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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: 1 Thessalonians and the early Paul
  • Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 12:10:42 -0500 (CDT)


Dear Frank and John,
Thanks for the clarifications. Whether on handbook rhetorical (regardless
of species assigned) or just general argumentative grounds, I agree that
what Paul communicates in the autobiographical material in Gal. 1--2 does
not limit Paul's activities to those mentioned. He is constructing his
argument to make a particular point(s). I am a little less certain that the
way he sets out the geographcal scope of his activities really allows
enough room for travel as far as Macedonia; but Galatia is next to Cilicia
anyway. You are right, this is rhetorical in nature, and whose to say what
"else" Paul may have done, or where he may have been.

Yet the point on which I entered the discussion was the agreement between
yourselves on the "pre-Galatians" Paul, pre- taking up the problem posed in
Antioch and Galatia, and to some degree at least, Jerusalem, when Paul
traveled there. That is, the problem of gentile identity when mixing with
Jewish people as though equals because of Christ. It seems you would have
to posit 1 Thess. before these engagements described in Galatians about an
earlier Paul, on the basis of the developmental theory you are using to
sequence the letter. Did such an early Paul, apart from this concern
(justification of gentile equal with Jew), really exist? His "call" as
described in this autobiography seems to situation him in this line of fire
from the first. (His earlier persecuting activity may be taken to suggest
this problem preceeds Paul's later influence, based on 5:11, where it is
implied that this is the crux of the issue of persecution, because gentiles
do not become proselytes in this coalition) And at least three years of
Gal. 1:15-18 would seem to be before any trip to Thessalonika could be
mounted. To oversimplify, as Bruce Malina once asked me for rhetorical
effect: how many gentiles does it take coming into a Jewish community to
pose a "gentile question"? One, I suspect, especially if they are claiming
what the gospel claims: not just guest status, easily welcome, but
justification as equals without becoming a part of the ethnos Israel. This
will take some explanation! My point is the apparent absence of this
polemical concern in 1 Thess. need not indicate development, but just
perhaps a situation outside of the "usual" Jewish communal concerns of the
other correspondence we have.

Regards,
Mark






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