Corpus-Paul

[jkrantz AT optonline.net]

Mark, Moon-Ryul, and others...

Moon recently posted this question re Gal. 3:10-13, to which Mark has already 
responded.  
I'd like to add another recent viewpoint.

> Recently there were some discussions on the issue of "under curse" in Gal 
> 3:10-13. Mark Nanos said the following:
> 
> Nanos: 
> Circumcision is a 
> cut in the flesh to identify descendents of Abraham. Paul argues that 
> this identity precedes descendency from Jacob/Moses, which is the 
> identity apparently indicated by circumcision for the influencers in 
> the situation addressed in Galatia. He argues that this other 
> identity involves them in ***identifying with a people under a curse**, 
> which they need not do since they are already identified with 
> Abraham. 
> 
> 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.
> 
> 

As Mark hinted in his response, it may be that the "curse" indicated in this 
passage refers to 
the continuing state of exile of the Jewish people, so argues Neil Elliot, 
with N.T. Wright.  
(Elliot, _Liberating Paul_, pp. 132 ff.)

But he suggests that it isn't an argument that goes, "Don't adopt 
circumcision, for it will make 
you like the Jews, cursed!" but rather that (as Elliot points out) select 
observance of certain 
portions of the law will not gain you righteousness (something a Jew would 
have understood 
from the beginning, but these Gentile converts might not) and that, as Christ 
has redeemed 
Israel from the curse by his death at the very hands of those who oppress the 
Jews, returning 
to this pre-crucifixion state to gain one's righteousness means taking a 
giant step back in the 
very process that had redeemed the Jews, Jesus' death.

The argument seeks to demonstrate the way that God's redemption of (cursed) 
Israel, 
through Jesus' death has flowed now to the Gentiles, and simply seeks to keep 
them from 
moving backward in that timeline for the sake of righteousness gained through 
"works of the 
law", again, something no Jew would have expected.

I hope that I've accurately (and adequately) represented Neil's argument.  It 
has been most 
helpful to me.

Jeff K.


Jeffrey H. Krantz
Church of the Advent
Mercer School of Theology
http://www.agapenetwork.org