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  • From: Edgar Krentz <ekrentz AT lstc.edu>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Gal 4:3, 9
  • Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 16:10:32 -0700

Title: Re: [corpus-paul] Gal 4:3, 9
At 10:38 AM -0700 10/3/00, Jim Hester wrote:
In an earlier posting,  someone -- sorry but my e-mail program tanked and I
lost my archive! -- mentioned stoicheia in Gal. 4.  I want to play off the
thread that Mark and Moon have been pursuing and try out an idea I have had
for some time to see if I be convinced that I am wrong.

No need to review the discussions about the meaning and importance of the
phrase "stoicheia tou kosmou" in 4:3, and the disparaging reference to the
stoicheia in 4:9.  My problem is that I am not convinced that we must
understand the word to refer to "elements that constitute the world's
foundation", to use Martyn's phrase. The immediate context of the _expression_
in 4:3 has to do with cultural and social conditions that apply to a minor,
not to philosophical ideas. While "stoicheia" can refer to supernatural
powers, it can also refer to basic principles and natural substances and in
rhetoric can refer to the principles or elements of argumentation. At least
in 4:3, the "principles of the world" might refer to cultural and social
constraints, or even culturally imposed spiritual constraints, experienced
by believers. And, in 4:9, the inadequacy of these constraints and the
arguments used to support them might be the reference.

My search of the TLG indicates that the phrase "stoichia tou kosmou" is
first found in Paul and is usually found in Christian literature after Paul.
It is not a phrase used commonly by secular writers.  It looks to me --
forgive the reference to Symbolic Convergence Theory -- like Paul's phrase
was chained out by later writers and that we might just be reading their
meaning back into Paul rhetoric.

I have discussed this idea with several folks, including Bob Hall and
Frederick Danker, who were kind enough not to be derisive, but they failed
to persuade me entirely that I was wrong. I'd be grateful for the input of
others.  What am I overlooking?

Jim, have you looked at Herman Diels, Elementum? It was published in German many years ago. And  also look at Martin Dibelius, Die Geisterwelt im Glauben des Paulus, published about 1912. I am citing these from memory, since my library is at home in  Chicago, but I think both would have some relevant material for your Gristmill.

I think, it part, that Stoicheia might appear absolutely, without tou kosmou, in reference to elemental spirits. But Diels would have the most information about that, since his work is an investigation of the term stoicheion throughout Greek literature. (He is the Diels of Diels-Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokraticker, and of Doxoraphi Graeci.

Just an idea.

Ed Krentz
--
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Edgar Krentz
Professor of New Testament, Emeritus
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
1100 East 55th Street, Chicago, IL 60615
Tel: 773-256-0773
e-mail: ekrentz AT lstc.edu
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Fall 2000 address 1300 Delaware #15, Berkeley, CA 94702
Phone in Berkeley : 510-702-0542
GERASKO D' AEI POLLA DIDASKOMENOS
"I grow old, constantly learning many things." [Solon of Athens]
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