Was Paul’s Letter to the Galatians Effective?

Introduction: Interpreting Galatians

Galatians is more ad hoc than many of Paul’s letters, leaving unstated many assumptions shared between Paul and the Galatians. This requires careful work to reconstruct as much as possible of the situation that Galatians addresses. Relevance theory highlights the importance of unstated, shared assumptions. One cannot, for example, engage news or sports reports, shows about interior design or cooking, or almost any other subject without encountering material where unstated information is simply presupposed as known to the normal readers or viewers.

Most scholars agree that we can learn something about Paul’s challengers in Galatia from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. That we have only one side of the conversation, however, warns us not to think that we know more than we really do. In keeping with ancient polemical conventions, Paul sometimes reduces his opponents’ principles to absurdity and puts the worst face on their intentions; they would undoubtedly have protested that their arguments were more persuasive and their motives more honorable than the way that Paul depicted them.

Luther’s Influential Approach

Galatians has occupied center stage in theological debates since the period of the Protestant Reformation. In this commentary I engage various influential earlier interpreters, including Luther, alongside more recent commentators. (Because my historical expertise declines for periods after the second century, my principle of selection for these earlier commentators has been a pragmatic one: I examined material that was readily available for this study.) Since some modern negative depictions of Paul’s view of the law purport to derive their inspiration from Luther, it is helpful to observe that Luther retained valid uses for the law as Scripture.

Nevertheless, Luther depended heavily on the interpretive grid supplied by his early reading of Galatians. Although Luther tried to hear Galatians in its own context, he was also intensely interested in hearing its application to his own time. Luther believed that all Scripture was God’s word, but not all was equally applicable in his own context; following Augustine against Jerome and Erasmus, he treated Romans and Galatians as fully applicable.

Many scholars, including some associated with the New Perspective, do recognize that Luther did contextualize helpfully for his own day Paul’s concerns about grace and faith. Some find important agreements between Paul and Luther and between Luther and the New Perspective. Although the New Perspective reflects a more nuanced understanding of early Judaism than what prevailed among the Reformers, some alleged contrasts between the New Perspective and the Reformers rest on a deficient and perhaps stereotyped understanding of the latter’s theology.

Unfortunately, subsequent dependence on Luther’s contextualization has sometimes obscured the setting that Paul originally addressed, inhibiting fresher contextualizations. Many proponents of new perspectives today helpfully recognize the relevance of Paul’s stand against marginalizing gentiles for continuing problems of ethnocentrism. (Despite protests against the characterization, ancient Judaism remained an ethnic religion in the sense that conversion entailed embrace of a people and a heritage. The Christian movement also included joining a people, but with a much looser social affiliation to Israel.)

Because Galatians addresses hearers who are already believers, some argue that it is more concerned with “staying in” right standing with God than with “getting in” to begin with. Paul’s argument is not against Judaism but against a faction of Jewish believers in Christ who insist that “Paul’s Gentile converts must accept the Jewish law” if they are to belong to God’s people. (They would not expect them to observe the law as merely ordinary gentiles.) Paul insists that because his gentile converts have embraced Christ and received the Spirit just like Jewish believers, they are no less full heirs of Israel’s promises. In my view, this means that Paul envisions gentile believers as spiritual proselytes (see Gal. 3:29; cf. Rom. 2:28–29; 11:17), whereas his competitors viewed them as merely sympathizers or God-fearers (cf. Acts 15:20), still needing marks of the covenant to become full children of Abraham.

Galatians and Pauline Theology

Luther appealed to Romans to fill the gaps in Galatians’ more ad hoc arguments. If we appeal to any background at all, surely Paul’s own developed thought is the closest available background for Galatians. Because Paul had spent time in Galatia but not in Rome when he wrote these letters, Paul in Romans articulates more explicitly assumptions that he could leave unstated in his arguments in Galatians.

Nevertheless, precisely because Romans is (contrary to Luther) more developed we must recognize differences between the letters. Most scholars of Luther’s day thought that Galatians abridged Paul’s earlier argument in Romans, whereas most scholars today deem Romans the later, more mature work. Galatians is much harsher toward Jewish tradition and the law. Some passages in Galatians might appear to imply that Christ has ended the Mosaic law, whereas Romans is clearer in differentiating the law from its abuse. Romans is also far more refined grammatically than Galatians.

Theologically, the letters basically cohere, opposing not works per se but boasting in them. Yet Romans is more nuanced, and is helpful for qualifying, by means of Paul’s more comprehensive theology just several years later, some striking statements found in Galatians. The differences reflect a new, less urgent setting and perhaps also are due to development in Paul’s thought and ways to articulate his position. Galatians is more direct, polemical, crisis oriented, and perhaps hasty because it addresses an immediate threat from opponents, whereas in the Roman church Paul is seeking to reconcile factions.

An Apocalyptic Letter?

Many interpreters read Galatians against the backdrop of Paul’s “apocalyptic” worldview, more explicit in, for example, 1 Thessalonians or 1 Corinthians than in Galatians. Following a trajectory set by Ernst Käsemann and confirmed by J. Christiaan Beker, J. Louis Martyn, Martinus de Boer, and others have argued for an “apocalyptic” reading of Galatians.

The extent to which “apocalyptic” can characterize Galatians is largely a matter of definition: Galatians is far from the technical definition of an apocalypse as a visionary text, but like Paul’s other letters it does embrace elements of the apocalyptic eschatological worldview foreign to modern existential rereadings of early Christian literature. Certainly it addresses a shift in eras through Christ’s anticipated coming (see 1:4; 3:19–26). Some scholars, however, argue that Martyn presses apocalyptic too far, neglecting the value of prior salvation history (even though an apocalyptic reading per se does not require rejecting salvation history).

In the commentary, I draw on a diverse range of primary sources in seeking to reconstruct Paul’s context as holistically as possible. It should go without saying, however, that sources closer to Paul’s time and geographic sphere of ministry should be given preference—thus, for example, Stoic sources over Neoplatonic ones, Josephus or Philo over later rabbinic texts, and so forth. Nevertheless, these other sources are sometimes more valuable because of the insights they provide; for example, the way rabbinic exegetical tradition grappled with some of the sorts of biblical texts earlier engaged by Paul illustrates a Jewish hermeneutical approach, some of it having earlier antecedents. Regarding Pauline vocabulary, I draw not only on Paul’s undisputed letters but also on those that are disputed but at least essentially “Pauline.”

Some Dominant Themes

In the letter’s body, the theme of the gospel dominates Paul’s apologetic narrative section (1:6–9, 11, 16, 23; 2:2, 5, 7, 14; cf. 4:13); here Paul invokes his personal accounts of receiving and defending the gospel God gave him. The themes of law (2:16, 19, 21; 3:2, 5, 10–13, 17–19, 21, 23–24; 4:4–5, 21; cf. 5:3–4) and promise (3:14, 16–19, 21–22, 29; 4:23, 28) dominate the letter’s direct argumentative section, and here Paul repeatedly invokes Scripture (most explicitly in 3:6, 8, 10–13, 16; 4:22, 27, 30), although he also appeals to his audience’s experience (3:1–5; 4:8, 13–14) and stirs pathos (4:12–20).

Although law continues to appear (5:14, 18, 23; 6:2, 13) in the body’s final section and the Spirit was introduced earlier (3:2–5, 14; 4:6, 29), the theme of the Spirit tends to dominate the letter’s ethical section (5:16–18, 22–23, 25; 6:1, 8). It is the Spirit, not external laws, that enables true righteousness (cf. Ezek. 36:27). In its distinctively negative or inadequate sense that contrasts with the promised Spirit, flesh (σάρξ, sarx) is introduced in Gal. 3:3, appears in the contrast between the Spirit-promised (prophetically promised) heir and the child born by natural means (4:23, 29), and features heavily in the continued contrast with the Spirit in 5:13, 16–17, 19–21, 24; 6:8, 12–13.

Author, Provenance, and Date

Apart from some fairly idiosyncratic voices in recent centuries, nearly all scholars have affirmed that Paul wrote Galatians. It is too closely connected with the local situation and too close in style to other letters with local connections to be pseudepigraphic. Later imitators would hardly have cared to imitate Paul’s letters had he not written some, and allusions to his letters appear in sources written within living memory of his execution.

Ancient writers often thought that Paul wrote Galatians late, from Rome. Modern scholars usually prefer a provenance of Corinth or Ephesus. If Paul’s rivals proceeded to Galatia shortly after the Jerusalem Council, Paul’s depiction of which would have left them unwelcome in Antioch, Paul could even have written the letter from Antioch, describing recent events in 2:11–14. The question of Galatians’ provenance makes little difference in interpreting the letter, however, in contrast to the question of the location of its addressees (treated below).

Because “we” material in Acts suggests that its author traveled with Paul at times, because Acts functions as a historical monograph, and because I have argued these matters at length elsewhere, I will cite Acts where I believe it relevant. At many points Acts supplies information that coincides with or fills gaps in our understanding of Galatians. Naturally, one source omits much of what the other recounts (cf., e.g., Acts 9:23 with Gal. 1:18), and quick summaries leave impressions contrary to details in the other (cf., e.g., Acts 9:27 with Gal. 1:19).

Nevertheless, when one compares Acts with Galatians, not only omissions but also differences of perspective are obvious. For example, writing with the benefit of hindsight, Luke puts the best face on differences between Paul and the Jerusalem apostles (cf. Acts 15:2–32), whereas Paul is at pains in Galatians to emphasize his independence from those apostles (Gal. 1:18–20; 2:6). Sharing ancient historians’ appreciation for an appearance of a degree of neutrality, Luke has apparently incorporated some Jerusalem perspectives for which Paul had little use when writing Galatians (cf. Acts 15:20, 29; Gal. 2:6, 10). Such differences of perspective are helpful for us to keep in mind when comparing the accounts.

Date: After the Jerusalem Council

Scholars today vary in the date they assign to the letter’s composition, although the entire range of debated dates is generally less than a decade, from ca. 48 to the mid-50s, a common median being about 51. As already noted, however, earlier tradition favored a late date for Galatians, believing that Paul composed it after Romans. Following that tradition, most Reformers averred that Galatians condensed Romans. Whereas some scholars today debate whether Galatians was written late enough for 2:1–10 to refer to the council depicted in Acts 15, Luther applied it to an occasion even later than Acts 15.

The date of Galatians cannot precede the date of events depicted in Galatians, so the date of the incident in Gal. 2:1–10 is a primary crux in the debate concerning a possible early date of Galatians. Today scholars advance at least six significant positions regarding the relationship of 2:1–10 to Acts. Of these, the two most common are the view that the meeting in Galatians corresponds best with the famine visit of Acts 11:30 and 12:25 and the view that it corresponds most fully to the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. Proponents of both views offer plausible arguments. Many respected scholars support the first view, though a greater number of scholars, including myself, favor the second.

I will first list several arguments that scholars have advanced for the first (famine visit) view, following each argument with my response supporting the second (Jerusalem Council) view. Then I will turn to remaining arguments for the Jerusalem Council view not already treated in my responses.

First, supporters of the famine-visit view doubt that Paul would have omitted mention of the famine visit in Galatians. In Galatians, however, Paul addresses only occasions on which he met the apostles in Jerusalem (1:17–20; 2:1–2); most of the apostles may have been in hiding when he came (Acts 12:1–3, 17). (They had also delegated the food distribution program to others; see Acts 6:3–6.) Whereas Luke usually pairs the Jerusalem church’s elders with apostles (15:2, 4, 6, 22; 16:4; cf. 21:18), the elders curiously stand alone as recipients of the collection in 11:30. One could just as easily argue from silence that Luke would have reported any meeting with the apostles, had it occurred, during the famine visit, as to argue from silence that Paul would have felt compelled to list a visit in which he did not meet them.

Second, some consider it “inconceivable” that Paul would not mention the Jerusalem decree in Galatians had the council of Acts 15 already occurred. All scholars acknowledge, however, that 1 Corinthians postdates any event depicted in Acts 15; but 1 Corinthians appeals to no decree to settle the questions of sexual immorality or food offered to idols, issues that the Jerusalem decree expressly addressed (Acts 15:20). Moreover, on a post–Jerusalem Council date for Galatians, Acts itself tells us that Paul had already delivered these decrees to south Galatia (16:4)—apparently before insistence on circumcision became an issue there (suggested by the geographic range in 15:1, 23). The Galatians already knew Paul’s side of what happened at the council, but his challengers in Galatia afterward presented a different “Jerusalem view” to which Paul now had to respond. Paul’s claim in Gal. 2:6–10 provides more detail about the council from his perspective, and thus effectively does appeal to the decree.

Third, some find discrepancies between Gal. 2:1–10 and Acts 15. Most such discrepancies, however, involve omissions of detail in one account or the other, such as is common in ancient historical texts as well as modern eyewitness testimony. If Acts 11:30 fares better in terms of discrepancies, it is only because its account is too bare to offer many discrepancies—or parallels. It has in common with Gal. 2:1–10 only that Paul and Barnabas visit Jerusalem—features also present in Acts 15. Against identification with the famine visit, why would Jerusalem apostles ask Paul and Barnabas to remember the poor (Gal. 2:10) on a famine visit on which that is precisely what they are doing?

Fourth, the “revelation” in Gal. 2:2 could fit the reason for the famine visit (Acts 11:28–30); Paul can use “revelation” to refer to Christian prophecy (1 Cor. 14:6, 26, 30). In Galatians, however, he applies this language specifically to his personal revelation of the gospel (Gal. 1:12, 16; cf. 3:23; Rom. 1:17; 16:25). In context, then, Paul’s revelation was the gospel message for the gentiles that he presented to the Jerusalem leaders, as suggested even in the verse itself (Gal. 2:2).

Fifth, some contend that the agreement reached in Acts 11:30 and 12:25 and Gal. 2:1–10 was incomplete, requiring it to be later revisited in Acts 15. But in logic, the simplest solution is generally the best one available. Since Acts 11:30 and 12:25 do not mention any agreement or even any meeting with Jerusalem apostles, and since Acts 15 includes both these features, is it not simpler to conclude that Gal. 2:1–10 reflects events also reported in Acts 15?

Sixth, some argue that since Timothy, who was from southern Galatia, traveled with Paul after Acts 16, Paul would have mentioned Timothy specifically in the letter. This argument, though plausible, depends on silence, especially since Timothy may well be included in “all the members of God’s family who are with me” (Gal. 1:2). Moreover, Paul sometimes sent Timothy to various churches (1 Cor. 4:17; 16:10; Phil. 2:19; 1 Thess. 3:2, 6), making any mention of him being with Paul at such times disingenuous. Further, on some suggested datings, Paul writes from Antioch after the council of Acts 15 but before the journeys of Acts 16.

Seventh, some argue that the Galatians turning “so quickly” from Paul’s gospel (Gal. 1:6) suggests an early date for Galatians. The generic label “quickly,” however, hardly quantifies how quickly. (Certainly not all interpreters press the cognate nouns or adjectives with immediacy for Jesus’s “soon” coming in Rev. 1:1; 22:6–7, 12, 20, for example.) Paul employs the noun form for an indefinite period in Rom. 16:20. Rather than specifying a length of time, Paul evokes how “quickly” Israel turned aside to idols in Exod. 32:8; Deut. 9:12, 16; the same biblical language could be applied even after a generation or more (Judg. 2:17).

One could date Galatians in the period right before the Jerusalem Council, when Paul debated with circumcisionists in Antioch (Acts 15:1–2). But the issue seems to have gone no further north than Antioch by this point; if it had, why would the council address their decrees only to Syria-Cilicia (15:23, 41) and not include the province of Galatia? Luke’s report of the decrees’ direct addressees accurately fits the time in his narrative rather than later events reflected in Galatians.

Date: Other Considerations

Additional considerations confirm that Paul wrote Galatians after the Jerusalem Council. First, numerous features in common between Gal. 2:1–10 and Acts 15 suggest that they refer to the same event.

