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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Galatian situation
  • Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 18:14:43 -0500


Thanks for the continued exchange, Dieter, this is fun; I will reply below.

to # 1: I do not quite follow you in your support of my view. Could you expand a little how you see ironic rebuke at work?

The agreement is that Paul's rhetorical approach to the issues (the stasis, if you will) indicates that the addressees do not believe that consideration of this "other message of good" is opposed to their continued belief in the "message of good in Christ." The employment of irony is but one of the indications of this, since it is a communal approach in which the ironist undermines the compromising of a shared norm, calling the victim of his/her irony back to a "higher" value, similar to epideictic in function. The choice of irony is based on the ironist's expectation of this shared hierarchy of values so that the appeal will be successful. In this case, as noted before, Paul does this in 1:6-7 with the theme of the gospels: ridiculing (I am surprised...) the addressees for even considering this other messages of good (the addressees regard the two messages of good for themselves as separate matters) into the light of unanticipated comparison (acceptance of the one message necessarily undermines acceptance of the other, and vice versa), so that they will be awakened to the unanticipated result of following this other course (in 5:7ff he similarly portrays their consideration as changing course, but not as though they had realized this was the case, and he even says he is confident once they learn this they will take no other course but the one they have set out on as learned from him!). Another indication was noted elsewhere in my earlier reply, that Paul need not explain why compromising the meaning of Christ's death is unthinkable. This suggests that they have not thought to do this, although Paul now seeks to show them that this is the effect of what they have thought to do in responding to this other message as though it were good for themselves. Is that clear?

to # 2: You argue, that the advisors or 'influencers', as you call them in your dissertation, are from Galatia.
If so, how do you think of the 'some-you', 'they-you' distinction that occurs in the letter (1.7,9, 4.17 etc).

What about such a distinction indicates they are from somewhere other than Galatia? This is the language of ingroup/outgroup; we could appeal to it in our present conversation should someone else ("them") now enter in as well with "us." None of these places indicate from someone has come; they are the outgroup in Galatia on the group terms to which Paul appeals to these Christ-believers. To make matters more complicated, they appear at the same time to be the ingroup in terms of their appeal to these outgroup gentiles to comply with their membership and reference group norms! But I am getting to another topic...

And, if the influencers are from Galatia, would that for instance means, that 4.21ff is also addressed to them?

All of the letter is addressed to the the addressees, none of it to the influencers, as far as I am concerned, so I do not follow this question.

But then, that would not fit with 4.28ff. I guess I am wondering, what is your hard evidence?

What hard evidence do you mean; like us/them!? What hard evidence is there that anyone in Galatia is from outside of Galatia? Perhaps you could clarify the question for me here.


to 3#: I think, what we can deduce from Paul's account in Gal 2.1-10 (which, in my view, is a rather sophisticated report of Paul's implications of the Jerusalem Council) is that, for Paul, the major issue at the Council was circumcision. I know that some commentators find no use of the Council decision on circumcision in Paul's argumentation and are baffled. Cf. Witherington 13: "Had Paul known of and had the Jerusalem Church agreed to such a compromise before Galatians was written it is very difficult to explain why Paul did not refer to it..." I just cannot agree. Two reasons: a) the rhetorical composition of the success story of 2.6-10 with which Paul has been building up ethos is extraordinary. He says much more than just: circumcision is not required for Gentiles. He comes out of his own report as the Apostle of the uncircumcised. b) the issue at stake in Gal is not disagreement on Council decision (with regard to circumcision at least, food restrictions may be another matter), but with regard to the INTERPRETATION of that decision. That's why I emphasized in my first input: Everybody agreed on the insignificance of circumcision for salvation! Paul, however, uses the Council report in 2.6-10 to claim his own authority as the Apostle of uncircumcision, which, of course, if accepted, gives him the interpretation privileges he needs for the following argumentation. In this sense, I think, the Council report of 2.6-10 is vital for the whole letter.

I agree that the appeal Paul makes in the autobiographical narrative is vital for the argument he seeks to make for the Galatians to whom he writes. I do not see how what you have written here indicates that the Galatian situation involved people coming with a message from the Jerusalem Christ-believing coalition that either differed or agreed with Paul, because it does not seem to me to indicate that anyone has come from anywhere else. That was the case in Antioch, but why is it in Galatia; Paul never says it is. Examples are not the same in all particulars, and it is as an example that Paul appeals to Antioch.


to #4: YES!

Yes!!


to #5&6: In order to understand the causes of the collision of perceptions in Gal I have in my own work been helped by research on social cognition by H.H. Kelley. Acc. to Kelley, there are two kinds of causal schemata that determine how people perceive causal relationships between persons and situations. The two kinds are called: 'multiple necessary causes schema' and 'multiple sufficient causes schema'. In short, people of the first kind perceive success in life like olympic athlets. In order to succeed, they have to fulfill every single requirement. People of the second kind, think of success more in terms of driving their car to work: as long as sufficient care is taken, they will get there. If the tires are bad, I have to drive a little slower, use good roads etc. As long as the balance is right, there will be no problem.
Now imagine different people conceiving of the same challenge from these two different perspectives and you have a major collision of cognition.
to sum it up: in my construction Paul belongs to the first category (1 Cor 9.24, Gal 5.9), whereas the Galatians and the advisors belong to the second. This turns the whole question of who is tolerant and intolerant on its head, I know, but I think it is worth an effort to at least consider the possibility.

Good. A similar inference can be gained by attention to psychological studies of social anxiety, at least in the case of Antioch, in comparing Paul and Peter. I am not so clear how these apply to Galatia, since we do not have information about individuals from which to work to make this kind of comparison.

I see that you have responded at a late hour; I hope you will respond to my prior reply to #7 when you get a chance.

Regards,
Mark Nanos





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