Rethinking Galatians

Paul’s Vision of Oneness in the Living Christ

Peter Oakes, Andrew K. Boakye

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780567074966
• eBook ISBN: 9780567697752
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Oakes and Boakye rethink Galatians by examining the text as a vision for the lives of its hearers. They show how, in tackling the difficulties that he faces in Galatia, Paul offers a vision of what the Galatians are in their relationship with the living Christ. This offers a new understanding of the concept of unity in diversity expressed in Gal 3:28.

The authors develop their views over six chapters. First, Oakes maps a route from the letter to a focus on its Galatian hearers and on Paul's vision for their identity and existence. In the next chapter, Oakes uses the Christology of Galatians as a way to support the idea of pistis as current relationship with the living Christ. Boakye then offers three chapters analysing the letter's scriptural quotations and ideas about salvation and law. Boakye sees a key dynamic at work in Galatians as being a movement from death to life, as prophesied metaphorically by Ezekiel and as made literal for Paul in his encounter with the resurrected Christ, trust in whom becomes the route to life. Life becomes a key category for evaluating law. Boakye also draws Galatians close to Romans 4 in seeing in both texts the promise of the birth of Isaac, with Paul closely tying that to the resurrection of Jesus. Oakes then argues that the letter has a thematic concern for unity in diversity. In the first instance this is between Jews and gentiles but, in principle, it is between any other socially significant pair of groups.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION: RETHINKING GALATIANS IN TERMS OF THE VISION OFFERED TO THE HEARERS

Peter Oakes

In principle, the chapters of the present book do not need special introduction. Each covers a mainstream issue in the study of Galatians, dealt with in a conventional way. However, the set of studies pushes in a general direction that will feel unfamiliar to many readers accustomed to the most common lines of scholarship on the letter. Galatians has tended to be read from the viewpoint of interest in disputes in the early Jesus movement, or Christian theology, or modern Jewish-Christian relations, or the development of Paul’s thought, or particular linguistic features of the text and so on. This book is oriented around the then-current experience of the letter’s hearers, as represented by the letter and, particularly, the idealized current experience that the letter presents gentile followers of Jesus as having. Paul uses this idealized life as a key basis for persuasion of his hearers.

Aspects of this approach are already present in scholarship. Then-current experience is a key element, in particular, of the recent resurgence of work on participation in Christ, for instance, in the collection edited by Thate et al. (2014) and in the work of Grant Macaskill (2013, 2019), Jeanette Hagen Pifer (2019) and Michael Gorman (2019). However, as we hope to show, a more extensive focus on current Christian existence, as expressed in the letter, brings a change in the overall feel of the text: a change from a centring on dispute, controversy and death, to a centring on life and unity. Of course, no one can deny that Galatians is argumentative, even polemic, but if we turn things round and look at the experience that it projects for its hearers, which is a key strategic tool in Paul’s persuasion, we learn about aspects of the letter that are evidently significant and that also have a constructive relation to modern usage.

This chapter will begin our study by reflecting on a few factors that might help us identify issues that would be prominent for the letter’s hearers, as they approach Galatians with an interest in their own actual and potential experience.

In a letter, second-person address is a key form of emphasis. The hearers (Paul’s letters were read out to groups) no doubt pay some attention while narrative and argument is being presented but, in many cases, to really catch their attention the author will write, ‘You’. In Galatians, there is almost constant use of the second person in the latter half of the letter (4:8–6:18), but Paul uses it very sparingly in the first half, when he is building his main case. What do the Galatians hear when he does address them directly?

Another way in which hearers’ attention is drawn is by the use of identifiers that they would see as characterizing them. In Galatians, there are two references to Galatia and Galatian people (1:2; 3:1). Given the main practical topic of the letter, namely, dissuading gentile followers of Jesus from adopting circumcision (2:3-5, 14; 4:21; 5:1-6; 6:12-13), it looks safe to conclude that the hearers in general (although probably with exceptions) would describe themselves as gentile. We would expect their attention to be drawn by terms expressing that identity. In this letter, that particularly means the Greek words ethnē (nations, gentiles), Hellēn (Greek) and akrobustia (uncircumcision, in the sense of lack of circumcision).

Paul rebukes the Galatians. He questions them. He argues with them. However, to persuade people to action generally also needs the presentation of a positive vision to people, a vision of what they essentially are (in the writer’s view), a vision of the best they can be. Even as the Galatians process all the rebuke and argument, they will be listening out for what it all means for them, in positive terms, if they buy into Paul’s ideas.

Looking at Galatians in view of these three factors reorients interpretation of the letter towards the kind of issues raised in the present book. We will explore each of the factors in turn: second-person address and reference; reference to gentiles; and presentation of a vision for the hearers’ existence.

