Footnotes
Footnotes
1.Kummel, p. 304. This does not mean that there have been no dissentients (Kummel himself cites Bruno Bauer, "the radical Dutch critics,” and R. Steck). See also J. C. O’Neill, who thinks that Paul wrote only about two-thirds of Galatians (The Recovery of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians [London: SPCK, 1972]). But today most scholars would agree with Kummel.
2.J. B. Lightfoot, who, like the other older commentators, favored the North Galatian theory, nevertheless comments: "It is strange that while we have more or less acquaintance with all the other important Churches of St Paul’s founding, with Corinth and Ephesus, with Philippi and Thessalonica, not a single name of a person or place, scarcely a single incident of any kind, connected with the Apostle’s preaching in Galatia, should be preserved in either the history or the epistle” (Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians [London: Macmillan, 1902], p. 21).
3.την Φρυγίαν και Γαλατικην χώραν (ten Phrygian kai Galatiken choran).
4.Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), p. 483.
5.C. J. Hemer, "The Adjective ‘Phrygia,’” JTS 27 (1976): 122-26; idem, "Phrygia: A Further Note,” JTS 28 (1977): 99-101.
6.F. F. Bruce, "Galatian Problems. 2. North or South Galatians?” BJRL 52 (1970): 258.
7.W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1893), pp. 10-11. Moffatt, however, cites Ramsay’s question regarding Lystra: "How did the cosmopolitan Paul drift like a piece of timber borne by the current into this quiet backwater?” (p. 99).
8.Kummel, p. 298.
9.F. F. Bruce points out that the argument reduces itself to this syllogism: "The Gauls were fickle and superstitious. Paul’s Galatians were fickle and superstitious. Therefore: Paul’s Galatians were Gauls.”
He adds that "the argument would be valid only if fickleness and superstition were not characteristic of other nations than the Gauls (and Galatians)” (The Epistle to the Galatians [Exeter: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982], p. 8).
10.Moffatt holds that "διέρχεσθαι [dierchesthai, from διέρχομαι, G1451] in Acts 16:6, taken along with 18:23, implies preaching-activity, not simply travelling” (p. 95). This would indicate that Paul evangelized North Galatia.
11.Marxsen, p. 46.
12.F. F. Bruce locates it in this period ("Galatian Problems. 1. Autobiographical Data,” BJRL 51 [1969]: 301-2).
13.F. F. Bruce points out that neither view can be said to be proven to the extent that the other is ruled out. But he concludes an important discussion of the problem by saying, "the weight of the evidence, it seems to me, favours the South Galatian view” ("Galatian Problems. 2. North or South Galatians?” BJRL 52 [1970]: 266). J. A. T. Robinson is another who sees "the weight of scholarly opinion” as favoring the South Galatian view (Redating the New Testament [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976], p.
55).
14.On this passage BAGD remarks that "fr. a lexical point of view it is not poss[ible] to establish the thesis that Paul wished to differentiate betw[een] a later visit and an earlier one” (p. 722).
15.Klijn finds "a striking parallel between Gal. 2:1-10 and Acts 11, 25-30” (p. 94).
16.Lightfoot argues this and finds support in "Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Gal. 6:17), which seems like "the language of one, who has lately passed through a fiery trial...Does it not seem to follow naturally after the tumult of affliction, which bursts out in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians?” (Galatians, p. 51). Bruce very carefully examines the relationship between Galatians and other Pauline epistles and finds nothing inconsistent with the view that this is the earliest of Paul’s letters (Galatians, pp. 45-55).
17.If we do, the early date follows. According to J. Knox, "If we could trust entirely the accuracy of the Acts account of Paul’s visits to Jerusalem, the case for the early dating would be unassailable” ("Galatians, ” in IDB, 2:342).
18.This is the date given by George Ogg, The Chronology of the Life of Paul (London: Epworth, 1968), p. 200. It is also favored by Ronald Y. K. Fung; see his Epistle to the Galatians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), p. 28; John W. Drane, Paul: Libertine or Legalist? (London: SPCK, 1975), pp. 140-43; see also chap. 7 above.
