Professor Kahl summarizes (p. 281) Galatians 3 and 4 as "a grand restatement of Genesis that revolves around the theme of oneness" - by which is meant the one God, who reconciles divided humanity (Jews and Gentiles) into a new oneness as "siblings of Christ."
Kahl sees Paul's presentation here as "a programatic reconceptualization of God's people as a multitude of nations" (p. 281).
Kahl urges upon her readers the proposition that Paul's reconceptualization "cannot be seen as an innovation within the Jewish reference system alone" (p. 282).
This assertion is a fair summary of Professor Kahl's thesis that the Galatians letter is a semi-cryptic communication to oppressed communities, living under a brutal empire, against which regime the Apostle Paul in his missive, levels a subtle critique of its coercive, ideological pretentions.
Kahl's assertion that Paul's Galatians is more than a statement, which marks his distance from his former allegiance to Judaism, faces an important question, unanswered here: by whom "must" Paul's statements be seen as imbedded in a context larger than the "Jewish reference system?"
- By Paul himself?
- By his intended readers?
- By his opponents and critics?
- By readers today?
Doubtless, Kahl could answer that her book passes over many important issues because she has not written a commentary.
But if one intends to argue to specialists for a new interpretation of Galatians, one ought to clarify where and how key statements from Paul do not fit the traditional explanation(s) and fit better in the new understanding of these statements.
Case in point: Gal 3:2-5 and 3:19-20, read together by Kahl (p. 283).
And
My Translation:
2: Let me just learn this from you: Was it by Torah observance that you received the spirit or by trusting in what you heard?
3: Are you so stupid? Beginning with the spirit, are you now perfected in the flesh?
4: Have you experienced so much for nothing?
5: Again, does the one who infuses in you the spirit - also energizes powers in you! - [do so] by your observance of Torah or by your believing what you heard?
and:
19: Then, why Torah? - As a supplement, because of misdeeds. That's why! Until the arrival of the promised descendant [seed] - conveyed through angels, by the hand of a mediator.
20: Now a mediator is not just one party. Yet God is one.
Fundamental to translation is the choice whether to be literal or meaningful.
Literally, ἐξ ἔργων νόμου (vv. 2, 5) means "by works of the law" but this awkward phrase appears more than once in the Galatians letter and demands a context for each appearance. Once a context is discerned, ἐξ ἔργων νόμου can be conveyed into English so as to permit Paul's statements to be comprehensible in his context.
What is the context of Gal 3? Paul's remarks here are dictated in light of disagreement (Gal 2) about whether Jewish regulations as to food preparation and the acceptance of circumcision are mandated for those who give allegiance to Messiah Jesus. In this context, Paul is talking about Torah observance when he speaks of observance of the law (3:2, 5), and (v. 19) when he uses the word νόμος - law.
Professor Kahl's appears to acknowledge the Torah context but her re-imagination requires an added, broader aspect.
The one offered by Kahl enlarges Paul's frame of reference to include the Roman occupation and its impact upon occupied peoples. The implication in Kahl's presentation is that both the immediate Jewish and the broader Roman context form the setting to Paul's comments.
But Kahl's broadening to include the Roman context effectively negates the context where Torah is in view.
Kahl's interpretation of Gal 3:2 requires that 'works of the law' means the imposition of circumcision and Jewish dietary regulations by Roman authorities. If not a literal imposition, then Kahl would open the door to a worry by Diaspora Jews that this Messianic sect established by Paul, would get them all into trouble, if the sect claimed the Jewish exemption from worship of the emperor, yet without participating in conduct which clearly indicated Jewish identity.
In this reading of 'works of the law' Paul is asking his erstwhile converts if they receive "the spirit" by either returning to the worship of the emperor or by way of their acceptance of the indices of Jewish identity?
But which is it supposed to be? Since dietary observances are no longer front and center in this letter and circumcision is, then 'works of the law' in Gal 3:2 is impliedly either circumcision or emperor worship, in the form of attendance at arena spectacles.
