Death and Life

Resurrection, Restoration, and Rectification in Paul's Letter to the Galatians

Andy Boakye

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781498290012
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The resurrection of Jesus is arguably the most significant component of the Christian narrative and is critical for Paul's presentation of the Gospel. Yet it is routinely marginalized in study of the polemics of Galatians, largely because it is explicitly mentioned only once, and even then, only obliquely. This investigation redraws the boundaries of its impact in the letter, showing the risen Christ to be an indispensable feature of how Paul's argument unfolds and achieves its ultimate objective--establishing a rationale for the creation of a multiethnic eschatological family of God, which is grounded in Israel's biblical tradition.

1

Introduction

Outline and Setting the Scene

Thesis Outline

This investigation aims to ascertain the basis for which Paul’s response to the implied crisis in the Galatian Jesus communities took the shape and form it did in the epistle. A cursory reading of Galatians uncovers several wider concerns relating to Israel’s unfolding history that Paul deemed necessary to incorporate within his polemic—Israel’s relation to the Gentile world, to Abraham, Torah and Spirit. In addressing the issues within the Galatian churches by recourse to these elements of Israel’s religious history, Paul clearly saw the difficulties there as a practical manifestation of disagreements over these concerns within Israel.

The difficulties arose because certain Jewish believers (Gal 1:6) questioned Paul’s rendition of the gospel.1 To these rogue teachers, Israel’s future still had Torah at its centre, so Gentiles desiring a share in that future were not exempt from its demands. Paul vociferously objected; however, the language and ideas by which he expressed his discord in Galatians imply a more thoroughgoing proposition than simply “Gentiles do not need to Judaize to be counted among God’s people.” The present volume will consider what motivated Paul to employ the vocabulary of life and living in conjunction with the language of death and crucifixion in Galatians to both rebut the Torah-centered gospel and simultaneously convey how God acted to restore his relationship with mankind.2

Scholarly theories surrounding Paul’s literary-polemic approach in Galatians, with certain themes clearly predominant, are convoluted. There is generous consensus on some issues and wide divergence on others. Most agree that a serious “Law-related” problem instigated Paul’s response; if, however, there is a core element to Paul’s retort, commentators exhibit little concurrence on what this might be.3 In what follows, a possible inroad will unfold.

Navigating a way into Galatians is an imprecise science; Cosgrove helpfully suggests that readers “join the conversation” at Gal 3:1–2, for, this only did Paul wish to inquire about.4 Methodologically, he argues that the first unit that addresses the Galatian problem with directness and specificity is the question of 3:2.5 Cosgrove is broadly correct and my reading proceeds by suggesting that the question of Gal 3:19 is a corollary of the one in 3:2, which brings the two key elements of the problem to the fore—the manifestation of the Spirit and the place of the Law. No scholarly investigation of Galatians of any influence has left these components untreated, but innovative hermeneutic strategies have produced divergent outcomes regarding them, as the following scholars demonstrate.

By employing Aristotelian categorization, H. D. Betz postulated that Galatians fits the form of apologetic letter.6 Betz adjudged Galatians to be a form of forensic rhetoric, noting how Quintillian’s literary divisions make good sense of much of the epistle.7 For Betz, however, Paul’s letter is not primarily defending his apostleship, as several commentators suggest. Rather, Betz states that:

. . . Paul goes directly to the root of the matter. As his strategy of defence he has chosen to defend the gift of the Spirit to the Galatians . . . The Spirit was . . . God’s self-manifestation among and within human beings.8

The Spirit in Betz’s reading is outside human control and cannot be manipulated or averted.9 The ecstatic Spirit experience of the Galatian Gentiles was evidence of their salvation without works of Law; his opponents said that such a thing should never happen, but it did happen. As such, the Spirit proved the non-essentiality of the Law.

For J. Louis Martyn, it is the apocalyptic thrust of Galatians that governs its interpretation. As such, the key questions it addresses are “what time is it?” and “in what cosmos do we actually live?”10 Martyn answers in terms of Spirit:

It is the time after the apocalypse of the faith of Christ, the time, therefore, of God’s making things right by Christ’s faith, the time of the presence of the Spirit of Christ, and thus the time in which the invading Spirit has decisively commenced the war of liberation from the powers of the present evil age.11

He...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Revivification Text One
• Chapter 3: Revivification Text Two
• Chapter 4: Revivification Text Three
• Chapter 5: Revivification Text Four
• Chapter 6: Revivification Text Five
• Chapter 7: Revivification Text Six
• Chapter 8: Thesis Conclusions and Summation
• Bibliography