Response to Parvus' Simonian Galatians

[robert j]

Roger Parvus posted a long essay on the Vridar website arguing for a Simonian origin for the letter to Galatians, and for later, extensive interpolations by a proto-orthodox editor.
http://vridar.org/2013/11/02/a-simonian ... galatians/

Roger’s arguments attempt to solve what he sees as five “puzzling features” found in the extant Galatians 1:1 through 2:14.

When I read his 5 “puzzling features” my first thought was --- what ? that’s it? what’s so puzzling? If those puzzles can be readily explained as the actual writing of a jealous mid-first century Jewish evangelist promoting a spiritual savior, then there is no need for Roger’s extended proposals of shadowy figures of legend, nor proposed, speculative Marcionite constructions, nor extensive interpolations in the letter to the Galatians.

I contend that the letter to the Galatians was written by Paul for one sole purpose. Paul was defending his authority against some others that were telling his congregation that --- regardless of their belief in a spiritual savior --- circumcision was necessary to be full participants in the Israel of god. Nearly all of Paul’s statements in the letter to the Galatians must be viewed through that prism --- all were directed to refute that claim. And Paul’s arguments in Galatians fit very well with the personality he exposes in his other letters.

Paul threw the kitchen sink at the Galatians --- using as many arguments as he could muster. And Paul used and abused just about everyone to make his point --- Cephas, the other Pillars, Titus, even Barnabus, and even himself. Before getting to Roger’s puzzles, here’s an example of Paul using himself to make his point. In Gal. 1:13-16 (and 1:22-23) Paul tells about how he, a zealous Jew, once hassled believers in Jesus Christ --- but, Paul implies, he was wrong then just as those hassling you (his congregation) are wrong now.

Here is the very beginning of Roger’s essay, with his 5 puzzles (bolding and color similar to Roger’s), each followed by my response ----

The Transformation of Simon/Paul into Proto-Orthodox Paul in Galatians 1:1 – 2:14

This post will consider Galatians 1:1 – 2:14 from the perspective of my Simonian hypothesis. That passage contains some of the few bits of biographical information the Pauline Corpus provides about Paul.

If my hypothesis is correct, it should be able to untangle that information, plausibly assigning some parts to the real Paul (Simon of Samaria) and the rest to a later proto-orthodox interpolator. And that separation should help solve the puzzling features of the passage.

The puzzles I have in mind are:

1. The turnaround by Paul: In 1:8 he is ready to curse himself or anyone else—even an angel from heaven— who dares to preach a gospel contrary to the one he had preached. Yet in 2:1-2 he says that he went up to Jerusalem to present his gospel because, after all, he might be running or have run in vain! How, in the short space of time it takes to compose fourteen verses, does one’s attitude change from the adamant “there’s no way I’m wrong” to the conciliatory “well, maybe I was wrong?”

Those expecting perfect consistency and logical exactness from Paul --- or those who claim extensive interpolations and redactions based on those characteristics ---- are on the wrong track. Galatians and the Corinthian correspondence were written to address a wide variety of sometimes conflicting problems within his congregations --- IMO some inconsistencies actually favor authenticity.

Roger’s twist on these passages is misleading. Paul used the authority of the Jerusalem group to bolster his own authority on the Jewish practice of circumcision. He evidently decided the stamp of approval from this leadership group for his missions among the Gentiles, from the traditional heart of Judaism, was worth the risk to any perceived compromise to his own importance.

2. The turnaround by Peter: In 2:9 he is shaking hands with Paul and agreeing that he should go preach his brand of gospel to the Gentiles. But just a few verses later he, “fearing the circumcision party, separated himself” from Paul.

Again, Paul is using Peter/Cephas to bolster his own authority and make his point by relating a story of calling-out of Cephas on his inconsistency on Jewish practices. Fits perfectly with Paul’s purpose in the letter.

3. The switch back and forth between the names Cephas and Peter. Cephas is the name of the person Paul stayed with during his first visit to Jerusalem. But in the account of the second visit the name “Peter” is used for him twice before the switch back to Cephas. In the Antioch incident Cephas is the only name used for the one who stood condemned.

I think this name-game is much ado about nothing --- same guy. The similar translation of the Aramaic and Greek, as well as the inconsistent use of the names in the ancient manuscripts, seems nothing more than scribal confusion and initiative.

4. The double notice, in the space of only three verses, that Titus was with Paul (2:1 and 2:3).

Sure a little repetitious, but this was a very important part of Paul’s arguments. Not even the leaders in Jerusalem compelled the Greek Titus to be circumcised --- so, Paul implies, surely those compelling you (his congregation) are wrong.

And how does the repetition argue for interpolation? One would think an interpolator would be just as careful, or more-so, than a dictating Paul.

