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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>
  • To: <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Susan Elliott's JBL article on Galatians
  • Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 06:29:49 -0600


Dear Elli,
Your new JBL article is very welcome; the dissertation was enormous, and I found it difficult to be certain of some of your conclusions where the application of this Anatolian context to Galatians was concerned (my failing, now doubt, but the article helps). Your research on the mother goddesses is impressive. Even if you did not attempt to take on all of the aspects of your dissertation, it must have been very difficult to cut it down to this size. Nice work; thanks.

The essential proposal for the way that the addressees would have processed this imagery seems plausible. I think that I could use your organization of the columns in coming to a very different conclusion, however, both about the situation in Galatia this implies, and Paul's view of things. Say lurker, I wonder what you might make of the effort.

You take the issue to be a contrast of Law and freedom, of Law versus not-Law, so to speak. The allegory is introduced in 4:21 with an ridiculing interrogative: "Tell me, you who want to be under Law, do you not hear the Law." And the way that you take this sets your contextual frame so that it determines how the allegory applies to the rhetorical situation. But is it really that they want to be Law observant? For in taking Paul to mean this you are led to your understanding that it is freedom from Torah observant Judaism that Paul uses the allegory to argue. But it seems unlikely that Torah observance was what the addressees were interested in, "wanting," that is.

Consider not only that this is not mentioned in the allegory, but it is not what he emerges from this narrative discourse to challenge. They are to resist completing the ritual process of proselyte conversion, not Torah observance. It is not Torah-observance versus freedom from Torah that is set out, but the disagreement, where gentile identity is concerned, between two Judaisms (if you will; two different Jewish groups' understandings of how gentiles are incorporated into the people of God in the present age).

As gentiles they are not in a position to be concerned with Torah-observance per se anyway, and to this matter Paul turns directly in 5:3, warning them that pursuit of proselyte identity will involve them eventually, once completed, in something that they have failed to consider!: observance of "the whole Law." Leaving aside many issues that arise from this statement, the point is simply that this rhetorical approach indicates that it is not Law per se, that is, Torah-observant life, that is what the Galatians are thought by Paul to "want" in 4:21 (they are not yet even imagining the consequences, he implies), and thus it is not that which the allegory is about (note not Law, but "two covenants" at start of allegory. What would this mean in Anatolian context? i.e., not later Christian one where old and new is assumed; rather, two ways of being identified, I suggest. Note that the contrast in the allegory is not sequential, old and new, but between two groups at the same time, us and them).

What the non-Jewish addressees want is indisputable status as the righteous ones of God, as children of Abraham/ of God, which is conferred according to the traditional interpretation of the fathers for the present age to mean that they must be circumcised,in a Jewish communal context, whatever faith in Jesus Christ may or may not mean. At least that is what the rhetorical context of Paul's response implies; for that is what the author wants the addressees to resist.

And that is just what the allegory undermines, in support of Paul's argument throughout the letter. They already have the identity they have been recently led to believe they can gain only by completion of proselyte conversion; and now taking this other path necessarily undermines that identity that they "already" have by way of Christ. For the traditional path was available in the present age apart from the meaning of Christ's death for themselves; rendering it gratuitous/ vain (2:21; 3:4). It is the way for a gentile to become "known by God," but they are already "known" apart from it (4:8-10). It is thus not for themselves.

There is nothing wrong with proselyte conversion per se, but for these gentiles there is, for it turns upside-down the meaning of the good news of Christ for themselves, representing defection (1:6-7). In other words, the point of the allegory is, like the letter overall, to convince them that they do not need to become proselytes, in fact, that they must not, because it delegitimates the claim that their faith and experience of the Spirit are predicated upon (3:1-5). For the age to come has dawned in the present age with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1:3-4), which makes themselves righteous ones, as gentiles, apart from proselyte conversion; which would seem, in the present age, to be impossible, even if it is anticipated for the age to come. Unless you are part of the Christ-believing coalition, that is.

How does this work in the allegory? I tried to sketch this in an earlier post (6/1/99: "Allegory of Abraham's sons (Gal. 4:21-5:1)"; which like your recent one, until now anyway, has gone without the hoped-for feedback). Sorry that my response here does not interact more directly with your argument. What I would like to do is draw you out to discuss how your approach could strengthen or weaken my understanding of the rhetorical situation and role of the allegory.

Regards,
Mark Nanos
Kansas City




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