Rick Sumner

I assume the distinction is that the Gentiles are who he is directly speaking to, but the actual audience may have included Jews as well. In which case, I agree with that. But I get the same sense in Romans. . .it seems to be implied that he's telling Gentiles the advantage of the circumcision, not Israelites.

I couldn't agree more. Though, I'd agree with you that I doubt Paul aimed for them. They just happened to be most sympathetic at the synagogue. His audience being "God-fearers" also makes the most sense of his letters. It explains how a Gentile contingent in his audience could understand a word he was saying. His "tortured exegesis" would probably fall on deaf ears if they weren't sympathetic to the Tanakh before he got there. But if no Jews came for the ride, it's difficult to see where the problem starts.

I suspect much of Galatians 3 in particular has a Jewish contingent in mind. In particular 3.26 speaks to an inclusiveness ("you are all") that doesn't make as much sense if there's no dispute over the matter. I think we need to imagine some of Paul's audience suggesting that we are not all children of God, and the people making that claim are as much a part of Paul's target audience as the people likely to be persuaded by such a claim.

I agree. I also think we need to be careful about assuming that because someone is ancient they were savage.

How many of those cults get adult converts willing to engage in that same mutilation? It's one thing to be indoctrinated into it from birth, to consider it your entire way of life. It's something else entirely to be persuaded, in maturity, to engage in it.

Y'know, I went to not one, but two schools named after St. Francis of Assisi. I'd venture that almost every major city in North America has at least one school, and at least one church, named after him. He stood out, because his behavior was exceptional, by any standard of any time. I don't know that we can hold him up as an exemplar, he was an exception.

I'm not sure that that's comparable to what we're seeing in Galatia. This is a group that, Paul at least thought, was quite realistically about to, or had already, engaged in adult circumcision en masse. I think that calls for some sort of explanation that takes a bit more than "Hey, God won't love you unless. . ." I don't think it can be explained without some sort of indoctrination that gradually wore down their resistance to it.

I might be emphasizing it more than I think it should be, really. Just trying to see how well the argument can fit.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Ben C Smith

I agree with you (and with Stowers!) on Romans, too. But, again, these gentiles had not crossed him yet. There was no need to get one-sided.

Maybe, but look at verse 29: If you are of Christ then you are also of Abraham. Would this make sense directed at someone who had been a son of Abraham since birth?

I agree, but I think the you are all may be intended to temporarily broaden the inscribed audience in this case, anticipating verse 29. When the you is not broadened in this way I think it is aimed at gentiles.

I do not regard all self-mutilation as savage. I am thinking of pierced ears, noses, belly buttons, private parts....

Not many, I warrant. But my argument does not depend on there being many.

I do not think there were many proselytes to Judaism, either; but there most assuredly were some. If we had no evidence of proselytes, you would have a point, but their very existence tells us that at least some adult gentiles were willing to go the whole way in. That is what I think we are seeing in Galatia; messianic Jews or messianic proselytes (or both) are trying to get messianic God-fearers to go all the way.

I do not know how I would explain Jewish proselytism otherwise. They obviously thought that the Hebrew circumcision codes were meant to be followed, even by gentiles. What reason is there in this era for circumcision other than God commanded it?

I agree; that is why I brought up the God-fearers and the proselytes.

Ben.