Paul and the Stories of Israel

Grand Thematic Narratives in Galatians

drew Andrew Das, A. Andrew Das

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781451490091
• eBook ISBN:
  9781506413785
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Much recent scholarship on Paul has searched for implicit narratives behind Paul's scriptural allusions, especially in the wake of Richard B. Hays's groundbreaking work on the apostle's appropriation of Scripture. A. Andrew Das reviews six proposals for "grand thematic narratives" behind the logic of Galatians—potentially, six explanations for the fabric of Paul's theology: the covenant (N. T. Wright); the influx of nations to Zion (Terence Donaldson); Isaac's near sacrifice (Scott Hahn, Alan Segal); the Spirit as cloud in the wilderness (William Wilder); the Exodus (James Scott, Sylvia Keesmaat); and the imperial cult (Bruce Winter et al.). Das weighs each of these proposals exegetically and finds them wanting—more examples of what Samuel Sandmel famously labeled "parallelomania" than of sound exegetical method. He turns at last to reflect on the risks of (admittedly alluring) totalizing methods and lifts up a seventh proposal with greater claim to evidence in the text of Galatians: Paul's allusions to Isaiah's servant passages.

5

Exodus Allusions in Galatians 4:1-7

In Gal. 4:1-2 Paul describes a minor under guardians and managers until he reaches the age set by the father to become lord of all.^[1] The apostle then turns in 4:3-7 to the Galatians, who are enslaved under the elements of the cosmos until the fullness of time when God sent the Son to provide redemption and adoption as sons. Scholars have long debated the precise historical and cultural background that Paul assumes in Gal. 4:1-7, especially whether Paul is indebted to Hellenistic or Roman legal standards in his description of the heir. In 1992 James M. Scott proposed an alternative to the well-worn impasse in his Adoption as Sons of God.^[2] He denied reference to legal theory altogether in favor of a series of allusions to the Jewish Exodus. Since the publication of Scott’s book, a multitude of authors over the years have recited his argumentation as a key plank in their own cases.^[3] Despite the enthusiasm, already from the time of Scott’s first reviewers, critical aspects of his Exodus typology were being called into question.

The Exodus narrative is unquestionably central to the Hebrew Bible, woven into Israel’s confessions of faith (e.g., Exod. 15:1-21; Deut. 26:5-10) and liturgy (e.g., Psalm 66). To scratch rather superficially the surface of prophetic literature, Hos. 12:9 draws on the Exodus as an image not only of redemption but also of punishment. In Isa. 11:15-16 the prophet envisions a highway for Israel’s remnant in Assyria to return much like the highway from Egypt. Micah (7:11-17) prophesies wonders anew just like in the days of the Exodus. Jeremiah in 16:14-15 relays the promise of a new Exodus from a land of captivity even greater than the escape from Egypt. Almost every layer within the Hebrew Bible draws on the Exodus narrative, and reflection on the narrative continues throughout the Second Temple period. In view of the ubiquity of the Exodus motif in the Scriptures, a Jewish background to Gal. 4:1-7 bears implicit credibility in the eyes of many interpreters.

Allusions to the Exodus in Gal. 4:1-7

Scott relied on six key arguments to demonstrate that Gal. 4:1-7 is drawing metaphorically on Israel’s period of slavery in Egypt. Sylvia Keesmat considered Scott’s six “facts” absolutely “crucial” to a proper understanding of Gal. 4:1-7.^[4]

1. Despite frequent scholarly denials, the Jews in Paul’s day did in some places practice guardianship. Three Palestinian papyri from the Cave of Letters at Nahal Hever (125–132 ce) describe a woman named Babatha’s appointment of guardians for her son after her death, and the papyri even employ the Aramaic loanword for the Greek ἐπίτροπος, guardian. In fact, from two centuries before Paul in Sir. 4:10: “Be as a father unto the fatherless, and instead of a husband unto their mother” (trans. L. C. L. Brenton). Galatians 4:2’s guardianship was not, then, a custom unknown to the Jews or evidence for a Greek or Roman legal background.

2. The Greek article with Gal. 4:1’s heir (ὁ κληρονόμος) may be anaphoric, in which case the noun would be referring collectively to the Abrahamic heir identified by the plural form of the same noun in 3:29.^[5] Paul has not left behind the story of Israel.

3. Scott pointed out that the word minor (νήπιος, Gal. 4:1) is never used elsewhere in Pauline literature for a legal minor but rather in an ethical or spiritual sense for those needing further instruction or development (Rom. 2:20; 1 Cor. 3:1; 13:11; Eph. 4:14). The technical term for a legal minor in Greco-Roman literature is ἀφῆλιξ, not νήπιος.^[6] Israel, on the other hand, was collectively labeled a minor (νήπιος, singular) in Hos. 11:1 in connection with the Exodus (see Exod. 4:22; Deut. 1:31; 14:1; Isa. 63:16; Wis. 18:13; m. ’Abot 3:15 [citing Deut. 14:1])—with the same term that Paul uses in Gal. 4:1. That Paul could be appealing to Hos. 11:1 is rendered plausible by his use of the prophet elsewhere in his writings (e.g., a possible allusion to Hos. 11:1 in Rom. 9:4, followed by an explicit citation of Hos. 2:1, 25 in Rom. 9:25-26).

