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  • From: "Bob MacDonald" <bobmacdonald AT home.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Interpolation Solutions
  • Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1999 08:52:32 -0700


> Group production, I seriously doubt it.

Thanks to Jim Hester for the helpful interpretation of the multiple persons
named singly or collectively as people from whom this letter originated.

The notion that they are 'carriers' rather than authors is very appealing
especially in the case of a named individual. Nonetheless - are they not
messengers in the same way that Paul is? The messenger(s) in this case would
have 'bought in' to the message and its impact on the various factions
within or in the process of splitting the diaspora communities.

I note this simply because people tend to put 'saints' on pedestals. Was
Paul the only one to whom revelation was given? His authority as apostle to
the gentiles - he also spoke to and interacted with Jews - would not have
amounted to much if those he preached to ended up only as 'his' followers.
That is not what he is preaching of course.

I cannot imagine a leader who was loved - and I believe Paul was loved - not
learning and profiting from the gifts that were shared in the communities he
is a part of - in fact he implies this himself (Rom 1:12).

Group production - like composition by committee - is too strong a critique
of my intent - though I accept the jibe. Paul engaged the full spirit of
many in the Empire of his time. That is part of what accounts for his
writings survival. They are not just those of an individual mystic.

Concerning Galatians in particular - I think this letter was written in
haste after the arrival of disturbing news. My conjecture is that Paul & the
company from Corinth that met him in Ephesus were on their way to Corinth
via Macedonia and were overtaken by such news as prompted an immediate
'assembly' and heated discussion. I think the letter is short enough that a
one sitting dictation would be possible - but I have not tested this with
the technology of the time. Whether there were sufficient 'carriers' to take
the letter to many churches in Galatia, I do not know. In this case carriers
does not commend itself so completely to my mind as fully applicable here.
In other words, these potential carriers were on their way somewhere else
and were not about to detour to Galatia. Just a conjecture and an opinion
FWIW - subject to change of course.

(Checking on Romans - it is from Paul alone, and Phoebe the carrier is
mentioned only later. This letter is clearly an essay - composed in several
sessions perhaps over the winter of 57 in Corinth (and I assume after
Galatians) but with some of the same players around who had shared the
Galatian bad news experience. And it is not written to the saints or a
'church'. I wonder who it was written to - whether in writing, as some have
translated - 'to all God's beloved', Paul was still hoping for a
reconciliation among the warring factions he had seen so clearly within the
Jewish diaspora.)


BobMacDonald AT home.com
(Some of my conjectures are in construction as story, accessible through my
home page.)
http://members.home.net/bobmacdonald/homepage.htm






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