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

This post is prompted by endnote 91 in Chapter 6 (p. 367).

Professor Kahl, amplifying (p. 283) her comments about Gal 3:19-20, offers a unique reading of this text, which amounts to a concise summary of the thesis of her book.

Kahl is commenting on the phrase henos ouk estin (Gal 3:20)


“But a mediator is not one (lit: ‘not of the one’), but God is one.”

Kahl writes that “this most cryptic statement . . . is a coded reference to Caesar.”

Elaborating further, Kahl finds that Paul, “in guarded language . . . evokes the core conflict of the entire letter as the idolatrous claim of the Roman emperor as the supreme guardian and grantor of law vis-a-vis subject nations, including Jewish law, and the enslaving powers unleashed through his false promises and decrees of ‘law mediation.’

Is it plausible that Paul is referring explicitly, though cryptically, to Caesar? I suppose, once the view is taken that a comment is deliberately "cryptic" then it follows that a comment can mean anything. 


But the plausibility of a particularly novel suggestion comes always into play. Kahl in this footnote reads Gal 3:20 in light of Gal 1:1 - Paul’s assertion that his Gospel is “not from men nor through a man” - which Kahl suggests is “a puzzling reference” and which may also point to Caesar. 


In Gal 1:1 the emphatic, repetative negative (not from . . . nor through) does not suggest this is to be taken as a cryptic comment. More likely, Paul is asserting a divine source for his missionary authority, while denying a human source - as may have been alleged of him by critics in Galatia. If so, Paul does not have in mind the Roman emperor or any other particular individual and his dictated comment more likely means not from mankind or not from any human source.

My conclusion is that neither Gal 1:1 nor 3:20 should be taken as a reference to Caesar.

In this case Professor Kahl’s proposal is not sustained. Caesar is not characterized in Galatians as a false god, who is countered by Paul, who asserts belief in what he insists is the only true God, who made direct promises to Abraham, conducted arm's length dealings with Moses and is father of Messiah Jesus.

It follows that, if Caesar is not in view in Galatians, then nomos (law) in the Galatians letter is not to be taken as a reference to Roman law (however defined) and that the phrase “works of the law” ought to be read, not as the obligations of subject people to worship Caesar, but rather as a reference to Torah observance.