4. In response to those who advocate a Greco-Roman legal background, Scott objected that a minor could hardly be described in unqualified terms as “lord/master of all” (κύριος πάντων, Gal. 4:1).^[7] As beneficiaries of the Abrahamic promises to inherit all the earth (e.g., Gen. 28:14; Jub. 22.11b, 13-14; 32.19; Sir. 44:19-23; cf. Gen. 12:7; 13:15-17; 15:7, 18-21; 17:8; Rom. 4:13), God’s historic people would indeed be “lord/master of all.”

5. The addition of managers (οἰκονόμοι) to guardians (ἐπίτροποι) in Gal. 4:2, for Scott, poses a serious problem for a Greco-Roman legal analogy. Those who advocate understanding 4:1-7 in view of Greco-Roman legal theory have considered the two terms either similar or synonymous in meaning. Scott faulted the proponents of Greco-Roman legal theory for a failure to locate any other use of the two terms together in a context of guardianship. One inscription (OGIS 669.22 [CIG 3.4957.22]) uses the two terms together for lower-level state officials.^[8] Scott located two additional instances of the terms used together (Aristotle, Pol. 5.9.20 [1315b.1-2]; cf. Aristotle, Pol. 5.9.11 [1314b.8]; Vettius Valens, Anthologiarum libri 9.73.7), which likewise refer to subordinate state officials.^[9] He questioned why Paul would be referring in Gal. 4:2 to government officials enslaving the “lord of all” (4:1). Also, the plurality of both guardians (οἰκονόμοι) and managers (ἐπίτροποι) would be unusual from a Hellenistic or Roman legal standpoint since normally a single guardian or trustee would be appointed.

6. The Greek word προθεσμία (set time; Gal. 4:2) is never used in ancient literature as a technical term for the father’s appointed date for terminating legal guardianship. The word is used for a “set date” or a “predetermined time limit” but never with specific reference to guardianship. Scott observed that the nearest antecedent for Gal. 4:2’s time limit is 3:17 with its reference to four hundred thirty years between Abraham and the Sinaitic Law, the time of Israel’s bondage in Egypt (Gen. 15:13; Exod. 12:40; cf. Acts 7:6-7, 17).^[10] Scott therefore proposed that the father in Gal. 4:1-2 is God who foreordained in Abraham’s day to redeem Israel at the appropriate time from Egyptian bondage (under oppressive subordinate state officials!).^[11]

In summary, Scott contended that Gal. 4:1-2’s heir (ὁ κληρονόμος) must be the collective people of God who, in their period of immaturity as minors (νήπιοι, 4:3), were slaves under the oppressive taskmasters of Egypt (ἐπίτροποι καὶ οἰκονόμοι, “guardians and managers,” 4:2). Israel’s bondage came to an end at “the appointed time of the Father” (ἡ προθεσμία τοῦ πατρός, 4:2; four hundred thirty years later; cf. Hos. 11:1). Although Israel’s slavery in Egypt is in the past, Scott explained that Paul employs the present tense in 4:1 because Scripture remains relevant for its hearers (“the Scripture speaks,” λέγει ἡ γραφή, in, e.g., Rom. 10:11; 11:2; Gal. 4:30). With Gal. 4:3-7 Paul applies the type, Israel’s story in 4:1-2, to the current antitype: a second exodus that is now taking place at the appointed time with “the adoption” (ἡ υἱοθεσία, 4:5; note the article) and deliverance (ἐξαγοράζω, 4:5) of God’s people in Christ from under the harsh taskmasters, “the elements of the world” (Gal. 4:3).^[12] In Rom. 9:4 Paul lists the “adoption as sons” (υἱοθεσία) as the prerogative of ethnic Israel. In Scott’s scheme Israel remained in bondage under the Law until the coming of Christ in “the fullness of time” (Gal. 4:4; cf. 3:19, 23, 25)...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Preface
• An Introduction to the Grand Thematic Narrative
• The Gentile Influx into Zion
• Rethinking the Covenantal Paul
• The Obedient Abraham and Isaac in the Aqedah
• Exodus Allusions in Galatians 4:1-7
• The Spirit as Exodus Cloud
• A Narrative of the Imperial Cult in Asia Minor
• Lessons Learned and the Path Forward
• Bibliography
• Index of Authors
• Index of Ancient Sources