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Baptism has long been a point of contention among Christians. One passage that may have more to offer than has previously been suggested, particularly with regard to the relationship between faith and baptism, is Gal. 3.27. Of special interest is the precise way that the two clauses pertaining to (i) baptism and (ii) putting on Christ are related. Usually, it has been understood that baptism is, in some sense, the means by which Christ is put on. But an exploration of ὅσος, which connects the two clauses, together with the study of Gal. 3.27 and its context, suggests that 'putting on Christ', which is best understood as the action of faith, is the appropriate response to baptism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard translation appears to disambiguate the text of Gal 1:13–16 in a way that stresses or even interprets Paul's words to mean that he had left Judaism when he wrote Galatians. Arguably, the text might not indicate that Paul had left behind his Jewish identity, but that he had grown in his understanding of it. Thus, while standard translations are faithful to a traditional understanding of Paul and his "conversion" from Judaism to Christianity, a less explicit translation might be also true to the source text. This observation may be important beyond this specific passage: It might also raise fundamental questions about possible concepts of "faithful renderings" within Bible translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to demonstrate that the Pauline phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ is best understood grammatically as the 'Christ-faith' in accordance with the so-called 'third view', where 'faith' is taken to mean a system or set of beliefs, and 'Christ' qualifies what the system is about. I argue that the grammar disallows the meaning 'faith in Christ' where Christ is the object of one's 'trust', since objective genitives can only mean 'belief of something (to be true)', as is shown by an analysis of the data in the NT and in Harrisville 1994; 2006. Additionally, the subjective genitive rendering often fails to make sense within the literary context and faces its own grammatical difficulties. Drawing on work from theoretical linguistics in lexical semantics and syntax, I show that the third view meaning, translated as the 'Christ-faith', is the most likely rendering given the context of each of the passages, the Greek case system and the meaning of the noun πίστις as used in the NT and other Koine Greek writings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on Paul’s ‘liberation language’ in Galatians, re-examining Shlomo Pines’s suggestion that Paul responded to a tendency, attested in later rabbinic sources, to present the Torah as intrinsically linked to true liberty. The study first analyses the apostle’s supposed polemical response, with the characteristic motif of the gift of the Spirit – instead of the Torah – as the guarantor of the eschatological freedom; its probable Jewish matrix is also outlined. Further, it is argued that side-by-side with Paul’s Spirit-centered line of argument, a positive appraisal of the Torah-of-freedom concept can also be discerned in Galatians. The epistle thus becomes a witness for the early provenance of that broader Jewish tendency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does Paul’s use of the phrase στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου in Gal. 4 necessarily refer to the physical elements of the ancient world? Challenging the current consensus attributed to Blinzler (1963: 429-43), Schweizer (1988: 455-68) and Rusam (1992: 119-25), this study analyses not only the limited corpus of texts on which their conclusions were based, but also a new corpus comprising every occurrence of στοιχεῖον in the first centuries bce and ce. It concludes that the meaning of στοιχεῖον is highly dependent on the literary context in which it is situated and that, in Galatians, στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου refers to the fundamental components of pre-Christian living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the relationship between Paul’s reference to justification ‘in Christ’ in Gal. 2.17 and the description of Paul’s relation to Christ in Gal. 2.19-20. Interpreters typically suggest that these verses bear no direct relation to each other or that they demonstrate that Paul understands justification to entail more than a forensic declaration. There is, however, an old but often neglected interpretation of this passage maintaining that Gal. 2.19-20 should be understood in forensic terms. This view suggests that the phrase ‘Christ lives ἐν ἐμοί’ (Gal. 2.20) does not refer to the indwelling of Christ but rather depicts Christ’s reception of resurrection life as a representative event into which believers are incorporated. The central argument of this article is that several lines of evidence support the viability of this proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Septuagint as an example, this article supports Teresa Morgan’s recent contention that πίστις is essentially relational. On the basis of the prevalence of relationality, the article offers a critique of readings of Galatians that privilege other concepts, such as Benjamin Schliesser’s emphasis on spatiality. The study then argues that, instead of Morgan’s ‘pistis is a relationship’, it would be more accurate and exegetically useful to bring out the action-reference of πίστις with an expression such as ‘πίστις is a relational way of life’. The article will argue that the most likely relational reading of πίστις in Galatians is one in which πίστις primarily represents trust, loyalty and/or trustworthiness in the relationship between the current Christ and people. This raises questions over the focus of πίστις on past events in the work of scholars