Galatians 3:16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
The issue: Isn't Paul really stretching to make "seed" singular here? Some like Burton Mack have called Paul down for too much stretching, even within the constraints of Jewish exegetical procedure?
Witherington (commentary on Galatians, 244-5) notes, however, that the charge of legerdemain is overblown and still anachronistic. Furthermore:
- It "fails to note that the promise as given to Abraham referred initially to a particular individual, Isaac, and then to Abraham's more remote descendants," so that "'a rhetorical play on the ambiguity is invited.'"
- It misses that Paul clearly knows that "seed" is a collective noun, as he uses it as such in 3:29 to refer to believers. This shows that he knows the word was "a collective noun which was also in the first instance used of an individual."
- The Book of Jubilees 16:17 offers some evidence that Jewish interpreters "had already referred 'seed' in the promise of Abraham to a particular person":
And (that) all the seed of his sons should be Gentiles, and be reckoned with the Gentiles; but from the sons of Isaac one should become a holy seed, and should not be reckoned among the Gentiles.
- Finally, it should be remembered that Paul, as a collectivist, considers the exalted Christ to be an "inclusive personality" within which is the collective body of Christ. Thus it is possible for Paul to play upon the rhetorical ambiguity in the word "seed".
-JPH