Nanos, Mark D, editor. The Galatians Debate: Contemporary Issues in Rhetorical and Historical Interpretation - Book Review

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Fall, 2003 by Richard B. Cook

Peabody MA: Hendrick. son Publishers, 2002. Pp Ivi 517. Cloth, $34.95.

The Apostle Paul exited this life in a pelage of enigma. We want to figure him out, and we want help. We want undaunted scholarship to lay a wreath of syllogisms upon his grave. Across the generations, the wreaths have crowded upon one another. But except for the plastic ones (ironically, more durable), each will wither, leaving room for a newer arrangement, designed with an eye on contemporary tastes and trends.

What is Paul's letter to the Galatian churches all about? After two thousand years of reflection, the definitive answer is: we cannot be sure. This collection, with its 23 essays from 22 scholars, indicates why. Paul's literary, rhetorical and apologetic intentions as well as the events that occasioned the letter and the point(s) of view of the intended recipients is unknowable.

Does this mean Nanos (who furnishes two articles of his own) and the other contributors are wasting their time? No. Each of these essays is thoughtful and can be used profitably where Paul's letter is made the subject of inquiry and where diverse points of view are to be considered. There are fundamental questions here as well as proposals that stand in dubious isolation from previous scholarship. Among the contributors who raise basic issues are C. Joachim Classen and John M. G. Barclay.

Classen (writing in 2000) fires a cannon across the bow of the rhetorical-analytical frigate, which has been sailing with favorable winds just off the coast of Anatolia for the past twenty-five or thirty years. Classen is firing for effect. He asserts (p. 105) the classification of a document and its components neither illuminates the context, which gave rise to the document nor clarifies how its components function. Classen argues (p. 111) that rhetoric is just another term for oratory and points out (p. i05) that "a letter cannot be expected to have the structure of a speech." Worse. The classification of letters "does not assist one in understanding the letter's intentions or any of its details" (p. 109). Classen faults Hans Deter Betz (who has contributed a 1975 essay to this volume) for not paying sufficient attention to the distinction between oratory and epistolography (p. 98) and for imposing a rhetorical outline upon Galatians without arguing the merits of the selected structural components (Pp.109-10). Betz is also taken to task for ignoring prior applications of rhetorical analysis (Pp. 96, 98-99), especially Philip Melanchthon's (p. 99-103). Classen wonders (p. 97) why Betz limited his study to ancient rhetorical categories. Although an earlier version of Classen's essay appeared in I993, no direct responses to Classen can be found in this volume. The editor has provided a helpful introductory summary, but this is no substitute for actual disputation. Classen's essay is exceptional for this reason.

Barclay, in a 1987 essay reproduced here, argues for caution in 'mirror-reading' Paul's letter. Barclay is worried about "the distorting effects of polemic" (p. 369), which may have lead Paul "to caricature his opponents, especially in describing their motivations" (p. 369). Barclay insists (p. 367) that reconstructing the arguments of "the other side" in Galatians is a "difficult and delicate" exercise, which is nevertheless "essential" although "extremely problematic."

Does Barclay leave his readers as people most to be pitied and without hope? Nope. The interpretive dangers of "undue selectivity" and "over-interpretation" of Paul's statements (p. 372) may be met by a cautionary methodology, if "appropriate criteria" are employed (p. 376). Barclay's criteria include (p. 376ff.) a classification of Paul's "utterances" (assertion? denial? command? prohibition? etc.) and an attempt to tease out of the text such matters as Paul's "tone." Barclay also wants the critic to consider whether Paul's comments are clear, expressive of familiar or unfamiliar motifs, and frequently or infrequently found elsewhere in the letters. Finally, Barclay wants to determine whether Paul's "attacks" are "historically plausible," that is, whether what we know of "men [sic] and movements" of Paul's day is reflected in Paul's statements. Barclay includes (p. 377) this arresting thought: "If our results are anachronistic or historically implausible, we will be obliged to start again."

Start what again? Barclay's suggestions highlight the circularity of every attempt to understand the situation in Galatia: we have Paul's statements, and from them we infer conditions "on the ground" and then decide what Paul's statements mean. But is the historian of Paul's letter any differently positioned that any other historian? Isn't all history circular as to the interplay between facts and their significance? It seems to me the task of the historian is not to record but to evaluate. Otherwise, how can one know what to record? E. H. Cart makes this point by reminding that uncounted thousands of individuals have crossed the Rubicon. These are the facts. But the crossing by Caesar is probably the one crossing we must take notice of. (See E. H Carr, WHAT IS HISTORY [Random House, 1961] p. 9).