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

Professor Kahl's brief Conclusion (pp. 287-89) summarizes what Kahl asserts has been demonstrated in this investigation.


Kahl believes (p. 287) that she has shown that "the entire letter is a 'coded' theological manifesto of the nations of the world pledging allegiance to the one God who is other than Caesar . . ."


Is this description of the intent of the writer of the Galatians letter meant by Kahl to be taken ironically?


A manifesto is a public announcement of principles or intentions. A cryptic statement cannot be described as a manifesto because the intended meaning of a cryptic message is something other than what is stated in the literal message. This is the opposite of manifest-o.


The coded-manifesto conundrum is twinned with that other conundrum, already commented upon, wherein what the Galatians letter may be taken to mean by subsequent, unintended readers is retrojected upon the mental processes of the writer as his personal, intended meaning given by him to his own words.


For some readers, the Galatians letter may become "a passionate plea to resist the idolatrous lure of imperial religion and social ordering" (Kahl at p. 287). But evidence is lacking that Paul meant for such a coded message to be read into his statements by readers he addressed in Galatia.


What is up with Galatians?


Paul is confronting sharp criticisms of his own authority and message, raised by Jewish messianists, who were victims of his brutal treatment of them when he operated as an enforcer of temple and synagogue mores. (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.)

Paul's over-heated response to his critics in Galatia is to denounce to his wavering converts his victims' description of himself. He insists he is not a transgressor of Torah who represents no one. After making these denials, Paul launches into a reassertion of his theological claims, which had earlier impressed the Galatian converts. 


By this gambit, Paul is changing the subject. He dismisses his critics and devotes the balance of his dictation to a reprise of his complicated rearrangement of Jewish religious history, which elevates Abraham at the expense of Moses and invites gentiles into allegiance to a Jewish messiah by denigration of the rituals propounded by Torah, because Torah is limited chronologically, ending with the advent of Messiah Jesus.


It may be true, as Kahl concludes (p. 288), that Paul did not see himself as "breaking away from Judaism." But in fact, by demeaning Moses and denying the validity of Torah observance, this is what he did.


One further irony. In a book which expressly declares the "commonality" of all, we are told in the last sentence of the Conclusion, that "only" by seeing things as Paul prescribed, do we see things aright.

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

Professor Kahl adds a brief (pp. 285-87) Postscript to Chapter Six, which is a pean to Albert Schweitzer and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 


These two theologians are bonded, Kahl suggests, in that both turned toward a "non-religious" interpretation of faith as a commitment to life lived for others. Schweitzer, in the early decades of the twentieth century, turned his back on a career as a theological professor, obtained training as a medical doctor and established a hospital in West Africa. 


Bonhoeffer, a professor and pastor in Germany, turned away from establishment Lutheranism and entered into active but secret resistance to Hitler. Before his execution in the closing days of World War II, Bonhoeffer penned prison letters, in which he speculated that authentic Christian life would be marked by prayer and "righteous action" and a new language "perhaps quite non-religious."


Schweitzer and Bonhoeffer, Kahl suggests, are representatives of her understanding of the Apostle Paul by their having discerned through faith, an activist ethic which invited daily service in the interests not of self but of others. 


Kahl finds this activist impulse (1) in Paul, expressed in his cryptic Galatians letter (2) in Schweitzer, through an appreciation of Paul's mystical doctrine of being in-Christ and (3) in Bonhoeffer, by way of his insistence that the Christian life is lived for others, not for self.


The unstated premise here is that one can apprehend what Scripture meant by declaring what it means in the life of persons who lived long after Scripture came into being.   


In Kahl, Paul's Galatians letter is taken to have meant certain things because it is taken to mean these things by subsequent readers. Here, Kahl proposes subsequent readers of Paul, two once-famous and still influential German theologians of the century past, as exponents of her understanding of Paul's mystical (cryptic?) doctrine of life lived for others.


Kahl invokes Schweitzer, specifically his book on Paul, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (1931) and suggests that Schweitzer's life in Africa as a physician amounted to a "second volume" (p. 285) of this investigation. 


Looking to Schweitzer as a model for Christian faith in action, one perhaps ought to acknowledge his movement (intellectually if not emotionally) away from the Christian faith. This transition was expressed in other volumes, such as Indian Thought and Its Development (1936), in which Schweitzer states, "the commandment to not kill and to not damage is one of the greatest events in the spiritual history of mankind [. . .] so far as we know, this is for the first time clearly expressed in Jainism." 