Commonalities

Acts 15:6–22

Gal. 2:1–10

The same basic object

Acts 15:5

Gal. 2:4

The same basic outcome

Acts 15:19–21, 28–29

Gal. 2:5–6

Paul’s mission is recognized

Acts 15:12

Gal. 2:2

Leaders agree that gentiles need not be circumcised

Acts 15:19–20

Gal. 2:7–9

Peter agreed

Acts 15:7–11

Gal. 2:9

James agreed

Acts 15:13–21

Gal. 2:9

I believe that it strains plausibility to suppose these are coincidentally two completely separate events, one recorded by Luke and the other by Paul.

In Acts 15:4 Paul and Barnabas testify to the entire church, but in 15:6 the matter of circumcising gentiles is brought to a smaller group, the apostles and elders. Luke is not clear when the matter is finally brought back to the entire assembly (15:12), but it is clear both that not everyone in the leaders’ meeting agreed with Paul’s view and that Peter successfully took his side (15:7). Paul also speaks of a private meeting with the leaders (Gal. 2:2), where others besides the chief leaders, who did not take the chief leaders’ side, were present (2:4). Luke has reason to emphasize the roles of Peter and James; Paul has reason to emphasize his own independent participation. But as long as we recognize that Luke’s and Paul’s reports are independent and from different perspectives, their points of agreement provide multiple attestation for memories of an important event. Joseph Fitzmyer rightly observes that none of the differences “is significant enough to undermine the substantial agreement of the two reports,” which multiply attests the basic contours of the historical event.

Similarity to the subject matter of Romans suggests to many that the writing of Galatians may stem from the same period in Paul’s life. Because Romans is more nuanced and its arguments better sharpened against objections, however, Galatians probably predates Romans. Lack of direct mention of the current collection could suggest either a date after Romans or, much likelier, before the collection got under way, thus before 1 Corinthians (cf. 1 Cor. 16:1, where Paul appears on good terms with the Galatians, perhaps after the issues confronted in his letter to the Galatians?). Others suggest that, mention of the collection aside, Paul wrote between 2 Corinthians and Romans. After all, the situation in Galatia may be too desperate at the time Paul writes for Paul to launch into discussion of a collection anyway.

James was already influential earlier (Gal. 1:19), but in Gal. 2:9, 12 he appears to be the most prominent leader in the Jerusalem church. Insofar as we can tell from Acts, he did not achieve this rank before the famine visit and Peter’s departure from the city (Acts 11:30; 12:17; cf. 15:13, 19; 21:18; 1 Cor. 9:5). It may have been growing, however, because of Peter’s earlier absences from Jerusalem (Acts 9:32–43; later, Gal. 2:11).

Some other considerations appear less decisive. If Gal. 2:1 refers to fourteen more years (reckoned inclusively) after the three years of 1:18 (also reckoned inclusively), one must take the shortest possible inclusive reckoning of the total (hence about fourteen years) and date Paul’s conversion quite soon after Jesus’s crucifixion to have Paul’s visit coincide with the time of Agrippa’s demise (Acts 12:21–25) in 44 CE. Dating the visit of Gal. 2:1–10 to the likely time of the council, ca. 48, allows greater flexibility for Pauline chronology.

That Titus appears known to the Galatians (Gal. 2:3) might suggest that he was one of their own. If so, the first missionary journey, which Acts locates after the famine visit, preceded Gal. 2:1–10. This argument is only a subsidiary one, however, since Titus could have been an unnamed companion from Antioch on Paul’s first missionary journey and could have earlier accompanied him and Barnabas to Jerusalem. Also, Paul’s earliest letters (the Thessalonian correspondence) alone do not identify him as an apostle, rendering more doubtful the argument that Galatians, which argues for Paul’s apostleship, predates them.

Because Gal. 2:1–10 probably refers to the event later depicted in Acts 15, this commentary adopts a date some time after the Jerusalem Council (ca. 48), but probably before the collection, so perhaps ca. 50–52. If Paul’s narrative brings him up to the occasion for or time of writing, as such narrative introductions often did, Paul might write from Antioch; this surmise may press too much from silence, however (the sequence of 1:13–2:14 may omit much, such as not explicitly including even Paul evangelizing Galatia). As noted, lack of mention of the collection might suggest that he writes from Troas, Macedonia, or Corinth before the collection project began, though again we cannot be certain.

Paul’s Audience in Galatia

At least the strong majority of Paul’s audience was gentile; they were not yet circumcised (Gal. 5:2; 6:12) and they once worshiped non-gods (4:8). Paul’s letters only rarely provide more specific details about his converts’ previous religious practices, but their background might help explain elements of their susceptibility to the false teachers and perhaps their familiarity with some texts Paul cites in his letter. Many gentiles were attracted to Judaism in areas where some Jews lived, so some sympathetic polytheists may have had some acquaintance with the synagogue before their conversion (cf. Acts 13:43; 14:1).

Those with any background in Scripture might be teachers who could help others learn when they met together (cf. Gal. 6:6; Acts 14:23). Nevertheless, they would be ill prepared to match the circumcisionist teachers from Judea with whom Paul finds himself in theological conflict in this letter. (Even Galatian Jews may have assumed that Judeans had greater religious knowledge than themselves [cf. Acts 13:14–15], in the same way that one might expect visitors from a homeland to know more about it than would their diaspora.)

Galatia’s religious environment offers some valuable insights, discussed at Gal. 4:8–10 and, regarding one cult, at 5:12. One feature worthy of note here is the connection between some Phrygian cults and their “strict and conservative social morality.” But older proposed backgrounds such as mystery cults and later gnostic sources offer little insight into Galatians.

More recently, a number of scholars have viewed Galatians through an anti-imperial lens. The imperial cult was undoubtedly one of the cults in gentile converts’ backgrounds, given strikingly prominent imperial temples in this region. In this letter, however, Paul is probably too concerned with the immediate issue to be considering the larger setting of Roman oppression. Some see the need for exemption from the imperial cult in Gal. 6:12, but that passage likelier assumes instead intra-Jewish pressure than Roman persecution. Roman oppression remained part of the environment, but reminders of it in the text appear peripheral and implicit (e.g., the resonances for Paul’s audience of terms such as “freedom” and “compelled”). Still, Paul is concerned with his rivals imposing their cultural (and, they believed, scriptural) strictures on his converts, so we might speak in any case of a sort of cultural and theological imperialism.

One frequently offered aspect of background involves the people from whom the Galatian province derived its name. Romans in this period spoke of two Galatias: the nearer one was Gaul, north of Italy, in Europe. By the first century, Rome controlled much of this Gaul. Many Gauls, or Celts, however, had earlier migrated southeast. They invaded Asia Minor, settling in Phrygian and Cappadocian territories, although they initially encountered fierce resistance. Romans considered them fierce and traditionally anti-Roman. Supposedly the strongest warriors in Asia, they sang and shouted when entering battle, for the purpose of terrifying their enemies. Strikingly to more southern peoples, they were generally tall with long red hair.

Romans depicted the Roman conquest of these Asian Galatians as liberating Asia from the Galatians’ lawlessness. Rome’s expansion drove them “into the thinly settled hinterland of Anatolia.” Writing in the first century BCE, Cicero considered these Gauls less civilized than residents of the province of Asia. Outsiders stereotyped Galatians as ignorant, although Galatians themselves worked hard to challenge this prejudice. Mediterranean stereotypes of Celts being “crude and stupid” persisted even into Late Antiquity. Erasmus follows Jerome in deeming them stupid, providing Erasmus (though not Jerome) an occasion for anti-French prejudice.

How relevant is this Celtic backdrop? The answer depends to some extent on whether one views Paul’s addressees as ethnic Gauls (on the North Galatian view) or simply inhabitants of the Galatian province (on the South Galatian view). Yet the character of Paul’s letter suggests that even if he addressed north Galatia, he addressed its hellenized and romanized urban residents, not the stereotypical Celtic invaders of earlier generations. Moreover, even south Galatians would be aware of the stereotypes of their northern neighbors, stereotypes that could naturally be associated with the province as a whole by outsiders. (This might be why some, such as Luke, avoid the provincial title for south Galatians.)

North or South Galatia?

Commentators divide between those who argue that Paul’s primary audience consisted of ethnic Galatians in the northern part of the province of Galatia and those who argue that Paul simply employs the provincial label, which allows that his audience could be (and for various reasons probably was) in southern Galatia. Many scholars hold their position tentatively.

Commentators who prefer a later date for Galatians often prefer a north Galatian audience, whereas those who prefer an earlier date for Galatians often prefer a south Galatian audience. The issues are, however, separable, as scholars often recognize: although a north Galatian audience appears more difficult on a date before the Jerusalem Council of 48, either audience is possible on a later date. Various scholars do in fact support a later date (i.e., after the council) but a south Galatian audience, including myself.

Historically, most commentators favored the North Galatian hypothesis. Curiously, most medieval Western commentators spoke of the Galatians as living in Greece, though this might simply reflect Late Antiquity’s division of the Roman Empire into Greek (eastern) and Latin (western) regions. Many commentators also recognized that Paul’s Galatians had migrated from Gaul or France, hence were ethnic Gauls (which presumes the North Galatian view). Although aware of some supporters of a South Galatian hypothesis in his day, J. B. Lightfoot in the nineteenth century also favored north Galatia.

The weight of historical opinion is thus behind the North Galatian hypothesis, ironically (given recent scholarship) making this a more “conservative” (and certainly traditional) view. This was the case, however, because patristic commentators assumed the provincial boundaries and population patterns of their own day, being generally unaware of those of Paul’s day. As Peter Oakes, who supports a south Galatian destination, puts it, “How did scholarship ever go down the rather curious road of the North Galatian hypothesis? A key factor is that the boundaries of the province changed, with the southern parts being reassigned to other provinces in a series of stages over the centuries after Paul. This meant that church fathers inevitably assumed that Paul was writing to the northern area around Ancyra.”

Arguments for the North Galatian Hypothesis

Following are some key arguments traditionally offered for the North Galatian hypothesis, followed by my responses, and then arguments for the South Galatian hypothesis. One significant argument in favor of the North Galatian hypothesis is its antiquity, already addressed above. Another argument is that Luke employs the title “Galatia” only in Acts 16:6 and 18:23, there in connection with Paul’s mission in the north. This argument, however, proves vulnerable to several criticisms. First, Luke mentions no evangelization occurring in connection with these travels. Second, Luke’s usage cannot determine Paul’s. Third, ancient usage suggests that in 16:6 Luke probably refers to Phrygian Galatia, not to northern Galatia. Indeed, the route depicted in Acts 16:6–8 might not even pass through northern Galatia. Finally, if we are to appeal to Acts, Luke devotes not two verses but the better part of two chapters to the evangelization of the southern part of the Galatian province.

Many scholars also note that the local peoples in the southern part of the province called themselves Lycaonian or Phrygian. This observation bears some weight, but orators addressing mixed communities usually used provincial titles. Paul calling them “Lycaonians, Phrygians, Pisidians, Greek-speakers, and Roman colonists” would have been cumbersome (and in Gal. 3:1, put a brake to his rhetoric) in a way that uniting them by the title of their province would not. Unlike Luke’s descriptions in this region, Paul’s letters regularly refer to regions by their provincial titles (Rom. 15:26; 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:5, 15, 19; 2 Cor. 1:1, 8, 16; 2:13; 7:5; 8:1; 9:2, 4; 11:9–10; Gal. 1:21; Phil. 4:15; 1 Thess. 1:7–8; 4:10). More importantly, in direct address he speaks to the “Corinthians” (using a geographic, not ethnic, designation in direct address) in 2 Cor. 6:11, and “Philippians” in Phil. 4:15. If he were using instead ethnic designations, he would probably call them “Roman citizens” and (more typically for Paul’s usage) “Greeks.”

Many doubt that Paul would have risked offending Lycaonians and Phrygians by calling them “Galatians,” with its often negative connotations (Gal. 3:1). Had Paul been concerned with offense, however, he might well have dispensed particularly with the adjective “foolish” that immediately precedes this title!

One of the more compelling arguments for the North Galatian hypothesis is that the letter’s audience are former pagans (Gal. 4:8–9), a situation that should not be as true in Phrygia. Luke reports that some Jewish people (Acts 14:1; cf. 13:42) and proselytes (13:43) in this region became followers of Jesus, and Galatians seems to leave no trace of them. But perhaps Paul simply addresses the group most at risk from his rivals (Paul never objected to circumcision of fellow Jews); after all, his arguments about circumcision address only males, but this does not indicate that there were no females among his converts (Gal. 3:28).

It is further possible that Paul addresses primarily the gentile believers because most Jewish believers who remain have gone over to the side of his rivals, who claimed Jerusalem backing. Moreover, it appears that the majority of converts in the chief city of the region were gentiles, opposed by the local synagogue (Acts 13:45–50); this apparently was true also in Lystra (14:11–20) and surely true of the outlying areas (13:49; 14:6). Luke speaks of just two synagogues in the region (13:14, 43; 14:1; in both cases articular, as if these were the only ones), though apparently there were some Jews in Lystra (even if at least some of them were fairly lax in observing the Torah; Acts 16:1).

Arguments for the South Galatian Hypothesis

Today, the South Galatian hypothesis probably represents the majority view among scholars. N. T. Wright claims that “the case for a South Galatian destination is now overwhelming.” The expertise of archaeologists, however, should weigh more than that of us armchair commentators in any case. Stephen Mitchell, possibly today’s best-known scholar concerning ancient Anatolia, contends that William Ramsay’s work favoring south Galatia “should long ago have put the matter beyond dispute.” “There is virtually nothing to be said for the North Galatian theory. There is no evidence in Acts or in any non-testamentary source that Paul ever evangelized the region.” As noted below, there is not even much evidence that he could have.

People in the middle of the first century CE called the entire province “Galatia”; it included “much of eastern Phrygia, Lycaonia, Isauria, Pisidia, and Pamphylia.” Its boundary ran south of both Pisidian Antioch and Iconium. This area thus includes the regions that Paul and Barnabas evangelized in Acts 13–14.

Southern Galatia had better roads, it was far more populated in the first century, and its residents used Greek much more widely than did those of north Galatia. As Stephen Mitchell points out, north Galatia had very few cities to evangelize in Paul’s day. At this time, north Galatia was sparsely populated, apart from Pessinus or Ancyra, and given the prevalence of local languages, Paul could have communicated only with the hellenized upper classes even there. Finding many converts in north Galatia would be much more difficult, given the scarcity of people to be converted, especially those with any demonstrated interest in monotheism.

Although some Jews lived in central Anatolia, there were more Jews in Phrygian (south) Galatia than in the interior. There were enough law-observant Jewish communities in south Galatia (cf. Acts 13:14; 14:1) to make plausible the opponents’ arguments that real followers of Israel’s God needed to observe Jewish practices. Why would Paul bypass the region nearer the coast, with a larger Jewish population, for a region where he would have less immediate access to those clearly interested in his God? Perhaps more tellingly, why would Paul’s circumcisionist rivals follow him to “the remote interior of Anatolia” when south Galatia “was both accessible and settled by Jews”? Acts tells us that Paul evangelized south Galatia, which makes geographic sense (and is not the prominent sort of region an ancient narrator would have good reason to invent); would his rivals not first occupy themselves there?

If both the Corinthians (1 Cor. 16:1) and Paul’s opponents (Gal. 1:7; 3:1; 4:17; 5:10–12; 6:12–13) knew the churches of Galatia, how likely is it that Luke, whose itinerary for Paul fairly closely matches the itinerary we can reconstruct from Paul’s letters, would be oblivious to them? Yet Luke’s narrative includes only Paul’s ministry in the southern part of the province. Furthermore, Christianity grew rapidly in southern Galatia, whereas its growth in the north remained fairly slow until the third or fourth century.

