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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Ga; 3:10-13 (People under curse)
  • Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 08:15:02 -0500


Moon concludes:
This interpretation makes Paul say:

Oh, do you want to become a Jew by being circumcised?
But don't you know that the Jewish people is under curse?
Why do you want to identify with those under curse?

But it does not seem to match the fact that
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law (Gal 3:10),
which seems to indicate that the curse of the law
is a reality whether they are identified with
the Jewish people or not.

I am not sure that the suggestion of Scott as I construed his meaning works, but it offered a different view, and I thought it might have some promise. I have not worked this through myself in any detail, and it is not my present project, but I am game to keep the conversation open in the effort to understand it.

I do not come to the same summary conclusions as Moon, at least not initially. I would think keeping a distinction between Israelites and non-Israelites provides a different outcome and more rhetorical clarity.

Paul seems to view the Jewish people as having been under a curse in some sense (also under an irrevocable promise of blessing), a view he may share with some if not many other Jewish people of this period suffering under the Roman regime and living in the Greek (previous regime) world of the Diaspora (being displaced from or oppressed in the Land appointed to the people of Israel which is idealized to be under the rule of God).

Now this would "not" directly apply to non-Jewish people, as are the Galatian addressees; they are not under the curse resulting from the covenant entered into by the Jewish people, even if all of humankind and creation may be suffering until the awaited promised time of restoration of all things/people.

If so, then it is only the Jewish people whom he directly considers as freed in this manner from a curse, although gentiles enter into this blessing of the dawning of the promise to Abraham through Israel for all of the nations. It is the irony of these gentiles not previously confined in the same way, and having already received the advantages of the promised age, but now seeking to turn back the clock, so to speak, by becoming Israelite proselytes, that seems to be the rhetorical point of this entire passage. In this way he seeks to explain the point he made in 3:1-5 not to complete proselyte conversion after they have already partaken of the fruit of the awaited age, i.e., the Spirit, even if still "waiting for the hope of righteousness."

The importance of this time element is throughout the passage and the letter: the gospel proclaimed beforehand to Abraham concerning gentiles; before what? 3:17-18 indicates that he has the Covenant/Torah with Israel in view, which came with a promise of blessing and curse, but does not annul the covenant with Abraham on behalf of all humankind (the nations as well as Israel) that had come earlier, by which the Galatian gentiles have already benefited. And by their benefit so too have "we," that is the Jewish people, according to Paul's view.

This is similar in some ways to the way I see Paul arguing in Romans 11 for the inclusion of gentiles as part of Israel's story. And there seems to be a similarity with the way Luke's James understands the assessment of the empirical evidence of a gentile phenomenon expected to accompany the promised time of Israel's restoration and return of the nations: if the later is evident then the former is indicated (Acts 15:13-18).

Does this take make any sense to anyone else. Like Moon, I wonder what others make of this language in Gal. 3 when approached from less Reformation-driven perspectives on Paul and first-century Judaisms.

Regards,
Mark Nanos
Kansas City





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