PhilosopherJay

Hi Earl and Others,

I was thinking about the reference of Novatian to Galatians 4:4., which I quoted as one of eight possible references to the passage before the Fourth century:

I am not certain that "under the law" is a reference to the phrase "born/made under the law" in Galatians 4:4. Novatian is paralleling Christ as man and Christ as God. The passage that this is from lists ten qualities of Jesus that he possesses as man and parallels them with ten qualities of Jesus as a god.

Here is the fuller excerpt from chapter 11 of Novatian's "On the Trintity": (from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.vi.iii.xii.html)

Novatian here finds ten parallels between Christ as man and Christ as God. It is evident that he is paralleling Christ being a man "under the law" to Christ being "Lord of the Sabbath" (over the law).

The fact that he doesn't quote either of the two expressions; neither "made/born of a woman," (he writes, "made as man"), nor "made/born under the law," (he writes, simply "under the law") is significant. He is just saying that Christ was under the law as a man and over the law as a God.

Rather than seeing this as an imprecise quote from Galatians, one may see it as a transitional and accidental bringing together of the two phrases. Whoever interpolated "made under the law" into Galatians, more likely read Novatian's "Trinity" and got the idea of putting "born under the law" in "Galatians" after reading this passage. Conversely, it could have worked its way into the text from a marginal reference to Novatian's usage of the term in this treatise.

Of the eight reference, I noted, if we eliminate this case, then we can say that nobody before 250 C.E. references the phrase "made/born under the law", which provides even a stronger case for the phrase not being in Galatians before this point in time. The phrase "made/born of a woman" does exist earlier, but, as for reasons previously noted, was also likely an interpolation.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

EarlDoherty

It is? I've admitted that traditional scholarship does not support me in a great range of interpretation of the texts. Why should this particular one be unusual?

And what is this "vast literature of koine"? Outside the NT, that is.

No it doesn't. And I'll have more to say on the matter in a few days.

I also note that you have still failed to take my arguments and translations apart--on the basis of your own scholarship rather than naive trust in standard lexicons, etc.--and demonstrate that the meanings I have drawn from the few verses under discussion have to be erroneous. Appeal to authority, anyone?

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

What can I say? The temptation was just too great.

Anyway, I continue to doubt that the "gospel" referred to by Paul in the first chapter of Galatians is simply confined to freeing gentiles from the need for circumcision, or from obeying other requirements of the Law. His language seems much too sweeping for that. If that's all it was, he could have been more specific. And consider what follows:

"The gospel you heard me preach is no human invention. It did not take it over from any man; no man taught it me; I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ." (1:11-12)

Is Paul going to make this blanket statement simply in reference to whether converts should be circumcised, with no clarification about far more important elements of his gospel? Was the gospel "you heard me preach" simply one of freedom from the Law? The latter was only one part of that gospel. This, of course, is why we got onto this subject in the first place, the evident contradiction between Gal. 1:11-12 and 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, and you and Ted, I think it was, tried to reduce the Galatians 'gospel' to the issue of adherence to the Law. That's the bottom line I can't accept. Paul is defending his derivation of what he preaches--and all of what he preaches--from his own personal revelation. He would never admit to carrying someone else's hat.

There is also the question of why Paul would have had to defend himself against an accusation that he got his idea of freedom from the Law and circumcision from someone else. That was obviously his baby. Who else would have been going about preaching this? Obviously not his rivals in Galatia. (Of course, there's also the matter of why the question would not have come up as to how Jesus thought about the matter, or how certain elements of his preaching could not have been appealed to one way or the other.)

Anyway, you have a point on the matter of Galatian men submitting to circumcision, which I may not have given sufficient weight to. (Adult circumcision wouldn't turn me on, but others have submitted to far worse, I guess, for the sake of imagined salvation.)

Earl Doherty

Ben C Smith

I believe I myself punted (for now) when pressed on the content(s) of the Pauline gospel. I certainly did not commit to any particular meaning as you would have it above. Ted may have; I do not know.

Ben.