Corpus-Paul

["John Brand" <jbrand AT gvsd.mb.ca>]

Thank-you for your response, Dieter. And the very helpful article 
(Recipient-Oriented Assessment). From my limited exposure to Biblical 
Scholarship, let me just say that this is the most helpful approach 
that I have come across for getting beyond the applications of the 
message of Galatians to the actual first communication situation.

Just one comment in follow-up. Dieter wrote: 
 I am not denying of course that *whovever* proclaimed a
> crucified Christ as the son of God was challenging imperial powers.
> But as long as the confession did not conflict with citizenship
> obligations, civil authorities, relatives, business partners, etc.,
> may not have cared that much.
> 
> IMO this articulates why Gentiles wanted to get circumcised in
> Galatia, as I wrote in the mentioned article (Recipient-Oriented
> Assessment, 433): "... neither Paul nor the addressees seem to have
> been concerned with the question that became so prominent among
> interpreters: "How can I find peace with God?" Instead, the addressees
> were asking themselves: "How can we find peace in this world?",
> assured that peace with God was given them by grace...."

John adds:
I am not sure that this is exactly what is going on in the mind of 
the Gentiles to whom Paul wrote, however. Let me just site an 
observation of his own society made by Plato in the 5th Century BCE 
which seems continually to be relevant:

"Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower 
which may be a fortress to me all my days? For what men say is that, 
if I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is 
none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakable. But 
if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly 
life is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance 
tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must 
devote myself." 

"Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, 
neither can they be compelled  ... mendicant prophets go to rich 
men's doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to 
them by the gods of making an atonement for a man's own or his 
ancestor's sins by sacrifices or charms" (Republic.II)

Thus, from this ancient perspective men fear what awaits them in the 
afterlife but they have a proclivity to do whatever best suits their 
interest. The path most often chose is to sooth the gods through 
sacrifice and find a mean between the what is harmful and what is 
best: The mean of expediency. Thus, in a world that has no god (or 
has the gods taken care of through sacrifice) justice is expediency.

I do not believe that this is the message that Paul preached at 
Galatia, however. Paul sought to lift his fellow Jews and the 
Gentiles to a higher plane. In Plato's argument justice as the 
interest of the stronger is the result of removing universals from 
the equation. If universals are left in, justice becomes the measure 
of a man and of the state. Thus, sacrifice cannot satiate the gods or 
the creator of the gods, in his argument. Justice is a golden cord 
among the passions that must be grasped and held onto regardless of 
the suffering that ensues.

I think that at least this is true: If God is out of the equation, 
then it is up to whoever has the biggest army to rule for his hour. 
But if God or some immanent force is left in the equation, Paul's 
escape from the evil of the age in which one lives can only come 
about through graciously giving oneself to oppression out of the 
interests of a better future. 

FWIW

John Brand

B.A. (Providence College, 1980)
M.Min. (Providence Seminary, 1990)