Corpus-Paul

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

Ray Pickett wrote:
>Thanks for this observation Sheila. Yes, this is my view precisely. I
>think these communities are comprised of converts from paganism, and
>that they "suffered" the price of no longer participating in the rituals
>and festivities of paganism in the empire. Pagan religious practices
>were inseparable from the imperial social order, and it is this
>religious-political order which Paul thinks has been subverted in the
>crucifixion and resurrection.

I hope you and Sheila don't mind if I take the opportunity to clarify our
conversation in view of these comments to Sheila. I agree with this concern
of Paul's in general, and 1 Cor. seems directed at just such politics of
empire, as R. Horsley and N. Elliott have put it.
>
>Related to this, I think liberation from this dehumanizing order is the
>primary reference of "freedom" in this letter. First and foremost these
>gentiles have been liberated from paganism ("the present evil age"), and
>that experience of liberation is the basis for asking them why they
>would want to submit to an ethnocentric way of ordering their lives when
>they have been baptized into Christ and received the Spirit.

But I don't think this is the politics of Galatians. And I don't think you
can successfully ground your argument here. The marginality of the
addressees from their pagan social environment is a consequence, I agree.
But I do not believe this is the exigence provoking the letter. (Although
it does play a background role, as it is perhaps why they are so concerned
to gain fully the identity of their new community along with the attendant
rights now so necessary in dyadic as well as socio-economic terms, for
example. Remaining merely gentile guests is not sufficient.)

The comment in 4:9 I take to be an ironic comparison. In a sense I agree
with you, as it is human social systems and their powerful ability to
totally orient humans that underlines Paul's rhetoric. (While this next
point is picky, it is I think important.) But it is not "an" as in "any"
ethnocentric way of ordering their lives that is view per se, and
ethnocentrism is not "an" especially Jewish phenomenon either, as though
the other side of "dehumanizing paganism." In fact, what Paul's seeks is
also "an" ethnocentric way of ordering their lives. That is, all group
orientation is ethnocentric, even "Christian," that is, one based on
entrance by baptism and reception of Spirit to which you appeal (note 6:10:
"let us do good to all people, especially to those who are of the household
of faith"). So here, in this letter, we see that Paul himself is not "free"
of "this present evil age" in the sense of being free of ethnocentrism. He
has redefined the group boundary based upon his understanding that the day
has dawned wherein Jew and gentile in the group of Christ-believers are
one, equal, and argues for this on the basis of the Jewish group's terms of
authority (Scripture and Spirit) which have created this expectation. (As a
"reformer," however, he is trying to convince the larger Jewish community
to share this view of "reality" as well [cf. Rom. 11:13-14], and "also" all
of the nations. Having said this, I admit that it is difficult to imagine
that his primary concern was for the larger Galatian Jewish community at
the time he composed this letter!).

But back to the point I am trying to make. The same kind of social
(political) dynamics will take place in this or any community, at least as
far as history has shown to be the case for other communities which have
identified with Paul's voice (of which I am aware). For groups by
definition are bounded and create boundaries, and the ineluctable human
impulse to measure the other is simply redefined or redirected. There is
always a way to measure oneself and the other, and thus discriminate. And
so the question you rightly suggest Paul poses remains and bears witness to
a universal dilemma and call to freedom which must be repeated for all
groups which hold to the ideals of the One God of Israel's Scriptures,
regardless of the social setting. The sermons must go on. Hence I do not
think this point (or this difficult to penetrate passage in 4:8-11)
demonstrates a pagan structure of ethnocentricity at work in Galatia
anymore than it does in theory any group dynamic, including a Jewish or
later "Christian" one.

And I again (of course) suggest that the impulse to gain Jewish identity
indicates rather a Jewish communal setting, thus this ironic rebuke cuts
across their expectations of how things seems in view of how Paul says they
really are. If ironic as I take it, it also suggests that they know Paul to
be Torah-observant, that is, Jewish rituals are important for Jewish people
to observe--a point on which you (Ray) and I have largely agreed--and thus
they are surprised by this comparison in 4:8-10. But Paul makes it to
undermine the human system of identification they are seeking to gain honor
on in view of the divine revelation he calls them to faithfully remain true
to, as gentiles, but now righteous ones in Christ. He asks how they can
seek to be known by God when they are already known by God; the one thus
undermines, for these gentiles (though not in the same way for Jewish
people) the other. This juxtaposition of two messages of good that the
addressees (like teenagers) see as compatible, but Paul (like a parent) as
antithetical, represents a thread running through Galatians.

The question for your proposition of a pagan setting, is, then, why do
these non-Jewish people in a pagan setting who are disciples of Paul want
to be circumcised, i.e., gain Jewish identity?

Respectfully,
Mark Nanos

Businessman, author, and postgraduate student,
University of St. Andrews
and Kansas City, Missouri