Oral Performance and the Veil of Text

Detextification, Paul's Letters, and the Test Case of Galatians 2-3

by Ben F. van Veen

(Pickwick, 2024)

It is now common opinion that the biblical documents functioned in an oral context dominated by the spoken word. The present study centres on the letters of Paul, especially Galatians, and addresses the complex relation between this functioning in the original oral setting and the daily praxis of current biblical scholarship in which these documents function as autonomous texts, detached from the context of its original oral delivery. It will be argued that in addition to the difference in media (oral performance there-and-then versus reading the text here-and-now) it is crucial to differentiate the mindsets involved. A highly literate reader in the present structures thought differently from someone in the past who is formed by oral-aural communication. The leading question of this investigation is: How can a biblical scholar here-and-now relate to the text of the letters of Paul (in a printed or digital version) in such a way that he or she can understand (in the typically accompanying highly literate mindset) how the apostle envisioned his original addressees to understand (in their rather unfamiliar oral mindset) the documented words in the event of delivery? It is argued that by textualizing history and historicizing text a detextification of our understanding of these ancient documents is possible. Two testcases of detextification are provided, viz. Gal 3.10-12, in which the presence of a self-evident and simple enthymematic (syllogistic) reasoning is put to the test, and Gal 2.18-20, in which it is argued that Paul counters the call to circumcision by his opponents by a recalling of the baptism of the Galatian converts.

David Rhoads performs Galatians