Corpus-Paul

["Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>]

Richard and list members,
First, thanks for taking the time to comment on the 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

Clarification of one of the comments would be helpful. Richard stated:
>
>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.

Actually, although not the comment I want to take up, Paul does not tell us
what had been questioned, if anything at all. This conclusion is derived
from what you believe (and in company with many other intrepreters!) the
argument Paul makes suggests was the problem. But that this is the problem,
or what Paul heard it to be, or even thought it to be, is up for
discussion. Some other interpreters think it was his not being under their
authority that was being questioned. I think the problem is different, and
that the issue in Galatia does not revolve around his relationship with the
other apostles; rather, Paul brings up this aspect in order to make a point
he believes is relevant because of the argument he seeks to now make. But
this is not really what I want to raise here, although it does illustrate
the kinds of problems an interpreter of Galatians faces. It is in the
effort to prioritize and get more specific about what is most likely for
Galatia in particular, based upon the implications of his rhetoric (which
in the case of Galatians is all that we really have to go on!) that I
raised the methodological issue of the direct and illustrative material.
(This paper is meant to tease out possibilities and methodologies; full
argumentation is intended to follow in due time.) To this particular
methodological consideration I now turn again.

I did not mean to "exclude" any data, but to qualify what was available in
this letter. My real concern here is simply: Does my approach really seem
arbitrary? How might I make my case clearer, even if you should disagree
with the conclusions drawn? That is, I would value comment on this
methodological concern in the paper, which arose for me as I tried to
clarify just what data we had for getting at the Galatian situation
specifically, not anywhere else. I do not mind if it does not seem to
parallel what interpreters believe is witnessed in other situations or
letters; the "interpretation" of other "implied" evidence must also stand
individually within those documents, it seems to me, before it should be
brought together into a larger (implied) construct; and even then, new
interpretations of each part should be allowed to question any larger
"implied" construction, and not only the other way around. I think the
results of the SBL Pauline sessions have confirmed the wisdom of this
approach: first, we should listen to each letter on its own terms.

I argued that in order to identify the implied players and situation in
Galatia, it is methodologically useful to prioritize the data between that
which is directly addressing the Galatian readers and that which is
incorporated into Paul's argument to exemplify his points. These examples,
like the autobiographical material of 1:12-2:21, which does not in and of
itself report events in Galatia, should, I suggested, be given secondary
status for providing details about the Galatian situation, since it is not
stories of Galatian experiences. Care should be taken to see the rhetorical
connection made for the Galatian readers when applying this data. That is
not to say it should not be considered, but the details of the stories
should be subordinated to the more directly Galatian material (his comments
to them rather than stories to illustrate those comments) when creating and
then testing an hypothesis of the Galatian situation and players.

It seems to me, methodologically, that if I overhear a conversation and do
not discriminate between a) what the speaker says to the listener, say a
direct criticism of their hairstyle, from b) an example they give to
illustrate their viewpoint of the listener's hair, e.g., from comparing it
to the appearance of their dog one time when it emerged from a frozen lake,
along with whatever other details the storyteller might include along the
way, then I might get pretty far away from making a good guess at the
implied hairstyle or appearance of the listener, or any other implications
the speaker meant to communicate (e.g., was choosing a canine, rather than,
say, a human example, arbitrary, or was it meant to imply something more?).
I would want to evaluate any other direct comments about the listener as
well as the attitude and rhetorical nature of those comments (e.g.,
humorous, ironic, heated, hateful, teasing, affectionate, loving) before I
mined the illustration itself for details. (In choosing this illustration,
for example, it is nothing more than just one example that occurred to me
to give something concrete to work with from the unlimited possibilities.)

I argued that Paul's letter communicates a rebuke with an ironic tone in
many of the direct comments (Who do you think you are? Who do they think
they are? What do you think this other message is, a gospel?), and that
this should impact the possibilities we put forward as well as how these
hypotheses are tested. Details from stories constructed to illustrate his
argumentative points or authority, person, etc., should be secondary, and
even then screened for the rhetorical connections rather than expecting the
details themselves to provide much information, about Galatia in
particular, that is. Of course the autobiographical material in this letter
may provide the best information available for a meeting Paul had in
Jerusalem and one in Antioch, in spite of whatever rhetorical limits may be
imposed because they are embedded in a story constructed for a particular
point or points he now seeks to illustrate for the Galatian addressees. But
my concern in this paper was only with the situation of those Galatian
addressees.

Is this clear? Do you still think this is merely arbitrary? I have called
these two kinds of material "direct speech" and "narrative." Would
"situational discourse" and "narrative discourse" would be a more helpful
way to label the different material one finds in the letter?

Thanks,
Mark Nanos
Kansas City