Paul mentions Barnabas as if known (Gal. 2:1, 9, 13), and Barnabas apparently did not accompany Paul on missions further north than southern Galatia (see Acts 13:42–50; 14:1, 14, 20; 15:39). This consideration, however, is rendered weaker than most others in that Paul seems to have spoken of Barnabas to churches that we have no record of Barnabas visiting (1 Cor. 9:6; cf. Col. 4:10).

The churches of Galatia that Paul directly addresses are therefore likely centered in the south Galatian area of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and possibly Derbe. This commentary will therefore periodically note possible connections with Acts 13–14. It is quite improbable that these connections merely reflect Luke’s knowledge of the letter, since Luke does not even label the area Galatia in these chapters. Many of the connections may reflect coincidence, but some might reflect genuine reminiscences, in both independent sources, of Paul’s earlier experiences. Luke naturally uses his own vocabulary, but historians tried to provide speech as close as possible to what they knew of the speaker’s own. When speech is attributed to both Paul and Barnabas, my focus is (for the sake of Galatians) on Paul, whom Luke in any case designates as the chief speaker (Acts 14:12).

Paul’s Opponents

Whether Paul’s rivals initially viewed him as an “opponent” is less than certain, but there can be no doubt that he considered them his opponents as well as his rivals for the Galatian believers’ allegiance. (Often in this commentary I will follow convention in abbreviating my designation of the Galatian believers as simply “the Galatians,” a less precise but also less cumbersome title.)

Commentators debate at extensive length about the nature and teaching of Paul’s antagonists, rivals, or, from a less specifically Pauline perspective, “the new preachers.” That Paul does have rivals in Galatia is not in dispute. Although Paul also appears somewhat defensive in 1 Thessalonians, there is no evidence of preachers who oppose him there. By contrast, some rival preachers, apparently critics from outside the congregations he founded, are clear in Galatians and 2 Corinthians.

The fundamental methodological question has to do with how we should identify or reconstruct them on the basis of our scattered pieces of information. One can look for a shared core of early Jewish beliefs that were likely held by Paul’s opponents, and probably by Paul himself. This approach can be helpful, although it is not necessarily very specific. More often, scholars argue that “we should assume that someone holds the position that he denounces” in each of Paul’s negations in Gal. 1–2. Some go so far as to read not only Galatians but even likely Romans as rhetorically constructed “debates with the Teachers.” Certainly, Jewish apologists often implicitly refuted charges; one could also respond to real or hypothetical charges without explicitly mentioning them as such as well as by marking them.

But reconstructing opponents by “mirror-reading” can be a somewhat precarious exercise, so we should be humble about what we actually know. On the other end of the spectrum, some doubt that any of Paul’s negations respond to charges, real or suspected, and maintain that Paul is simply establishing his ἦθος (ēthos), or character. Moreover, although some rhetoricians suggested that one should not try to anticipate opponents’ arguments with counterarguments in advance, such anticipation was common, so at some points Paul may merely try to head off further objections.

That Paul works to establish his character is clear, but why does he linger over some potential objections in unusual detail? For example, why does he highlight his limited association with the Jerusalem apostles, although, given different sorts of charges, such association might count in his favor? In forensic rhetoric, one worked to establish one’s character, but particularly in matters relevant to the case. The same could be true in other forms of apologetic as well.

Which Opponents?

Luther frequently calls Paul’s opponents in Galatians “false apostles,” a title derived from 2 Cor. 11:13. Yet we cannot be confident that Paul faced the same opponents in both sets of churches. Granted, one wonders how many “Hebrews” (11:22) would have followed in Paul’s wake to correct his churches; the intruders in Corinth also proclaim “another gospel” (11:4; cf. Gal. 1:6). Yet 2 Corinthians is silent about any interest in circumcision or holy days. In Corinth, Paul’s critics appear rhetorically sophisticated and thus hellenized (2 Cor. 11:5–6). Probably there is some relationship or overlap in influence, but probably these are not the same individuals. We would expect most of Paul’s opponents in the church to be Jewish, since they remained the most knowledgeable critics in his day.

Paul’s opponents in Galatia cannot be simply unconverted members of local synagogues; Paul would not describe them as “distorting the gospel of Christ” (Gal. 1:7), and Paul could have appealed to his sufferings in synagogues (2 Cor. 11:23) rather than his confrontation with Peter (Gal. 2:11–14) or concerns with “false believers” (2:4). (He also would surely have criticized their nonbelief in Jesus as the Messiah.)

Nor did Paul’s opponents represent the entire movement of Jewish believers in Jesus, as Paul makes clear (Gal. 2:3–10). Whatever we reconstruct about the views of Paul’s opponents, then, tells us only about the views of his opponents, not about the views of a supposed monolithic first-century “Judaism” or Jewish Christianity.

Nor is it likely that his opponents were circumcisionists “of gentile origin,” given their possible connections to Jerusalem (see comment on 4:25–26) and Paul’s lack of emphasis here on his hereditary credentials (contrast 2 Cor. 11:22; even Rom. 11:1; Phil. 3:4–5). Although gnostic readings of Galatians are of interest for understanding later Christianity, the idea that Paul’s adversaries in Galatia were Jewish gnostics of some sort is seriously anachronistic.

Some suggest that Paul fights on two fronts (cf. the implied division in Gal. 5:15)—namely, both circumcisionists and their antithesis, libertine Hellenists. This view mirror-reads libertines from Paul’s promotion of ethics in 5:13–6:10; but that passage is better explained as Paul demonstrating a christocentric, Spirit-empowered alternative to law-righteousness.

More helpfully, most scholars believe that Paul’s opponents were circumcisionist Jewish Jesus-followers but lacked direct support from the movement’s leaders in Jerusalem (analogous to those circumcisionists already criticized in Acts 15:24). Probably the opponents saw themselves as motivated by zeal for the law (cf. Paul’s experience in Gal. 1:14); Paul saw them as succumbing to peer pressure or even threats of persecution (6:12). They are sensitive to non-Christian Jewish hostility over the issue of circumcision (5:11; 6:12).

Can we discover more specific information about this hostility? Some suggest that the opponents were sensitive to pressure from local synagogues. On the South Galatian hypothesis, this position is tenable and could be correct (see Acts 13:45, 50; 14:2, 4–5, 19). Nevertheless, the error addressed in Galatians does not arise merely from Galatian believers misunderstanding Paul’s teaching and Scripture. There are clearly some specific agitators among them, whom Paul appears to treat not as errant members of the congregations he planted (Gal. 1:7; 4:17; 5:10, 12; 6:12–13).

While local Jewish Christian agitators are possible, where would they have come from if they did not belong to the congregations Paul founded? Paul treats them as outside agitators, not members of his communities (Gal. 1:6–7; 6:12–13; contrast, e.g., 1 Cor. 15:12; 2 Thess. 3:11). Paul’s opponents apparently claim more direct links to Jerusalem (cf. Gal. 4:25–26 and Paul’s emphasis on Jerusalem in 1:17–18; 2:1); given what we know of opposition to Paul in Jerusalem (2:3–4) and the greater concentration of Jewish believers there, it seems likelier that (and more scholars currently argue that) they came from there.

Although the image can be exaggerated, the idea of opponents following one’s travels, at least to some locations, in order to undermine a person is not far-fetched. Josephus cites opponents who did just that, seeking to undermine his influence in each city and town, and claiming to represent the leadership in Jerusalem. Josephus has to keep traveling and winning people back. Moreover, other evidence supports the thesis that Jerusalemite believers who insisted on gentile converts’ circumcision were propagating their understanding in the Diaspora (Acts 15:1, 24).

If so, they might have been sensitive to local synagogue opposition, but they may have been especially concerned about how their movement was being perceived by other Jerusalemites, and what sort of reports local travelers might carry with them to Jerusalem about the gentile-corrupted Jesus movement.

The “false believers” of Gal. 2:3–4 had enough of a following in the Jerusalem church to try to force Titus’s circumcision, and it is not likely that their ideological conflict with Paul ended when he departed. J. Louis Martyn contends that “the Teachers’ claim to represent the Jerusalem gospel implies a significant connection with a powerful part of the Jerusalem church.” That “Jerusalem” appears five times in Galatians—as much as in the rest of his extant letters put together (Rom. 15:19, 25–26, 31; 1 Cor. 16:3)—suggests the degree to which this connection remains an issue here (see esp. Gal. 4:25–26). Robert Jewett’s proposal that such pressure was from Zealot-type revolutionaries appears too specific, but such revolutionaries undoubtedly did reflect the rising nationalist mood in Judea.

Why Did Paul Have Opponents?

Culture shaped perspectives both outside and inside the church and created approaches that Paul felt minimized the value of Christ’s death for us.

VARIED JEWISH PERSPECTIVES ON GENTILES

In the first century, few Jews would consider someone apostate or a betrayer of one’s people for believing that a particular person was a messiah, controversial as that notion may have been. Treating half-converted gentiles as full members of God’s people, however, comes much closer to appearing such a betrayal.

Jews in general held varying views about gentiles, and so apparently did Jesus-believing Judeans. Some Jewish people expected the coming eschatological time to destroy or subjugate gentiles; some expected their conversion. Diaspora Jews who engaged with gentiles more regularly usually held less hardline sentiments than did wilderness pietists and rural Judeans.

Several factors gave rise to increasing Judean nationalism in the 40s and 50s, the period of the Antioch conflict (Gal. 2:11–14) and the writing of Galatians, a time when, not surprisingly, more conservative elements likely gained ground in the Jerusalem church as well (cf. Acts 15:5; 21:20–21). King Agrippa I (r. 41–44 CE) descended from the Hasmonean royal line as well as that of Herod the Great and accommodated nationalist aspirations. Following his brief tenure, corrupt and ineffective governors mismanaged Judea; together with the earlier attempt of Gaius Caligula, a Roman emperor, to install an image of himself in the Jerusalem temple, the limited experience of most Jerusalemites with gentiles was generally adversarial.

In the Diaspora, gentile sympathizers often attended synagogues. Apparently, mainstream Jewish thinkers even in Judea believed that gentiles who honored the true God alone and avoided sexual immorality would ultimately share in the world to come. Gentiles who wished to become Jews, however, and thus children of Abraham and heirs of Israel’s promised covenant blessings, had to convert, starting with the initiation ritual of circumcision. In cases where such full conversion could generate a backlash against Jews, some Jews might affirm that fearing God was sufficient. Others, however, insisted on circumcision.

THE JESUS MOVEMENT ACCOMMODATES DIVERSE VIEWS

In the 30s and early 40s, some leaders of the Jesus movement already recognized, albeit initially reluctantly, that God granted the eschatological Spirit even to gentile believers (Acts 10:45–47; 11:15–18). Thus they received in Christ the restoration-era privilege promised for people of the covenant, of which circumcision was the historic physical sign. At the time, gentile converts to the movement were exceptional, but in cosmopolitan Antioch large numbers of gentiles joined the movement (11:19–21). The line between sympathetic observers and full participants is not always clearly defined, and in a city already known for many Jewish sympathizers and proselytes (6:5), many gentile believers probably became full participants without anyone enforcing the requirement of circumcision.

In Jerusalem, by contrast, more hardline views were coming to the fore, and some teachers from there began chiding Antioch’s believers for being too lax (Acts 15:1). Antioch thus sent a delegation, which included the influential Paul and Barnabas, to consult with Jerusalem’s leaders (15:2). In his pastoral role, Jesus’s younger brother James, leader of the Jesus movement in Jerusalem, had greater concern for preserving the movement’s unity at home than with what happened abroad. He and the other top leaders of the movement nevertheless risked strife at home by accommodating the Antioch delegation’s position that gentile believers did not have to be circumcised (Gal. 2:3, 7–9; Acts 15:5–6, 19–20; 21:25).

In return, Paul was clear that he was not undercutting circumcision for Jews or the Torah-observant mission (Gal. 2:7–9; cf. Acts 15:21; 21:21–26; 1 Cor. 7:18–19). Jerusalem also expected, however, that gentile believers would meet basic standards that Jews expected of righteous gentiles (Acts 15:20; cf. Gal. 2:10). Paul and perhaps other members of the Antioch delegation regarded gentile believers as full converts (cf. Gal. 3:29), but for the agreement it was sufficient that they be regarded as righteous gentiles, like gentile sympathizers with Jewish practices who attended synagogues.

AFTERMATH OF THE COUNCIL

The compromise satisfied the chief leaders on both sides who brokered the agreement, but some prominent, well-educated, Torah-observant Jerusalem Jesus-believers, probably including some of the leaders, had wanted more (Acts 15:5–6; Gal. 2:4). Although believers in Antioch generally welcomed the decision (Acts 15:31), we should not suppose that those who originally insisted on circumcision (15:1), now publicly shamed (15:24), simply abandoned their views.

Moreover, some Jerusalemites certainly retained their views and probably worried that if one welcomed gentiles without the law, soon even Jews would no longer practice the law (cf. Acts 15:21). Such views would have seemed confirmed when some Judean travelers close to James found Peter himself, a respected leader in the mission among his own people (Gal. 2:7–9), compromising scrupulous Judean standards of table fellowship in Antioch (2:12). They may have viewed this behavior as a breach of expectations agreed upon earlier (cf. Acts 15:20). Undoubtedly hoping to keep peace (cf. 1 Cor. 9:20–21), Peter and his fellow Judeans returned to the more scrupulous Judean practice for the sake of the new visitors. Since even Barnabas followed Peter’s example, it appears that not only Peter’s immediate entourage but even many Jewish believers who had lived long in Antioch accommodated this separation (Gal. 2:13).

An accommodation probably meant to prevent offending Judean conservatives, however, confused and hurt the gentile believers. Table fellowship was an important mark of acceptance and friendship. If accommodating Jewish visitors took precedence over long-standing ties among fellow believers in Antioch, then gentile Christians were in effect second-class, merely sympathizers and not full members of God’s people. (Although my applications emphasize ethnocentrism, we may consider problematic any approach that makes some believers feel second-class—the disabled, the young, the old, and so forth.)

This behavior implied that to really be full members of God’s people, gentiles would have to become Jews (Gal. 2:14). Short of that, it shattered the Antioch church’s unity along ethnic lines—and shattered it severely. In the ancient Mediterranean world, rejecting friendship ties typically created enmity, and enmity after enjoying table fellowship was deemed a particularly heinous form of betrayal. Harming someone who had eaten at one’s table was deemed reprehensible; those who eat together at a table should not even betray friendship by slandering one another or acting unkindly.

Paul naturally saw this behavior as breaching the Jerusalem agreement and even undercutting the understanding of the gospel that he and Peter shared (Gal. 2:14, 16). The issue was so important that Paul broke normal protocol, which he himself valued (cf. 6:1), and rebuked Peter publicly. Whatever the immediate outcome, Paul undoubtedly alienated the Judean visitors, who probably took a bad report back to Jerusalem. (Diaspora Jews visiting Jerusalem for festivals also reported negative things about Paul, as later in Acts 21:27.) Rumors spread in Jerusalem, which, by ancient means of travel, was quite far from Antioch and Paul’s churches. If Paul embraced gentiles without giving them the law and making them Jews, it did not seem far-fetched to them that he was also turning Jews from practicing the law (21:20–21) and therefore undercutting biblical morality (Rom. 3:8; cf. 2 Cor. 6:8).

At the time of Antioch’s agreement with Jerusalem regarding circumcision, Judean circumcision-conservatives had gotten no farther than Syria-Cilicia (Acts 15:23), Paul’s earlier sphere of ministry (Gal. 1:21–23), and its capital, Antioch (Acts 14:26–15:1). By the time Paul writes Galatians, however, some have crossed the Taurus Mountains into the region of Paul’s Galatian mission, following up his work by offering “sounder” teaching to his churches.

What Did These Opponents Believe?