One doubts that nomos (law), appearing here in the singular, could have meant both Roman rule and also the Torah-imposed circumcision requirement. But Kahl thinks so, assigning to Caesar, not Moses, the role of transmitter of Torah. (See Kahl at p. 283, on Gal 3:19-20 and at p. 377, endnote 91, which I discuss, below.)
In 3:5, Paul asks the same rhetorical question of his erstwhile converts: what is the source of the gift of the spirit? This time Paul adds (shouting?) also, what is the source of the power you experience at work in your midst?!
The difficulty posed by Professor Kahl's invitation to re-imagination a broader context is the unlikely circumstance in which Paul's readers could have thought about their experience(s) as messianic converts and reflected on these two, no three, options Kahl proposes: reception of spirit and power (1) by attendance at the games or (2) acceptance of circumcision, or (3) by Paul's impassioned preaching?
Abstractly, and especially in a document that is labeled as encoded, nomos can be taken as the Jewish rite of circumcision or attendance at the arena spectacles - all in contrast to Paul's impassioned preaching. But concretely, and more coherently, in the context of a discussion that began with a debate about dietary laws and, now about whether to accept circumcision, the clearer meaning for νόμος / nomos is Torah and not the Roman occupation.
Because the word, nomos, most naturally means Torah in Gal 3, then the phrase ἐξ ἔργων νόμου - works of the law - is an incapsulated reference for: Torah observance. The phrase does not mean: the required submission by subject peoples to the emperor's law and the imposition of Torah upon Diaspora Jews.
Specifically (contra Kahl), works of the law does not mean: acquiescence to the demand made by local Roman authorities that the Galatians, not being exempt as are Diaspora Jews, attend spectacles in the local arena or amphitheater(s).
Gal 3:19, 20: ". . . conveyed through angels, by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not just one party. Yet God is one."
These words are taken by commentators as a reference to the Sinai myth, in which Moses receives the laws and conveys it to the children of Israel. Some ancient traditions embroider the scene by the inclusion of angelic hosts. (Deut 33:2 LXX; Acts 7:38, 53; see Dunn's Galatians commentary [1993, p. 191]). This is doubtless the meaning intended by Paul.
Paul implies that the provisional aspect of Torah (coming 430 years after the promise: Gal 3:17) is evidenced by its conveyance with the aid of a mediator, assisted by angles. The absence of these two additional parties distinguishes and diminishes the reception of Torah from the promise of YHWH made directly to Abraham.
Clearly, Paul has Torah in mind for his next sentence implies (v. 20) that the use of a mediator diminishes nomos inasmuch as "a mediator is not just one. Yet God is one."
Kahl's view is quite different (p. 283). It is Caesar who mediates, i.e., enforces the Roman nomos upon the Galatians: "The law that condemns and exposes them as unlawful owing to their nonconformist identity is the law that is 'mediated' by Caesar, the idolatrous not-one in contrast to the one god of Israel (3:19-20)."
A mediator facilitates negotiations or communications between two parties. A mediator may also be thought of as a conveyor of some particular item or content between parties. The Talmud suggests that Moses' mediation at Sinai is analogous to a synagogue reading of Torah, with YHWH in the role of the Hebrew reader while Moses translates and interprets.
But a mediator is not an enforcer. One does not think of a prosecutor or a police officer as a mediator of the law.
Kahl's view that Caesar is the mediator of the law to the Galatians goes beyond both the plain meaning of mediator and the more coherent context found here: a reflection by Paul on the giving of Torah at Sinai, involving the mediation of Moses as well as the participation of angels, which is evidence, to Paul, that the giving of Torah is of a lesser quality than the earlier giving of the promise to Abraham.
Sources for Galatians in Greek :
(1) http://www.kimmitt.co.uk/gnt/gnt.html
(2) http://www.greekbible.com/index.php
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