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corpus-paul - Re: Social context of Galatian's suffering

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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Social context of Galatian's suffering
  • Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 12:59:03 -0500 (CDT)


Ray,
This is a helpful point worth some reply. You wrote:
>My working understanding of Judaism here is that there is a continuum.
>At one end are those Jews who fairly assimilated to the culture and at
>the other end are the more"conservative" Jews. The problem of eating
>idol meat in 1 Cor. and Rom. is an interesting window on this, but
>that's another story. "Apostate" may be a little strong, but when Paul
>says that circumcision and other works of the law don't matter any more,
>only new creation (6:15), it strikes me that strict Torah observant Jews
>would seen that as crossing a line. A modern analogy would be baptism.
>There are all kinds of heated debates about baptism, and all the
>disagreement notwithstanding no one says of a group who thinks
>differently about it that they are not Christian. But if someone says
>baptism isn't important, then there are serious questions raised as to
>whether or not that is still "Christian".
>
>Whether they are interlopers from outside of Galatia or conservative
>Jews from the local synagogue, I am having a difficult time seeing how
>more conservative Jews would have perceived these pauline communities as
>Jewish by their definition. Paul, of course, thinks they are a part of
>the "Israel of God". Paul is not trying to undermine Jewish rites or
>symbols, but neither does he think they are very pertinent to his work
>among gentiles. What he thinks is important is "new creation", which
>interestingly is in all the Hauptbriefe. And new creation (which I take
>to have social connotations - forming an alternative society) is
>predicated on the resurrection of the crucified Christ, which subverts
>existing social structures ("the world is crucified to me") and an
>experience of the Spirit, which is what seems to relativize the
>importance of Torah observance - though I agree that Paul ethic is very
>much a summing up of Torah (Lev. 19:18).

You may of course be right about the historical situation, but I suggest
that the point you raise here does not make this case. Disregarding for the
moment language in 1 Cor. or Romans that you may take to indicate Paul's
practice differently than myself, much appears here to hang upon how you
(with the consensus) take Paul's language in Gal. 6:15 (or other places
with similar "new creation" language) regarding the relative importance of
circumcised or foreskinned (note not "uncircumcised" here, a small but
perhaps rhetorically worth noting "choice" of language in the case of the
point at hand?) identity among (male) believers in Christ.

I believe that this language, in context, does not say what it may seem to
say when interpreted by itself, or in another context. That Paul does not
mean this absolutely is indicated in the language of 5:3-4, for then he
would not oppose circumcision of his gentile addressees, he would rather
regard it with indifference. But he does not so regard it for gentiles in
Christ. Like the inference in 3:28, which assumes that there is a real
difference in social status in the cultural world of his time between Jews
and Greeks, slaves and free, males and females, yet it is the way each is
now regarded as equal within this community, this new creation of the age
to come within the midst of this present age--with all of its
discrimination based upon social differences--that is in view. For Paul, I
believe, the differences remain, but within these communities the
discrimination that characterizes the present age on the basis of these
differences does not. This language is thus qualified by the contextual
concern to keep gentiles from becoming proselytes in view of their
"miraculous" status in-Christ as righteous ones, but it does not seek to
articulate the other side of the coin that would arise for a Jewish person,
for example, if they were being tempted to reverse their circumcised flesh
in order to change their social standing. I assume he would oppose this as
well (e.g., cf. 1 Cor. 7:17-24). The consensus view may be logically taken
not to suggest that Paul is indifferent, but actually that he is opposed to
circumcised flesh, and proposes it is better to be foreskinned, since there
is no alternative but to be one or the other (sometimes the strangeness of
this whole topic strikes me).

If taken in context, I see no reason that a Jewish auditor of Paul who did
not share his faith in Christ, would necessarily conclude that this
language indicates what it has been taken to indicate. You are no doubt
familiar with Christian sermons which relative important points of social
identification that create stratification when one seeks to subvert these
distinctions in the interests of an egalitarian point. So too a Jewish
sermon may do the same. Neither would have the same meaning if given by the
other, or a "formerly" identified one about the identity of the other.
Relativizing identity markers is tricky business, and is engaged in in
specific contexts. Paul's has often not been so taken, perhaps in the
interest of seeking "systematic" or "universal" truths from this highly
contextualized language. Or perhaps because he is taken a priori to be a
"former" Jew.

If a Jewish person from outside (maybe even from inside) this group heard
or read only this comment they might conclude, as you (and most) suggest,
that Paul no longer valued Jewish identity or behavior in a way that would
be acceptable to Jewish people who valued these highly (if I may put it
this way for the moment). But for gentiles seeking Jewish identity, that
is, who regard Jewish identity as higher in value within this community so
that they now want to acquire it to be equal, this language need not
indicate the delegitimation of Jewish identity for Jewish people, but
rather the relativizing of it within this community so that these gentiles
may realize their own equality in-Christ. So it seems to me that our
interpretation here depends much upon our assumptions about Paul's identity
at this point, and the context, in terms of the relative identity concerns
of his addressees.

Regards,
Mark Nanos






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