Loving Bliss myDiCarnal/Spiritual Marduk@PetraElja


*



Whatever
we do,
is never
merely a question of
starting
point.

-

While
every interpretation
will require
some effort
to fit recalcitrant texts into its scheme,
for some the effort is greater
than for
others.

-

In order,
then, for a reading of Paul
centered on Galatians
to carry
any sense
of conviction,
one of the factors has to be
the entire context
of the Pauline
corpus.

-

I will have,
therefore,
many occasions to refer to others
of Pauline letters,
particularly the other Hauptbriefe, Romans
and Corinthians,
both of which stand in
very powerful
and interesting
interaction
with
Galatians.

-

Indeed,
one of the tasks
of some of the reading
here in myDi undertaken,
is to relate the ideas of Galatians
to ideas expressed in the other letters,
without, however,
simply collapsing
them.

-
-

This reading
of Galatians is pursued under the sign
of what I take to be
the hermeneutical key to Paul,
his allegorical hermeneutic
and a cultural politics
which grow out of the hermeneutical/intellectual and
religious/moral world
that he still
inhabits,
the world of
Hellenized Judaism of the
first century.

-

AND,
let me hasten to add
that I do not by this
intend a Hellenistic Judaism
which is somehow
less pure than a putative "Palestinian"
Judaism.

-

I hold,
rather, that all of Palestinian Judaism
was also Hellenized to greater or lesser extent,
although it is surely plausible that there were
major cultural differences
between Jews whose daily language was Semitic
{Hebrew or Aramaic}
and those whose daily language
was Greek.

-

Rabbinic
Judaism is also Hellenistic.
ITS mode of Hellenization, however, is
more often rejectionist
than assimilationist.

-

Paul
was motivated
by a Hellenistic desire for the One,
which among other things produced an ideal of
a universal human essence,
beyond difference and
hierarchy.

-

THIS
universal humanity, however,
was predicated {and still is} on the dualism of the flesh
and the spirit,
such that while the body is particular,
marked through practice
as Jew or Greek,
and through anatomy
as male or female,
the spirit is
universal!

-

Paul did not,
however, reject the body
~ as did, for instance, the gnostics ~
but rather promoted as system whereby the body
had its place,
albeit subordinated to the spirit.
Paul's anthropological dualism was matched
by a hermaneutical dualism
as well.

-

JUST
as the human being
is divided into a fleshy and a spiritual component,
SO ALSO is language
itself.

-

It is
composed of outer,
material signs and inner, spiritual significations.
When THIS is applied to the religious system
that Paul inherited,
the physical, fleshy signs of the Torah,
of historical Judaism,
are re~interpreted as symbols of that
which Paul takes to be
universal requirements and possibilities for
humanity.

-

THUS,
to take the most central of all Paul's examples,
literal circumcision,
which is for Jews alone,
and for male Jews at that,
is re~read as signifying baptism in the spirit,
which is for
ALL.

-

Jewish history,
the history of Israel according to the flesh,
is taken as a sign for the meaning of Christ
and the Church,
Israel according to the spirit,
in the world.

-

I will usually
throughout most of 'my' myDiStories argue
that many outstanding problems
in Pauline interpretation
can best be approached
through THIS hermeneutical
perspective.

-

Just
to take one example,
for now,
the age~old fine discussions
of fulfilling the Law in Paul
would be even stronger,
I think,
were we to adopt
a hermeneutical understanding
of Paul's antinomies between
the Law under which Christians are not
and the Law
which they
must fulfill
and CAN ONLY FULFILL
by loving their 'neighbours'
as themselves.

-

The Letter
of the Law is abrogated;`
its spirit is
fulfilled.

-

This very
old~fashioned {patristic!}
interpretation of Paul must
from now on
be integrated with newer understandings
of the vital role
that the integration of gentiles
in to the People of G*D
played for Paul.

-

IT IS
THIS INTEGRATION
which my 'myDistories' attempt essentially
by claiming
that THOSE TWO
are ONE:

-
-
-

The very
impulsive toward universalism,
toward the One,
is that
which both enabled
and motivated Paul's move
toward a spiritualizing and allegorizing interpretation
of Israel's Scripture
and Law
as well.

#
engel
16 okt 2004 - bewerkt op 04 feb 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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