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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT comcast.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Paul: Renegade or Insider?
  • Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 15:07:35 -0500


Loren,
Thank you for this helpful post for sorting out some of the issues. I am
grateful to see someone read my arguments this closely. I would like to
offer a few comments below on Philip Esler's view. It should be noted that
Philip is my friend, and was my supervisor at Univ. of St. Andrews, and
although I had developed many of my views before we met (as had he), we have
discussed many of these issues, and still disagree at the points you note
disagreement. Now as I am working more fully on Paul's relationship with
Jerusalem, I am engaging his work even more. I am confident he will
appreciate--and would invite--the challenge I herein seek to pose.

Loren wrote:
[snip]
> 1. Esler believes as follows.
>
> It was agreed at the Jerusalem conference (2:1-10),
> against the better judgment of the pillars, that
> Gentiles did not have to submit to proselyte
> conversion in order to participate in indiscriminate
> eucharist fellowship. Paul had extracted this
> agreement from the other apostles, over and against
> certain hard-liners in the Christian movement (2:4-5),
> conceding nothing himself (save taking up a collection
> for the poor). This left the hard-liners steeming with
> a desire for revenge, and they put pressure on James
> to revoke the agreement soon after Paul and Peter left
> Jerusalem. James then sent a group of delegates to
> Antioch to break the sore news. Peter thus withdrew
> from indiscriminate table-fellowship at Antioch and
> changed his mind, starting to teach that Gentiles must
> become proselytes in order to be considered equals
> with the Jewish people and partake as one in the
> eucharist. Paul was a rival apostle, and so the
> pillars were under no obligation to keep their promise
> made in Jerusalem. Paul had extracted no oaths from
> them, so in effect, their "fingers had been crossed
> behind their backs" when they committed to the
> agreement.
>
> ...The crux of Esler's
> argument hinges on an understanding of deception and
> lying in an honor-shame culture. It's worth quoting
> him at length here:
>
> "In this culture people commit their honor to a
> promise only through their sincere intentions. If
> their true will is not really behind the undertaking,
> they are not dishonored by going back on what they
> have promised. People can deceive and lie without
> forfeiting their honor, for rivals have no right to
> hear the truth. Moreover, a charge of promise-breaking
> can be answered by asserting that one had not really
> intended to carry out the promise, even if this is a
> convenient rationalization after the event, akin to
> the child's ploy, 'I had my fingers crossed'. The only
> way to have confidence that someone really stands
> behind their word at the time it is given is by
> extracting an oath from him." (Galatians, p 138)...
>
> "None of this means that you cannot call someone a
> liar in public, but you can only do so if you can
> demonstrate that he previously committed his honor to
> the accuracy of the statement or promise. Otherwise,
> you run the risk of making a fool of yourself by
> having been deceived. The way to get around this
> problem is to extract an oath from the person in
> advance, thereby tying him to the truth. Once his
> promise is made before God (for whom truth is
> absolute), he activates a curse against himself in the
> eventuality of failing to implement his oath -- or, at
> the very least, he ensures that public opinion is
> entitled to judge him as dishonorable." (Ibid, p 129)
>
> Paul didn't accuse Peter of breaking the Jerusalem
> agreement, because he would have made a fool of
> himself for having been deceived. The best he could do
> was accuse Peter of inconsistent behavior, relying on
> the Mediterranean idea that "actions speak louder than
> words" -- that actions reflect a person's true
> intentions more than empty agreements. So, in effect,
> this was an oblique way of calling attention to the
> fact that James and Peter were going back on the
> agreement. [snip]

One of the issues that arises here, and to which Loren wrote recently, is
the question of whether there was a cultural value that permitted
intentional deceit if no oath was given (sometimes it is even argued to be
the case even when an oath was made), with the person duped thereby
suffering the loss of honor. Esler cites a 20th century study of a
Mediterranean village in developing his model. I do not have an objection to
this element in building a cultural model, and Esler is quite sophisticated
in this business, but I do think that there is some contrary evidence from
the period, and so I offer the following for consideration.

1. All of these players were Jewish, and thereby held to the code of honor
expressed in Torah/Tanakh, or at least should have, so that they can be
accused of behavior that fails to abide by those values. While sufficient
evidence of Biblical characters failing to live according to their promises
can be found, they are not condoned, and sometimes are punished. Perhaps
more to the point for this case, these are Jesus-followers, James being kin
to Jesus, and the letter of James expresses that one should not swear oaths
but keep their word (5:12), just as is recorded of Jesus' teaching in the
Gospels. So there is clearly another--and it seems superior--value at work,
which should not be overlooked in sorting out the Jerusalem Meeting/Antioch
Incident in particular, or Paul's relationship with Jerusalem in general.
One should not overlook the appeal to keeping one's word to be found in
Greek and Roman literature too.

2. Esler's thesis is based upon Peter teaching these Gentiles to become
proselytes, along with James. That would constitute heresy, to Paul, or
possibly apostasy. But that is not what Paul accuses Peter of, and he does
not accuse James at all. Hypocrisy is a charge issued here, which implies
that they share the same understanding that they had before Peter's change
of behavior, but that his behavior changed in order to mask what he believed
in the face of social pressure, that is, he did not want to suffer for what
he believed, so he sought to avoid it by behaving differently than the
principles in which he believed dictated that he should behave. That is at
least the basis of Paul's argument, a shared value that has been
compromised, not two contrary values. Paul does not define the phrase here,
"the truth of the gospel," and I assume that this is because it represents a
principle upon which they agree. The context suggests that truth to be that
non-Jewish Christ-believers are to remain non-Jews, yet be regarded as equal
righteous ones with Jewish Christ-believers, as to be expected at the
dawning of the end of the ages. Peter's expedient behavior implied that this
was not the case (so the non-Jews would deduce, according to Paul), and that
is the grounds for Paul's appeal to Peter not to behave this way.

