tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post116337106781283650..comments2024-03-21T14:59:20.729-04:00Comments on NT Blog: Were the Galatians already circumcised? IVMark Goodacrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05115370166754797529noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-1163477291705574882006-11-13T23:08:00.000-05:002006-11-13T23:08:00.000-05:00Mark,Thanks for the kind words about my interactio...Mark,<BR/>Thanks for the kind words about my interaction; I am quite pleased to see your interest in Galatians and valuable discussions. Let me try to sort out a response.<BR/><BR/>First, you may have overlooked that I also responded to your second Gal post on some issues that arise with your argument from thaumazw in 1:6.<BR/><BR/>Second, your write: "I am arguing that what Paul insists makes best sense on the assumption that they have already done something drastic, not that they are only thinking about it." OK. I think I can state the problem simply. I don't disagree that they have done something drastic; otherwise Paul would not have written just this kind of ironic rebuke letter, as I have argued myself. What I disagree about is that you pose in this sentence and following ones, as you did in the post to which I responded, something that is just not so as far as I can see. You are bifurcating thinking and doing in a way that is not sociologically correct. Let me put it this way. When someone repents, is that thinking or doing? When they "turn" is hard to nail down, but it involves the action of thinking before the actions that follow from choosing that course of thinking and acting. It is nevertheless doing something at the point that it is primarily measured in a change of mind, of thinking that what they had done was wrong and they need to turn toward doing something else. Do you see what I am trying to get at here? When your kids bring up tattoos and you explain why they can't have one, for whatever reason you offer, that is one thing. When you find that they are making plans to get one, that is "doing" something, even if not having gotten a tattoo, that you will need to engage differently than the calm hypothetical discussion of tattoos originally undertaken. Now you have to rattle their self- and peer-group-confidence in following that course, perhaps with a tattoo where the sun doesn't shine, so you won't know about it. That is a perfect time for ironic rebuke. I don't see how what you have presented demonstrates that they are at the point of having gotten circ. (tattooed) or merely have begun to think about doing it, the action of being seduced to believe that is the better course to take.<BR/><BR/>You have made a good case--which, by the way, I agree with and have argued too--that Paul is responding in this letter to the perception that the Galatians he addresses have changed course to some degree that he wants to prevent them (or others) from going down any further. But that can be the point of entertaining the course of proselyte conversion, of circ. for males as signifying the completion of that course. As far as I can tell, that is the point you have made well. <BR/><BR/>Third, I have not responded to your arguments about "compulsion," but I do not think you have made the point that they have been circ. there either; only that they are finding the position of the influencers compelling. That is a change from when Paul was among them and taught them the gospel. I believe that applies to the Antioch Incident too. He is not saying those Gentiles have become proselytes/circumcised, but that they now can logically see that is what is required to be treated as equals, against the early teaching of the gospel by Paul and Peter that they were equal while remaining non-Jews (hence, the argument of vv. 15ff).<BR/><BR/>Fourth, yes, Paul is accussing them of a past action of being disturbed by the envious glance of the influencers (whether true or not). That means they have been troubled, not that they have been circ. Part of my problem with your use of this passage is that if they are circ. there is nothing to envy! But if they are claiming equal rights with proselytes without becoming proselytes too, then there is something to envy (begrudge) on the johnnie-come-lately terms that often provokes an evil eye.<BR/><BR/>Fifth, I offered a discussion of 5:7-10 to help you think about that difference. You are right to pick apart the exact language I paraphrased in those verses, and if time and interest I would respond to that more carefully. Let me just react to what you write in response. You write: "Contemplation is not what Paul is discussing in Galatians; he sees the act as currently taking place." <BR/><BR/>Again, I do not disagree to the degree that you recognize that a change of thinking, of entertaining a change of course, is an action currently taking place. But if you agree to that, which you can find substantiated in ritual studies, e.g., then you will perhaps grant that what you are proving is so far not that any of the audience has been circumcised, but they are in the act of wanting to adopt that course of action because it is good ("you who want to be under Torah..." in 4:21, i.e, want to become proselyes), promising news for how to escape the jam they are in by way of believing Paul's gospel by joining it with proselyte conversion. I do not see any convincing evidence that they have already completed a course of action; then not ironic rebuke but rejection would be the kind of letter to expect from Paul, I think. And there is little reason to suppose that they will come to agree with Paul that they must not be circ., since they already have been, an your argument.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your work, and I look forward to your paper at the SBL.<BR/><BR/>See you in DC,<BR/>Mark D. NanosAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com