Corpus-Paul

["Roy E. Ciampa" <Roy_Ciampa AT compuserve.com>]

Mark,
        Glad to hear you're enjoying my book.  I hear it has cured several
people of insomnia already!  I appreciate your interaction with Jerry and
myself (even if you have taken his side on this issue!).  I think, though,
that your argument here won't work with Galatians 2:16ff.  You say "In the
case of Galatians the phrase seems to describe something especially
applicable to the question of whether gentiles already in-Christ need to
become proselytes. It thus refers to a phenomenon that does not arise among
Jewish people with regard to Torah, except as it may relate to their
position on this matter of gentile status as fully righteous ones or not in
the context of Paul's groups."  You later put it this way: "Works of law
for Paul in Galatians = proselyte conversion for gentiles already fully
aggregated by faith in/of Christ into the people of God".  

        But in Galatians 2:16 Paul says that "we [Jews and not Gentile
sinners] also believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith
in Christ, and not by works of the law".  It seems to me that it does not
make any sense to say "We Jews also believed in Christ Jesus, in order to
be justified by faith in Christ and not by proselyte conversion for
gentiles already aggregated by faith into the people of God"!  It seems
clear that according to Gal 2:16ff. works of the law _was_ a phenomenon
that had arisen among the Jews but that they (I personally think Paul is
referring to himself and Peter here, as examples) had decided to follow the
way of faith _rather than_ the way of the works of the law.

        Although the fundamental question in Galatians is not "about the
observance of Torah in
a particular way, i.e., halakhah per se" that does seem to be the best
explanation for the problem in Antioch, which is the immediate context for
Paul's reference to works of the Law in Gal 2:16 (this argument will not
carry as much weight with those who separate 2:15ff from 2:11-14, but even
they must recognize the proximity of Paul's reference to works of the law
here with the just-finished reference to a problem with Jews and Gentiles
eating together).

        If the Galatians were to follow the teaching of their new teachers
it would not be sufficient to be circumcised, they would also be expected
to live according to the halakha of the group.  No Jewish group would have
said "be circumcised and then live as you please"!  They would have been
more likely to say, "live according to the Law, even if you are not
circumsized."  Thus, circumcision would be the first fundamental step of
halakhic obedience, one that introduced the gentile into a Jewish world
where life in the covenant means living in a community which is defined by
its halakha (and whose members are identified by their [implied or
explicit] acceptance of the same).  There, of course, halakha is no longer
understood as "a particular way of obeying the law".  That is the
perspective of an outsider looking in, according to which the halakha of
any group would be the precise legal interpretation of that group.  But
from the insiders' view the halakha of that group is nothing other than the
Law as given to Moses (as the Rabbinic literature likes to tell us).  So
the group would not consider its halakha their own peculiar way of obeying
the law, but as _the_ standard of behavior which is expected by the Law of
Moses.

        For the insider halakha is not about "sectarian debates about
interpreting halakhic details."  It is about living according to the Law. 
You are right that the question is whether the Galatians "should now choose
to become people of the Torah by way of proselyte conversion" but that is
another way of saying they should now choose to become "people who live
according to the halakha" by means of proselyte conversion.

        Or, at least, that's how it looks to me at 1:00am on a Monday night
(Portuguese time)!

        Warmest regards,

Roy