1. You

As well as second-person pronouns (and some relative pronouns) and references to Galatia and Galatians, the hearers are addressed or referred to as adelphoi (brothers (and sisters): 1:11; 3:15; 4:12, 28, 31; 5:11, 13; 6:1, 18), as τέκνα μου (my children: 4:19) and, collectively, as allēlous (one another: 5:13, 15 x 2, 26 x 2; 6:2). They are also addressed in a range of second-person plural imperatives and are the subject of various second-person plural indicatives (and, in 4:7, a singular). A number of related participles and imperatives are also involved. If we put all of this together, the number of occurrences in each section of the letter (Oakes 2015: v–vi) is as shown in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Frequency of second-person and related forms of address in sections of Galatians

Chapter and verse	No. of occurrences
1:1-10	9
1:11-24	4
2:1-10	1
2:11-21	0
3:1-14	11 (all in 3:1-5)
3:15-29	8 (all but one are in 3:26-29)
4:1-11	10 (all but two are in 4:8-11)
4:12-20	25
4:21–5:13a	26
5:13b–6:10	29
6:11-18	6

In 1:1–4:7, there are only three concentrations of second-person reference: 1:6-9 (x 7), 3:1-5 (x 11) and 3:26-29 (x 8). Apart from these thirteen verses, there are only ten second-person references across the first half of the letter. A related group involves first-person plural references that the hearers would unambiguously hear as including them. There are four of these in 1:3-5. Also fairly unambiguous are 3:14 and 4:6. More ambiguous are 2:4 (x 2), 3:13 (x 2) and 4:5.

The effect of all this is that, in the first half of Galatians, which carries the core of Paul’s argument, the hearers’ attention is particularly drawn to 1:6-9, 3:1-5 and 3:26-29. What is said to them in these places? What other second-person references are there in the letter, and how do they function?

In 1:6-9, the Galatians are actually only addressed in two verbs, metatithesthe, ‘you are turning away’ (1:6), and parelabete, ‘you received’ the gospel preached by Paul (1:9). Apart from these, the second-person references are to things done to the Galatians. They were ‘called’ (1:6). They are being ‘harassed’ (1:7). They have had the gospel preached to them by Paul (1:8), and they putatively have a contrary gospel preached to them (1:8, 9). The hearers will have perceived that Paul was surprised and annoyed with them. They will also probably have seen him as impugning their intelligence: he sees them as having replaced a real product with a fake one (1:6-7, cf. 3:1-5; Rom. 1:21-23). Paul then diverts attention away from the hearers, to those who have recently taught them, castigating the teachers in the strongest terms (1:8-9). This somewhat softens the effect of Paul’s rebuke of the Galatians, by redirecting primary blame. However, it does so at the cost of regard for the Galatians’ agency. Things happen to them: the Galatians are not powerful actors in the situation. This reinforces the impression of having their intelligence denigrated.

In the rest of Galatians 1, the isolated second-person references are more general epistolary ones. ‘I declare to you, brothers and sisters’ (1:11) is a standard letter-body opening formula. ‘For you heard’ (1:13) uses a reminder to draw the hearers into listening and provides a shared starting point for exposition. In 1:20, the second person is used in an exclamatory denial that Paul is lying. A more significant second-person pronoun is in 2:5, where Paul’s action in resisting circumcision of Titus is, surprisingly, ‘so that the truth of the gospel would remain for you’. This links the Galatians in a specific way to the account of the Antioch incident (esp. 2:14). We will return to it when we consider references to gentiles.

The next substantial block of direct address to the Galatians picks up where the first block, 1:6-9, left off. In 3:1 Paul denigrates the hearers’ intelligence in the clearest terms, ‘O foolish Galatians!’ Whereas in ch. 1 the foolishness lay in swapping from something genuine to a fake, now it is an inability to process properly the evidence of their eyes. They had seen (in some manner) Christ crucified but were not acting on the implication of that. According to the preceding verse, if Christ died, and that death was worthwhile, the (Jewish) law cannot be the source of righteousness (2:21). The next verses imply that Galatians had adopted ‘works of the law’ (3:2, 5). Galatians 3:1 implies that Paul sees such an adoption as a foolish ignoring of the principle of 2:21.

Again, as in 1:6-9, Paul immediately does what might be seen as softening the criticism by shifting the blame, this time to others who had ‘cast the evil eye’ on them (NRSV: ‘bewitched’). Whether this is literal or figurative, it moves some blame to...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Introduction: Rethinking Galatians in Terms of the Vision Offered to the Hearers
• Chapter 2 The Pistis of the Relational Christ
• Chapter 3 Scripture and Promise
• Chapter 4 Death, Life and Righteousness
• Chapter 5 Law and Spirit
• Chapter 6 Unity in Diversity in Christ
• Chapter 7 Conclusion
• References
• Ancient Sources Index
• Modern Authors Index
• Subject Index
• Copyright Page