386 GESILA NNEKA UZUKWU On the level of context, we suggest that Gal 3,28 and the three blessings of gratitude found in rabbinic writings have different social cultural, historical and literary contexts within which they belong. While Gal 3,28 could be interpreted within the framework of Paul’s response to the Galatian crisis, the three blessings of gratitude found in rabbinic texts, as we have seen above, are used in a liturgical context. We know that these blessings have a social, political, religious and cultural world that they evoke. But how well these worlds could be credibly reconstructed from the rabbinic writings wherein they are contained remains a question. Our recognition of the fundamental differences between Gal 3,28 and the three blessings of gratitude found in rabbinic texts, here, elicit comments. First, the purpose the terms ÃIoydaıov ˜ and ™Ellhn, doylov, and eleyuerov, arsen, and uhly serve in ˜ ߥ ¶ ˜ Gal 3,28 are completely different from the purpose the terms ywg, hça, and rwb serve in the three blessings of gratitude found in rabbinic texts. Second, what Gal 3,28 has in common with the three blessings of gratitude found in rabbinic writings is so slim to suggest that the structure of the latter is possibly influenced by the former. Third, the presence of similar words or three expressions in both Gal 3,28 and the three blessings of gratitude found in rabbinic sources does not ipso facto constitute evidence that the former is possibly dependent on the latter. Moreover, the pairs of opposites found in Gal 3,28 and the terms found in the three blessings of gratitude are not uniquely Pauline or rabbinic, they are expressions used within the social setting and cultural context of the Greco- Roman world. Thus, although Paul or the rabbis are using words inherent in the context of their time, they are giving those words different meanings to that which similar usages in Greek texts imply. Perhaps, one can summarize the discussion by suggesting that we cannot cite the presence of parallels to argue that Gal 3,28 is derived from Paul’s Jewish background, and in particular from those rabbinic texts under debate. Our response is: to look for parallels in order to explain the meaning of Gal 3,28 is a methodological assumption that ends up distorting the meaning of Gal 3,28 in its immediate and wider literary context. In the next section, we are going to propose what the similar antithetical sayings found in Gal 3,28 and the three blessings of gratitude found in rabbinic writings inform us about the wider social cultural contexts wherein these texts under study come from.