Corpus-Paul

[Richard Fellows <rfellows AT intergate.bc.ca>]

Mark,

here are some comments on your article, "The Inter- and Intra-Jewish
Political Contexts of Paul and the Galatians" on the C-P page at
http://metalab.unc.edu/corpus-paul/afr/politic2a.htm

Firstly, I found the article to be extra-ordinarily difficult to follow.
My comments are therefore based on only a partial understanding of what you
were trying to say.

Your central thesis, it seems to me, is that those whose influence Paul
opposed in Galatians were non-Christian Jews.  My problem is that I was not
able to identify a single piece of evidence for that hypothesis in the
entire article.

Your decision to exclude the evidence of the autobiographical section
(1:11-2:10) seems arbitrary.   It seems to me that this passage sheds a
great deal of light on the confusion (1:7) that Paul's opponents (in his
view) had been spreading among the Galatians.  The opponents had been
suggesting that Paul was himself under the authority of the Jerusalem
apostles, and that consequently he had accepted that circumcision was
necessary for those who wished to cross the ethnic boundary.

1 and 2 Corinthians show that CHRISTIAN emissaries had visited Corinth and
had promoted the authority of the Jerusalem apostles at the expense of
Paul.  Galatians, in my view, reflects a rather similar situation.  Your
view of Galatians, on the other hand, requires a wholly different
situation, unparalleled in any other letter.

You say that Paul's message (in 2:3 I suppose) is "Titus was not
circumcised, or the Antiochenes, and you must not be either!".  I don't see
how Paul could hope to persuade the Galatians not to be circumcised simply
by pointing out that Titus had not been circumcised.  Even if Titus had
remained uncircumcised (which I dispute), and if the precedent of his
non-circumcision were at all relevant (which I doubt), Paul's argument
would fall flat because the Galatians would simply be able to point to the
precedent of Timothy.  Paul's purpose in 2:3 must therefore be different
from the one that you suppose.  In the context of Gal 1:1-2:10, he is
probably just saying that the Jerusalem apostles had not added circumcision
to his gospel.

Finally, and it is a matter of personal taste, of course, I found the
article to be unnecessarily long.  You have used eloquence at the expense
of clarity and brevety.

Richard Fellows
rfellows AT intergate.bc.ca