Paul’s relationship with the Jerusalem church is best attested in the epistle to the Galatians. It seems clear that certain people had entered the Pauline communities in Galatia, and were preaching an alternative gospel to that taught by Paul (1:6-9). In direct contrast to the Pauline message, this gospel specified that following Jesus involved both…

Numerous rhetorical analyses of the letter have shown that Paul does everything in his power to persuade the Galatians that his views are right and that those of his opponents are wrong (D.F. Tolmie, ―The Rhetorical Analysis of the Letter to the Galatians: 1995-2005‖, in Exploring New Rhetorical Approaches to Galatians (ed. D.F. Tolmie; AcTSup…

Ancient Opinion Galatia; the name of the Roman Province

“Galatians 3.28 calls to destroy slavery” The Non-Use of “No Male and Female” Present-day commentators of Gal 3:28 are likely to focus on the binary pair of gender – indeed, “slave” and “free” are not commonly used designations for one’s social status in today’s world, and “Greek” is a rather narrow ethnic specification, not something…

People who have even a passing familiarity with the Pauline corpus tend to know four things about Paul: (1) that he experienced a conversion on the road to Damascus; (2) that he became a missionary and apostle to the Gentiles; (3) that he was a figure of controversy; and (4) that he wrote letters. Furthermore,…

The argument went approximately:

Introduction 📜Galatians is one of the four letters of Paul known as the Hauptbriefe, which are universally accepted as authentic. It is typically dated c. 54 CE.There is an old debate as to whether Paul’s letter was directed to northern Galatia, where the ethnic Galatians lived, or to southern part of the Galatian province, where…

Phil 2:6–11 is Pauline confessional material and that Phil 2:9–11 in particular is based off of a reflection on Ps 110:1: This passage is based off of early Christian interpretation of Ps 110:1, that its portrait of Jesus’s exaltation resembles both royal and imperial temple and throne sharing, and that these similalities contributed to widespread…

Article Authorship and Origin The most common suggestion of pre-Pauline origin is a Semitic or even Aramaic background. Lohmeyer is frequently attributed with identifying a Semitic background, though it was a series of later scholars who pursued this question more deeply. Fitzmyer (1988: 473-76) provides a helpful survey of these develop ments. Martin (1983: 38-41)…

Theilman: Bonnie Beattie Thurston; Judith Ryan: G. Walter Hansen: In fact the first meaning of the Latin word praetorium (without “cohort”) is this: “the general’s tent” (if in an army camp) or “the governor’s residence” (in a province). Thus there were a lot of praetoria in the empire. … Similarly, when Paul wrote to the…