hjalti

Yes, "in Ephesus" is missing in some of our oldest manuscripts and weren't in the text of some early Christian writers.

sotto voce

Which means that it is not missing in others.

Who is 'us'? The church does not care who wrote it, or to whom it was written. What nobody should suppose is that it was addressed to the whole population of Ephesus, or of anywhere else.

Solo

So is everything else Paul wrote. Galatians is remarkable only in the highly agonistic, implacable tone that Paul deploys throughout.

Best,
Jiri

Duvduv

Assuming, of course, that he wrote "all" or any, which I don't assume.
I am also asking whether "Paulus" simply meant an anonymous pen name of "the Small One."

sotto voce

The church does not care who wrote it.

Solo

I meant the seven letters generally recognized to be genuine. Whether or not the name Paulos was adopted, there appear to be clusters of ideas with unusual but sustained pattern of thought and mode of expression (later emulated by copycats) which I believe most psychologists would consider a unique signature.

Among those, Paul's paranoia ranks the highest. Irrespective of how theology interprets Paul, someone who seriously believes himself to be commissioned by abstract God, set aside at (or prior to) birth for a specific task outside of accepted social norms and one's own social standing, would be suspect, in any human society. If Paul's shares 'intimacy' in this regard (i.e. claiming that God was 'pleased' to reveal his Son in him (Gal 1:15) in his quest to claim he ws above the law), he would be perceived as paranoid by most people. As E.R. Dodds (The Greeks and the Irrantional) put it, among the commonest symptoms of delusional insanity to-day is the patient’s belief that he is in contact with, or even identified with, supernatural being or forces, and we may presume it was not otherwise in antiquity. Even though there was a certain latitude to prophetic madness in antiquity, there would have been a limit and Paul would have been past it, no doubt. When Paul says in Gal 4:14, "you did not loathe or despise me" he is saying in effect that this was the norm elsewhere. Most likely support for his apostolic status and his novel theory would have come from people similarly mentally afflicted, and their support networks.


Best,
Jiri

sotto voce

'As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself.' Gal 4:13-14 NIV

(Galatia was a good place for convalescence.)

Duvduv

Hi, Jiri. Yes, I know that that was is generally meant, although some consider only 5 to be "genuine" or "original." It might be that there was a team of writers well into the 2nd and even third century, separate by distance or ideology from the gospelist sect(s), but I think it's only the Churches who care about the importance of this one writer.
In any event, the distinctive idea of the indwelling of the Christ is what unites most of these epistles. But the elements in Galatians are very absolutist and exclusivist as to the writer's position vis a vis God and the Christ. That's what makes me think he is not the same writer as the writer of most of the epistles where this exclusivist belief is not expressed this way at all.

Duvduv

I checked the verse, and there are some different ways of translating the Greek word, i.e. as "temptation." Apparently being accepted as if he were the celestial Christ or angel....i.e. the higher beings....

Anyway, note also Galatians 1:8. NO OTHER revelation of the Christ had any validity whatsoever, whether of man or from heaven itself! This is not found so unequivocally anywhere else.

Solo

It appears that Paul introduced the good news at Corinth in much the same way - through self-interpreted psychosis:

1 Cr 2:1-5 When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

The most interesting thing for me is that Paul not only did not try to hide his psychosis; he considered it an authentic manifestation of God's agency; a proof of sorts that he and his acolytes were truly sent:

2 Cr 5:13 For if we are beside ourselves(εξεστημεν=out of one's mind, insane), it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.

Best,
Jiri