We can attempt to reconstruct the beliefs of Paul’s opponents in Galatia only by cautiously mirror-reading his letter. This strategy is precarious because Paul is not presenting them as they would present themselves, because Paul’s informants may not have given him a fully complete or balanced picture, and because Paul’s responses could be understood as addressing various issues. Nevertheless, we have a fair sense of their ultimate short-range objective: the circumcision of Galatian believers. We also have good reason to believe that Paul’s scriptural argumentation in 3:6–5:1 responds to their arguments, since many of the texts chosen appear on the surface more persuasive for their position than for his. That Paul can respond to opponents on this level of detail suggests that he probably had a supportive informant, further suggesting that not literally everyone in the church was succumbing to his rivals’ teachings.

Presumably, Paul’s opponents believed that he had compromised the message of Jesus by not explaining that following the Jewish Messiah entailed keeping the Jewish law. The prophets had announced the conversion of many gentiles in the end time, even welcoming them into God’s people, as Paul affirmed (e.g., Isa. 19:19–25; 56:3–8; Zech. 2:11; cf. Isa. 2:2–4; 11:10; Ezek. 47:22–23). This eschatological ingathering would welcome some who had been unwelcome under the law (Isa. 56:3–5; cf. Deut. 23:1).

But, Paul’s opponents may have reasoned, converted gentiles would not be lawless; they would also, as the prophets conceived it, observe the Sabbath (Isa. 56:6) and sacrifice in the temple (56:7). Fleshly desires were a matter of real concern among ancient thinkers; perhaps the rivals promised that the law would give them power to overcome such desires. Belief in such power was widespread among ancient Jewish thinkers both in Judea and in the Diaspora. Some Diaspora Jews associated circumcision with deliverance from fleshly desire.

Apparently central to the argument of Paul’s rivals, and undoubtedly particularly persuasive, circumcision was the essential sign of the covenant from Abraham forward (Gen. 17:9–14). It was not required for gentile sojourners, but it was necessary for those wanting to become part of God’s people (Gen. 34:22; Exod. 12:48). Those who wished to commit themselves fully to Israel’s God must therefore be circumcised (Gal. 5:3). Paul’s teaching to the Galatians had therefore been incomplete. Indeed, in contrast to Israelites born in the covenant of grace, gentile converts had to adopt elements of a culture foreign to them, which might even seem like having to earn salvation.

Jewish tradition depicted Abraham as the model convert, and also as observing the law in advance. (Paul apparently rejects the tradition of the patriarchs keeping the law in advance, and his rejection fits Genesis itself.) To follow the model of Abraham’s faithfulness (cf. Gal. 3:6) after the law was given, one must observe the law. Those who observed the law had eternal life (cf. 3:12); those who broke it incurred a curse (cf. 3:10).

Paul will respond that Christ has brought a stage in salvation history beyond the law, a stage in continuity with (by fulfillment of) the promise to Abraham (Gal. 3:17–25). The law’s stipulations were needed like a pedagogue or guardian to discipline God’s immature children (3:22–4:4), but the era of fulfillment provides maturity for God’s children, rendering literal adherence to the full law’s stipulations superfluous. The law was never designed to save (2:21; 3:21), but rather only to preserve Israel’s identity and to instruct in moral principles. But gentile believers did not need that distinctive ethnic identity, and the Spirit makes less relevant the laws’ particulars as an external standard, since it inscribes in believers’ hearts the essential moral and spiritual message to which the law attested (cf. 5:14, 16, 18, 22–23; 2 Cor. 3:3; Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:26–27). As for circumcision, Paul would later explain that the physical act marked the covenant outwardly, but the greater sign of embracing the new covenant, one that makes the outward sign irrelevant, is the gift of the Spirit (Rom. 2:29; cf. Gal. 3:2, 5; 5:5–6; 6:15). Paul believed that the Spirit confirmed gentile believers as members of the eschatological covenant people (cf. Isa. 44:3; Ezek. 36:27; 37:34, 39; Joel 2:28–29).

Paul’s rivals, however, believed that Paul had compromised. If God gave gentiles the Spirit, its purpose was to invite them into covenant practice. Like some other strict interpreters from the holy land, they believed that any special concessions about circumcision violated a chief commandment. Paul may have fancied himself an apostle, but he did not follow Jesus during his earthly ministry like the twelve genuine apostles (cf. Gal. 1:17–19; 2:9). Not only did he see Jesus only long after the first resurrection appearances (cf. 1 Cor. 15:8), but also he had persecuted Jesus’s followers until that point (cf. 1 Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13)! Worst of all, Paul’s law-free gospel undermined biblical morality, a charge to which Paul must respond briefly in Gal. 2:16–21 and, at greatest length, in chapters 5–6.

Paul may have retained a few defenders in Galatia (cf. perhaps Gal. 6:6), but it appears that most of the Galatians were finding Paul’s rivals persuasive. After all, the rivals were present and Paul was not. Like Paul, his rivals apparently knew the Torah. They may have claimed that many in Jerusalem, the mother city, supported them and mistrusted Paul. This does not mean that they were authorized by the chief apostles (cf. earlier Acts 15:24); Paul would probably mention any kind of letters of authorization or recommendation (2 Cor. 3:1). They could, however, appeal to the law-observant behavior of Peter and especially James in Jerusalem. (Paul, by contrast, will have a different side of the story to recount about Peter in Antioch [Gal. 2:12]!)

By the time Paul sent his letter to the Galatian churches, they were probably contemplating only circumcision (Gal. 5:3), but they may have already adopted Jewish festivals (4:10).

In addition to the letter Paul sent, however, he had some advantages over his rivals: he was the one who had ushered them into the faith and their undeniable experience of the Spirit (3:1–3; 4:19). Further, willing as the Galatians may have been to undergo circumcision if it was necessary, they would likely be happy to be persuaded that it was not.

Charges of the Opponents against Paul

Paul’s rivals probably did not try only to supplement his teaching; they also tried to undermine his authority that stood behind his teaching. “From now on, let no one make trouble for me” (Gal. 6:17) suggests that his critics had been doing just that. By initiating this contest of honor with Paul (albeit in his absence), they made this issue also a personal one (although for Paul, interference with his converts was personal enough). Rivalry for honor was a very serious matter in ancient urban Mediterranean society.

Challenging the ἦθος (ēthos), or character, of one’s opponents was conventional polemic. (One could also slander the opponent’s friends and supporting witnesses.) This is one reason that we should not play off Paul’s defense of his ēthos in 1:13–2:21 against the idea that he defends himself against charges. That Paul accuses his antagonists of not keeping the law themselves (Gal. 6:13) is a natural reply to those who deemed him antinomian (Acts 21:21; Rom. 3:8); it was standard practice to return the accusations of one’s accusers in kind.

Scholars also suggest various other features of the opponents’ distinctive teachings. Some interpreters believe, for example, that the opponents may have accused Paul of hypocritically circumcising people elsewhere (Gal. 5:11), having compromised this requirement in Galatia to win converts more easily.

Why the Opponents’ Arguments Appealed to Galatian Christians

How could gentiles initially persuaded by apostolic signs and their experience with the Spirit now be swayed? Several factors may be involved. One may be the opponents’ Jerusalem connection, if they claimed one; they knew from Paul’s gospel story that Jesus’s message originated in greater Judea. (In this commentary, I usually use “Judea” to refer to the entire holy land, including Galilee, since that is how those in the Diaspora would have viewed matters.)

Ancient sources also suggest another possible social factor. Judaism was popular with many gentiles. Many gentile sympathizers with Jewish religion adopted various practices such as special days, lamps, and some food customs. Sometimes such persons were simply polytheists adding some more pious practices to their ecumenical arsenal, but other sympathizers went much further, sometimes becoming synagogue adherents. If male gentile sympathizers wanted to follow the full path to Jewish practice, they would embrace circumcision. Diaspora Jews’ success in gaining converts in many locations sometimes inflamed pagan sentiment against them; most polytheists did not appreciate what they viewed as intolerant repudiation of other gods and ethnic realignment.

Conversion to Judaism would normalize believers’ status and give them a larger community in which to participate. As Jesus’s followers, they could no longer celebrate pagan festivals, normally civic festivities in which their family and friends participated. Because Judaism was an ancient and ethnic religion, neighbors made allowance for their apparent peculiarities. But Christians who did not belong to synagogues did not fit anywhere on the social grid. Circumcision was costly, but so was the social isolation that left them as a celebratory community only other Christians (perhaps not all of them friendly, Gal. 5:15). Circumcision also had another side benefit: by explaining why these gentiles could no longer participate in civic cults, including that of the emperor, it removed their responsibility for doing so.

Structure of the Letter

For a letter as grammatically disordered as Galatians sometimes is, its structure appears remarkably well organized. The letter body—the only part of the structure reasonably open to dispute—naturally divides into three sections: narrative (1:6–2:21, or at least 1:13–2:14); more direct proofs (3:1–5:12; or, in some outlines, 3:1–5:1); and exhortation and ethics (5:13–6:10, or, in some outlines, 5:1–6:10). The arguments of the central section include appeal to past experience (3:1–5; and, with intense pathos, 4:12–20), two lines of argument that employ Scripture (3:6–4:11; 4:21–5:1), and Paul’s strongest confrontation (5:2–12; this last section, 5:2–12 or 5:1–12, is often included instead in the hortatory section).

Those who read Galatians as a sort of written oration arrange the letter the way they would a speech of a given (usually deliberative or judicial) rhetorical genre. Because much of Paul’s letter is argumentation, characteristic features of many speeches do appear in Galatians, more clearly than in many of his other letters, particularly in an introductory narrative followed by proofs. Those who read it simply as a letter naturally structure it according to basic epistolary conventions, such as prescript, body, and conclusion (an obvious arrangement perhaps no more enlightening than it is controversial). Some have tried to blend these approaches.

Which approach is superior, if either, or both, can be resolved only once we turn discussion to the value of these approaches for studying Galatians. The issue of structure is closely connected with the issue of genre; is it appropriate to overlay rhetorical outlines on letters?

One particularly noteworthy aspect of the structure for almost anyone’s account is the turn to ethics in 5:13–6:10. Writers sometimes saved the most controversial points until the end, first building rapport; but if anything, Paul might follow the reverse pattern here, frontloading the letter with challenges (1:6–9; also 3:1; 4:19; 5:3). If Paul’s opponents promote law-observance as anything like a path to liberation from passion, Paul must offer an alternative and superior ethical path through the Spirit in Christ (see 5:16–18, 25; 6:2). Both may have seen obedience as a response to grace, but for Paul grace has inaugurated an eschatological new creation, in which obedience is the fruit of God-implanted desire for divine matters that reflects God’s character of love.

Rhetoric and Galatians

Orators could use grand style to praise deities, but Galatians is written in plain prose style meant to communicate information. Good speakers were supposed to be able to adapt their style to fit their audiences. Rhetoricians recommended a simple, unadorned style for letters, although Paul varies style at times, also in accord with rhetorical flexibility. Despite grammatical lapses, Galatians is full of conventional rhetorical devices such as antithetical word pairs (devices familiar even to those without any necessary training in rhetoric). Still, it exhibits fewer of such devices than any of Paul’s undisputed letters except for the personal letter to Philemon. None of Paul’s letters met, and they were undoubtedly not meant to meet, growing Attic purists’ standards for elite rhetoric. Moreover, most rhetorical elements in Paul had long been part of Greek language without requiring formal knowledge of rhetoric.

Regarding more formal rhetorical elements, scholars’ views diverge more widely. Many scholars have offered rhetorical analyses of Galatians. Ancient Christian thinkers trained in rhetoric, such as Chrysostom, also took rhetorical principles into account when reading Galatians, though they recognized that Paul was not an orator. Nevertheless, both Origen and Chrysostom note Paul’s popular style, and ancient rhetorical critics who found in Paul rhetorical devices did not claim wholesale rhetorical structures (macrorhetoric). Fourth-century patristic writers did not find Paul conforming to the rhetorical standards of their era. Noting Paul’s apparent errors of language, Jerome suggests Paul’s disdain for pagan eloquence and even questions Paul’s full facility in Greek.

Some scholars try to classify the letter according to one of the major three rhetorical categories treated in typical rhetorical handbooks: epideictic (or encomiastic), forensic (judicial), or deliberative. Following Hans Dieter Betz, who inaugurated contemporary rhetorical criticism of Galatians, some contend that the letter is forensic, given Paul’s defense of himself against detractors. The hortatory section (5:13–6:10), however, does not fit expectations for forensic rhetoric. More often, scholars treat Galatians as deliberative, noting that Paul is seeking to persuade the Galatian believers to change their course of action. Although Galatians functions primarily as deliberative, some see in it a combination of deliberative and forensic elements.

To some degree, the division of speeches into these three major rhetorical categories is too artificial. The categories proved most useful for rhetorical students or professional declaimers whose speeches would be evaluated by category, but theory did not always influence practice. Even in Aristotle’s day, many speeches did not fall exclusively into one of the three specified genres. Most importantly, these genres are rarely relevant for letters, including Paul’s. Rhetorical scholar R. Dean Anderson contends that Galatians “does not fall naturally into the confines of a rhetorical genre, nor can it reasonably be divided into the various partes of a speech.”

Various scholars point out problems with strict rhetorical analyses. For example, avoiding some elements typical in gentile rhetoric, Paul develops arguments from a specifically Christian approach. More important, the imposition of predetermined rhetorical structures on texts, even speeches, can be problematic. Handbooks varied in proposed structures. More conversational forms of speech rearranged elements unpredictably. Mature orators could even mock those who were excessively bound to pedantic outlines. Rhetorical critic David deSilva notes that “most attempts at outlining” letters “are forced,” though he recognizes that “Galatians comes closer to fitting this overall outline than any other New Testament text.”

Most important, letters were not speeches. Granted, some ancient essays or other works have epistolary frames; occasionally letters were fully rhetorical, and orators examined some in light of rhetorical analysis. Not surprisingly, rhetoricians’ letters sometimes employ rhetorical elements. Rhetoric inevitably affected the literary activity of those trained in it, and dictating kept the composer in an oral mode.

But rhetoric affected letters’ style more than structure, and in general, ancient letters were supposed to be conversational. Cicero used common language in his letters; for “What similarity is there between a letter, and a speech in court or at a public meeting?” Letters do not fit speech outlines; this observation is true not only of typical business correspondence in the papyri but even of correspondence in orators’ letter collections (Cicero, Pliny, and Fronto). Generally speaking, epistolary theory worked its way into handbooks only over time, and later epistolary handbooks treat letters differently from speeches. Philip Kern’s particularly detailed study of Galatians finds no clear relationship of this letter to conventional rhetorical genres or structures.

Thus, some scholars severely question studies of macrorhetoric in Paul. Many recognize rhetorical elements in Paul’s letters, while stopping short of outlining them as if they were speeches per se. But the matter remains disputed. Even given all the preceding caveats, just as ancient epistolography helps us understand the epistolary character of Paul’s letters, ancient rhetoric helps us to appreciate the character of Paul’s argumentation.

Paul’s letters are plainly not speeches. Nevertheless, apart from Philemon, they also differ from ordinary letters, which averaged roughly 87 words long, whereas Paul’s letters average 2,495 words (with 7,114 for Romans). Ancient critics would regard such long letters as more like essays than letters. Moreover, the level of Greek in Paul’s letters far exceeds the level found in typical papyri; Paul does not reflect the elite standards of the Second Sophistic, but he was an educated person fully at home in Greek. Unlike most other letters, Paul’s letters usually contain argumentation, which naturally includes conventional rhetorical elements. Ancient epistolary theorists do not ordinarily address public letters such as Paul’s. (Like rhetorical theory, however, later epistolary theory did not dictate actual practice.)

Letters and Epistolary Interpretation

Whatever else Paul’s letter to the Galatians is, it is a letter. Many scholars therefore rightly appeal to epistolary theory to interpret Paul’s letters. Although epistolary theory’s key insights shed the most light on the openings and closings of Paul’s letters, various features and characteristics of ancient letters shed light on Paul throughout his letters, as references to them in this commentary will illustrate. Greek letters assumed their essential form half a millennium before Paul’s time, and secondary grammatical education introduced students to elementary letter-writing form.

