Corpus-Paul

[Don Garlington <dongarlington AT yahoo.com>]

I heard Martin’s original paper at SNTS in Durham last
summer and have subsequently read the SBL article. My
overall impression is quite favorable. If I may convey
comments from my recent Galatians commentary (Wipf &
Stock, 2003). The first has to do with Martin’s thesis
of "the covenant of circumcision" in Galatians (pp.
169-71). The second pertains to the calendar (p. 184).


I. The Covenant of Circumcision

T. Martin ("Covenant") proposes that the pairs of
antitheses in 3:28—Jew/Gentile, slave/free,
male/female—are rooted in the covenant of
circumcision, i.e., the Abrahamic covenant of Gen
17:9-14, which precisely makes such distinctions.
Martin argues that the verse does not proclaim an
absolute abolition of these distinctions but only
their irrelevance for entrance into the Christian
community: participation in baptism and full
membership in the new people hinge solely on faith in
Christ. The antithesis male/female particularly
attracts his attention. "In response to the Agitators’
insistence on the distinctions in the Covenant of
Circumcision, Paul simply denies that these
distinctions have any relevance for determining
candidates for Christian baptism and entry into the
Christian community. Whereas not everyone in the
Jewish community is circumcised, everyone in the
Christian community is baptized. Thus, baptism into
Christ provides for a unity that cannot be realized in
a circumcised community" (ibid., 124).
        Based on Martin’s analysis, I would offer the
following observations. (1) The focus of Gal 3:28 is
precisely on the constitution and, therefore, the
unity of the new covenant community. The point is not
to say that no distinctions whatsoever exist between
Jew/Gentile, slave/free, male/female throughout the
course of this age. It is, rather, that such
differences no longer have a bearing on the identity
and constituency of the latter-day people of God. This
is particularly so as regards male/female. Martin,
then, is quite right that the covenant of circumcision
distinguishes between men and women just along these
lines, whereas the new covenant does not. Martin
quotes Stephen Clark to this effect:

In this context, the phrase "neither male nor female"
takes on a special significance, because women could
not be circumcised. Circumcision was a sign of the
covenant of Israel and was only open to the male…. The
woman [according to Paul], then, comes into the
covenant relation of God’s people through her own
faith and baptism, and is fully part of the covenant
relationship with God…. The free circumcised male was
the only full Israelite. It is against this background
that we have to understand "neither male nor female"
(ibid., 118, n. 26, 119).

        (2) By way of qualification, Martin too quickly
dismisses any allusion to Gen 1:27: "male and female
he created them." It is true, as Martin says, that the
pair can stand on its own apart from the Genesis
creation account. However, given that much of this
letter is taken up, explicitly or implicitly, with the
theme of new creation, an echo of Gen 1:27 would be
much to Paul’s purpose. The point would be that in
Christ the ontological equality of man and woman,
which was widely doubted in the ancient world (not to
mention the modern), is restored in the new
creation/new covenant complex. Note especially in Gen
1:26-27 the interplay of singular and plural and male
and female in the depiction of the human being as the
image of God: "Then God said, ‘Let us make man
[singular] in our image, after our likeness; and let
them [plural] have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle,
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing
that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created man
[singular] in his own image, in the image of God he
created him [singular]; male and female he created
them" [plural] (RSV).
        (3) If the Abrahamic covenant is preeminently the
covenant of circumcision, then one is cautioned
against drawing facile parallels between it and the
new covenant. It is obviously true from Galatians that
the Abrahamic covenant is fulfilled and finds its
raison d’être in Christ. Nevertheless, since the very
distinctions—Jew/Gentile, slave/free,
male/female—repudiated by Paul as regards covenant
standing are grounded in the Abrahamic covenant, it
can never provide the paradigm for one’s inclusion in
the new covenant community. This datum has a direct
bearing on the issues of baptism and church
membership. Given that an element of diversity rather
than a simple equation characterizes Paul’s
delineation of the two covenants, it follows that
inclusion in the body of Christ hinges on individual
faith and not on a previous family relationship. All
who entered the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants did so
precisely by circumcision; yet it is circumcision that
Paul now declares to be irrelevant.


II. The Calendar

Witherington proposes that Paul’s parallel between
Torah observance and pagan idolatry finds its precise
point of correspondence in the emperor cult of the
first-century Greco-Roman world (Grace, 298-99). If
the Jewish calendar was replete with special
occasions, the Roman calendar was too: months, seasons
and years were allocated to special recognition and
celebration, all in the service of the worship of the
emperor. "Paul is drawing an analogy between going
back to observing the calendrical feasts and days of
the Emperor cult with going forward and accepting the
calendrical observances enunciated in the Mosaic
covenant. He wishes his converts to do neither, and so
he throws odium on what the audience is contemplating
doing by suggesting it would be similar to committing
apostasy, it would be similar to going back to Emperor
worship" (ibid., 298). That the imperial cult pervaded
every aspect of life in this period is demonstrated by
White, Apostle, chaps. 4, 5, 7; Horsley (ed.), Paul
and Empire; id., (ed.), Paul and Politics; W. Carter,
Matthew; Kraybill, Cult; Witulski, Adressaten, 128-75.
        On a related point, Witherington (following Barclay)
suggests that Judaism, with its fixed set of rituals,
sacrifices, temple, etc., would have appealed to
former pagans just because it filled the social void
left by their departure from their former religion,
with its own elaborate cultus (Grace, 361-62). By
assuming the status of proselytes, the Galatians could
hope "to identify themselves with the local synagogues
and thus hold at least a more understandable and
recognizable place in society" (Barclay, Obeying, 60).


Don
Toronto


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com