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  • From: nanosmd AT comcast.net
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Timothy/Titus and circumcision
  • Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 15:59:19 +0000

Dieter Mitternacht writes:
> In none of the three accounts reported in Gal 2 (circumcision of Titus,
> Jerusalem agreement, Antioch incident) does Paul inform his readers about
> the outcome? I think M. Nanos has argued that the reason for this "odd"
> silence lies in the fact that bragging about success would have been bad
> rhetoric in an evil eye culture (right Mark?). That is certainly one way of
> reading the silence.
> I think one needs to make up one's minds about what may have been the
> purpose for including ch 2 in the letter. To me it seems that Paul's main
> concern was to affirm his unwavering character, to convey that he would
> never compromise his Christ-obedience for whatever threatening
> circumstances. Thus he reports three incidents where he did not give in.
> Whether or not things went his way in the end is not really relevant for the
> point he is trying to make. And so he happens to leave the outcome out of
> his narrative.

Hey Dieter,
Kalimera! Actually, I agree with your explanation (for Antioch and the
overall letter's message). I think that this is the function of these
narrative units. Paul wants to convince his addressees that they must resist
the normative Jewish position (on the matter of proselyte conversion for full
membership standing), as have the (Jewish) leaders of this coalition of which
they (the Galatian non-Jewish addressees) are now members. Suffering for this
resistance is normal, to be expected, and not to lead to capitulation, for
God will eventually demonstrate that they are right to take this resistant
course. So even when someone like Peter hits a bump on the road that causes
him to momentarily detour from this course, Paul set him straight, just as he
is now setting straight the Galatian addressees in the situational units of
the letter. I think that is the overall message of the letter (to suffer for
resistance in the present age, to "out of faithfulness to the Spirit wait for
the hope of righteousness" [5:5, my translation]), on which matter we are in
agreement; right?

In a similar way, even when the leaders met in Jerusalem in what should have
been a coalition-only meeting (from Paul's perspective), and felt pressure
from representatives of the majority Jewish communal norms (not the
coalition's norms)--the so-called "spies," which I translate as "inspectors"
(possibly "informants"), they were resisted. The item symbolizing this matter
was Titus's identity, who was not a Jew and had not become a proselyte but
who was nevertheless present on equal terms with the Jewism members of this
coalition, which represented "the truth of the gospel," namely, the equality
of standing of Jew and non-Jew in this Jewish coalition (I do not know how to
reconcile this with Timothy references in Acts 16, and do not see that what
has bee offered in the prior posts works, at this point). These narrative
units about Paul's former experiences supports his position articulated in
those situational units about the Galatian addressees' present experiences.

So I think you are right about why the narrative units where presented as
part of Paul's rhetorical strategy. If the question was instead, why did Paul
not mention victory in Antioch over a fellow coalitionist (Peter and the rest
who followed his [mis]lead), then one reason I have suggested is that it may
be that it would not be appropriate in an evil-eye warning context (3:1) to
do so. The nature of his characterization as rebuking Peter to his face for
hypocrisy was sufficient to communicate his victory. By the way, Paul did
mention the victory of this coalition's leaders in Jer: "we did not give in
for a moment," where the issue is between this coalition and those not from
it (in my view, the "inspectors" are not Christ-believers). So in Jer. and on
the matter of Titus I do think that victory (conformity with Paul's view) was
articulated.

Geia sou,
Mark
--
Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
Rockhurst University
co-moderator
nanosmd AT comcast.net
http://home.comcast.net/~nanosmd





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