Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

corpus-paul - Re: Opponents as strawmen

corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Corpus-Paul

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Ronald L. Troxel" <rltroxel AT facstaff.wisc.edu>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Opponents as strawmen
  • Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 09:29:12 -0500


Study of rhetoric in the prophets of the Hebrew Bible (my academic home) might lend support to Mark's argument. Reading his post (below), I thought immediately of Isa 30.10-11: [The people] say to the seers, "Do not see"; and to the prophets, "Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel." Obviously the people (the "opponents") were not actually saying these words; the prophet is characterizing their attitudes through words he attributes to them.

Another classic case is the series of disputations that compose the book of Malachi. The prophetic voice repeatedly attributes to the people words that characterize their "position," but that clearly no one ever said (in those precise forms). For the sake of a polemic (aimed at a real situation, with real "opponents"), rhetoric takes the form of caricature.

Ron Troxel


How much more evidence do we have in the Galatian situation that Paul is
"not just" creating strawmen?

Do you mean to say "strawmen," as though no people in Galatia are persuading the addressees to another message, whatever that may be, and however they may be doing so? That Paul is making up their existence and promotion of another message of good for them?

If so, then I suggest that the issue of the format for this rhetoric is sufficient evidence that this is not the case. This is not a novel, but a letter, and one in which the difference between constructing a narrative and speaking directly to the situation at hand as it is perceived by the author, is well understood by the writer.

Now whether what the author perceives is an accurate portrayal according to the perceptions of others, such as the addressees or those whom he accuses for their motivations and methods as well as message, that is up for interpretation.

It is highly unlikely that anyone in Galatia sees the exigence in the same way as does Paul, or we would likely not have this letter addressing his highly concerned approach to his perception of that exigence to interpret. But I find no grounds for suggesting that no one else would agree that there is an issue in the air in Galatia, and that it involves interaction with people and ideas which Paul has taught differently from in the past, to some degree against (cf. 1:9), and that he now seeks to confront in a rhetorical vehicle suited to communicating his message in the event that he is not able to do so in person, an understanding of the purpose of letters attested in handbooks and the comments of rhetoriticians of his era.
--
Ronald L. Troxel, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer
Dept. of Hebrew and Semitic Studies
University of Wisconsin-Madison




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page