Galatians

Worship for Life by Faith in the Crucified and Risen Lord

John Paul Heil

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781532656088, 9781532656095
• eBook ISBN: 9781532656101
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

This book presents two new proposals regarding Paul's letter to the Galatians. First, it demonstrates an entirely new chiastic structure embracing the entire letter, based on strict linguistic and textual criteria rather than on conceptual or theological themes. This chiastic structure accords with the view that Galatians was originally performed orally in a setting of communal worship. Secondly, it offers a new proposal for a key theme that runs throughout Galatians, as expressed by the subtitle of this book--"Worship for Life by Faith in the Crucified and Risen Lord." It considers "worship" to be a comprehensive concept that includes liturgical, cultic, or ritual worship as well as the moral behavior that is to complement it as ethical worship in accord with the biblical tradition. "Life" refers both to the present way of living as well as to future eternal life. "Faith" refers to the acceptance of divine grace available to the believer because of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Introduction

With this book I aim to present two new proposals regarding Paul’s letter to the Galatians (often referred to simply as “Galatians”).1 First, I will demonstrate a new chiastic structure embracing the entire letter, based on strict linguistic and textual criteria, rather than conceptual or theological themes.2 This chiastic structure accords with the view that Galatians was originally performed orally in a setting of communal worship. Chiastic structures were a common way of organizing or punctuating orally performed NT letters.3 Secondly, I will offer a new proposal for a key theme of Galatians, as expressed by the subtitle of this book: “Worship for Life by Faith in the Crucified and Risen Lord.” I will treat “worship” as a comprehensive concept that includes both liturgical, cultic, or ritual worship, as well as the moral behavior that is to complement it as ethical worship in accord with the biblical tradition. “Life” refers both to the present way of living as well as to future eternal life. “Faith” refers to the acceptance of divine grace available to the believer because of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Thirteen Microchiastic Structures of Galatians

Modern day texts employ visual indications of structural organization and punctuation, such as headings, paragraphs, commas, periods, etc. But orally performed texts that are heard rather than seen and read by an audience often rely upon chiasms for their structural organization and punctuation. A chiasm works by leading its audience through introductory elements to a central, pivotal point or points, and then reaching its climactic conclusion by recalling and developing, via the chiastic parallels, aspects of the initial elements. The simplest chiastic units contain three (A-B-A') or four elements (A-B-B'-A'), but chiasms may consist of any number of elements. The original hearers may and need not necessarily have been consciously identifying the chiastic structures as they heard them. They would simply experience the chiastic phenomenon unconsciously as an organizing dynamic that aided their perception and memory of the content. The delineation of these chiastic structures provides the modern reading audience with a visual aid to how the content was originally organized and thus can facilitate the interpretation of it.

In what follows, then, I will first demonstrate how the text of Galatians naturally divides itself into thirteen distinct literary units based upon their microchiastic structures as determined by very precise linguistic parallels found in the text. Where applicable, I will point out how other lexical and grammatical features often confirm the integrity of these chiastic units. I will also point out the various transitional words that closely connect a unit to the immediately preceding unit. These various transitional words, which occur near the conclusion of one unit and close to the beginning of the next, indicate that the chiastic units are heard as a very cohesive and unified sequence. These various transitional words are italicized in my translation of the chiastic units below. Secondly, I will demonstrate how these thirteen microchiastic units form a macrochiastic structure based upon very precise linguistic parallels found in the text of the parallel chiastic units.

1. The Grace and Peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ from All the Brothers (1:1–10)

Glory to God who raised from the dead Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins4

A 1Paul, an apostle not [οὐκ] from human beings [ἀνθρώπων] nor through a human being [ἀνθρώπου] but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, 2and all the brothers with me, to the churches of Galatia,

B 3grace [χάρις] to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4who gave himself for our sins, that he might free us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father,

C 5to whom be the glory for the ages of the ages. Amen!

B' 6I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from the one who called you in the grace [χάριτι] of Christ for a different gospel,

A' 7not [οὐκ] that there is another, but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than the gospel we preached to you, let him be accursed! 9As we have said before, and now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel other...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Galatians 1:1–10
• Chapter 3: Galatians 1:11–24
• Chapter 4: Galatians 2:1–14
• Chapter 5: Galatians 2:15–21
• Chapter 6: Galatians 3:1–5
• Chapter 7: Galatians 3:6–16
• Chapter 8: Galatians 3:17–29
• Chapter 9: Galatians 4:1–7
• Chapter 10: Galatians 4:8–20
• Chapter 11: Galatians 4:21–31
• Chapter 12: Galatians 5:1–13
• Chapter 13: Galatians 5:14–26
• Chapter 14: Galatians 6:1–18
• Chapter 15: Conclusion
• Bibliography