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.          

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

KAHL’S INTRODUCTION

Kahl associates (p. 5) herself with the “empire-critical” research of Richard Horsley and also mentions Dieter Georgi, Robert Jewett, Neil Elliott, Adolf Deissmann and Klaus Wengst as predecessors in the project of drawing attention to “the Roman context and the Rome-critical implications of Paul’s theology and practice.”

These predecessors, Kahl points out, have worked more with the text of Paul’s Romans. Kahl also mentions the work of Bruce Winter (civic obligations) and Mark Nanos (on Galatians) as providing helpful insights. In a footnote, Kahl indicates that Nanos’ comments in his commentary, pp. 257-71, are particularly pertinent.

Kahl introduces the idea that she intends to draw attention to Paul’s “words” and not merely his “world” so as to examine “the doctrine of Justification” in the light of “concrete historical realities” rather than leaving this doctrine, as it “predominantly” understood, as “abstract” and “timeless.”

This Lutheran emphasis strikes me as an unfortunate thematic narrowing of the project that is proposed. The idea, now, is that Paul’s historical Galatians context, stressing the import of Roman rule, is actually to be focused on a principle of Luther and of Lutheran orthodoxy.

Paul’s Galatians certainly does not belong under the category, Justification by Faith. 

Unless I am misreading Kahl, she sees her book (primarily?) as “necessary groundwork for the larger critical task of reinterpreting justification by faith.”

But then, there is introduced a different rationale for the project. Kahl writes that her “task” is “driven as much by contemporary urgency as by historical interest.”

She continues: “We live in a precarious time, when imperial globalization extends its grip ever more rigidly and destructively upon the planet, imposing a de facto martial law on whole populations, often under the aggressive auspices of nominal Christianity.”

Neither in this statement or in those that follow, does Kahl name names. Perhaps in the text, we will get to specifics.

This paragraph concludes with a return to the challenge of orthodox Lutheranism, which so greatly preoccupies this writer. Kahl states that what is required is, “first and foremost a reexamination of the core concept at the center of everything Paul says and does: justification by faith rather than by works of the law.”

Why is the project so narrowly focused on Luther and the traditional (and very questionable) formula, which has been applied to his system?