Corpus-Paul

[Mark Goodacre <goodacre AT gmail.com>]

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 10:38:47 -0500, George F Somsel <gfsomsel AT juno.com> wrote:

> While technically you are correct that it does state that he was not
> compelled to be circumcised, I think that the clear implication was that
> he was in fact not circumcised.  Otherwise it would seem strange that it
> would be stated that he was not compelled to be circumcised but left
> unstated that he had actually been circumcised.  I think you are picking
> nits here.

I think the difficulty with this is that we are dealing with a letter
written to a group of people known to the letter-writer, and there
will be shared knowledge and understandings between the letter writer
and the recipients.  Under such circumstances it is difficult to
determine whether "the clear implication" is that "he was in fact not
circumcised".  If the recipients knew that Titus was circumcised, this
is shared knowledge between Paul and the Galatians, and the verse
reads rather differently from the way it might be read by one who does
not have the shared knowledge of Paul and the Galatians.  On this
reading, Paul deals with the tricky situation by insisting that Titus
was not *compelled* to be circumcised (2.3), the implicit contrast
being to the compulsion to Judaize applied by Peter in Antioch (2.14)
and the compulsion to circumcise applied by the influencers in Galatia
(6.12).

Mark
-- 
Dr Mark Goodacre                 mailto:M.S.Goodacre AT bham.ac.uk
  Dept of Theology and Religion          
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