Corpus-Paul

["moon-ryul jung" <moon AT saint.soongsil.ac.kr>]

Jeff,
your comments are quite helpful for me to grasp Gal :3:10-13.
Let me ask some questions about your post.

> 
> 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, 


Q1: You assume that the "us" in 3:13 refers to Jews. But if the "us" in 
3:13 and the "we" in 3:14 refer to the same,
it seems to me that that the "us"  and "we" refer to the Galatians, 
because
3:14b seems parallel to 3:2:

3:2: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with 
faith?
3:14b: that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. 

So, it seems that "you" in 3:2 refers to the same group as "we" in 3:14b.
  
Q2: If you can establish that the "us" in 3:14 refers to Jews, then
the flow of blessing seems "Jews->Gentiles->Jews" as Mark said in his
post. 

Christ redeemed the Jews from the curse of the law -> the blessing of 
Abraham
comes to the Gentiles -> the Jews receive the promise of the Spirit through 
faith.

I wanted to ask this question also to Mark's post. If you are right,  
Paul started with "You Gentiles received Spirit through faith" and ended
with "Christ is cursed so that the Jews might receive the promise of 
the Spirit". Isn't it somewhat off the mark?

Q3: What happens when we make "us" refer to the Gentiles, specificaly the
Galatians? The problem would be that "Christ redeemed us (Gentiles)
 from the curse of the Law" does not seem to make sense 
because the Gentiles were not confined under the Law, 
and were not under the threat of the curse of the Law. 
I think that this is a real problem. But isn't it less severe
than the problem I mentioned in Q2?

Moon
Moon R. Jung
Associate Professor
Dept of Computer Science
Soongsil University
Seoul, Korea