Re: PAIDAGWGOS -Gal. 3:24, 25

From: Jim West (jwest@Highland.Net)
Date: Tue Jul 14 1998 - 22:13:38 EDT


At 09:34 AM 7/15/98 +0800, you wrote:
>Not wanting to show my socialist side but I have long had a bit of a problem
>with Paul's 3 uses of PAIDAGWGOS. Are we supposed to think that
>rich-boy Paul had his own PAIDAGWGOS in Tarsus and felt no embarrassment
>about flaunting this in front of the Galatians and Corinthians??

I do not think this is the case at all. Even if one did not have the
financial resources, everyone knew what a pedagogue did. The gist here is
not that Paul says "hehe, I had a pedagogue growing up- did you?". Instead,
he uses a well known figure to illustrate his interest in showing that the
Torah "walks us to class, and keeps us in line, and teaches us valuable life
lessons", etc.

Further, if we were to adopt your idea that only the rich could afford such
a slave, then we must assume that Paul is implying that they are rich- for
they too have a pedagogue! Which, now that I think of it, could be a
possibility, no? For their pedagogue, according to Paul, has led them to
Christ. In Paul's estimation could greater knowledge be bestowed?

>Wild suggestion:
>
>Is it possible that Paul has a different perhaps synagogal connection in
>mind than the Greek PAIDAGWGOS? Is it conceivable that for example
>the synagogue provided a PAIDAGWGOS to tutor all the boys in the
>town (or lead them to the Synagogue school) for free - or at the shared
>expense of all the parents?

I am not sure of this. Strack-Billerbeck discuss the rabbinic parallels on
p. 557 of vol. 3. They list several places where the Rabbis too spoke of
the law as a <gk>paideuths</gk>.
 One example-

NuR 1 (135a): Gott sprach zu den Israeliten: Habe ich euch nicht drei <heb>
pdgogyn</heb> erstehen lassen, Mose, Ahron, u. Mirjam? Dann wird
ausgefuehrt, dass die Israeliten Mose das Manna, Ahron die Wolken der
Herrlichkeit, u. Mirjam den mitfolgenden Wuestenbrunnen zu verdanken gehabt
haetten.

And cf 4 Macc 5:34- <gk> ou yeusomai se, paideuta nome...</gk>.

>I note that BAGD "Common as loanword in rabbinica - S Krauss Griech. und
>Lat. Lehnworter in Talmud usw" (er, Mr Gingrich, how did 'und so weiter'
>not get translated into etc. or ktl.? Guess it must be part of Krauss'
>title)

It is a common loan word. In fact the Rabbis merely transliterate it, as
the quote above shows.

>
>Does anyone know more about the Talmudic use of the word, it may illustrate
>pre-Rabbinic Jewish use in Palestine better than Philo does?
>Regards
>Steven

The problem with the Talmud is that it is so late that it is not really a
good place to find 1st century usage demonstrated.

Best,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
jwest@highland.net

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