Irony of Galatians

Paul's Letter In First-Century Context

Mark D. Nanos

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780800632144
• eBook ISBN: 9781451413755
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Intra-Jewish conflict in Paul's communities After taking on traditional interpretations of Romans in (The Mystery of Romans, Nanos now turns his attention to the Letter to the Galatians. A Primary voice in reclaiming Paul in his Jewish context. Nanos challenges the previously dominant views of Paul as rejecting his Jewish heritage and the Law. Where Paul's rhetoric has been interpreted to be its most anti-Jewish, Nanos instead demonstrates the implications of an intra-Jewish reading. He explores the issues of purity, insiders/outsiders; the charactor of "the gospel"; the relationship between groups of Christ-followers in Jerusalem, Antioch, and Galatia; and evil-eye accusations.

2

IDENTIFYING THE PLAYERS AND EXIGENCIES

CHAPTER 5

THE IDENTITY OF THE ADDRESSEES

Paul addressed “the assemblies [ἐκκλησίαις] of Galatia” (1:2), marking his correspondence thus as a circular letter to at least one or more locations consisting of one or more groups of people (the addressees), who may be among one or more groups of people influencing them (the influencers), somewhere in the region of Galatia. Paul indicates from the formal greeting straight through to the closing blessing that these groups of addressees collect together because of a shared faith in Jesus Christ.^[1] Their group formation around this belief was the result of their relationship with Paul, who had apparently stopped in their region because of “a weakness of the flesh [ἀσθένειαν τῆς σαρκός],” and thus proclaimed the good news among them (1:6-9, 13; 4:8-20; 5:7-12; 6:11).^[2]

In what ways, if at all, these people had functioned together as groups before their common bond through Paul and the shared faith that resulted through his work among them—besides their apparent affiliation by way of shared location, such as the politics of patronage, and perhaps other cultural dynamics of kinship that might have applied—is not clear. It is common for interpreters to suggest that they were formerly “righteous Gentiles” (“God-fearers”) and thus would have had a Jewish group affiliation prior to Paul’s interaction with them.^[3] For example, V. Jegher-Bucher’s epistolary and rhetorical investigation of this letter led to the conclusion that the occasion and theme indicate it was essentially written to the righteous Gentiles—so-called God-fearers (σεβόμενοι)—that is, their identity was defined in Jewish terms.^[4]

The competence of reader/hearer presumed by the author of this letter implies familiarity with Jewish communal life and Scriptures among the addressees. What is not clear is whether the addressees’ implied competence or claim to identity as righteous ones, hence righteous or God-fearing Gentiles, was acquired prior to their interaction with Paul. Instead, might not the indications of this kind of identity among them at the time of Paul’s writing be accounted for precisely as a result of his influence upon themselves, so that now when he writes it is implied as a present aspect of their personal and group identity?

It is not clear how long Paul had remained among these groups or how long it has been since his departure, so we do not know how long the addressees would have had since their response to Paul’s message to have become familiar with Jewish thought and Scripture and life, to become righteous in lifestyle themselves. This possibility appears not to have been often considered, perhaps because most interpreters assume—on the basis of their prior view of Paul—that Paul’s Gentile converts were not encouraged to such behavior or identity, that is, in terms of Jewish communal life. Because Paul is taken to be involved in establishing communities and ideologies independent of and even contrary to Jewish communal identity and behavior, wherein such righteous Gentiles would emerge from former pagan identities, it is concluded that any such evidence of this identity and behavior is the result of choices made in their former lives, that is, prior to affiliation to Paul. But if it is assumed that Paul was still affiliated with and actively promoting a life of righteousness as defined within Jewish communal norms, as I do, then such a conclusion is not warranted. This is not the argument to be taken up herein; the present point is simply that the evidence for their status as pagans or righteous Gentiles prior to involvement with Paul, apart from arguable interpretive moves, is not clear.

In addition to their meeting together in several locations somewhere in the immense region of central Anatolia—whether in close proximity is uncertain—it is clear from the rhetoric of this letter that the implied, intended, or target recipients of this message are not circumcised (e.g., 2:2-5, 12; 3:1-5; 5:1-12; 6:12-13). This state indicates that it is not Jewish people in these groups to whom Paul is writing, although it appears from the context of his concerns that there are influential Jewish people either in these groups or at least in other groups with whom the addressees’ groups are intimately associated (e.g., 5:7-12; 6:12-13).

It is theoretically possible that the addressees are Jewish people who were not circumcised as children, although such a case for communities of people of this time is highly improbable historically, because it is unparalleled according to our sources of information.^[5] Moreover, and more importantly, the rhetoric implies throughout (e.g., 2:2-5, 7, 9, 12-15; 3:8, 14; 3:15—4:11, 21; 5:2-12; 6:12-15), and in at least one explicit comment indicates, a pagan background of identity for the recipients. Here, Paul ridicules the addressees as former pagans (4:8-9). And elsewhere he continually undermines any confidence they might have in their own desires to be “under the Law,” because they are presently still naïvely unaware of what such interest implies (4:21 to set up the allegory and lead to the points made in 5:1-12, especially vv. 2-5).