19.This may refer to "planetary powers or astrological signs of the zodiac” (Martin, 2:153). The στοιχεία (stoicheia, "basic principles”, from στοιχειον, G5122) to which both Jews (Gal. 4:3) and Gentiles (4:9) had been subjected are best understood in terms of "legalism as a principle of life” (Bruce, Galatians, p. 203).
20.Thus Howard says, "The agitators at Galatia were Jewish Christians, Judaizers from Jerusalem who were forcing the Galatians to be circumcised and to keep the law. They did not themselves oppose Paul but insisted that he like them taught circumcision” (Paul: Crisis in Galatia [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979], p. 19). On the use of the term "Judaizer,” see n. 3 in chap. 9, above.
21Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 30.
22.Howard has a useful if brief summmary of a good deal of work on this letter, esp. with regard to Paul’s opponents (Paul: Crisis, pp. 1-7).
23.E. de Witt Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1921), p. lxv.
24.Knox, "Galatians,” pp. 342-43.
25.So, e.g., Bruce, Galatians, pp. 43-56.
26.See n. 20 above.
27.J. Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (Richmond: John Knox, 1959), pp.
87ff.
28.E. P. Sanders sees it as "likely that they were ‘right wing’ Jewish Christians” who would emphasize such passages as Gen. 17:9-14 (Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985] p. 18).
29.H. D. Betz, Galatians, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), p. 14.
30.Ibid., p. 24.
31.Ibid., p. 25.
32. According to Childs, "Betz’s argument is here very weak. Not only is the category of ‘magical letter’ in itself highly suspect, but its application to Galatians is tenuous in the extreme” (p. 302).
33.See esp. E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1977); idem, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People.
34.E.g., the strand of Jewish teaching that refers to judgment day with the imagery of weighing people’s merits and demits in scales. Beth Hillel stressed the mercy of God in saying, "He that abounds in grace inclines (the scales) to grace” (b. R. H. 17a). Sanders puts his emphasis on those saved either because their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds or because, the scales being evenly balanced, God either pushes up the demerit side or pushes down the merit side. But there is a third class, those whose bad deeds outweigh their good deeds, and the rabbis saw them as lost. Sanders simply denies that this is representative. But it is part of the evidence and should not be overlooked.
35.E.g., see R. H. Gundry, "Grace, Works, and Staying Saved in Paul,” Bib 66 (1985): 1-38.
36.Stephen Westerholm has a very useful survey of the contributions of a wide range of scholars to our understanding of the subjects dealt with in this epistle (Israel’s Law and the Church’s Faith: Paul and His Recent Interpreters [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988]). See further the section Romans in Recent Study in chap. 8 above.
37.According to Sanders, "God sent Christ; he did so in order to offer righteousness; this would have been pointless if righteousness were already available by the law (Gal. 2:21); the law was not given to bring righteousness” (Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, p. 27).
38.T. David Gordon, "The Problem at Galatia,” Int 41 (1987): 32.
39.Ibid., p. 40.
40.John M. G. Barclay, Obeying the Truth: A Study of Paul’s Ethics in Galatians (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988).
41.Frank Thielman, From Plight to Solution: A Jewish Framework for Understanding Paul’s View of the Law in Galatians and Romans, SuppNovT 61 (Leiden: Brill, 1989).
42.W. Schmithals, The Office of Apostle in the Early Church (Nashville: Abingdon,
1969).
43.John W. Drane remarks that "the whole of Schmithals’s argument here (and, indeed, throughout the whole of his work) is based on the assumption that Gnosticism as a system was of pre-Christian origin.” He goes on to say that this belief "simply cannot
be substantiated on the basis of any known evidence” (Paul: Libertine or Legalist? p. 17).
44.Charles H. Cosgrove, The Cross and the Spirit: A Study in the Argument and Theology of Galatians (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1989).
45.Cf. Johnson’s questions: "Is God ultimately a passive bookkeeper who, after shaping the world, lets it alone, concerned only to tally the relative merits of his creatures? Or is God one who is at every moment creating anew, redeeming, sanctifying, the source of all that is, and the goal toward which all things tend? Does God act in strange and unexpected ways, or is God locked into his own past?” (p. 305).
46."By grounding his argument in the faith of Abraham, Paul removes the debate from the sphere of merely contingent history. The Galatians have just not made a human misjudgment, but committed themselves to an alternative which severed their continuity with the father of the faith” (Childs, p. 308).