Still, epistolary analysis has its limitations. Paul’s letters are not simply essays, but neither are most of them private letters to individuals, in contrast with most extant ancient letters. Galatians is indeed a letter; as noted above, however, it is also quite unlike most letters found in the papyri and even literary letter collections. Exhortation, which is common in Paul’s letters, is much more characteristic of moral philosophy than of the interests addressed in rhetorical handbooks; the closest analogy to this particular feature, then, might be letters such as Seneca’s letters to Lucilius or the pseudepigraphic Cynic epistles.

In one seminal work on the rhetorical criticism of Galatians, Betz argued that Galatians was an apologetic letter. Although Betz is correct that Galatians both contains apologetic and is (obviously) a letter, many scholars contend that Betz essentially created the “apologetic letter” category as such by drawing eclectically from a range of disparate kinds of sources. Some letters do defend the writer against charges, but not all of these employ forensic rhetoric.

Many scholars regard Galatians as a letter of blame, a characteristic certainly present in the letter. Such letters normally presuppose a relationship between the sender and receiver that is strong enough to endure the often mild criticism. Galatians sometimes seems harsher and more dramatic than this, so some argue for a harsher reproach or rebuke letter. Because the ideal letter of reproach was harsh and rarely considered beneficial to the recipient, others question whether any such letters appear in the NT. Galatians perhaps includes elements of both blame and reproach categories—depending largely on the definitions that interpreters employ.

Drawing on a range of available evidence, some argue more narrowly for a rebuke-request form. Again, however, the letters from which scholars construct features of the type are so disparate that some alleged features may not always correlate with the type per se.

Ancients categorized speeches specifically oriented toward blame as epideictic, though a majority of epideictic speeches focused on praise. (Epideictic also sometimes functioned as a catchall category for whatever speech was neither judicial nor deliberative.) The overall purpose of Galatians is more deliberative, but again, ancient argumentation does not always fall into a single category. Precise epistolary categories do not by themselves explain all of Galatians; ancient moral philosophy provides more examples of harsh rebukes (such as Gal. 3:1) than does ancient epistolary theory. Even most moralists, however, sought to avoid inflicting more pain than necessary. Paul seems willing here to take that sort of risk.

But just as it is premature to assume that Paul’s letters must fit standardized genres of ancient rhetoric, it is also premature to assume that they will fit handbooks’ overlapping and potentially arbitrary epistolary classifications.

A letter the length of Galatians would have taken several hours to copy, plus several hours more to produce the backup copy (and still more if he produced earlier drafts on reusable material). It would have consumed almost half a “standard”-sized papyrus roll; the cost for the papyrus and a scribe for writing for both copies may be estimated at roughly 6.56 denarii, or in today’s currency, roughly $722. As opposed to a short note on a scrap of papyrus or an oral greeting, Galatians was a significant task undertaken to address a significant problem.

Polemic

Chrysostom noted Paul’s passion in Galatians, and that such “vehemence” was sometimes needed. Adolf Deissmann described the letter as “the offspring of passion,” “the reflection . . . of a genius flashing like summer lightning.”

However we classify Galatians specifically, it seethes with negative emotion. Paul either simulated anger for rhetorical purposes or, more likely, was genuinely angry, an anger mixed with hurt and fear for his converts (Gal. 4:11; cf. 2 Cor. 7:5; 11:28; 1 Thess. 3:5). According to some ideals, one should not relinquish one’s self-control, but some speeches demanded that orators at least simulate anger. Others note that the speaker must feel the emotions that the speaker wants the audience to experience. One communicated an angry tone by speaking sharply and quickly “with short abrupt clauses.” Any person literate enough to read Paul’s letter to a Galatian church would likely stretch out the middle and index fingers at appropriate points to display emphasis.

Orators who criticized audiences probably sometimes generated friendly laughter, but at other times they stunned audiences with their harshness. Some of Paul’s critiques in Galatians are harsh (esp. 5:12), although, against a significant line of Christian tradition, their object is not ethnic Judaism but rather a group of fellow Jewish Christians who were imposing their customs on gentiles. Following ancient rhetorical practice, Paul caricaturizes his opponents, reducing their positions to the absurd. Readers today must take this practice into account when reading Galatians, comparing Paul’s theology expressed in his less polemical letters. Paul surely would have recoiled to learn that a later gentile-dominated church exploited his words against his own people, whom he loved (cf. Rom. 9:1–5; 11:1–5, 17–31).

Scholars too often extrapolate Paul’s theology about the law or the Jewish people from Galatians without recognizing that on some points Galatians presents only Paul’s most extreme position as he addresses what he deems a potentially lethal spiritual situation for his converts. In the face of his opponents’ accusations, he could afford to argue only one side of the case. His later arguments in Romans are more nuanced and tell us more about how Paul would argue when not dealing with an emergency crisis.

Was Paul’s Letter to the Galatians Effective?

Many scholars suggest that believers in Galatia rejected Paul’s pleas and followed the path of circumcision. Thus, they note, although Paul mentions Galatian involvement in the collection in 1 Cor. 16:1, he omits them in 2 Cor. 8–9 and Rom. 15:25–27. Against this argument from silence, however, Paul also omits Asia in those passages, yet Luke’s list of representatives for Paul’s Jerusalem visit includes members from Asia and possibly from Derbe and (clearly in the Galatian province) Lystra (Acts 20:4). Luke admittedly omits the Galatian problem in Acts; that he also omits Paul’s conflicts with the Corinthians, however, challenges using this omission as an argument from silence.

Others respond that the very fact that Galatian believers preserved Paul’s letter suggests that they honored it. Because senders often preserved copies of important letters, and because even just a handful of faithful members could have preserved the letter even in Galatia, this observation is less compelling than it might first appear, but it nevertheless remains telling. In the long run, of course, Paul’s letter was certainly effective for the wider gentile church, which followed Paul in allowing admission to the covenant community without circumcision. That practice appears true even in Galatia, where the church that emerges in subsequent centuries does not diverge significantly from its mainstream Christian contemporaries.

. Fee, Galatians, 1.

. For relevance theory, see, e.g., Sperber and Wilson, “Précis”; Sperber and Wilson, Relevance.

. See, e.g., Sanders, Paul, 477 (with cautions on 165–66).

. A feature of letters that some ancient critics also recognized. See Malherbe, “Theorists,” 15.

. On mirror-reading Galatians, see Barclay, “Mirror-Reading”; Barclay, Obeying.

. Smearing opponents was the norm (e.g., Isaeus, Dicaeog. 46; Fronto, M. Caes. 3.3); for reducing arguments to the absurd, see, e.g., Rom. 3:5–6, 8; Lysias, Or. 4.5–6, §101; Cicero, Phil. 8.5.16; Seneca Y., Lucil. 83.9; 113.20; Aelius Aristides, Def. Or. 339, §112D; Apuleius, Apol. 29–30, 58, 102.

. Galatians has informed Christian theology and spirituality in a wide range of ways throughout history; see, far more extensively than I can address here, Riches, Galatians.

. Esp. material available in translation from Edwards, Levy, and Bray.

. E.g., Luther, Second Lectures on Galatians, on Gal. 3:21 (Bray).

. Scholars rightly criticize how Luther’s heirs often misread Judaism on the basis of Paul’s criticisms of his opponents (Meeks, World, 95; Wright, Justification, 112). For Luther on Galatians, see briefly Barclay, Gift, 339–41.

. Artinian, “Luther.”

. Hultgren, “Luther.” Many pastoral commentaries today retain the significant interest in application—e.g., McKnight, Galatians; Ryken, Galatians.

. Wengert, “Luther,” 93–94.

. Dunn, New Perspective, 96, 211 (and cf. his Theology of Paul, 371–79); Lo, Purpose, 421; cf. also Watson, Gentiles, 346–50; Fee, Galatians, 198; Ngewa, Galatians, 1; Moo, Galatians, 27; Das, Galatians, 313n211. Paul rejects any valuing of worth apart from Christ (Barclay, Gift, 393, 444).

. Härle, “Paulus und Luther”; Brondos, “Luther”; Donfried, “Revisionists.”

. Saarinen, “Luther,” on Finnish Lutheran interpreters.

. Chester, Paul, 321–61, esp. 359–61.

. Cf. Ziesler, “Justification.”

. With, e.g., Matera, Galatians, 31; Hansen, Galatians, 25–26; at length, the contextualization in Niang, Faith. For the emphasis on unity, see Oakes, Galatians, xi; discord was apparently an issue in the Galatian churches (see Barclay, Gift, 153).

. Nearly all peoples in antiquity had their own gods who, they believed, favored them (Rodríguez, Call, 43, citing Virgil, Aen. 1.278–79 for Rome). More generally (but somewhat less analogously) today, one might speak of, e.g., the Armenian Orthodox Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Sinhalese Buddhism, or the Dutch Reformed Church as ethnically related without implying exclusivity or necessarily adoption of the entire cultural tradition.

. E.g., Witherington, Grace, 80; Fee, Galatians, 1, 5, 107. Similarly, for the law as a condition for remaining in the Sinai covenant, see Hong, Law in Galatians, 133–45.

. Sanders, Law and People, 19–20; cf. also Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 276; Howard, Crisis in Galatia, 82. Cf. Nanos, Irony, 82: “Paul’s rhetoric does not concern itself with opposing Jewish practices but only with proselyte conversion.”

. Westerholm, “Sinai,” 152.

. Fredriksen (“Question,” 186–87) sees them as fitting the Jewish category of “pagans-saved-at-the-End” rather than as proselytes or God-fearers. The category may be fitting, but whether it excludes the other two categories depends on what might be expected of those eschatological converts (cf. Donaldson, “Paul within Judaism,” 287).

. Wengert, “Luther,” 105.

. Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 160; cf. Ramsay, Galatians, 344. Donaldson (Gentiles, 119) is probably too cautious here. For a likely example of an enthymeme, an incomplete syllogism, see Gal. 3:10.

. Bray, “Introduction to Galatians,” xxxviii, xli.

. Cohen, Maccabees, 167; Barclay, Gift, 453–54. Hays (Echoes, 176) views Paul’s exegesis in Galatians as more “heuristic” and experimental.

. Cf. Hübner, Law, 148–49. Pace Hübner, however, difference in setting accounts for much of this difference; see Bryan, Preface, 47.

. Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 239–41.

. See esp. Boers, Justification, 223–24.

. Bruce (Galatians, 2) compares the polemical tone of Galatians to 2 Cor. 10–13 rather than Romans.

. Beker, Apocalyptic Gospel; though he did not find it in Galatians.

. See esp. Martyn, Galatians, 97–105, helpfully highlighting elements of the fullness of time (3:23, 24, 25; 4:4, 6) and, less distinctively, ἀποκάλυψις (apokalupsis; 1:12, 15–16; 2:2); also in Martyn, “Antinomies”; Martyn, “Gospel.” Cf. also Hays, “Galatians,” 196; Das, Galatians, 86–89.

. See Collins, Apocalyptic Imagination.

. See Barclay, Obeying, 100. For limitations of both apocalyptic and existentialism in explaining Paul, see, e.g., Sanders, Paul and Judaism, 490.

. For temporal imagery in Galatians, see Still, “Apocalyptic Story.”

. E.g., Moo, Galatians, 31–32; Wright, Faithfulness, 781; Wright, Pauline Perspectives, 481–82; Hays, “Poiēsis,” 204; McCormack, “Justification,” 162–63.

. Cf. Barclay, Gift, 143, noting Käsemann’s opposition to a purely existential approach.

. With preference given to primary sources independent of Pauline tradition, either because they precede it or, if they postdate Paul, because they do not appear to be influenced by his teaching. Of course, I also seek to engage secondary literature, from the ancient to the modern commentary tradition, but many of its insights are more readily available.

. 2 Thessalonians, with a very high degree of confidence; and Ephesians and Colossians, with a considerable degree of confidence; those who attribute these to Paul’s disciples will at least find in them a high degree of Pauline echoes. For the sake of this commentary, I defer to majority scholarly practice in regarding the Pastoral Epistles as a better source for information about Paul and his teaching than as a source for his typical vocabulary and style.

. Van den Bergh van Eysinga, “Spuriousness” (originally published in 1912); McGuire, “Galatians.” See a fuller listing in Burton, Galatians, lxx–lxxi, noting (p. lxix) that its authenticity was unquestioned before Bruno Bauer. O’Neill (Recovery) argues for various later glosses. For text criticism, see, e.g., Burton, Galatians, lxxiv–lxxxii; Metzger, Textual Commentary, 589–99.

. E.g., Lightfoot, Galatians, 57–62; Betz, Galatians, 1.

. E.g., Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Ep. Gal. 6.18 (Edwards).

. Dunn, Beginning, 934.

. This assumes that Gal. 4:13 counts the visit of Acts 14:21–23 separately from their first evangelization of the region.

. See Keener, Acts, 1:90–319.

. See, e.g., Ramsay, Teaching, 383–403; Neil, Galatians, 13–15 (48–49 CE); Bruce, Acts, 298; Bruce, Galatians, 43–56; Hemer, Acts in History, 270; Witherington, Grace, 10–14; Barnett, Birth of Christianity, 206–10; Moo, Galatians, 8–18; Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:4–5.

. See, e.g., Hansen, Galatians, 17–24; Fee, Galatians, 5; Eastman, “Galatians,” 825 (50–55 CE); Sanders, Paul, 447. Those who identify Gal. 2:11–14 with Acts 18:22 naturally fall later in the range; e.g., Bligh, Galatians, 1–3 (57 CE); Schwemer, “Paulus in Antiochien”; Hengel, Peter, 57–58.

. Dunn, Galatians, 19 (late 50 through early 51); Martyn, Galatians, 19–20, esp. 20n20 (ca. 50); de Boer, Galatians, 5–11; cf. Oakes, Galatians, 22.

. Bray, “Introduction to Galatians,” xxxviii.

. Bray, “Introduction to Galatians,” xli.

. Luther, Second Lectures on Galatians, on Gal. 2:1 (Bray). Writing shortly after Luther’s death, Joannes Brenz (Explanation of Galatians, on Gal. 2:1) notes that some identify 2:1–10 with Acts 15, but he finds a later occasion likelier. Calvin (Comm. Gal., on Gal. 2:1) apparently mixes Acts 11:30 with Paul’s later collection visit (Acts 21). Wolfgang Musculus (Comm. Gal., on Gal. 2:1) notes Acts 11:30, 15:2, and a visit unmentioned in Acts all as possibilities.

. E.g., Bauckham, “James,” 468–69; Knox, Acts, 40–53; Williams, Commentary on Acts, 30; Longenecker, Acts, 236–38; Longenecker, Galatians, lxvii–lxxiii; Larkin, Acts, 218; Trebilco, “Itineraries,” 453–55; Witherington, Acts, 90–97, 375, 440–43; Witherington, Grace, 10–14, 74; Hoerber, “Galatians and Acts”; Morgado, “Paul in Jerusalem”; Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:4–5 (in this case based on his understanding of Paul, not Anatolian archaeology); Bock, Acts, 487–90 (very tentatively); Peterson, Acts, 420; Moo, Galatians, 10–18; Das, Galatians, 36–43; deSilva, Galatians, 48–58; see especially the detailed cases of Schnabel, Mission, 988–92; Wenham, “Corpus,” 234–43; Riesner, “Rechtfertigung.” William M. Ramsay (Teaching, 383–403) advanced this view, though he did not hold it initially.