Yet even this need not imply that they were not affiliated with the Jewish communities of Galatia prior to Paul’s influence, or thereafter, but it at least indicates that their identity is vulnerable to characterization by birth into the world as non-Jewish people.^[6] Such characterization marked freedpersons in a similar way, inscribing forever the place in the world from which they had come, that is, as the world was seen through the eyes of those who were not and had not been slaves. This past identity could be exploited by others—or even inadvertently raised—after they had been freed, for example, to describe their social classification, which naturally put them in their place, after the transition to freedom had been completed, even if it had been completed in the life of their parents before their own birth.^[7] Former slavery is always implied in the mention of “freed”! Attesting to the importance of negotiating this problem are the many strategies that were employed to escape its grasp.^[8]

On the basis of Paul’s ridiculing comments, some interpreters have suggested that the addressees are backward. For example, Jerome took this accusation to mean literally that the addressees were stupid, and thus Gauls. This was on the basis of the comment of Hilary, the Rhone of Latin eloquence, himself a Gaul, that the Gauls were indociles. Yet Lightfoot observes that this misses the point, as the Galatian addressees were known to be “intellectually quick enough,” referring to a comment of their inquisitive nature for news in Caesar, Bello Gallico 4.5, so that Lightfoot takes the reference to be not to their obtuseness, but to their “fickleness and levity: the very versatility of their intellect was their snare.”^[9] Lightfoot’s first point is often noted: the letter does imply a certain level of learning, or at least, unlike Hilary, the capacity to learn, although interpreters are not always clear just how their education is to be accounted for, especially by those who regard them as rural or Celts, to whom they do not attribute much education or opportunity for learning.^[10] Against Jerome’s view, it is cruel and sarcastic to call someone who is actually a fool a fool, and it is not the rhetorical nature of Paul’s ironic rebuke here, which is to surprise. As the discussion of this kind of parental ridicule employed by Paul has shown and will further show, in addition to the discussion of the exigence, Lightfoot’s solution does not work. It is not fickleness or levity that is attacked in Paul’s rhetoric but rather foolishness, the failure to appropriately judge their present situations and the danger inherent in their consideration of adopting for themselves the other influential message of good.

More important to consider is the fact that a few interpreters have argued that at least some of the addressees have already been circumcised.^[11] But this is not the case for those to whom Paul writes, at least at the time that the news to which he now responds was generated. It could be the case that some others among them have indeed already completed circumcision or that others to whom he intended to speak by way of this letter have done so in the interim. But they are then no longer his rhetorical addressees, or differently put, the implied, intended, or target audience.^[12] For the Gentiles now addressed by Paul had not already become Jewish proselytes; note, for example, among other indicators that we will discuss, the present aspect of 6:12-13 and the cognitive present of 4:9.^[13]

Paul’s argument is directed throughout to Gentiles who have become “known by God” in view of the faith of/in Christ (4:8-9), but who remain, somehow, unsure of their place apart from conformity with the traditional communal norms for attaining the identity of righteousness by becoming proselytes (3:1—4:9; 4:21; 5:1-12; 6:12-13). He seeks in this letter to persuade them not to follow through on what they have begun to internalize as “good” for themselves (1:6-9; 3:1-5; 5:7-12). To do so would consist of allowing obstruction of the course set by the gospel of Christ that they had successfully begun to run (5:7).

His rhetorical expression of certainty that they will return to that course as a result of this letter (5:10), regardless of how certain he may actually be, indicates that Paul believes he is dealing with those who have not yet taken the step in view (1:6-9; 3:1-5; 5:2-6). In the narrative discourses, even Paul’s usage of first-person plural pronouns often seems to maintain the distinction between the Gentile addressees and Jewish people,^[14] which is what Gentile proselytes become. For there is to our knowledge no such thing, at least in the context of Jewish communal life, as circumcised Gentiles; when circumcised at the completion of the ritual process of conversion they are no longer Gentiles. So we should speak not of circumcised or proselyte Gentiles but only circumcised or proselyte Jews,^[15] and to proselytes Paul’s letter is not addressed.

Paul’s rhetoric implies, however, that the addressees now want to acquire Jewish status (by circumcision) to ensure their social position among the people of God as righteous ones (as children of Abraham and Sarah).^[16] Moreover, this is explicitly indicated in the Socratic interrogation of 4:21: “Tell me, you who desire [θέλοντες] to be under law ”^[17] Paul is turning what they actually desire on its head by way of irony, for it is rather gaining undisputed acceptance that they want, and thus their interest he undermines as “desire” to become what they feel “constrained” to become in order to escape the present results of nonconformity. However, this comment is seemingly mitigated by the prior statement made in the ironic rebuke of 4:9, where Paul addresses their “desire [θέλετε]” to become slaves of the elements (stoicei`a) once again by returning to idolatry (4:8-10). That comment seems to be more directly ridiculing their desire to return to some pagan practices rather than to beginning the process of proselyte conversion. It is likely that the addressees do not wish either to behave like pagans or to become proselytes per se, but rather they “desire” to escape the constraints concomitant with their ambiguous nonproselyte status, which they believe can be gained by way of seeking proselyte identity, and thus, in the meantime, they have accepted such constraints as appropriate to their as yet ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Prologue
• The Methodological Basis for Interpreting This Letter
• Identifying the Players and Exigencies
• A New Construction of the Galatian Contexts
• Conclusion: The Irony of Galatians
• Appendix: Some Problems with Rhetorical Classification of Galatians
• Bibliography
• Index of Ancient Sources
• Index of Selected Subjects
• Index of Modern Authors