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

KAHL’S INTRODUCTION

In the two pages (pp. 2-3) preceding comments (p. 3) under the heading “Re-Imagining Paul” Professor Kahl adds some sweeping comments intended to make the argument that the Gallic peoples of Gaul and Anatolia ought to be seen together “in the Roman imagination” as having retained – even after their separate defeats by Roman legions – “a notoriously indomitable tendency toward lawlessness.”

But first, she states that “Galatians (or Gauls), Jews and Christians as well, had one thing in common: all were suspected of subverting law and order.”

This point is not furthered elaborated upon.

Rather, the reader is invited to see a commonality between the two Gallic peoples which is exhibited in “the Roman imagination” as “archetypical enemies, quintessential barbarian intruders, remaining dangerous even after their defeat.”

Evidence offered is that “Roman authors frequently use the Latin term terror when they discussed Gauls/Galatians.” This means that we ought to understand “the Greco-Roman campaign” as a multistage campaign against “global terrorism.”

Once this picture has been drawn, Kahl puts the question which is to be asked and answered in her book: “what exactly is Paul’s position and role on that stage” – with “stage” a reference to “the highly charged battlefield of imperial representations, ancient and contemporary, alike.”

Kahl concludes this section, with supplementary questions about Paul: “How do we see him, how do we read him on the blood-soaked terrain of Western war-making history?” 

These questions reinforce my tentative conclusion that in Kahl's book, our subject is not the writer of a specific letter, but rather the Cosmic Paul of the Scriptures and perhaps also of the later-appearing, more-or-less triumphant Catholic Church.  

I question whether the introductory foundation has been sufficiently established to invite the questions raised. 

Two weaknesses I see in these introductory comments (which may be fully addressed in the book) are these:

1.                  The “Roman imagination” remains unidentified.

2.                  The commonalities of the Gallic tribes so far identified are not persuasive enough to compel this reader to see Gauls and Galatians – to say nothing of Jews and Christian Jews – as sharing a common identification in the so far quite non-specific “Roman imagination” as lawless terrorists.