Corpus-Paul

["Jon Peter" <jnp AT home.com>]

On May 29, 1998, Jon Peter said:

>>I do see how it interrupts the basic analogy Paul is making. In essence,
Paul is using a siblings metaphor, saying the 2 boys represent Freedom and
Bondage respectively. The presumed interpolator is extending/interpreting
this to say they kids represent the covenant(s) (diatheke). Paul stops
short
of using that particular term himself.<<


>Actually, I said that I thought a redactor made that analogy, not "Paul".


You did indeed, David.  I was referring above to 2 different analogies or
metaphors, one we both agree was Paul's, and a second (v 24) you suggest was
not (and I'm undecided about). The one from Paul concerns an analogy between
2 kids and their differing relationship to the *Law*. One is born to a slave
woman (under the law) and another child born to a free woman (no law). That
is Paul's analogy coming before the suspected interpolation.

The suspect portion merely extends this analogy to a description of the *2
covenants themselves,* and not merely the two types of legal obligations. A
very fine distinction I think.

[most of intercalation discussion snipped, then…]

> If  this material was indeed intercalated for rhetorical purposes, it is
for a
reason that escapes us.

I agree. I don't get why some alleged interpolations were done in the Bible.
But they were. Doing this  was just a wild stylistic fashion among Greek
writers in these times, according to Jan Sammer, a classisist who posts on
Crosstalk. I will write Jan and ask his opinion on this possibility.

If it is through the hand of a redactor, the reason is
intelligible to us. Given a choice, I will choose the intelligible option.
<g>

I see the intelligible reason as being, in order to interject the word
"covenant" into the 2-infant imagery. But this extension carries no
*practical* consequence, unless I miss something. Besides, the covenant is
implicit already in v 22-23 I think, in Paul's symbolic use of "bondwoman
mother" and "freewoman mother."


>>The more practical approach to this issue may be to ask, 'So what?'
Suppose you're right, that verses 24-27 are inauthentic. What, then, is the
interpolator really adding to (or distorting in) the larger subject?


{My argument that this language is inconsequential, is snipped here for
brevity]


David continues:

>But it is of consequence. An argument that has the aim of establishing
faith
in promises as the factor that determines who can claim them is not
paralleled
by one that claims that one class of believers are to be rejected on the
basis
of their enduring enslavement (through war) and their opposition to
gentiles
believers.

My reply:

We have a misunderstanding here. Paul, not the interpolator, says that
lawkeepers are to be rejected. Paul cites Gen 21.10. This portion (v30) is
not part of the suspected interpolation.

Dave wrote:

 > Also, none of the passages in Galatians rejects the law.

Ohhh yes they doo-oo.  Gal 2.15, 21; Gal 3:11; Gal 3.23, 25 = absolute and
total rejection of the law.  Then Gal 5.1-4.  Law-rejection is what
Galatians is all about.


David continues:

> There are passages in the Pauline epistles which make a point that law
does not in
itself justify someone. However, wherever we find statements that condemn
the
law or Judaism, we also find this strange dislocation of the idea. It is
never
a natural part of the argument being developed, but always at variance
with
it.

Me, Jon again:

I disagree of course, but the statement is too complex and sweeping to be
argued in e-mail unfortunately. If you're willing to give specifics, more
power to ya, I'll listen!

[discussion of v 27 'gloss' snipped. It was tangential]

[previous idea that all anti-Jewish sentiments are interpolations is
rejected by Jon. David replies that the forgeries might have been
well-intentioned. David then asked:]

 But why characterize this proposed redactor's circle as "Jewish wannabes"?
It was the original writer who did not think that gentiles needed to convert
to be included in the covenant with Abraham. I think that you have misread
what I had stated.

Jon replies:

Perhaps so, and sorry if I did.  When you earlier wrote that the
interpolator sort of maliciously reversed the Sarah / Hagar offspring, I got
the impression you were saying a *Gentile* did this so he could claim the
goyim were from Sarah, and Jews from Hagar . That's where I came up with
'wannabees.' Apparently I mistook you.


David wrote:

> I will acknowledge that his circle was
knowledgeable about Judaism (although with a fair number of
misconceptions).

Or, perhaps Paul's Rabbinical opponents are the ones having the
misconceptions. Depends on your point of view.

David continues:

> However, I will also emphasize that they thought of themselves as the
rightful
heirs of what God promised to the descendants of Abraham, and completely
repudiated the validity of Judaism.

Jon:

You got that right, if you mean Judaism that isn't Christian.


David again:

>…I see this as only possible in a time
of upheaval within Judaism and its relationship to the gentile world, such
as
in the decades following the war.

Jon replies:

It's good to keep in mind the intense insecurity Jews must have felt about
their Temple cultus. Such anxiety would have spawned them to wonder things
like, "What are we gonna believe in and do if the Temple ever gets trashed
and we have no way to make atonements?" etc

But this anxiety had been going on for generations before Paul wrote. It is
evidenced, for example, in the DSS.  In particular the loss of priestly
legitimacy was a longstanding source of spiritual crisis (when high priests
were viewed as corrupt appointees). And too, when Pompeii's legions marched
in (63 BCE), the Temple was held hostage thereafter. "One false move and
down it comes." (The fact that enormous funding poured in, which Roman
aristos and their clergy pals could wallow in, helped preserve the
building -- but this corrupt arrangement added still more public ambivalence
towards the Temple institution -- expressed in the Gospels.)

My point being of course that the spiritual disarray that would create
anti-Temple-cultus anti-Torah theorizing was  in place long before Paul.

David again:

> I am more at ease with the idea that a redactor has (or redactors have)
been
active than the idea that Paul mental state was so volatile that he could
hold
wildly differing concepts simultaneously and not be aware of it.

Me:

What do you mean by wildly differing concepts?  I need help seeing where the
interpolation (if that) is a significant departure in the basic 2-kids
analogy. Obviously we disagree.



Incidentally, I neglected to answer one of your earlier questions, at the
very end, which was about where I got Christ as the representative of
freedom (Sarah's children).  I should have pointed out that Paul brings
Christ and freedom in immediately after the Gal 4 verses we're
iscussing,  --- ch 5.1

Hope I haven't been too hard on you.  Thanks again for raising the
interpolation issue, which is all-important in Pauline exegesis, albeit its
a tough nut.

Best regards,

Jon