5. The use of the expressions “those who seemed to be something” and “those who seemed to be pillars” for the leaders of the Jerusalem church. Why not something more straightforward? And why does Paul only use the expressions when recounting his second visit to Jerusalem. He tells us that at his first visit he made the acquaintance of Cephas and saw James. Didn’t they “seem to be something” at that time? So why do the “seem” expressions appear four times in the account of his second visit (which was, at least temporarily, a success) but not at all in the first?

Paul decided he needed the appearance of approval of the Jerusalem group. But the proud and jealous Paul walked a fine-line between signifying their leadership position, and smugly downplaying their influence over himself.

Galatians makes the most sense, IMO, if one sees Paul as a clever lawyer --- presenting all the arguments he could muster, hoping to give the jury (his congregation) something they might be able to hang their hat on and see things his way.

robert j.

[perseusomega9]

Does Parvus have an account here or is this solely for our edification?

[outhouse]

to bolster his own authority




robert j.

I think you did a good job here Robert.


Yes! the proper term of prose Pauls community used was rhetorical prose. They were trained to have artistic freedom to persuade readers of there authority.

if one sees Paul as a clever lawyer -

Pauls community was very skilled in there rhetoric.



For what its worth, I didn't find Parvus work to be convincing either. A search on his work turned up very little as well. So little I was not even going to do the research trying to refute it.

[Peter Kirby]

Does Parvus have an account here

He does or did.

Someone should, naturally, bring his attention to this thread.

[perseusomega9]

For a corpus of writings that were charged with additions and subtractions from the moment they entered literary history, I'm continually amazed by people who refuse to accept the idea that we may very well be looking at highly edited works which do not resemble the original compositions.

[outhouse]

For a corpus of writings that were charged with additions and subtractions from the moment they entered literary history, I'm continually amazed by people who refuse to accept the idea that we may very well be looking at highly edited works which do not resemble the original compositions.

Well that is all true. less the part of actually having someone here at this site that doesn't understand the text evolved at different levels.

Who thinks these text were not redacted and interpreted/copied differently?

This does not give Parvus statement credibility one way or the other.


Me personally? I would rather remain neutral until a read enough different positions to create my own. I surely wont proselytize his opinion just because it goes against the status quo either.

[perseusomega9]

This does not give Parvus statement credibility one way or the other.

I find it just as credible as any commentary that assumes any given epistle is pretty much as Paul wrote sans a few obvious text critic variants/omissions.

[MrMacSon]

... I'm continually amazed by people who refuse to accept the idea that we may very well be looking at highly edited works which do not resemble the original compositions.

I agree.

[RParvus]

Robert J,

As you say, it may simply be that Paul is inconsistent and illogical. I am aware that some scholars view him that way. But in the Vridar series of posts I am exploring an alternate explanation for the inconsistencies and peculiarities. I’m wondering if they may be due to an attempt by the proto-orthodox to rework the Pauline letters. There is reason to think that that kind of literary activity would not have been beneath them. And as you likely know, Marcion, the earliest known interpreter of the Paulines, contended that the letters in circulation in his day had been interpolated at some point before he came to know them. They had been interpolated, he claimed, by someone whose attachment to Judaism went beyond that of their original author. Now to me the letters do seem to vacillate on subjects about which early gnostics—whose attachment to Jewish teaching was minimal—disagreed with the proto-orthodox—whose Christianity retained more points of contact with Judaism. Both gnostics and the proto-orthodox appealed to Pauline passages to support, for instance, their very different positions regarding the Law of Moses, resurrection, and the status of the Jews.

Moreover, the earliest proto-orthodox heresy hunters do concede that there was a significant Christian gnostic who was a contemporary of the pillars: Simon of Samaria. And from the bits of information they let fall about his teaching it does bear some curious resemblances to that of Marcion’s Paul. Simon too, like Paul, came into conflict with Peter. And Simon, like Paul, supposedly ended up in Rome. These then are a few of the reasons (for others see the first post in the series) that led me to think it might be worthwhile to inspect the Pauline letters from a Simonian angle: Could the original letters have been written by Simon the Great One and—in the case of the deuterocanonicals—by Menander, his successor? And did a proto-orthodox interpolator rework the letters and thereby turn the original authors into a doctrinally acceptable Little One (Paul)? There are scholars who have argued along other lines that the letters were systematically reworked but, to my knowledge, no one has yet tried this particular approach. So this amateur decided to give it a try. (I was a Catholic priest back in the 1980s. My training was just a standard Catholic seminary education. Nothing beyond that.)

