Gal. 1:15-20 σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι... τὸν ἀδελφὸν

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Gregory Hartzler-Miller
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Re: Gal. 1:15-20 σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι... τὸν ἀδελφὸν

Post by Gregory Hartzler-Miller »

Barry Hofstetter wrote: December 18th, 2020, 10:05 pm ...such "echo" in the Lucan passage.
A close reading of the literary context of the phrase “flesh and bone” vis-à-vis "brothers" as biological family in Luke-Acts, beginning with Luke 24:32-36:

“They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us as He spoke with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, gathered together and saying, “The Lord has indeed risen and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two told (drew out, ἐξηγοῦντο) what had happened on the road, and how they had recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread. While they were describing these events…”

The two on the road, one of them named Cleopas (Lk. 24:18) were pondering a resurrection appearance of Jesus, and immediately (“that very hour” αὐτῇ τῇ ὥρᾳ) they returned to Jerusalem (εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ) where they found “the eleven” and “those with them” (who?) discussing yet another resurrection appearance--this one experienced by “Simon” (Peter). It was while they were conferring about these resurrection appearances that it happened--the appearance in “flesh and bone" (Luke 24:36-39):

“While they were describing these events, Jesus Himself stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” But they were startled and frightened, thinking they had seen a spirit. “Why are you troubled,” Jesus asked, “and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at My hands and My feet. It is I Myself. Touch Me and see—for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and feet.”

Who specifically, we may ask, was there in that particular gathering? Acts 1:13-14 provides a closer look at “the Eleven” along with some others who were with them in the place they had gathered:

“...the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.”

If this expanded image from Acts applies to those who were there previously in Luke, the appearance in “flesh and bone” took place during a discussion of two resurrection appearances in a group that included Peter and the biological family of Jesus--“Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. (σὺν τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς αὐτοῦ)” i.e. The “flesh-and-bone” brothers (in the LXX sense of the phrase, viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5317#p35733).
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Re: Gal. 1:15-20 σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι... τὸν ἀδελφὸν

Post by Jason Hare »

Gregory,

I have to wonder what is making you push this. It is without-a-doubt not the meaning of the expression. It just means "human" - a person that is alive in a body and is not some sort of phantom or ghost. What is your purpose in trying to bend the text to your will in this way? What are you trying to prove?

Jason
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Gregory Hartzler-Miller
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Re: Gal. 1:15-20 σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι... τὸν ἀδελφὸν

Post by Gregory Hartzler-Miller »

Jason Hare wrote: December 19th, 2020, 3:44 pm What are you trying to prove?
In my reading of Galatians, I'm exploring the plausibility of connecting the idea of the phrase "flesh and blood" to the idea of "brother" in the phrase "brother of the Lord". Arguably, my research shown in previous posts has uncovered support in unexpected places: Matthew, LXX and Luke-Acts. I am looking for a plausible, coherent reading, but it is not the only possible reading. I don't expect to convince everyone. Nothing I've written so far is "proof", nor is it intended as such.

What made my perspective distinctive coming into the project was my unstated interest in eventually getting around to reading the phrase "flesh and blood" in Galatians in light of a possible literary echo in Hebrews, here:

"Now since the children share blood and flesh (αἵματος καὶ σαρκός), He too shared in it...For surely it is not the angels He helps, but the descendants of Abraham (σπέρματος Ἀβραὰμ). For this reason He had to be made like the brothers (τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς) in every way..." (Heb. 2:14 and 16-17).

As in Galatians, as I read it, "flesh and blood" describes "brothers" of shared descent, although in Hebrews the genealogy goes all the way to Abraham (Cf Matthew 1:1 "This is the record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham").

To make the leap of seeing "flesh and blood" brothers as spiritual rather than only, or even primarily literal "descendants of Abraham" in the book of Hebrews, and thus also to extend the notion of "flesh and blood" to include "all flesh", it is helpful to have read Galatians where Paul makes just that leap: "...if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise" (Gal:3-29) I think that leap is what the author if Hebrews intended, but he didn't need to make it obvious because he assumed his audience would be familiar with Galatians.

So, is it plausible to hear in Hebrews an echo of "flesh and blood" referring to a literal "brother of the Lord"? I'm not arguing that Hebrews was saying the same thing, only suggesting that like Paul, the author of Hebrews had the idea of "flesh and blood" meaning shared descent.
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Re: Gal. 1:15-20 σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι... τὸν ἀδελφὸν

Post by Jason Hare »

Gregory Hartzler-Miller wrote: December 19th, 2020, 6:11 pm So, is it plausible to hear in Hebrews an echo of "flesh and blood" referring to a literal "brother of the Lord"? I'm not arguing that Hebrews was saying the same thing, only suggesting that like Paul, the author of Hebrews had the idea of "flesh and blood" meaning shared descent.
No. I don't take it in this way at all. I don't think it's even possible to read it this way.
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Re: Gal. 1:15-20 σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι... τὸν ἀδελφὸν

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Gregory Hartzler-Miller wrote: December 19th, 2020, 6:11 pm I am looking for a plausible, coherent reading, but it is not the only possible reading.
But isn't the conventional reading already a plausible, coherent reading?

