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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: C-P: Paul and Plato
  • Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 20:19:32 -0600



>> Liz Fried wrote:
>> >The major part of the letter is Paul's contrast between spirit and flesh.
>> >This contrast is based on Platonic thought it seems to me. This same
>> >dichotomy is present in Philo, but it is based on Plato.
>> >
>> >If Paul is not based on Plato, then I am not understanding Plato or I am
>> >not understanding Paul, so perhaps we can discuss this.
>>
>> The major contrast in the letter is about whether gentiles who believe in
>> Christ should become proselytes (i.e., gain Jewish identity by way of
>> completing the ritual process of conversion, which is marked for men by a
>> cut in the "flesh" of the penis) or not. As Paul puts it in 3:3, having
>> begun in the Spirit (i.e., by the confession of faith in/of Christ), are
>> you now ending with the flesh (i.e., by becoming proselytes). Paul says
>> they must not.
>>
>I understand the letter is about how to be righteoused, and whether you
>need to become Jewish (ie circumcised) or not. Still the fact is Paul
>compares an earthly Jerusalem to a heavenly one; children after the
>promise=spirit to children after the flesh. I don't think he would have
>made this sort of dichotomy if he weren't thinking along Platonic lines.
>To Paul spirit is good, flesh is bad. Flesh is heir to sin, spirit is not.
>However Jewish the *use* he makes of this dichotomy, the dichotomy itself is
>Platonic. I think one cannot understand Paul or this dichotomy without
>knowledge of Plato. Paul did not think this up de novo.

Liz,
The second example that you now appeal to has already be explained outside
of Platonic thought in my first response, that is, that the flesh/spirit
contrast is not Platonic dualism but between two ways of re-identifying
gentiles as the children of God.

The first one, the heavenly and earthly Jerusalem can be explained quite
easily without appeal to Plato either. First of all, it is used in an
allegory that is given in order to explain the same difference as flesh and
spirit identity for gentiles, that is, between becoming proselytes or not
in order to inherit the promise of Abrahamic descent.

I am sure that you are familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures' appeal to a
similar model of the earthly tabernacle or temple with the heavenly reality
being copied. Is that Platonic dualism? Or is a contrast between the
limitations of the present age and the hope of an age to come when these
limitations are overcome, when creation is restored.

But that example is very similar to the rhetorical point of this allegory:
what has been done traditionally with gentiles seeking identity as children
of God is proselyte conversion in the present age (=earthly solution),
while the real hope is of a time when the righteous creation will not be
limited to Israel, but will again be all of creation restored (=heavenly).
Two Jewish groups disagree about what is appropriate at this time. This is
quite different than Platonic thought as even the heavenly is awaited in
the restoration of the earthly (i.e., Paul is talking about something for
gentiles in the here and now of their bodily existence, but not by way of
cutting the flesh as proselytes to gain it).

Paul believes in Christ the age "of good" to come has dawned in the present
"evil" age, bringing renewal and restoration for Israel and the nations
also. Proselyte conversion, while an inclusive solution for negotiating the
boundary of the ethnos Israel, limits sonship/children to Israel, while the
miracle of faith of/in Christ opens the heavens to all humankind, both
Israel and the nations, as equals, which seems to be Paul's overall point
in Galatians.

There are those who would support a Platonic reading of Paul, usually via
parallels with Philo (see e.g., Sandmel, Boyarin). But there are ways of
reading Paul that do not take this route, and I (and Jeffrey) are
suggesting ways to consider both the models of Platonic thought to which
you appeal and the meaning of Paul's language which you believe parallel,
before you move to certainty with this approach from what you represented
initially as a possibility. Except for flesh/spirit and heavenly/earthly
Jerusalem in an allegory, are there any more examples from Galatians that
make this so compelling?

Regards,
Mark Nanos
Kansas City






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