But Schweitzer also said: "The [Ahimsa] commandment [in Jainism] not to kill and not to harm does not arise, then, from a feeling of compassion, but from the idea of keeping undefiled from the world. It belongs originally to the ethic of becoming more perfect, not to the ethic of action."

Paul's Galatians letter is read, worried over, and is a source of solace today because it was taken up by the Catholic church as Scripture and retained in the Catholic canon by offshoots of Catholicism. Because Paul's statements are read as Scripture, his sentences are given innumerable applications by subsequent believers.


One may apply to one's own life the doctrine that life is lived for others. One may suggest, as Kahl does, that Schweitzer and Bonhoeffer lived admirable lives dedicated to the wellbeing of others and may even suggest, as Kahl does, though less persuasively, that Schweitzer (not Bonhoeffer) derived his life-for-others doctrines from Paul.


But do these assertions demonstrate what Paul meant? 


We read Paul as Scripture, thereby attempting - expecting to be able - to apply what we read to our own circumstances.


But does reading Paul with the eyes of faith reveal what Paul meant?


What Paul meant - before his words were taken to be Scripture - is discerned by a rigorous examination of his words in their manifold contexts. 

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

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

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

Professor Brigitte Kahl, in Chapter Six, considers several sections from the Galatians letter. Kahl examines these verses to demonstrate the cogency of the primary themes presented in her book. 


A consideration of selected portions of the Galatians letter falls well short of a full blown commentary.  My opinion, expressed in earlier posts, is that a commentary is the best and possibly the only way to re-locate this document in a context different from the traditionally accepted one.


Kahl's central theme is this: those who have appealed directly to Paul's converts are representatives of Diaspora Jewish communities, who insist that Gentile, male messianists need to accept circumcision.


Why is this demand being made? 


Kahl speculates that representatives from the Jewish communities, residing in the province of Galatia, argued to Paul's converts that they all will come under severe sanction by the Roman occupiers. 


Why? Because the Gentile messianists must be observed by the Roman occupation as lacking foreskins to be deemed Jewish and thus, avoid punishment as irreligious traitors to the emperor.


The argument made in Galatia by Jewish representatives is that the Galatian gentiles, who desire to worship and live pursuant to the earlier preaching of Paul, must either accept circumcision or return to participation in the public worship of the emperor. 


As argued by Kahl, emperor worship, practiced publicly, would remove these Gentile messianists from the benefit of the apparent Roman-Jewish accommodation, by which the emperor is prayed for in the Jerusalem temple and Jews in the Disapora are not required to participate in formal, public spectacles by which the emperor is honored and worshiped. These public events include attendance at festivals, processions and staged, often bloody, death-dealing spectacles in local arenas. 


Kahl argues that Paul, in his Galatians letter, rejects both the accept-circumcision and the attend-spectacles options for his converts.


Why?


Kahl thinks that Paul's view, expressed in his Galatians letter, is that circumcision of the Gentile messianists - just as it is for Jews, also living under occupation - amounts to a denigration of Torah, since the Jewish-Roman accommodation is an unsavory collaboration with the empire. 


The second option, public worship of the emperor, is likewise, as Kahl has Paul argue, out of the question.


Why? Public worship of the emperor would amount to a denial of the messianic faith, which Paul preached among the occupied, non-Jewish  populations of the empire.


Kahl believes that many statements in Paul's Galatians letter are encrypted, double messages. She holds that Paul expressed himself in this manner because of the same anxiety that animated his critics - the danger of running afoul of a cruel occupation, should he or his intended recipients be caught out as anti-Roman.


To line up Paul's statements with the book's thesis, Kahl looks at Gal 2:11-14: 

My translation:

11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I got in his face because he stood condemned. 

12 Before some people from James arrived, he would eat with non-Jews. But after they arrived, he stood back and held himself apart, fearing those of the circumcision. 

13 The rest of the Jews practiced this hypocrisy along with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away into hypocrisy. 

14 But seeing that he did not walk in the truth of the gospel, I told Cephas in front of all of them, 'if you a Jew comport yourself as a Gentile and not as a Jew, how can you insist that Gentiles act in a Jewish manner?'

