The Nature Of The Polemical Epistle To The Galatians

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The polemical Epistle to the Galatians has some of the most explosive and harsh rhetoric in all Pauline epistles. Paul’s writing clearly indicates that he is troubled by the situation in Galatia. Along with the other Pauline epistles, with the possible exception of Romans (Goodacre, 2016b), Paul’s Letter to the Galatians is occasional. That is, Paul is responding to specific problems within the Galatian community (Goodacre, 2016a). The actual occasion of Galatians is as follows: Paul is writing to dissuade Gentile Galatian Christians from adopting another gospel that calls for male circumcision and adherence to Jewish Law (New Revised Standard Version, Galatians. 5:2-3). Paul, the Galatian Christians, and his theological opponents make up …show more content…

As shown above, the occasional nature of the Galatian Epistle provides a window into Paul’s intentions as well as early Christianity. However, only Paul’s epistle remains. John Barclay, a scholar of the New Testament, explains a critical method used to counteract this predicament called mirror reading. Mirror reading utilizes extant polemical text, in this case Galatians, “as a mirror in which we can see reflected the people and the arguments under attack” (Barclay, 1987, pp. 73–74). While Barclay considers mirror reading an “essential” tool in studying Galatians, he also emphasizes that the method is “extremely problematic” (Barclay, 1987, p. 74). He identifies three general problems that limit the mirror-reading of Galatians: Paul officially writes the epistle to the Galatians and not his opponents; the epistle is very argumentative and not like a “rational conversation”; and, the inability to fully know the linguistic impact of statements on the Galatian community (Barclay, 1987, pp. 74–77). Other scholars like Mark Goodacre and Graham Stanton agree with Barclay by highlighting the uncertainty of when Paul is directly refuting opponents’ claims or simply utilizing rhetoric (Goodacre, 2016a; Stanton, 2001, p. 152). In addition to the importance of these limiting factors when mirror-reading Galatians, they are also important when reading the epistle more …show more content…

Evidence of their pagan origin comes from when Paul is questioning why they are “turn[ing] back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits” (Gal. 4:9). These people originally welcomed Paul into their midst while he was injured and accepted his gospel (Gal. 4:13-14). These two pieces of information, in turn, explain that they are Christian Gentiles. Yet despite Paul bringing them to Christ through his gospel, they are “quickly deserting” him (Gal. 1:6). Luke Johnson also amalgamates details from the epistle to from the Galatian identity. In addition to my description of the Galatians, Johnson writes that the Galatian community “did not have a mature grasp of this identity ‘in Christ,’” while also noting that Paul most likely introduced them to the Torah (Johnson, 2010, p. 291). Johnson’s idea of the community’s immaturity seems well founded because of their lack of conviction by “quickly deserting” (Gal. 1:6) the gospel and Paul’s infantilizing tone when calling them his “little children” (Gal. 4:19). The support for Paul first introducing the Torah to these people is more troublesome. Johnson’s support verses, (Gal. 3:2; 4:21; 5:4) simply explain that the Galatians did not receive the Spirit of Christ through the Law. On top of the lack of textual evidence, Richard

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