Corpus-Paul

[Ray Pickett <rpickett AT unidial.com>]

Mark D. Nanos wrote:

> I cannot imagine how gentile groups cultivated by a sectarian Paul would be
> later attracted to attempt to connect with Jewish communities, actually, to
> become Jewish people themselves. Or why Jewish communities (presumably
> minority groups in these Anatolian towns themselves) would be either
> interested in them, or in a position to engage in social control of them,
> as seems to be suggested in the letter (persuading; hindering; excluding;
> compelling). Can you explain such a social development?

Mark,
Thanks for the elaboration of how you are imagining the intra-Jewish
context in which Galatians should be read. On one level, your
explanation of the setting of the letter is a more "natural" (if that is
the right word) rendering of the conflict Paul addresses because all the
variables/people would have been there from the beginning. This is what
I find compelling about your proposal. So I think any alternative
interpretation needs to make sense of how the social situation in
Galatia evolved, which is the question you have raised for me.

First, at the risk of stating the obvious, let me affirm a couple basic
assumptions we share. Paul (probably) remained a Torah observant Jew and
concieved of his gospel and mission to the gentiles as being within the
ambit of Judaism. The main question I have raised so far simply concerns
whether other Jews in these cities would have agreed that what Paul was
saying and doing was Jewish. He probably does think of himself as a
reformer, but I can't help but believe that upon hearing the message of
Galatians (and assuming it is consistent with what he proclaimed
initially, though more polemical) other Jews would think of him as an
apostate. 

UNLESS, they were Hellenistic Jews at the highly assimilated end of the
continuum, and were attracted to Paul's inclusive message from the
outset. But if the Jewish communities in Anatolia were of this ilk, then
why push circumcision for gentiles? My guess is that the Jews in the
more rural region of Galatia were more "conservative" than those in the
more cosmopolitan centers Paul frequents. Maybe Paul is forming gentile
communities which attract the more assimilated Jews, and because this
endeavor is done under the banner of Judaism the more traditional Jews
take issue.

The problem is that we don't know much about Judaism in this area,
except what we infer from this letter. What we do have, though, is
epigraphic evidence which indicates the prevalence in this region of 
the ruler cult and the Cybele cult, along with other pagan cults. This
brings me to the crux of my own bias regarding Paul's gospel and
mission.

If we step back and look at the composition of the communities Paul is
forming in Corinth and the provinces of Macedonia they are, I think most
would agree, predominantly gentile. He seems to have an intentional
strategy of going to these provinces and forming "transnational
communities" (to borrow a phrase from Borgen)that are predicated on his
message of the resurrection of Christ crucified. All of these
communities have Jews. Again I am assuming that some highly assimilated
Jews would have been drawn to Paul's message. But the nub of my reading
of Paul is that people joining communities which claimed allegiance to a
Lord who was executed by the Romans would have appreciated, indeed been
attracted by, an event which in effect subverted the existing social and
political order. 

I would be glad to elaborate on this. The point I want to make in this
post is simply that it seems imperative to me to imagine the social
situation of Paul's letters in relation to his gospel. So the question I
would ask you is: if in Galatia Paul is going into existing Jewish
communities as a reformer and arguing that gentile proselytes don't need
to be circumcised, how is such a mission strategy being driven by the
message of the crucified Christ? Do you imagine that Paul is travelling
all around the Mediterranean visiting synagogues and telling the
God-fearers there that they don't need to be circumcised because Christ
was crucified? Why? What would be the logic of this?

Regards,
Ray Pickett