Before getting to Kahl's understanding of this pericope, a few observations seem appropriate here:


(1) Paul's truncated re-telling of these events (more than a single incident), which occurred in Syrian Antioch, is the point of departure for the balance of Paul's comments in his letter.

(2) Paul is so focused (or anxious) to get into an anti-circumcision polemic that he offers no resolution or conclusion to the incidents he recounts.

(3) Paul passes over how others present might have reacted either to the withdrawal from table fellowship of observant Christian Jews or to Paul's confrontation with Cephas.

(4) The Gentile messianists in Antioch, whom Paul, ostensibly, was protecting against humiliation and rejection by their Jewish co-adherents, have no reaction whatsoever (in Paul's re-telling) to the events Paul describes. 


(5) Were the Gentile believers in Antioch as angry as was Paul, at the Torah-observant withdrawal from fellowship? Were they also critical of Barnabas? These questions cannot be answered but if the Gentile messianists in Antioch had joined Paul in an expression of anger, one might expect Paul to report this to the Gentile messianists in Galatia. 

(6) Perhaps the Gentile messianists in Antioch expressed sympathy toward Barnabas or toward Cephas, either of whom could have been seen as a searcher for a middle ground between extremes.  


(7) Some of the Gentile believers in Antioch, in addition to welcoming Jewish guests from Jerusalem, might have been understanding of their guests' lifelong Torah-inspired observances.

(8) The divisive issue in Antioch is Torah observance, specifically table fellowship between Jews and Gentiles. Notably, Cephas, by eating with Gentiles, was going further than required by the earlier agreement in Jerusalem; his conduct in Antioch signaled that he was freeing not only Gentiles but also Jews from Torah observance. Cephas' practice at table may have pleased Paul but not other Christian Jews, arriving from Jerusalem.


(9) After recounting his confrontation with Cephas, Paul, launches into an anti-nomos diatribe (Gal 2:16), which is sustained throughout the letter. He is in such a hurry to do this, he does not give Cephas an opportunity to respond even to a question, which Paul directed to Cephas (Gal 2:14). 


(10) Paul's questioning of Cephas appears to be a rhetorical ploy, a launching pad for the dense and forceful remarks, which follow.

Paul's narrative also serves as a launching pad for Professor Kahl. 


Throughout her book, Professor Kahl argues that Paul's anti-nomos critique is directed at Roman law, not at Torah. 


Consistent with this, Kahl does not see in these verses an occasion for Paul to denounce the Torah observance of those whom Paul calls "those of the circumcised" (2:12). Nor does Kahl observe that the issue in dispute in these verses is table fellowship, not circumcision. 


Kahl understands Paul to be taking to task those who withdrew from the Gentiles, not because of their Torah observance but rather because the separators demonstrated "collective hypocrisy . . . as an idolatrous act of public window dressing that officially quotes Jewish law but secretly bows to civic religion and order."


This comment is typical of Kahl's analysis of the Galatians letter, as we find here 


- a generalized reference to "hypocrisy" in lieu of a specific comment about the actual issue in dispute: table fellowship;
- an illusion to a public  display of some kind, which is not otherwise apparent or even detectable in Paul's statements;
- the characterization of some aspects as secret;
- allusion to Roman civic religion and order, although the actual language found in the pericope under study does not readily suggest any such thing.

Kahl emphasizes (also p. 278), "Peter's enforced 'judaizing' of the Gentiles . . . as in fact a gesture of civic/imperial conformism . . . ." 


But Peter (Cephas) may have been a passive or a vacillating actor, conducting himself first in one way, then in another in Antioch. 


In Gal 2:12, Cephas entering into table fellowship with Gentiles is described in the imperfect, active indicative -   
which is common to story telling but which may suggest repeated past activity - 'Cephas used to eat. . .' or 'Cephas was eating . . .'


In either case, Professor Kahl's comments do not address Cephas' initial willingness to share table fellowship with non-Jewish messianists in Antioch. 


It's not clear to me why Kahl characterizes Peter (Cephas) as enforcing anything on Christian Gentiles, when the issue is whether Christian Jews must be Torah observant at table. 


Kahl associates the perspective of Torah observant messianists as public window dressing but there is nothing I can detect in Paul's telling that indicates a public aspect to gatherings for the sharing of a common meal. 


