Corpus-Paul

[Edgar Krentz <ekrentz AT lstc.edu>]

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

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e-mail: ekrentz AT lstc.edu

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