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  • From: "Elli Elliott" <ellielliott AT email.msn.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Galatian situation
  • Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 21:32:37 -0600


Mark Nanos quotes Moon concerning 4:8-10 as a reference to Jewish rather
than pagan practice:
> > Paul wanted to make what getting circumcised
> >would really mean, by linking to to the thing that Galatians believe is
> >clearly wrong, which is returning to paganism. This interpretation fits
to
> >the whole
> >context of Galatians better.


Mark responds:
> But getting circumcised, while it may mean several things, does not
> "really mean" returning to paganism. How do you explain this?

Getting circumcised "really means" returning to paganism because Paul
associates it with the self-castration of the galli (starting at 3:1-5) and
shows throughout the letter that to be circumcised is to enter the sphere of
influence of the Law portrayed as a mountain Mother (Gal 4:21-5:1). For
Paul, if the Galatians are circumcised, they will be ritually marked not
into the "pagan" sphere of influence they have rejected in their context but
into another one just like it This equation may be consistent with the
"traditional view" as Moon defines it, but it's hardly the traditional view.

> Yet I agree that the Galatian addressees would believe a return to
> paganism is wrong, and are not contemplating turning away from their
> identity in Christ to readopt identity as pagans. Rather, they are
> considering a way to escape compliance with a return to pagan
> practices they have left off, while at the same time beginning to
> comply with public pagan practices because of pressure from the pagan
> communities, and mediated as well by those Jewish influencers with
> whom they now interact.
>
What they're considering is circumcision. They also appear to be keeping
somebody's calendar in a manner similar to pagan practices. The verse makes
the most sense if the calendar they're keeping is the one that goes with
circumcision, i.e. the Jewish calendar. If this is the "traditional view,"
I see nothing wrong with it.

> My argument is that context of Galatians provides the basis for this
> reading. The addressees are being urged to return to practices of
> pagan social life if they are claiming to be children of Abraham/
> righteous ones of God, apart from becoming proselytes. They are thus
> still pagans on the membership and reference group norms of identity
> of all groups but their own, and thus their failure to live
> accordingly represents a threat. It threatens their fellow pagans,
> family and neighbors, who fear reprisals from the gods as well as in
> political and commercial terms for compromising important communal
> expressions of solidarity that take place around idolatrous events,
> e.g., the imperial cult festivities. (A relevant example in the US
> might be someone's resistance of public expressions of patriotism,
> such as draft dodging, by the child of someone who is proud of
> service in the armed forces; "who do you think you are? This might be
> OK for Mennonites perhaps, but not "my" child! What if everyone..." A
> relevant example from Nazi Germany is the fear of reprisals for
> hiding a Jewish person, and thus the many who turned in family and
> neighbors in order to escape punishment by association, which they
> feared extending perhaps to their whole family or neighborhood if
> they failed to do so and the "guilty" parties were caught). Because
> the pagan communities have a vested interest in the compliance of
> these rogue pagans who claim the right to defy such public
> expressions of pagan life on the basis of their association with the
> Jewish communities' exclusion from such expressions, the addressees
> non-compliance represent a threat to the Jewish communities as well,
> for they must answer for this exclusion to the pagan communal leaders
> when they come calling. Fear of this obvious result would be
> sufficient cause to confront the errant notions of these pagans,
> offering them what they seek if they will but conform with the
> prevailing norms and either become Jewish proselytes, or return to
> the habits of pagan guests, namely, in the later case, observance of
> pagan practices to which they remain obliged as long as they remain
> pagans. I suggest that this is the persecution that these Jewish
> communal leaders fear if they accept the claim of these pagans on the
> basis of their appeal to the "cross of Christ," the meaning of which
> they do not share (cf. 6:12). Their own special privilege of
> abstaining from such public expressions of idolatry as the imperial
> cult is threatened by the claims of these pagans, who are not even
> yet seeking classification as candidates for proselyte conversion.
>

Mark,
This hypothetical reconstruction would seem to require that at 4:8-10, Paul
is suddenly addressing another issue.

--- out of time at the moment ---

Elli

Elli Elliott (elli AT ria.net)
Pastor, Zion United Church of Christ, Sterling, Colorado
PhD, New Testament & Early Christianity, Loyola University Chicago







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