Corpus-Paul

[iscott2 AT uwo.ca]

Rick,

Thanks for your questions. I hope some of them are covered by my response to
Jeff. A couple of points weren't so I'll deal with them here:

> why must it follow that 6:12 implies that the influencers were
> Christ believers. Doesn't this ignore 6:13 where Paul asserts that those
> who are making the trouble are "circumcised?"  Doesn't Paul normally
> refer to "those who are circumcised" to indicate non-Jesus believing
> Jews?

Actually, the label "one who is circumcized" (passive participle of peritemnw)
is not reserved in Paul for non-Christ-believers. See 1 Cor 7:18. In fact, the
verb only seems to appear in Paul here in Galatians, in the one passage from 1
Cor, and in Col 2:11 where the verb describes the metaphorical circumcision of
the believer. All of the other occurrences in Galatians simply describe the 
act
of being circumcized and do not clarify how Paul would use the passive
participle. So it seems to me that we don't have anything like an established
pattern of usage in Paul's extant writings. If we look at Paul's use of the
noun peritomh it suggests that, in fact, Paul associates circumcision language
with ethnic Jews (whether believers in Christ or not) and not with
non-Christ-believing Jews. In Rom 3:30 God makes "the circumcision" righteous
on the basis of faith (in Christ). See also Rom 4:12; Col 3:11; 4:11; and
(metaphorically) Phil 3:3. Galatians 2:7-9 is revealing on this point, since
Peter is said to have the Apostleship "of the circumcision." Here it is not at
all clear that Peter is simply given a mission to non-believing Jews. Rather,
it seems that Peter is given Apostolic responsibility for "the circumcision,"
the observant Jewish community -- which must include Christ-believing Jews 
such
as Peter himself. The result of this quick survey is that when Paul calls the
influencers in Galatia "the circumcized" this tells us nothing, in and of
itself, about whether they are Christ-believers as well. It simply tells us
that they are observant Jews.

> But don't you think Nanos' argument with
> regard 5:3 bears any weight at all?  He suggests that Paul's argument in
> 5:3 would have no teeth if he himself were not still Torah observant.
> Wouldn't you agree that if Paul were not fully Torah observant that the
> readers would simply appeal to Paul's own life as why they too should be
> able to be circumcised (and receive the benefits thereby) and still not
> be fully Torah observant?

There are three things to say here:
1) Paul's statement in 5:3 is still understandable if Paul is not fully
Torah-observant. We must remember the polemical setting here. Paul is not
saying that simply having been circumcized in the past obliges one to observe
the whole law. He is saying that *having oneself* circumcized in an attempt to
secure full status as a member of God's people, this act is meaningless unless
one also takes on the whole commitment to observe Torah.
2) The following statements clearly imply that for Paul being "obliged to obey
the whole law" is not something which is compatible with salvation in Christ.
His whole point here is that if they get themselves circumcized, and take on
Torah-observance, then they will have "cut themselves off from Christ" (5:4).
3) That Paul did not understand himself as "obliged to keep the whole law" is
clear from his treatment of the Antioch conflict in chapter 2. Living ethnikws
would surely (for Peter as well as Paul) constitute a violation of such an
obligation. Yet Paul seems to encourage such "gentile-like" living for Peter.

Cheers,

Ian.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ian W. Scott
Lecturer in Religious Studies
King's University College (at the University of Western Ontario)
email: iscott2 AT uwo.ca
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Please visit my web-site at http://www.ian-w-scott.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------