"Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open." Ludwig Wittgenstein

Friday, June 10, 2011

RESPONSE NUMBER FORTY-THREE To Galatians Re-imagined: Reading with the Eyes of the Vanquished (Fortress 2010) by Brigitte Kahl

Professor Kahl's brief Conclusion (pp. 287-89) summarizes what Kahl asserts has been demonstrated in this investigation.


Kahl believes (p. 287) that she has shown that "the entire letter is a 'coded' theological manifesto of the nations of the world pledging allegiance to the one God who is other than Caesar . . ."


Is this description of the intent of the writer of the Galatians letter meant by Kahl to be taken ironically?


A manifesto is a public announcement of principles or intentions. A cryptic statement cannot be described as a manifesto because the intended meaning of a cryptic message is something other than what is stated in the literal message. This is the opposite of manifest-o.


The coded-manifesto conundrum is twinned with that other conundrum, already commented upon, wherein what the Galatians letter may be taken to mean by subsequent, unintended readers is retrojected upon the mental processes of the writer as his personal, intended meaning given by him to his own words.


For some readers, the Galatians letter may become "a passionate plea to resist the idolatrous lure of imperial religion and social ordering" (Kahl at p. 287). But evidence is lacking that Paul meant for such a coded message to be read into his statements by readers he addressed in Galatia.


What is up with Galatians?


Paul is confronting sharp criticisms of his own authority and message, raised by Jewish messianists, who were victims of his brutal treatment of them when he operated as an enforcer of temple and synagogue mores. (See my article, “Paul and the Victims of His Persecution: The Opponents in Galatia” 32 Biblical Theology Bulletin No 4 (Winter 2002) pages 182-191.)




Paul's over-heated response to his critics in Galatia is to denounce to his wavering converts his victims' description of himself. He insists he is not a transgressor of Torah who represents no one. After making these denials, Paul launches into a reassertion of his theological claims, which had earlier impressed the Galatian converts. 


By this gambit, Paul is changing the subject. He dismisses his critics and devotes the balance of his dictation to a reprise of his complicated rearrangement of Jewish religious history, which elevates Abraham at the expense of Moses and invites gentiles into allegiance to a Jewish messiah by denigration of the rituals propounded by Torah, because Torah is limited chronologically, ending with the advent of Messiah Jesus.


It may be true, as Kahl concludes (p. 288), that Paul did not see himself as "breaking away from Judaism." But in fact, by demeaning Moses and denying the validity of Torah observance, this is what he did.


One further irony. In a book which expressly declares the "commonality" of all, we are told in the last sentence of the Conclusion, that "only" by seeing things as Paul prescribed, do we see things aright.

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