. E.g., Lightfoot, Galatians, 36–56 (tentatively dating it after 1–2 Corinthians, 55; for the identification with Acts 15, 123–28); Rackham, Acts, 238–43; Knox, “Evidence of Acts,” 44; Stagg, Acts, 154–59, 267–73; Stein, “Galatians 2:1–10 and Acts 15:1–35”; Lester, “Galatians 2:1–10,” 238; Betz, Galatians, 81–83; Lüdemann, Christianity, 171; Williams, Acts, 256–61; Ridderbos, Epistle, 78–80; Kistemaker, Acts, 533–36; Barrett, Acts, xxxviii–xxxix; Fitzmyer, Acts, 540; Rolin, “Pierre”; Mussner, Galaterbrief, 9; Hill, Hellenists, 111–13; Schwemer, “Paulus in Antiochien”; Dunn, Galatians, 8, 19, 26, 264; Dunn, Acts, 196; Dunn, Beginning, 446–50, 934–35; Krieger, “Abendmahlsgemeinschaft”; Pervo, Dating Acts, 79–96; Pervo, Acts, 369 (though I believe wrongly viewing Acts as dependent on Galatians); Nepper-Christensen, “Apostelmodet” (similarly); Fee, Presence, xxii; Fee, Galatians, 4–5, 56n44; Hays, “Galatians,” 193; Eastman, “Galatians,” 825; Lyons, Galatians, 37, 122–24; de Boer, Galatians, 5–11, 42–43; Oakes, Galatians, 22; Meeks and Fitzgerald, Writings, xxiv; Chance, Acts, 250; Sanders, Paul, 446–47; Poplutz, “In media res”; somewhat more tentatively, Finegan, Apostles, 40; Hansen, Galatians, 17–24. Much earlier, see, e.g., Bede, Comm. Acts 15.2.

. For further detail and especially documentation, see Keener, Acts, 3:2195–206. For discussion of the decrees of Acts 15:20, 29, see also Acts, 3:2202–5, 2258–79.

. With, e.g., Hansen, Galatians, 52–53n.

. Compare 1 Cor. 6:12–20 and 8:1–10:33 with Acts 15:20, 29. Paul also omits decrees in the definitely later Romans and Philippians, where they might have proved relevant (cf. Phil. 3:2–3).

. Hengel (Acts and History, 117) attributes Paul’s silence about the council to his need to counter his opponents’ implications that he had accepted significant obligations. Cf. already Lightfoot, Galatians, 127–28, citing Paley before him.

. Dunn (Galatians, 264) suggests that the decree had become unworkable.

. Cf. Keener, Acts, 1:194–96; regarding Acts 15, see 3:2195–202. Ancient historians and biographers regularly omit some details available to them; see, e.g., Bosworth, Arrian to Alexander, 211; Licona, Differences, 2, 51, 56, 72, 75, 77, 95, 109; for memory generally, cf. McIver, Memory, 48, 106.

. Luke’s omission of that request in Acts 15 fits Luke’s virtual omission of the later collection (except peripherally in 24:17).

. This is the principle of Occam’s Razor.

. Alternatively, Paul could have written after the council but before meeting Timothy, during his intermediate, prolonged stay in Antioch (Acts 15:35–36). Not mentioning Barnabas as coauthor could imply that he wrote after their split, however (15:36–40).

. I borrow the following chart from Keener, Acts, 3:2200. See also comparisons in Lightfoot, Galatians, 123–24; Mussner, Galaterbrief, 129; Lyons, Galatians, 123–24.

. Note Dunn, Acts, 196; Hort, Judaistic Christianity, 66; cf. Emmet, “Tradition,” 275–76.

. Fitzmyer, Acts, 540; cf. Rackham, Acts, 239; Johnson, Acts, 270; Hays, “Galatians,” 193 (“virtually certain”), 221. On the differences, cf. Lightfoot, Galatians, 125–28.

. Lightfoot, Galatians, 40; Fee, Galatians, 4, 56n44; Fee, Presence, xxii. Of the undisputed letters, only Romans and Galatians lack a named coauthor.

. With Hays (“Galatians,” 193), who notes the recent preference for earlier dates, such as in Dunn (50–51 CE) and Martyn (ca. 50).

. Hurtado (“Collection,” 49), noting the absence of Galatian churches in 2 Cor. 8–9, suggests that trouble about the collection prevented Paul from carrying it out there.

. Dunn, Galatians, 19, 26; Dunn, Beginning, 934; Martyn, Galatians, 19–20; Oakes, Galatians, 22.

. Fee, Galatians, 5; Sanders, Paul, 447.

. The usual explanation for his first place in the list (e.g., Dunn, Galatians, 108; Bauckham, “James,” 441; Martyn, Galatians, 204, although allowing another explanation), though 2:12 is an even more important sign (Witherington, Grace, 46). What was named first was often deemed greater (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lit. Comp. 5; Mek. Pisha 1.28; Mek. Bah. 8.28–30).

. Soards and Pursiful, Galatians, 71. Hengel (Peter, 48–49) argues that Peter eventually ventured beyond Judea, given his status in the Diaspora (see 1 Cor. 1:12; more relevantly, 1 Pet. 1:1; 5:13).

. Lightfoot (Galatians, 124) finds the chronology too short and thus decisive against the earlier date.

. Bligh, Galatians, 3; Dunn, Galatians, 26.

. Noted also by Jerome, Comm. Gal. 2.5.2 (Edwards). This was probably true in many of Paul’s congregations, in contrast to most of the missionaries founding congregations (Friesen, “Prospects,” 357).

. See, e.g., Epictetus, Diatr. 2.9.20; Juvenal, Sat. 5.14.96–106; Leon, Jews of Rome, 250–56; Gager, Anti-Semitism, 67–88; Cohen, Maccabees, 49–58. This constituted a major cause of other gentiles’ hostility, as in Horace, Sat. 1.4.141–44; Tacitus, Hist. 5.5; Gager, Anti-Semitism, 59–61.

. Several scholars’ doubt of large numbers of gentile sympathizers (Kraabel, “Disappearance”; Kraabel, “Lutherans in Acts”; MacLennan and Kraabel, “Invention”) was quickly and soundly refuted; see Finn, “God-Fearers Reconsidered”; Overman, “Neglected Features”; Hengel and Schwemer, Between Damascus and Antioch, 61–70; the evidence in Feldman, “Omnipresence”; Siegert, “Gottesfürchtige”; Liebeschuetz, “Influence”; see further, e.g., Donaldson, Gentiles, 60–65; Trebilco, Communities, 145–66; Keener, Acts, 2:1750–53; on the terminology, Tannenbaum, “God-Fearers”; Feldman, “Sympathizers”; Levinskaya, “Inscription and Problem”; Levinskaya, Diaspora Setting, 51–82 (cf. also 105–26); van der Horst, “Aphrodisias”; Gempf, “God-Fearers.”

. Mitchell, Anatolia, 1:189, 191 (quote from 189).

. For valuable insights on this element of the broader environment, see Kahl, Galatians Re-imagined; Hardin, Imperial Cult.

. In Antioch, Mitchell, “Antioch (2)”; Mitchell, “Antioch of Pisidia”; Mitchell, Anatolia, 1:101, 104–6; 2:10; Mitchell, “Archaeology,” 178; in Iconium, Winter, “Imperial Cult,” 94; in Phrygia generally, MAMA 1.19, 23, 24, 24a, 416, 429.

. Against overemphasis on the imperial cult in Paul, see Das, Stories, 179–215; Miller, “Imperial Cult”; Strait, “King”; McKnight and Modica, Caesar, 18–19, 213–14; Galinsky, “Cult.”

. Winter, Welfare, 123–44, esp. 133–43; Hardin, Imperial Cult, 85–115; cf. Winter, “Activities,” 255–56.

. See Das, Stories, 210–15; comment on Gal. 6:12.

. There were probably no legions in Galatia during this period; see Sherk, Legates, 19, as cited in Witherington, Grace, 4.

. With Dunn, Galatians, 322.

. For details on the Celts who settled in Asia, see Lightfoot, Galatians, 1–17, 239–51; and esp. Mitchell, Anatolia, 1:11–58.

. For Gaul, see briefly Pliny E., Nat. 3.4.31–37; Lafond, “Gallia”; for trade ties with Rome, see Charlesworth, Trade Routes, 179–205; Goudineau, “Gaul”; Tchernia, “Wine.”

. Gaul was too divided in the first century to offer Rome much resistance (MacMullen, Enemies, 213). Jews knew of Rome’s conquests among European Gauls (1 Macc. 8:2), and many Jews eventually settled there (CIJ 1:478–84).

. Romans called Galli the people who called themselves Celtae (Julius Caesar, Gall. W. 1.1).

. Livy, Hist. 38.17.2 (with LCL note 1 by E. T. Sage on 11:54); Justin, Epit. 25.2.8–11; Ramsay, Galatians, 25, 45–52. Cf. Callimachus, Hymn Del., lines 173, 184; Seneca Y., Dial. 12.7.2. For archaeological traces of their violence and even human sacrifice (cf. Julius Caesar, Gallic W. 6.16), see Dandoy, Selinsky, and Voigt, “Celtic Sacrifice”; Mitchell, “Archaeology,” 185; Euskirchen, “Celts: Religion,” 98.

. Polybius 5.111.1–7.

. Livy, Hist. 38.47.9; Justin, Epit. 24.4.4; 38.4.9–10. More positively, they were courageous (Menander Rhetor, Treat. 2.1–2, 369.31–32).

. Livy, Hist., 38.17.2; 38.17.4. Livy (Hist. 38.17.13) opines, however, that those who settled in Asia Minor had degenerated into Phrygians with Gallic weapons. Polybius (Hist. 3.78.5; 3.79.8) deems them disorderly and undisciplined.

. Livy, Hist. 38.17.3. Diodorus Siculus (Libr. Hist. 5.28.1) comments on European Gauls’ height, muscles, white skin, and blond hair; Ptolemy (Tetrab. 4.10.203) on their white skin and straight hair.

. See Polybius, Hist., 3.3.5.

. Mitchell, Anatolia, 1:19.

. Cicero, Quint. fratr. 1.1.9.27. He also complained that Gauls reaped others’ fields rather than growing grain themselves (Cicero, Rep. 3.9.15). For the prejudices, see also Lightfoot, Galatians, 14–15, 23.

. Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:84. On analogous stereotypes today, cf. Niang, Faith, 73–79. Scott (Nations, 43, 201–18) argues that Jewish interpreters would have linked Galatia with Gomer in Gen. 10. On ancient stereotyping, see, e.g., Malina, “Authoritarianism,” 18.

. Antonius Diogenes, Thule 109b (trans. G. N. Sandy), of European Celts; see also comment on Gal. 3:1.

. Desiderius Erasmus, Paraphrases, on Galatians introduction, following Jerome, Comm. Gal. 1.1.1 (Bray, Galatians, 1); Jerome treated the Galatians as ethnically and inherently foolish (Berzon, “Galatians,” 448–55). Luther and others also deemed Galatians foolish as a people (Second Lectures on Galatians, on Gal. 3:1); see comment on Gal. 3:1.

. It might prove more relevant to 2 Tim. 4:10, if that refers to European Gaul (so, e.g., Kelly, Pastoral Epistles, 213; Riesner, Early Period, 304; contrast, e.g., Scott, Pastoral Epistles, 136).

. Betz, Galatians, 2. Nevertheless, Celtic traditions and even language persisted in this region even into the sixth century CE (Strobel, “Galatia: Region,” 649).

. E.g., Lightfoot, Galatians, 1–21, esp. 18–20; Lake, “Route,” 235; Meeks, Urban Christians, 42–43; Reicke, Era, 229; Mussner, Galaterbrief, 3–9 (though somewhat tentatively, 9); Watson, Gentiles, 109; de Boer, Galatians, 169; Koch, “Völkertafel”; Soards and Pursiful, Galatians, 3, 5; tentatively, Cousar, Galatians, 4; Sanders, Paul, 452, 749–77 (mainly following Lightfoot).

. E.g., Ramsay, Galatians, e.g., 81, 126, 180, 209, 318; Ramsay, Galatia; Knox, Jerusalem, 236–39; Burton, Galatians, xxi–xliv; Neil, Galatians, 2–3; Breytenbach, Provinz, esp. 99–126; Breytenbach, “Reasons,” 165; Scott, Nations, esp. 181–215; Riesner, Early Period, 286–91; Rackham, Acts, 195–98; Williams, Commentary on Acts, 175–77; Blaiklock, Archaeology, 90–91; Blaiklock, Acts, 122; Arrington, Acts, 165; Hemer, Acts in History, 278–307; Hansen, “Galatia”; Hansen, “Galatians,” 324–26; Tenney, Galatians, 46–51; Guthrie, Introduction, 468–72; Barnett, Birth of Christianity, 206–10; Bligh, Galatians, 3–6; Bruce, Galatians, 8–18; Fung, Galatians, 2–3; Wainwright, “Silas”; Yamauchi, Cities, 18; Finegan, Apostles, 83–84; McRay, Archaeology, 236; Rapa, “Galatians,” 550–52; Witherington, Grace, 3–7; Witulski, Adressaten; Schreiner, Galatians, 24–29; deSilva, Readings, 36–39; deSilva, Galatians, 39–48; Philip, “Galatians,” 1615; Oakes, Galatians, 18–19; Ngewa, Galatians, 3; Das, Galatians, 20–30; Porter, Paul, 187–92; tentatively, Ridderbos, Epistle, 23–31; Matera, Galatians, 24; Moo, Galatians, 4–8; possibly Dunn, Galatians, 17, but cf. his indecisiveness on 7; and Fee, Galatians, 57–58, indecisive on 4. See extensively Hemer, Acts in History, 278–307; Breytenbach and Zimmermann, Christianity.

. I have capitalized “North Galatia/n” and “South Galatia/n” when referring to the respective modern views/hypotheses, but have retained lowercase otherwise because “North Galatia” and “South Galatia” were not official provincial titles.

. Betz, Galatians, 4–5, 11–12, however, tentatively favors north Galatia and an early date.

. As noted by Matera, Galatians, 20; Dunn, Galatians, 8; Schreiner, Galatians, 31; Moo, Galatians, 3–4; Oakes, Galatians, 19; deSilva, Galatians, 44.

. See, e.g., Pilhofer, Einführung, 275–82 (cited in Oakes).

. Lightfoot (Galatians, 239) cites “the universal tradition of ancient writers.”

. The introductions to the works on Galatians (in Levy, Galatians, 79, 131, 185, 207, 245) by Haimo of Auxerre; Bruno the Carthusian (late eleventh century); Peter Lombard (twelfth century; “The Galatians are Greeks”); Robert of Melun (mid-twelfth century), on Gal. 1:1; Nicholas of Lyra (fourteenth century).

. Haimo of Auxerre; Robert of Melun (following Jerome in associating the name with their milky whiteness); Desiderius Erasmus, Paraphrases on the introduction to Galatians (in Bray, Galatians, 1).

. Lightfoot, Galatians, 18–21. By his day, rare supporters of the province hypothesis (allowing south Galatia), as opposed to ethnic Galatia, included J. J. Schmidt (1748) and J. P. Mynster (1825) (Mussner, Galaterbrief, 6).

. Oakes, Galatians, 19; cf. Schreiner, Galatians, 23.

. See the primary sources in Hemer, “Phrygia”; Hemer, “Further Note”; cf. Keener, Acts, 3:2324–30, 2796–97.

. See Riesner, Early Period, 282–86. As Anatolia specialist Stephen Mitchell notes, north Galatia “lay some 200 kilometres as the crow flies northeast of any natural route between Lystra and the region of Mysia” (Anatolia, 2:3). For alternative routes, see Breytenbach, “Reasons.”

. Lake, “Route,” 235.

. DeSilva, Readings, 37.

. Riesner, Early Period, 287.

. Meeks, Urban Christians, 42; Eastman, “Galatians,” 825. Pisidia, however, was also deemed warlike (Mitchell, Anatolia, 1:72; 2:26).

. Martyn, Galatians, 15; de Boer, Galatians, 5.

. DeSilva, Readings, 22.

. So Hanson, Acts, 19–20; Tenney, Galatians, 51; Wright, Faithfulness, 1304. Surprisingly, some contend that more scholars continue to favor the North Galatian hypothesis: Betz (Galatians, 4), who tentatively favors it; Matera (Galatians, 24), who tentatively favors south Galatia.

