RESPONSE NUMBER SIX To Galatians Re-imagined: Reading with the Eyes of the Vanquished (Fortress 2010) by Brigitte Kahl

KAHL’S INTRODUCTION

In my previous post, I mentioned that Brigitte Kahl recommends Mark Nanos’ book, The Irony of Galatians (Augsburg Fortress 2002), especially at pp. 257-71.

Nanos write that the Apostle Paul’s addressees in Galatia were not Jews, although adherents of Messiah Jesus (“Paul’s Gentiles”). As non-Jews, they were compromising the security of the synagogue(s) by claiming the privilege – as Jews – to no longer be required to show honor to the Emperor by way of mandated participation in the imperial cult. Nanos then argues that the Jewish community (communities?) responded to this threat by pressuring Paul’s Messiah Jesus converts to become proselytes and submit to circumcision.

Paul’s Galatians letter is ambiguous as to the identities of both the community (communities) addressed and the opponents Paul is confronting. This ambiguity explains the existence of both Nanos’ book and Kahl’s, to say nothing of most other commentaries: biblical scholars want to have their say and also want to say something fresh, if not novel. (The faddish nature of New Testament scholarship is a subject for another day.)

About the identities of the parties mentioned in the Galatians letter, decisions have to be made by those who write commentaries. Nanos has made his calls, and Kahl’s introductory remarks indicate she has adopted a similar position in her book. (You will recall, I am reviewing her book as I work through it.)

I leave it to the readers of Mark Nanos to decide if he is persuasive that synagogue representatives (Nanos, unfortunately, calls them “control agents”) would demand circumcision of non-Jews, whose adherence was not to Judaism per se, but to a Jewish itinerant preacher, executed under Roman authority in Roman-occupied Jerusalem. 

My own take on these identity questions is that Paul, in Galatians, is having to defend himself from allegations that he is a man of extreme violence and therefore, lacking in credibility as a reliable counselor in religious matters. This bitter criticism of Paul was made, I believe, in Galatia by survivors of his earlier persecution of Diaspora Christian Jews, whom he had run out of Jerusalem and who had returned to their homes in Galatia, there to denounce Paul to their co-communicants, some of whom were Gentile. 

(See my article, “Paul and the Victims of His Persecution: The Opponents in Galatia” 32 Biblical Theology Bulletin No 4 (Winter 2002) pages 182-191.)

Kahl’s first reference to Nanos, appearing here in the Introduction, may yet be qualified in her more detailed explication in the book.