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

KAHL’S INTRODUCTION

Torah Criticism as Affirmation of Roman Nomos

The argument presenting under this sub-head strikes me as more persuasive than the preceding assertions that Nietzsche and Jacob Taubes lead the way.

Here, Kahl asserts that the Roman context was, for Paul, far more relevant than subsequent New Testament and theological developments have seen. Instead, this context has been “eclipsed” because of the centrality of “the doctrine of justification by faith” which is prominent in Galatians. (See Gal 2.16). 

Hopefully, this point will be expanded, since, superficially, the impression is left that Kahl is in a dialogue only with her Lutheran context.

Kahl adds that an important alarm about the traditional misunderstanding of Paul has been sounded by Robert Jewett in his Romans commentary (Fortress, 2007).

I think Kahl needlessly obfuscates the clarity of her argument about the importance of the Roman context, by asserting that Paul’s negative critique of nomos in Galatians required the creation of “an anti-Jewish double.”

Why? To create an explanation for Paul’s law-critical statements. Also, Kahl adds, the actual target of Paul’s critique – the Roman empire – could not be acknowledged in the subsequently developed “Christianized empire.” 

These arguments come very near to the promulgation of a conspiracy theory, which would have had to include centuries of commentators, agreeing together not to understand Paul plainly and correctly.

Kahl finds it ironical that the Rome-critical Paul was replaced in theology, by a “pro-Roman Paul” and his "anti-Jewish double.”

These arguments appear to me to be tendentious. 

Why isn’t it sufficient simply to demonstrate that the larger Roman context has been neglected? Why does this probable truth need to be expanded into an argument about conspiracies and the wholesale, deliberate misreading of Galatians?

Maybe the book itself will draw all these threads together.   

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?