Granted, I am assuming that what the proto-orthodox say about Simon’s teaching is basically correct. I see no harm in tentatively making that assumption in order to see what new perspective on the letters it can open up. For example: I have always been a bit puzzled by the widely differing sexual attitudes that were supposedly peacefully co-existing in the church founded by the Apostle at Corinth. Extreme sexual libertinism in 1 Cor. 5 and 6 exists side-by-side with strict sexual asceticism in 1 Cor. 7! But in light of my Simonian hypothesis I now wonder whether the whole deal about the man who reportedly had the father’s woman is not just proto-orthodox mockery of Simon. The proto-orthodox said Simon claimed that his companion Helen was divine Wisdom. Wisdom, of course, was often personified as some kind of female consort of God who assisted him with the work of creation. So it may be Simon who is the targeted by the passage, and the one “absent in body, but present in spirit” (nudge nudge wink wink) who condemns him is the interpolator. He may be playing to a second audience who knows what he is attempting to do to Simon’s letters and who can appreciate the humor of making the new Paul condemn his former self (see post 11 in the series).

Anyway, with that background in mind you can understand that in post 5 I am not claiming that the five Galatian peculiarities prove my Simonian hypothesis. I am applying my hypothesis to the passage to see if it can plausibly account for them. I agree with you that “Paul was defending his authority against some others that were telling his congregation that --- regardless of their belief in a spiritual savior --- circumcision was necessary to be full participants in the Israel of god.” But many scholars think that those “others” had the backing of at least some in the Jerusalem church. So I’m hesitant to go along with your follow-up statement that “Paul used the authority of the Jerusalem group to bolster his own authority on the Jewish practice of circumcision. He evidently decided the stamp of approval from this leadership group for his missions among the Gentiles, from the traditional heart of Judaism, was worth the risk to any perceived compromise to his own importance.” I’m not sure Paul was willing to risk that. It may be a proto-orthodox interpolator who, just as in Acts of the Apostles, was willing to compromise the Apostle’s importance by making him get the stamp of approval from the Jerusalem church.

[robert j]

Roger,

Thank you for your reply.

Anyway, with that background in mind you can understand that in post 5 I am not claiming that the five Galatian peculiarities prove my Simonian hypothesis. I am applying my hypothesis to the passage to see if it can plausibly account for them.

My apologies if I seemed to imply that I was attempting to refute your overall Simonian hypothesis. The purpose of my response was specific to the letter to the Galatians --- to demonstrate that a more natural and straightforward authorship by a mid-first century Jewish missionary to the Gentiles adequately accounts for the content of the letter.

The day previous to my discussion of your article here, a link to your article was posted on another thread in this forum --- the topic of proto-orthodox interpolations in chapter 2 of Galatians was mentioned with the link ---

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1254&sid=ef8790a27e ... c52#p27832

As you say, it may simply be that Paul is inconsistent and illogical. I am aware that some scholars view him that way.

In my study of Paul’s letters, I continue to search for fatal inconsistencies and fatal flaws in logic --- those that would argue for extensive redaction over many decades. But what I find are the kind of inconsistencies one would expect from a proud and jealous promoter of spiritual gifts as he encountered challenges to his authority and faced very human situations, concerns, and foibles.

And as you likely know, Marcion, the earliest known interpreter of the Paulines, contended that the letters in circulation in his day had been interpolated at some point before he came to know them.

To be clear, we don’t know what Marcion contended, or otherwise said, did, or write. We only know what his arch-enemies, the proto-orthodox heretic hunters claimed. We have only one biased side of a very heated debate and competition for patronage.

But in light of my Simonian hypothesis I now wonder whether the whole deal about the man who reportedly had the father’s woman is not just proto-orthodox mockery of Simon. The proto-orthodox said Simon claimed that his companion Helen was divine Wisdom. Wisdom, of course, was often personified as some kind of female consort of God who assisted him with the work of creation. So it may be Simon who is the targeted by the passage, and the one “absent in body, but present in spirit” (nudge nudge wink wink) who condemns him is the interpolator. He may be playing to a second audience who knows what he is attempting to do to Simon’s letters and who can appreciate the humor of making the new Paul condemn his former self (see post 11 in the series).

Yes, perhaps. But I believe a more straight-forward explanation, with real-life human drama and human foibles, better fits the evidence. The step-mother saga is threaded through the entire Corinthian correspondence. Paul wrote to the congregation to expel the man involved with his father’s woman (1 Cor 5:1-5 and 5:13) --- But Paul’s letter caused grief and hurt feelings, the congregation didn’t kick the man out but forgave him instead, and Paul, knowing the congregation had forgiven the man, finally conceded the issue (2 Cor 2:4-10). There’s even more to the step-mother story in other parts of 2 Corinthians. Robert M. Price, in his book, The Amazing Colossal Apostle (2012), finds in these passages a Marcionite writer responding to Simonian libertinism and to eschatological or Gnostic libertinism, and including some “catholic gloss, with its Judaizing metaphors.” (p. 313-314). I believe such extended and weakly-supported contentions of several competing factions acting over many decades in the composition of the correspondence fail to account for the on-going nature, the real-life drama of the step-mother situation woven throughout the Corinthian correspondence.