. Wright, Faithfulness, 808n109.

. Mitchell, “Galatia,” 871. Ramsay (Galatians, 126) claimed that supporters of the North Galatian hypothesis committed numerous errors concerning Anatolian history.

. Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:3.

. Mitchell, “Galatia,” 871 (citing Eutropius 7.10; ILS 9499; IG Rom. 3.263); Riesner, Early Period, 287.

. Calder and Mitchell, “Galatia”; see Levick, Roman Colonies, 122, 163; Harrill, “Asia Minor,” 134. Iconium (Ramsay, Discovery, 56; Mitchell, Anatolia, 1:99; Barrett, Acts, 661), Lycaonia (Belke, “Lycaonia,” 911), and Lystra (Belke, “Lystra,” 47; Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:155) were in the province of Galatia. During its history, parts of Lycaonia were in Asia and parts in Galatia (Pliny E., Nat. 5.25.95; 5.42.146–47).

. Levick, Roman Colonies, 163n2, citing SEG 19.765. Although Antioch was “Pisidian” in the sense that it bordered Pisidia, it was Phrygian (Strabo, Geogr. 12.3.31; 12.6.4; Calder, “Introduction, 1,” xii) and Galatian (Ramsay, Cities of Paul, 264).

. Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:4, 155; Belke, “Iconium,” 706; Strobel, “Galatia: Province,” 651; Dmitriev, “Observations”; Hansen, “Galatia,” 378.

. Mitchell, Anatolia, 1:96.

. Riesner, Early Period, 282–83; Breytenbach, “Reasons,” 160.

. Betz, Galatians, 4–5. De Boer (Galatians, 5), citing C. Breytenbach and S. Mitchell, notes that none of this evidence belongs to the first century.

. See Josephus, Ant. 12.149; Mitchell, “Galatia,” 2:33, 35; Stern, “Diaspora,” 148–50; Meyers and Kraabel, “Archaeology,” 191.

. Riesner, Early Period, 286; cf. Ramsay, Galatians, 189ff.; Ridderbos, Epistle, 24–25; Das, Galatians, 24.

. See Das, Galatians, 24.

. See Campbell, “Journeys,” 87; Talbert, Mediterranean Milieu, 203–4; Trebilco, “Itineraries”; Keener, Acts, 1:239–40.

. This includes in Acts 16:6–7; see, e.g., Hemer, “Phrygia”; Hemer, “Further Note”; Keener, Acts, 3:2324–30.

. Latourette, First Five Centuries, 89 (following Ramsay, Church in Empire, 146–47).

. Dunn, Galatians, 17; Fee, Galatians, 57–58. The split between Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15:39 does not reflect well on them and is not likely to be Luke’s invention (see Keener, Acts, 3:2299–310).

. Derbe had historic ties with Galatia (Strabo, Geogr. 12.6.3 with 12.5.1; Hansen, “Galatia,” 389), though it was not always part of the province (see Mitchell, Anatolia, 1:99).

. The plausibility criterion of ancient historiography, augmented by the rhetorical practice of προσωποποιία (prosōpopoiia; Kennedy, Interpretation, 114–40; Keener, Acts, 1:284–86; cf. Theon, Progymn. 8; Aune, Environment, 93, 125).

. Some, noting Gal. 5:11, contend that the agitators believed that they taught the same message as Paul (see, e.g., Howard, Crisis in Galatia, 9). Paul’s vehemence, however (e.g., 5:12), suggests that he was convinced otherwise.

. With most current commentators, I avoid the popular older title for Paul’s opponents as “Judaizers,” which both gives the wrong impression that Paul’s conflict in the letter is with Judaism and misunderstands the verb ἰουδαΐζω (ioudaizō) in 2:14; see Hays, “Galatians,” 185.

. See, e.g., Brinsmead, Galatians, 9–22; Brunon, “Étude,” 65–68; Schreiner, Galatians, 31–52; de Boer, Galatians, 50–61 (“the new preachers”).

. See Malherbe, “Gentle.”

. Sanders, Paul, 183–84.

. Cf. the efforts of Brinsmead, Galatians, 128–37; Wright, Pauline Perspectives, 353. For a sort of “common Judaism,” see Sanders, Judaism.

. Sanders, Paul, 477. For a list of some likely charges, see Tyson, “Opponents,” 249.

. Campbell, Deliverance, 525.

. E.g., Collins, “Artapanus,” 892 (regarding Artapanus); cf. also Josephus’s apologetic Life.

. Contrast Paul’s practice of marking the interlocutor, usually imaginary, in Romans (e.g., Rom. 2:2; 3:8; 9:19; 11:19; cf. also 1 Cor. 1:12; 15:12; 2 Cor. 12:16) with his lack of marking in 1 Corinthians (e.g., 1 Cor. 6:12–13, 18; 7:1); both were conventional practices (for the latter, see, e.g., Cicero, Scaur. 9.18; 18.41; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 23; 31.12; Pliny Y., Ep. 1.20.20; 7.17.5; Quintilian, Decl. 247.11–14; 248.6; 377.4).

. See esp. Sumney, Opponents; for Galatians, Lull, Spirit in Galatia, 31. Even more skeptical of its value is Lyons, Autobiography, 82–105; Lyons, Galatians, 44.

. Cf. Lyons, Autobiography, 82–121; Witherington, Grace, 25, 38.

. Quintilian, Decl. 338.6.

. See, e.g., Rhet. Alex. 18, 1432b.11–1433b.16; 33, 1439b.2–14; 36, 1442b.4–6; 36, 1443a.6–1443b.14; Anderson, Glossary, 104; Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 235.

. See Aune, Environment, 207.

. See, e.g., Wiarda, “Plot”; Malina and Neyrey, Portraits, 37; Aune, Environment, 207; deSilva, Readings, 58.

. On rhetorical “lingering,” see, e.g., Euripides, frg. 866; Rhet. Her. 4.45.58; Hermogenes, Method 5.417–18 (for diatribe); Anderson, Glossary, 48–49, 53.

. E.g., Rhet. Alex. 36, 1443b.34–38; Xenophon, Mem. 4.8.4; Apol. 3; Aeschines, Tim. 181; Lysias, Or. 19.24, §154; Isaeus, Cleon. 12.36; 27.37; Cicero, Sull. 24.68–28.77; Rosc. com. 7.21; Vat. 10.25–26; Appian, Hist. rom. 11.7.40–41.

. As in, e.g., Josephus, Against Apion, which particularly trashes Apion’s character.

. E.g., Luther, First Lectures on Galatians, on Gal. 6:12; Luther, Second Lectures on Galatians, on Gal. 6:12 (Bray, 220).

. See Sumney, Opponents, 85; Witherington, Corinthians, 346.

. For hellenized Jerusalemites, cf. Acts 6:9 and comment in Keener, Acts, 2:1255–60, 1303, 1306–10.

. For something like this view, see Nanos, Irony, e.g., 317. Some aspects of his thesis, though, are much more persuasive; and it is not impossible that they are believers within or who have joined local synagogues, now willing to help uncircumcised believers who wish to regularize their status.

. Carson (Triumphalism, 23) also notes Paul’s flexibility toward nonbelieving Jews (1 Cor. 9:19–23; Acts 21:20–26).

. Gager, Anti-Semitism, 204–5; Agnew, “Adversary”; Chester, “Galatian Believers,” 68.

. Ropes, Galatians, 25.

. Later Valentinians construed Paul as distinguishing his truly spiritual teaching “from the merely psychic preaching of the other apostles” (Pagels, Paul, 101).

. Schmithals, “Abfassung”; Schmithals, Paul and Gnostics, 13–64. Much more mildly, R. McL. Wilson (Gnosis, 43) recognized some proto-gnostic elements.

. See Yamauchi, Gnosticism.

. Lütgert, Gesetz und Geist; Ropes, Galatians, 9–10, 43–44. Jewett (“Agitators,” 212) sees the congregation as libertine (but not gnostic). Against some arguments that preconversion paganism was the primary issue, see Schreiner, Galatians, 37–38.

. See Barclay, Obeying. Paul clearly had already taught against immorality at the beginning (Gal. 5:21) (with Schreiner, Galatians, 46–47).

. E.g., Martyn, “Mission”; Martyn, Galatians, 121–23; Schreiner, Galatians, 49–51.

. E.g., Cousar, Galatians, 5.

. So, e.g., Cousar, Galatians, 5.

. A position opposed in Barclay, Obeying, 51.

. Cf. Munck, Salvation, 130.

. For outsiders, see, e.g., Dunn, Acts, 186.

. Again, given statements such as 1:6–7 and 6:12, these Jewish persons must be defining themselves as somehow members of Jesus’s movement; they are clearly not Jews who dispute Jesus’s messiahship.

. Josephus, Life 272–75.

. With Bruce, Galatians, 113; Fung, Galatians, 3.

. Martyn, Galatians, 218. Bruce (Peter, 37) identifies them with the teachers of Acts 15:1.

. Martyn, Galatians, 218. Sanders (Paul, 472) thinks that some Jewish Christians, noting the influx of gentiles, wanted to “take the movement back.”

. See Jewett, “Agitators” (e.g., 205); cf. Reicke, Era, 215 (making much of ζηλόω [zēloō] in Gal. 4:17). Jewett (“Agitators,” 212) also sees the Galatians as libertine, desiring circumcision to achieve perfection by entrance into Abraham’s seed, not nomism.

. Bruce, Galatians, 31, 131, 224; Hansen, Galatians, 63; Hengel, Peter, 65. For rising nationalism in this period, see Keener, Acts, 2:1869, 1875–76; 3:3133, 3173; cf. 3:3269.

. Cf. Ravens, Restoration, 247–49.

. Because Galatians is a Diaspora document, I normally speak in this commentary of greater Judea, including Galilee (cf., e.g., Acts 10:37; Pliny E., Nat. 5.15.70), in contrast to my narrower usage in my Gospels commentaries.

. See esp. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 213–17; Donaldson, Gentiles, 52–74.

. See Josephus, Ant. 19.326–27, 331–34; Riesner, Early Period, 101–2; Keener, Acts, 2:1869–70, 1875–76.

. See Josephus, Ant. 20.34–48.

. Luke emphasizes Cornelius as a model from hindsight (so, rightly, Dunn, Acts, 198), but at the time he was probably considered an anomaly (Dunn, Beginning, 446, 456; Keener, Acts, 2:1729, 1744, 1809; cf. Dunn, New Perspective, 38).

. Josephus, J.W. 7.45.

. Paul implemented but likely did not originate the new practice; see Horn, “Verzicht”; Sanders, Paul, 464; cf. comment on Gal. 5:11.

. Some even feel that such a compromise solution reflects a mixed community such as Antioch (Loisy, L’Épitre aux Galates, 135); but a hearing about a mixed community is sufficient.

. Marshall, Enmity, 13–21. At the least such a refusal could show contempt (Pliny Y., Ep. 8.6.9).

. On the horrific character of betrayal by a friend, see, e.g., Lysias, Or. 6.23, §105; 8.5–6, §112; Cornelius Nepos, Gen. 14 (Datames), 6.3; 11.5; Chariton, Chaer. 5.6.2; Sir. 22:21–22; T. Jud. 23:3; Babrius, Fab. 138.7–8. Eating together established a friendship bond (Xenophon, Cyr. 8.7.14), even with strangers (Euripides, Cycl. 125); such guest-friendships were politically binding; see Lysias, Or. 12.14, §121; 18.10, §150; Plutarch, Cor. 10.3; Cicero, Fam. 13.19.1; 13.25.1; 13.36.1; Cornelius Nepos, Gen. 5 (Cimon), 3.3. They persisted even over several generations (Homer, Il. 6.212–31; Cicero, Fam. 13.34.1).

. E.g., Homer, Il. 21.76; Od. 4.534–35; 11.414–20; 14.404–5; Hesiod, Op. 327; Euripides, Cycl. 126–28; Hec. 25–26, 710–20, 850–56; Apollonius Rhodius, Argon. 3.377–80; Ovid, Metam. 1.144; 10.225–28; Livy, Hist. 25.16.6.

. Aeschines, Leg. 22, 55.

. Catullus, Carm. 64.176.

. Cf. the reconstruction in Haacker, Theology, 15–16, on Rom. 15:30–31.

. Bauckham, “James,” 477.

. Barclay, Obeying, 53; Martyn, Galatians, 306; Das, Stories, 221; cf. Schreiner, Galatians, 34–35.

. Honorable Jews generally would have seen Paul as promising the blessings of God’s people cheaply by not insisting on “some of the essentials of Judaism, such as circumcision, the Sabbath, and kosher food” (Sanders, Paul, 205; cf. Hellerman, “Purity”; Heath, God Unbound, 12–13); his semiconverts might then also discredit genuine Judaism (Sanders, Paul, 205–6).

. Jesus’s followers, who believed they lived in the promised eschatological era, naturally would have applied these passages (Sanders, Paul, 469).

. With deSilva, Readings, 257, 261–62.

. See, e.g., 4 Macc. 1:1, 9; 2:23; Sipre Deut. 45.1.2; Stowers, “Self-Mastery,” 532–34; Keener, Mind, 77–78, 87–89; cf. Keener, “Thinking”; Keener, “Minds.”

. Philo, Spec. Laws 1.9; Migration 92; noted by Le Cornu, Acts, 818; deSilva, Readings, 16–17; Das, Galatians, 483.

. With, e.g., Sanders, Law and People, 18; Barclay, Obeying, 53; Dunn, Acts, 198; Fee, Galatians, 113; slightly more tentatively, Schreiner, Galatians, 34–35. Although some suggest that they also appealed to Moses (cf. 2 Cor. 3:7–15; Brinsmead, Galatians, 200), Galatians strongly focuses on Abraham, only hinting at Moses (Gal. 3:19–20).

. With, e.g., Sanders, Law and People, 18; Cousar, Galatians, 4.

. Cf. Vos, “Argumentation.”

. Although this idea was rarely articulated so explicitly, in the late source Num. Rab. 8:9 proselytes had no ancestral merits on which to rely, but had to gain the world to come by their own merit.

. E.g., Mek. Nez. 18.36–40; Montefiore, “Spirit of Judaism,” 43.

. See, e.g., Jub. 2:30; 3:8, 10; 6:2, 18–19; 7:3; 14:24; 16:21; 22:1–9; 44:4; L.A.B. 9:8; 2 Bar. 57:2; m. Qidd. 4:14; Schultz, “Views of Patriarchs.”

. Compare Gen. 20:12 with Lev. 18:9, 11 and Deut. 27:22; Gen. 21:33 with Deut. 16:21; and Gen. 29 with Lev. 18:18.

. Cf. Das, Paul and Jews, 48.

. They may have spoken of circumcision as completing what the Spirit began (cf. Gal. 3:3; Lull, Spirit in Galatia, 31; Dunn, Galatians, 16), though this is uncertain (Schreiner, Galatians, 35).

. See Josephus, Ant. 20.43–45.

. Cf. Gal. 4:18–20; Justin, Epit. 5.1.1, 3; 32.2.8; polemic against Caesar in his absence from Rome in, e.g., Plutarch, Caes. 30.4–5; 31.2–3. One could be praised in one location yet not in another (Cicero, Quint. fratr. 1.1.9.26).

. Cf. Barclay, Obeying, 59. Later rabbis could even appeal to the behavior of earlier rabbis for halakic precedent; see, e.g., t. Piska 2:15–16; Sipre Deut. 221.1.1. Christians even in the Pauline circle continued to cede a special authority or relevance to Jerusalem (Rom. 15:19, 25–27; Gal. 2:1) or to Jerusalem leaders or other “authentic” Jewish Christians (2 Cor. 11:22; Gal. 1:17, 22; 2:9; Phil. 3:5; cf. 1 Cor. 1:12; Col. 4:11; 1 Thess. 2:14).

