ABSTRACT
In this essay I consider Galatians 3:28 as an artifact that tells us not only about its rhetorical purpose, but also something about the conditions in which it was produced. Of course artifacts may be studied to determine details of their use: a tool might convey information about land cultivation and diet among the people who produced it, for example. However, we can also read that tool “backwards” to determine something about the skills and technologies required to produce it in the rst place: what sorts of metals were being mined and forged, for example, and what does that say about trade and social organization? Biblical texts are often analyzed in the former mode. In studies of Paul’s letters this interest typically takes the form of rhetorical analysis of the occasion of the letter and its persuasive purposes-in short, how it was used. Reading backwards is another matter altogether. New Testament studies have sometimes included genealogical arguments about in uence from other groups (in the case of this verse see W. A. Meeks 1974), although they do not usually carry the day (T. Martin 2003). Related to this is the growing critical awareness that Paul’s letters were not produced primarily through processes of systematic propositional re ection. e view backwards is then somewhat restricted, at least if we are seeking some degree of explanatory power. e approach of cognitive science o ers new means to breach the gap between the creation of cultural artifacts like Galatians 3:28, and the human brains and bodies in which they took shape. In this essay I will consider what lies behind the sort of social claim made in the verse, and in this case the technology is partly the use of emotions. Recent interest in emotion from neuroscience and evolutionary psychology has further illuminated its contributions to
social and reason-based action. is power of emotion to change minds and shape communities is the focus of this chapter and Galatians 3:28 is the example. Instead of placing it within a history of ideas, I would like to examine it as a set of emotional commitments and as an experience.