It's not enough to find some other reading that could be possible (since lots of readings are "possible" if you're willing to entertain even small probabilities), it also should be better than the alternatives. This is how inference-to-the-best-explanation works in hermeneutics.
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Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Gal. 1:15-20 σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι... τὸν ἀδελφὸν

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I find this neither coherent nor plausible. It simply violates the sense of the texts in question and seeks to use them for a purpose clearly not intended by the authors.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
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καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Gregory Hartzler-Miller
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Re: Gal. 1:15-20 σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι... τὸν ἀδελφὸν

Post by Gregory Hartzler-Miller »

A. εὐθέως οὐ προσανεθέμην σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι,
B. οὐδὲ ἀνῆλθον εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα πρὸς τοὺς πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἀποστόλους,
C. ἀλλὰ ἀπῆλθον εἰς Ἀραβίαν,
C'. καὶ πάλιν ὑπέστρεψα εἰς Δαμασκόν.

A. I did not consult with flesh and blood immediately,
B. nor did I go up to Jerusalem to the apostles before me [immediately] ,
C. but I departed to Arabia [immediately] ,
C’. indeed, I returned again into Damascus [immediately].

Thesis: After the revelation (Cf 2 Cor 12), Paul returned again into Damascus (a city in Arabia) immediately (Cf. Acts 22:10 “And the Lord told me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus...")

Evidence that Paul reckoned Damascus as a city in Arabia:

1. "returned again": The Galatians had heard (Gal 1:13, "You have heard...") that Paul the persecutor had previously fled Arabian controlled Damascus as described in 2 Cor 11:32-33 ("In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas secured the city of the Damascenes in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his grasp.") The escape-from-Arabian-Damascus story of 2 Cor 11:32-33 is related sequentially/chronologically to the revelation experience story of 2 Cor 12:1-10 (Third Heaven/thorn/power in weakness). The revelation of Gal 1:15 is a shortened form of the revelation story in 2 Cor 12. So, Paul first, escaped Arabian Damascus, second, had a revelation, and third, "returned again" immediately to Damascus, Arabia.

2. Justin Martyr, Dialogue 78.10: "And none of you can deny that Damascus was, and is, in the region of Arabia (although now it belongs to what is called Syrophoenicia)".

Thus the proposed translation:

C'. καὶ πάλιν ὑπέστρεψα εἰς Δαμασκόν.
C'. indeed, I returned again into Damascus [immediately].
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Re: Gal. 1:15-20 σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι... τὸν ἀδελφὸν

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Gregory Hartzler-Miller wrote: December 10th, 2021, 10:09 am Thus the proposed translation:

C'. καὶ πάλιν ὑπέστρεψα εἰς Δαμασκόν.
C'. indeed, I returned again into Damascus [immediately].
πάλιν doesn’t mean “again” here, it means “back.”
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Gregory Hartzler-Miller
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Re: Gal. 1:15-20 σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι... τὸν ἀδελφὸν

Post by Gregory Hartzler-Miller »

Re: πάλιν with the back meaning in Gal 1:17

"Paul did not repeat an act of returning to Damascus... He repeated the state of being in Damascus."

--STEPHEN C. CARLSON ("On Paul's Second Visit to Corinth: Πάλιν, Parsing, and Presupposition in 2 Corinthians 2:1", January 1, 2016, JBL 135, p. 606, footnote #41)

Thank you, Stephen. As per your comment, I did a little research, and having found this article, I'm humbled. Before this exchange, I myself had not thought at all about how πάλιν might mean back in this context.
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Re: Gal. 1:15-20 σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι... τὸν ἀδελφὸν

Post by Gregory Hartzler-Miller »

A. εὐθέως οὐ προσανεθέμην σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι,
B. οὐδὲ ἀνῆλθον εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα πρὸς τοὺς πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἀποστόλους,
C. ἀλλὰ ἀπῆλθον εἰς Ἀραβίαν,
C'. καὶ πάλιν ὑπέστρεψα εἰς Δαμασκόν.
B'. Ἔπειτα μετὰ τρία ἔτη ἀνῆλθον εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα ἱστορῆσαι Κηφᾶν, καὶ ἐπέμεινα πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡμέρας δεκαπέντε· ἕτερον δὲ τῶν ἀποστόλων οὐκ εἶδον,

A. I did not consult with flesh and blood immediately,
B. nor did I go up to Jerusalem to the apostles before me [immediately] ,
C. but I departed to Arabia [immediately] ,
C’. indeed, I returned back into Damascus [immediately].
B'. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to make acquaintance with Cephas, and I remained with him fifteen days. But, belonging to the apostles, I discerned [εἶδον] no different one [ἕτερον],

Thesis for B':

ἕτερον is a substantive in the emphatic position which carries forward the highly charged sense of ἕτερον established previously--no apostle "different" in quality in the sense of "ἕτερον in Gal 1:6 where it refers to a gospel of a "different" kind: "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning εἰς ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον."

ἕτερον is the object of the verb εἶδον which carries the sense of "discerned" just as it does later in Gal 2:14, "But when εἶδον that they are not walking in line according to the truth of the gospel..."

τῶν ἀποστόλων is not a direct object; rather, it is a genitive of belonging with Cephas as the model of what it means to be an apostle who belongs to "the recognized ones". As in Acts 9:27, the count of how many of the apostles Paul met is not specified: "Then Barnabas brought him to the apostles and described how on the road he had seen [εἶδεν] the Lord..."
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