The absence of a public component in Paul's retelling of his dispute with observant Christian Jews is a difficulty for Kahl's theory, that Gentile males in the province of Galatia were urged by synagogue representatives either to become circumcised or return to participation in public worship of the emperor. 


There is no evidence that I know of that Roman authorities punished ordinary residents of occupied cities, who did not attend public festivals and events staged in the arenas. 


Nor is there much to suggest that Roman-occupied populations eschewed such sponsored, public activities out of religious sensitivity.


There seems to have been a distinction drawn in the empire at this time between temple worship of the emperor and public spectacles. Emperor worship was conducted though religious observances, which also focused on officially accepted divinities, who were worshipped privately at temples build for this purpose. 


Public spectacles, on the other hand, were intended as entertainments for the occupied urban populace. At these events, the emperor was honored, to be sure, but not in such a manner that non-attendance was punished.  


Interestingly, and in a way supportive of Kahl's invitation to re-imagine the context of Paul's Galatians letter, gatherings for a common meal - but not gatherings for worship - might have caused trouble with the Roman administration in Syrian Antioch. This seems to have been the case in Anatolia (north Galatia) a few decades later, when Pliny the Younger served there as governor under Trajan. The Romans were nervous about unsanctioned social gatherings. (See an earlier post.) 


But getting back to Gal 2:11-14, there is a forced quality about Kahl's construal of Paul's statements to find in them a Jewish anxiety about public worship of the emperor, discovered in the conduct of Christian Jews, who wished to maintain an allegiance to some aspects of Torah observance, including kosher meals. 

NOTE: The Greek text of Galatians has been taken from

Greek New Testament
http://www.kimmitt.co.uk/gnt/gnt.html

  

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

Further along in Chapter Six, one finds a fuller engagement by Brigitte Kahl, with some of Paul's statements taken from the text of the Galatains letter. This engagement is welcome but problematic. 

A discussion of only selected statements falls well short of detailed exegesis. The lack of this kind of investigation is a disappointment in a book, which wants to see Paul in Galatians mounting a critical (yet cryptic) argument against the public worship of the emperor.

Professor Kahl’s treatment of Gal 6:4 (p. 271) may serve as an example. 

My translation:

“Each person should assess one’s own work and so take pride in (eis) one’s own alone and not in (eis) that of another.”

Kahl translates differently,

“Everybody should evaluate the work of himself or herself and then will have the boast in front of (eis) himself or herself alone.”

By way of this awkward translation, Kahl utilizes this statement to assert (see quotation below) that Paul, sarcastically, is arguing against public display, that is against the public show of allegiance to the emperor.

To enlist Paul’s sentence in the service of an argument against a display of public allegiance to the emperor, Kahl deploys the preposition eis, in translation to mean, “in front of.” By way of this translation, Paul can be said to have public acts ("works") in mind, which he then, sarcastically, dismisses: display yourself privately, not in front of anyone else.

But the issue in this statement is not display but judging. Kahl substitutes display for judging by combining the two appearances of the preposition, eis. 


The preposition eis entails a range of meanings depending on its context (see Gal 3:17 and 4:11). 


But this preposition cannot be said to mean “in front of” to the exclusion of the notion that Paul is calling on his readers to make, individually, an internal or private assessment of one’s own conduct. 

In Gal 6:4 Paul clearly admonishes his readers not to assess the conduct of others. Kahl does not allow this meaning to be given to this verse.

Why not?

Kahl wishes to use Gal 6:4 to characterize Paul as mounting an “up-front attack on the competitive system of euergetism/benefactions, which, as we have seen, is a key feature of imperial order in a province like Galatia, ‘works’ are declared to be no longer the showcase of the self in the public race for status.”


To make Gal 6:4 carry all of this weight, Kahl declares that chapters 5 and 6 of Galatians have been dismissed by many of the commentators, who find earlier sections of the letter to be more substantive.


But in fact, the very statement Kahl enlists here, Gal 6:4, is best understood as Paul’s invocation of a general counsel to right conduct.




NOTE: The Greek text of Gal 6:4 has been taken from:

Greek New Testament

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

What we have proposed here, by Professor Brigitte Kahl, is a meaning ascribed to a document by virtue of associations that have been made between the document and pre-existing art. 


