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Thursday, May 05, 2011

Cynical about Philippians 3

Mark Nanos has written a sequel paper to the one on gentile dogs and hallucinating exegetes, and it's now up on his site. It's called "'Judaizers'? 'Pagan' Cults? Cynics?: Reconceptualizing the Concerns of Paul's Audience from the Polemics in Philippians 3:2, 18-19", and the pdf is here.

Mark continues to insist that Paul wasn't opposing Jewish rivals or customs in Philip 3, but rather local pagans and their influences. "In the face of competing non-Jewish pagan communal alternatives on offer in Philippi with which his (primarily if not exclusively) non-Jewish addressees are tempted to identify (seek status and goods), Paul seeks to persuade them to instead identify with Paul's Jewish norms because they are followers of Christ." I don't quite agree with this, but it's vintage Nanos, well worth reading, and I may comment more later.

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