Moreover, if Peter taught proselyte conversion, as Esler argues, then I find
it hard to understand why Peter and the other Jews withdrew instead of
dismissing the non-Jews from the table, except if they agreed at that point
to begin the course of proselyte conversion. One must explain why the action
taken was to withdraw, not change the food (for traditional views), or
change the way the food and drink was served and the Gentiles were being
taught (for Esler), or the seating arrangement (for Nanos). I say, these
things were not changed, but instead Peter withdrew, and others followed his
lead, because such changes would constitute a change of mind or teaching
(apostasy or heresy), instead of merely an effort to mask their convictions
for the moment (hypocrisy), by which they sought to escape the results of
continued non-conformity with the norms of the larger Jewish communities
within which this subgroup functioned, when at the moment additional
pressure was brought to bear. They hoped/expected it to pass, but Paul would
not let this expedient solution stand, because he believed that a worse
problem would result if such fudging was overlooked, regardless of how noble
the reasons for such behavior might be claimed to be by Peter and the rest
(hi Dieter!).

3. If one grants that "actions speak louder than words," then Peter's
actions at Antioch prior to his withdrawal should be confirmation of the
words spoken in Jerusalem. At the very least, this weakens the point Esler
seeks to make thereby, because it is not clear which actions should be taken
to represent the value of the words spoken in Jerusalem. But when combined
with the Torah/Tanakh/James/Jesus value of acting according to one's words
regardless of oath, even as a higher value that oath-taking (which implies
that one might not keep their word), then Esler's point seems to me very
weak indeed.

Loren also wrote:

[snip]> But while I don't believe Paul was a renegade apostle,
> he was certainly a troublesome insider, which accounts
> for much of Hyam's point of view and his recent
> observations to Mark, who in turn appeals to the
> nature of ironic rebuke: sarcastic, smoldering,
> vilifying, yet not to be taken literally. But how far
> can we push this? Mark is obviously right that a
> charge of "hypocrisy" doesn't exactly rank with those
> of "heresy" or "apostasy" -- but in the honor-shame
> milieu it?s nasty nonetheless. I doubt Paul was naive
> enough to think that he might actually have a chance
> of redirecting Peter himself by publicly shaming him
> as a hypocrite -- just as I doubt Jesus suffered from
> any delusions that he might win the various Pharisees
> and scribes to his point of view by demeaning them
> with the same insult. [snip]

Loren, I see cultural norms at work in your trying to come to terms with the
implications of my argument that I think bear some examination. For example,
is Paul's face-off with Peter really nasty? And if so, for whom? Nasty seems
to me to be a valuation from outside of the cultural model under question.
(If an honor/shame culture is assumed, then the pertinent question is, is it
honorable or not.) However, accepting such a valuation, would it be nasty
(to the non-Jews left behind) if Paul did not stand up for the non-Jews
whose identity was being undermined (as less than equal)? So it might be
considered a choice among necessary nasty alternatives which arises because
of Peter's (nasty) behavior? Arguably, since Peter has the goods in
question, and is an apostle after all, Paul has chosen well which party can
better handle the (nasty) consequences of being shamed for misbehaving
according to the agreed upon truths of this coalition.

And does one challenge only to change the mind of the one
challenged/accused, or might it be for those other ones who are thereby left
marginalized/confused, when one who has taught them something now being
subverted does not challenge this development?

And if one challenges another whom one believes subscribes to the same
values, why is it naive to believe that the other will not "return" to the
course? I understand the ironic rebuke of the Galatians addressees
throughout this letter to be based on just such an expectation, and I think
the exchange with Peter serves as a model demonstrating that Paul treated
even big-shot apostles no differently, when they departed from that course.
It also seems to me that a more dyadic (twinned) personality type should be
assumed when we evaluate these cultural exchanges, so that expectations of
interaction and results would be different than might be calculated among
say, ourselves, in our individualistic personality type culture. If public
shaming was an approved (honorable) cultural strategy for gaining
conformity, then the figures in these texts might view the exchange very
differently than some of us might today, in the West; yet one still sees
such strategies employed. I do not think that the comparison to Jesus with
various Pharisees is sufficient in this sense, but it is with some of his
own followers, when he so challenged/shamed them into conformity with values
central to their being members of the Jesus group. Did he not expect his
disciples to fall back into line? On the other hand, I think the exchanges
between Jesus and the Pharisees, for example, are recorded to demonstrate
that the bases for accusing Jesus where mistaken, and that the values
central to both Jewish groups that were in question were instead being
undermined by the Pharisees, from the followers of Jesus' point of view.
Anyway, I think that the Jesus/Pharisees represents an inter-group case
(between groups), while the Paul/Peter is an intra-group (within a group)
exchange.

Again, thank you for taking time to set out this post to stimulate
discussion, and I am quite honored to see my work among the those you
consider important for sorting out these texts.

Regards,
Mark
--
Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
313 NE Landings Dr.
Lee's Summit, MO 64064
USA
nanosmd AT comcast.net






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