Corpus-Paul

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

> Dear Moon and Mark,
>     The term PARABATHN in Gal 2:19 is used in Greek literature to mean
> transgressor. Liddell & Scott gives several Greek examples that antedate
> Paul. Likewise the verb PARABAINW means "transgress" before Paul.
>
>                                         Sincerely,
>                                         Harold Holmyard

Dear Harold,
The usage of the verb is clearer than the noun. I have not yet looked 
most of the references up, but BAGD indicates this was the secular 
usage, and TDNT 5.740-41 indicates that transgressor is seldom 
indicated in secular Greek (noting only Macrob. Sat., 5.19.29), but 
usually "one who stands besides," "companion," "comrade," "helper." A 
full study of this needs to be done, but it seems an interesting 
twist on usage that might be worth consideration instead of the 
translation "transgresser" in Gal. 2:18.

Perhaps I should not do this kind of thinking "out loud," so to 
speak, while in the process, but I am hoping that it will be 
productive, and perhaps that some other list members will be able to 
help work this out.

The phrasing of Paul's is not that if I am destroying (pres.) these 
things again I built-up (aor.), then I am proving myself to be a 
PARABATHN (one who crosses a boundary), but the opposite: if what I 
destroyed (aor), these things again I am building-up (pres), then I 
am making myself to be a PARABATHN. One who transgresses, i.e., 
crosses a boundary one should not cross, is awkward for describing 
one in the process of building-up. The question is what is indicated 
by the building-up in the present, and the past aspect of destroying, 
and then by the present identity as a PARABATHN that results. And 
what is this reference to "again"?

If the building up is again, then it is not the building-up of a 
division, since that is something being done the first time by 
Peter's withdrawal. Or is it a reference to returning to the 
traditional interpretation of a barrior, as in Eph.? But they (Paul 
and Peter) have not built this up in the first place, God has, for 
the present age, nor have they destroyed it, Christ has, for the age 
to come. If building-up again is a reference to indiscriminate 
fellowship, which Peter had been engaged in previously (cf. v. 12), 
then destroying is a reference to Peter's withdrawal. If he returns 
to building-up does he make himself a PARABATHN, i.e., a stand-in for 
Christ in the process of building-up this indiscriminate 
table-fellowship? This seems to be a line of argument that follows: 
no longer I am living, but Christ is living in me, and what I now am 
living.... Or, is the referent a transgressor (according to the norms 
of the ones for circumcision?)? How is that translation indicated in 
the following argument?

Regards,
Mark Nanos