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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: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 09:09:31 -0600


Liz Fried wrote:
>You are saying that when Paul says in Gal 5:24 "those who belong to Christ
>have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" he is not speaking
>literally? [snip] Someone died on the cross, and now you can be a
>better person as a result????

It seems to me that Paul is writing to gentile people whose passions and
desires have been defined in the context of the exigence of this letter not
as sinful in the sense generally taken, that is, as sexual appetites, etc.
Rather, their strong desire is to gain proselyte identity in order to gain
indisputable status as righteous ones, thereby gaining acceptance by those
whom they deem important to be accepted by, the in-group in Galatia.

The semantic domain of passions and desires in v. 24 is further explained
in v. 26 in terms of honor challenges and envious reactions to those who
advance: don't challenge one another [to advance your place/honor/goods]
and don't envy [begrudge] one another [when one advances, seemingly casting
a shadow of inferiority upon yourself]. The point is to be certain of your
place in Christ and thus free to serve the other instead of engaging in a
contest with them. All of this is set in a particular context of the
discrimination accompanying the quest for identity ritually by way of
proselyte conversion, which ranks for comparative purposes, which humans
then use to challenge and envy one another by way of. This is natural for
ritual rites of passage contexts as explained repeatedly in the literature
which studies ritual processes in various cultures (that is, it is not a
Jewish thing, but a human thing, and it continues in Christian institutions
which discriminate between people by way of rituals just the same, but that
is another matter).

The point Paul seeks to make in this letter is that the gentile addressees
have already gained full acceptance by God as children of Abraham by
promise in the seed Jesus Christ; thus their passion for acceptance betrays
a lack of faith that this is already so apart from proselyte conversion. He
thus calls them to identify with Christ, who was not praised, but rather
shamed, by the majority or dominant society, being crucified. They too
should expect not praise but shame, a disputable and marginal status. They
should accept this as a shared identity with the crucified one, just as
Paul bears "on my body the marks [stigmata] of Jesus" (Gal. 6:17). They
should look to the crucified one, and not to those among their peers that
offer them good news of how they can negotiate the line between honor and
shame, that they are suffering on the wrong side of presently, if they will
but complete the ritual process of proselyte conversion, gaining acceptance
on the dominant community's terms (my take on the rhetorical function of
3:1-5).

Again, I find no parallel with Platonic dualism involved in Paul's language
here. Rather I see social interaction being described between two ways to
negotiate identity for gentiles seeking assurance of being righteous ones:
children of Abraham and thus of God. This may be done by way of the
tradition of proselyte conversion which is tempting in their social setting
in Galatia, or by faith in/of Christ, which Paul has taught them within
this Jewish sub-group, but which leaves them in a marginal state where the
dominant Jewish community is concerned (although itself a minority group
within Galatia), since they do not share this view of how gentiles gain the
desired identity in question.

Mark Nanos
Kansas City






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