffering has been in vain in 3:4, should they
now choose to complete proselyte conversion, "ending in the flesh" what
they had "begun in the Spirit," i.e., by confession of faith in Christ as
gentiles, not proselytes.

Regards,
Mark Nanos








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