. Fee, Galatians, 6.

. So most scholars—e.g., Tyson, “Opponents,” 249; Schreiner, Galatians, 34.

. Fee, Galatians, 253.

. Cf. Kraftchick, “Πάθη,” 57, though apparently treating only rationally based emotions as “pure.”

. See, e.g., Pliny Y., Ep. 2.9.2, 5–6; Engels, Roman Corinth, 87; Jewett, “Shame,” 551–53; Savage, Power, 23–25; Witherington, Grace, 129–31; Butticaz, “Culture,” 114–19; see esp. Lendon, Empire; Barton, Honor.

. Lysias, Or. 10.2, §116; 12.1, §120; 24.13, §524; 28.1, §179; Isaeus, Dicaeog. 46; Astyph. 16; Aeschines, Tim. 109; Rhet. Alex. 4, 1426b.29–35; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Isaeus 3, 9; Cicero, Scaur. 13.29; Verr. 2.2.48.118; Tacitus, Ann. 3.12; Fronto, M. Caes. 3.3; Lucian, Runaways 18; Z. Rants 52; Tim. 52–53; Quintilian, Decl. 252.10; 333.8; Apuleius, Apol. 1, 25; Hermogenes, Progymn. 6, “On Commonplace” 14; Inv. 1.1.99; 1.2.102–3; 1.3.104; Method 5.418.

. E.g., Aeschines, Tim. 54–57; Apuleius, Apol. 57–60; Winter, Left Corinth, 66.

. Euripides, Cret. frg. 472e.33–35; Xenophon, Hell. 2.3.37; Lysias, Or. 3.1, §96; Aeschines, Leg. 3, 69; Ctes. 113, 156, 259; Tim. 179; Thucydides, Hist. 3.61.1; Rhet. Alex. 36, 1442b.6–9; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lysias 24; Cicero, Or. Brut. 40.137; De or. 3.204; Sest. 37.80; Quinct. 3.11–9.33 (i.e., the entire narratio); Rosc. Amer. 30.82–45.132; Pliny Y., Ep. 3.9.29; 4.9.20; 6.22.2, 4; 7.33.7; Tacitus, Ann. 14.65; Apuleius, Apol. 56; Matt. 12:24, 43–45; John 7:20; 8:44, 48; Acts 24:18–19.

. Chrysostom, Hom. Gal. 1.1–3 (cited in deSilva, Readings, 20n20). Schreiner (Galatians, 35) regards this as “possible but much less certain.”

. Gager, Anti-Semitism, 67–88; Cohen, Maccabees, 49–58; Hengel and Schwemer, Between Damascus and Antioch, 61–70.

. Barclay, Obeying, 68–69, citing Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.282; for more on sympathizers, he cites Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.123, 209–10, 262, 280–86; Ant. 3.217; 18.82; J.W. 2.463, 560; 7.45; Philo, Moses 2.17–25.

. Brändle and Stegemann, “Formation,” 122.

. See Gager, Anti-Semitism, 55–56; Whittaker, Jews and Christians, 32–33, 85–91; Stern, “Greek and Latin Literature,” 1150, 1157; Yavetz, “Judeophobia.”

. Sanders, Paul, 115–17, 198–203, 312; Nanos, “Question,” 120, 129.

. Against some, it is unlikely that Christians in Galatia were actively persecuted for nonparticipation; it is surely likely, however, that neighbors could ridicule them and question their civic loyalty.

. The chiastic structure proposed by Bligh (Galatians, 39), however, goes too far.

. With, e.g., Lightfoot, Galatians, 65–67; Cousar, Galatians, 7. Slight variations in the outlines probably simply reflect Paul’s natural use of transitional sections (cf. Barclay, Obeying, 149). Such a basic outline can fit both rhetorical and epistolary expectations (Reed, “Epistle,” 182).

. See, e.g., Betz, Galatians, 16. For a survey of proposals, see Porter, “Paul and Letters,” 541–47.

. With Hays, “Galatians,” 187–88. But see White, Form, 154, 159.

. Note Cranford, “Reading.”

. Kennedy, Interpretation, 36. Kennedy (Interpretation, 146) rightly sees chaps. 5–6 as Galatians’ rhetorical goal.

. Cf. Sipre Deut. 342.1.2: the prophets first confronted Israel harshly and afterward comforted them.

. Cf. Barclay, Obeying; deSilva, Readings, 15, 18.

. Callan, “Style.” Paul lacks prose rhythm (cf. Aune, Rhetoric, 343). On the style, cf. Cicero, Or. Brut. 5.20–6.21; Rowe, “Style,” 151.

. Rhet. Alex. 22, 1434b.27–30.

. E.g., Cicero, Fam. 9.21.1; Pliny Y., Ep. 7.9.8; cf. Reed, “Epistle,” 182–86. Later theorists did expect ornamentation, but without rhetorical devices (Malherbe, “Theorists,” 17).

. See Pliny Y., Ep. 2.5.7; 3.13.4; 4.14.3.

. Harvey, Listening, 217–30.

. Harvey, Listening, 286.

. Caragounis, “Dionysios Halikarnasseus.”

. Classen, Rhetorical Criticism, 29; though Classen (31–40) does find some rhetorical terminology in Paul.

. For surveys, see Aune, Rhetoric, 192–94; esp. Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 129–42.

. E.g., Russell, “Rhetorical Analysis, 1”; Russell, “Rhetorical Analysis, 2”; Vos, “Argumentation”; Cranford, “Reading”; Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 142–89. For a synchronic, nonclassical rhetorical analysis, see Longenecker, Galatians, cxiv–cxix.

. Heath, “Chrysostom.” For patristic and Reformers’ rhetorical approaches to Paul, see Classen, “Rhetoric”; Harvey, Listening, 22–23.

. Das, Galatians, 62, citing Origen, Cels. 3.20; 7.37; Chrysostom, Sac. 4.6.

. Cooper, “Narratio.”

. Judge, First Christians, 713; Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 279–80; Aune, Rhetoric, 342.

. Jerome, Ruf. 1.17.

. See Milazzo, “Sermon.”

. Sullivan and Anible (“Dimension”) employ (modern) epideictic theory. On Gal. 1–2, see Hester, “Blame,” 307.

. For the categories, see, e.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Isoc. 20; Theon, Progymn. 1.74–76; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.1.42; Hermogenes, Issues 34.21–35.2; Menander Rhetor, Treat. 1.1.331.4–9; Kennedy, Art of Rhetoric, 7–23; Kennedy, “Genres,” 43–50; Calboli, “Genera.” For variations in ancient classification, see Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 97.

. Martin, “Apostasy,” but with a helpful modification in comparing Galatians with controversiae, treating it as a letter and not intended for a courtroom (460).

. Kennedy, Interpretation, 145; Witherington, Grace, 28; Hock, “Paul and Education,” 214.

. Kennedy, Interpretation, 145–46; Hall, “Outline”; Aune, Environment, 206–7 (cf. 91); Witherington, Grace, 31 (noting Quintilian, Inst. 3.8.12); Hays, “Galatians,” 189.

. Hansen, Abraham, 55–71.

. For mixed genres, see Aune, Rhetoric, 419; Porter, Paul in Acts, 113.

. Hester, “Blame,” 302n1; Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 35; Wuellner, “Arrangement,” 57; Heath, Hermogenes, 4; cf. Keener, “Rhetoric.”

. Garver, “Aristotle.”

. Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 127; Aune, Environment, 203. But cf. Mitchell, Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 21–23, for some functionally deliberative letters.

. Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 143–44.

. Kennedy, Interpretation, 151. Still, rhetoric allowed for individual differences (Polybius, Hist. 33.2.10; Cicero, Brut. 56.204).

. Black, Rhetoric of Gospel, 21; Kim, “Pastoral Letter,” 49–51.

. See Aune, Rhetoric, 64.

. Menander Rhetor, Treat. 2.4, 391.19–28; 392.9–14; 393.23–24.

. Cicero, Quinct. 10.35.

. DeSilva, Readings, 48. Fee (Galatians, 6–7), by contrast, doubts the relevance of classical rhetoric especially for this letter.

. Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 114–21 (esp. 114–17), 280–81; Reed, “Epistle.”

. E.g., 2 Macc. 1:1–6; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.1; Rev. 1:1–5; cf. Cicero, Brut. 2.11 (noted in the preliminary narrative).

. See Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 121–23 (but contrast his comments on NT letters, 123–26). But these were often pseudonymous practice letters (Reed, “Epistle,” 186–90).

. Reed, “Epistle,” 186–90, on Dionysius, who critiqued various writers’ style.

. See Pliny Y., Ep. 7.13.2; Fronto, Ant. imp. 2.5; Bernard, “Discours”; cf. Reed, “Epistle,” 191; perhaps Dio Chrysostom, Or. 73; Whitton, “Senate.”

. See Kennedy, Art of Rhetoric, 378–427. For letters, see Philostratus, Apoll. ep. 19.

. So Dio Chrysostom, Or. 18.18; for the influence of orality here, cf. Danker, Corinthians, 108–9; Forbes, “Comparison,” 139–40; Aune, Rhetoric, 397; Shiell, Reading Acts, 105.

. Porter, “Paul and Letters,” 567–68, 585.

. So Seneca Y., Lucil. 75.1–3. Weima (“Theory,” 328–29) notes that Pseudo-Demetrius, Style 223–35, prefers somewhat more attention.

. Cicero, Fam. 9.21.1 (trans. W. G. Williams, LCL, 2:261). Fronto preferred Cicero’s letters to his speeches (Ant. imp. 2.5).

. Classen, Rhetorical Criticism, 23.

. Malherbe, “Theorists,” 4–5. Earlier, note Demetrius’s On Style (Stowers, Letter Writing, 34).

. Classen, Rhetorical Criticism, 6; Porter, Paul in Acts, 105.

. Kern, Rhetoric, esp. 258–59. Sometimes Kern may prove more than necessary, however; for example, Paul’s failure to achieve Atticizing rhetorical standards (224–25) may not be significant in the 50s of the first century the way it might appear in the early second.

. E.g., Weima, “Aristotle”; Surburg, “Rhetorical Criticism”; Porter, “Unproven Claims”; Porter, “Witherington”; with the response by Myers and Witherington, “Response.”

. Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 127; Classen, “Rhetoric”; Dunn, Galatians, 20; Cooper, “Narratio”; Sänger, “Argumentationsstrategie”; Schreiner, Galatians, 54–55; de Boer, Galatians, 69–70; Keener, Corinthians, 29–30, 35–37; Keener, Romans, 2–4; cf. Fairweather, “Galatians 3”; Tolmie, “Strategie in 2:11–21”; Tolmie, “Strategie in 3:15–25.”

. Recognizing the value of both, see, e.g., Thiselton, Corinthians, 42–46.

. Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 113. Cicero’s letters average roughly three hundred words, and Seneca’s about one thousand (Morris, Romans, 1).

. See Demetrius Phalereus, Style 4.228, noting this for many of Plato’s and Thucydides’s letters.

. See Judge, First Christians, 710–11; Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 113–14; cf. Malherbe, Social Aspects, 54–58; Smit Sibinga, “Serta Paulina.”

. Forbes, “Comparison,” 151.

. Weima, “Letters,” 644.

. E.g., Das, Galatians, 63; see esp. Weima, Letter Writer.

. Malherbe, “Theorists,” 12–13. Often students learned by imitating model letters; Stowers, Letter Writing, 33.

. See Das, Galatians, 66.

. Hansen, Abraham, 23.

. Stowers, Letter Writing, 52.

. Betz, Galatians, 14–15, drawing heavily on Momigliano; Betz, “Defense,” 103–4; cf. Brinsmead, Galatians, 37–55.

. Kennedy, Interpretation, 144–52; Lyons, Autobiography, 112–19; Hansen, Abraham, 25–27.

. Stowers, Letter Writing, 166. Ancient letters of accusation seem indistinguishable from letters of blame except by their use of some forensic style (Stowers, Letter Writing, 167), and Stowers (173) questions whether the NT contains any apologetic or accusing letters in the narrow sense.

. Stowers, Letter Writing, 133–34.

. Stowers, Letter Writing, 86, 89.

. Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 186–87, comparing Demetrius Phalereus, Style 240–304, on forceful style, emphasis, and allegory. In rhetoric, cf. Hermogenes, Method 36.454.

. Stowers, Letter Writing, 139–41.

. Hansen, Abraham, 22–44, esp. 34–43; followed by Witherington, Grace, 39.

. Cf. Das, Galatians, 66.

. Menander Rhetor, Treat. 1.1.331.15, 18.

. Rountree, “Genre”; cf. Pernot, “Rhétorique”; Rees, “Panegyric.”

. Stowers, Letter Writing, 51; Keck, “Pathos,” 80–81.

. Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 161. Note esp. Cynics in Fredrickson, “Hardships,” 175–76; for correction, see also the Epicurean Philodemus, On Frank Criticism.

. See Plutarch, Statecraft 14 (Mor. 810C); Stowers, Letter Writing, 133–34; Fredrickson, “Hardships,” 176.

. Richards, Letter Writing, 165.

. For production of second copies of important letters for personal records, see Richards, Letter Writing, 158–59.

. Richards, Letter Writing, 169.

. Richards, Letter Writing, 169, using 2004 costs.

. Chrysostom, Hom. Gal. 1.1–3, on Gal. 1:1 (Edwards).

. Deissmann, Light, 237.

. Indeed characteristic of invective rhetoric (blame; Quintilian, Inst. 6.2.20).

. So also Sanders, Paul, 475–76; earlier, Ambrosiaster, Comm. Gal. 3.2.1; Jerome, Comm. Gal.pref. (in Berzon, “Galatians,” 436n2). Ancient commentators often explained Paul’s anger as justifiable, forced by the Galatians’ deliberate turn from truth (Berzon, “Galatians,” 441–48, citing esp. Marius Victorinus, Ep. Gal. 1.pref.; Ambrosiaster, Comm. Gal. 3.1.1; Augustine, Letters 28.3; Ep. Gal. 18.1; Chrysostom, Hom. Gal. 1.1.1–3; 3.3.1).

. Isocrates, Ad Nic. 23; cf. Fronto, M. Caes. 3.6. Elsewhere Isocrates (Antid. 140, 310, 320) speaks of being carried away by his feelings; Menander Rhetor (Treat. 2.9, 413.13–14) also advises that one who delivers a consolatory speech appear to be out of one’s mind. For anger in speeches, see also, e.g., Aeschines, Leg. 146; Apuleius, Apol. 78.

. Cicero, De or. 2.45.189; Pliny Y., Ep. 6.33.9–10. This was why it was not trickery (Cicero, De or. 2.46.191).

. Hall, “Delivery,” 222, citing Cicero, De or. 3.217–18.

. Hurschmann, “Gestures,” 832; one might also use the index finger to display contempt (836). Aristocrats might convey angry emotion without violent gestures (Cicero, Brut. 43.158).

. E.g., probably in Dio Chrysostom, Or. 33.

. With Martyn, Galatians, 36–37; Campbell, “Antisemitism,” 310.

. Versus modern Western standards; note Sumney, “Πάθος,” 160; Hietanen, Argumentation, 185 (but the modern communications theory rules on 58–62 [esp. 60] are for effective dialogue, a different context than Paul’s).

. Cf. Agnew, “Adversary”; Campbell, “Antisemitism,” 315.

. Cf., e.g., Segovia, “Discussing/Subverting,” 341.

. Note the proper concern in Barclay, Obeying, 210; Sanders, Paul, 459, 475, 526.

. Cf. Yeo, “Hermeneutics.”

. Barclay, Obeying, 210–11; Gombis, “Arguing,” 82–83. O’Neill (Recovery, 7) uses the contrasts to identify glosses in Galatians, too comfortably flattening the historical Paul to the Paul of Romans.

. E.g., de Boer, Galatians, 411.

. E.g., Dunn, Galatians, 277; Das, Galatians, 19.

. As noted by Howard, Crisis in Galatia, 82.

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