The success of this procedure is dependent upon the establishment of an historic link between the one and the other. This is an exercise in historical investigation. 


Unless an historical link can be shown, we have metaphorical associations.

No one would presume to declare that a given object could not be exploited as metaphor by a perceptive or creative observer.

Professor Kahl has associated the visual art found at the Great Altar at Pergamon with the Galatians letter, a primary literary source of the later-developing traditions of a faith community. 

But while Kahl's presentation sees more here than a metaphorical association, her procedure does not follow the rules of the historian. Her procedure does not begin either with facts, or with an assertion of a theory to be proven by the marshaling of facts. Nor does her conclusion offer a summation of facts presented with assertions or inferences drawn as to the meaning or the importance of past events.


Instead of laying out a set of facts to support the assertion that Paul opposes circumcision, which is seen, supposedly by Paul, as a collaboration with the Roman Empire, the reader too often is given citations to scholars who, in one way or another, are used to bolster Kahl's primary argument. The scholars cited hold views on some aspect of Paul's argument, that are tangential to Kahl's central argument and opinions.  


It may be, for example, as Kahl suggests (p. 260) that the emphasis on apocalyptic in Paul (cf. J.C. Beker) requires to be supplemented or even modified by insights into his letters, which demonstrate Paul's allegiance to his roots in Judaism (cf. Roy Ciampa). 


But this sort of adjustment does not require an association between the images found on the Great Altar and Paul's pre-literary context, that is, the circumstances which occasioned his Galatians letter.


Once one has opened the door onto the idea whether Paul retained a place, even a contentious place, within Judaism, one must admit this idea and take it on directly.


The notion that Paul, in working out his messianic theories, retained an underlying embrace of Judaism must answer Schoeps, who pointed out a half-century ago (1961) that the Judaism Paul characterizes in Galatians is a caricature. 


Schoeps wrote (p. 174), "There are no Jewish parallels to [Paul's] assessment of the law." 


If, as Kahl contends, Paul is rehabilitating Torah from a messianic perspective, rather than upending Torah from an apocalyptic one, something must be done about Schoeps. But in this book, nothing is.


The associations made here, as in earlier chapters, are inviting if proposed as metaphor. Offered as historical, these associations are not persuasive (as in this example, p. 273):


"As the social practice of a new creation (Gal 6:15) Paul's empire-critical theology has a profoundly ecological dimension as well. Combat, competition and mindless consumption of the other - the other human and the other of the Earth - in Paul's system are the 'works of the law' and the signature of the 'flesh' (sarx) in enslavement to sin, crying out for the liberting transformation of the spirit."


Is all of this actually Paul's theology or an interpretation of it with metaphorical associations to the Great Altar in mind?


It may be that Paul's "messianic retelling of the Genesis story" (p. 261) functions, as a "counterimage" to the imperial, Roman story of the founding of that empire, exemplified by the use employed by the caesars of the imagery on display at the Great Altar. But it is quite another matter to assert that Paul had this counterimage in mind, which is more than to assert that his arguments can function in this way, in a later interpretation. 


To the extent that the reader is told that Paul was actually engaged in a conscious repudiation of Roman imperial mythology, with Pergamonic images infusing both the Galatians' and also the Roman mind, the reader is offered a post hoc argument. 


Paul's assertions, in the hands of a creative reading of his Galatians dictation, may become a critique of prior or subsequent imperial systems or of all such systems. 


But we are not entitled, for this reason, to state that Paul had such in mind, or that his intended readers did. 


It simply is not the case, made from the letter, that the "core" of Paul's opposition to "works of the law" (p. 262) is alarm that his messianic converts are on the point of slipping back into "conformity with the imperial body" by either accepting circumcision or participation in emperor worship. This is not Paul's argument in Galatians. 


To reduce Paul's law-critique to "works of imperial violence and competition" is an unwarranted reduction of the argument  to be found in his Galatians letter.


Kahl, as promised in the Introduction, places (p. 265) the novel of Peter Weiss front and center, as an important template with which further inferences about Paul's Galatians can be made. 


Weiss is important to Kahl because of the prominence Weiss gives to the imagery of the Great Altar, in his story about resistance to nazism. 


But the reader is given Weiss' novel and not exegesis of the Galatians letter. 


Instead, there is in a circular way, frequent reversion to the visual art at Pergamon.