such as Richard Hays and John Barclay. If πίστις Χριστοῦ is to be read as involving an ‘objective genitive’ it probably denotes people’s trust in and loyalty to Christ and also possibly to God through Christ. If it is to be read as a ‘subjective genitive’, it would probably primarily denote Christ’s current reliability and loyalty in his relationship to people, and conceivably also to God. Various directions of πίστις between people, Christ and God are possible in Galatians but the one most often clearly evidenced is between people and Christ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies the theoretical framework of ‘ritual failure’, a sub-discipline of ritual criticism, to Paul’s discussion of circumcision in his letter to the Galatians, Philippians and Romans. It is argued that the application of this theoretical perspective clarifies the dynamics at stake and provides a new way of understanding the development in Paul’s position regarding circumcision. There is movement from an attitude of strong propagation, by way of indifference and a subsequent attitude of rejection, to one of modified reintegration into Paul’s thinking. At every turn of this development, ritual failure plays a pivotal role and functions as a catalyst for the development of Paul’s theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a review article on John M.G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015) that critically examines the methodological choice to study ‘perfections’ (as conceptualized by Kenneth Burke) of the gift, asking both about how this works to provide a taxonomy of ancient Mediterranean views, and how it fits the argument of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Concluding thoughts are offered about the implications of John Barclay’s reading of Paul, both in terms of Paul’s situation within his own time and in terms of contemporary theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his lectures on the Phenomenology of Religious Life (1920-21), Martin Heidegger offers a phenomenological reading of Paul's Galatian and Thessalonian letters, seeing these as themselves proclaiming the phenomenological attitude. Curiously, however, Heidegger's analysis of Thessalonian facticity appears to separate the factical status of Thessalonian 'having-become' from that of its faith content. This article sees that decision as itself displaying elements of theorization, and abandonment of the phenomenological aim of allowing experience to show itself out of itself. More, Heidegger's approach misses an opportunity to notice the 'in Christ' as constitutive of a structural 'incursion of an absolute other' that sustains the phenomenological approach, saving it from falling into its theorizing other, the scientific worldview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Gal. 3.14-16 Paul connects the ‘promised’ σπέρμα of Abraham with the experience of the ‘spirit’ in Galatia. Since ‘spirit’ occurs nowhere in Gen. 12–22, Paul’s equation (i.e., ‘promise’ equals ‘spirit’) is considered to be an interpretive leap. This article is an attempt to explain this gap by demonstrating how Paul’s argument hinges upon a Greco-Roman physiological metaphor. By first outlining ancient concepts of physiology, and in particular the role of πνεῦμα as it relates to the σπέρμα of the human body, one can see how these ideas would have been understandable even within the popular imagination. The role of πνεῦμα within Gal. 3 makes better sense when it is understood according to ancient notions of physiology and medicine. Recognition of the physiological language employed by the apostle in Galatians leads to an enhanced understanding of Pauline theology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Modern scholarship is divided on the interpretation of πάσχω in Gal. 3.4, and there has yet to be a definitive study on the subject attempting to rectify the disagreements. The clear consensus prior to the late seventeenth century was that πάσχω possessed negative connotations in this passage. This interpretation was briefly challenged by Justus Christoph Schomer (1648–1693), influencing the majority of German scholarship and creating a major polarity among scholars in the English-speaking world. After making this history of interpretation known, the present study tries to demonstrate that, lexically, thematically and contextually, the preferable interpretation regards πάσχω as a reference to suffering, in keeping with the longstanding interpretative tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This is a rejoinder to the criticisms of Grant Macaskill and Barry Matlock of The Deliverance of God. Because they largely misunderstand the complex argument of Deliverance it is redescribed and exemplified here in relation to Gal. 2.15-16, in the light of which the concerns of Macaskill and Matlock can be seen to be either misdirected or inadequate. Counter to their negative contentions it is argued that the essentially Arian problems within Paul’s description described by Deliverance remain real, widespread, and critical, but that no serious difficulties are visible as yet in the fundamentally Athanasian reading of Paul’s justification texts Deliverance offers. In alternative terms: if Paul is read consistently and rigorously ‘backward’, and never ‘forward’, a quagmire of interpretative difficulties can be negotiated, but not otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Paul's heir analogy in Gal. 4.1-2 has traditionally been interpreted against the backdrop of Graeco-Roman guardianship laws. However, because certain conceptual and terminological incongruities in the text have not been adequately explained, a relatively new typological reading, which identifies the analogy as an allusion to the Exodus, has begun to influence many interpreters. This study will defend the traditional interpretation, first by responding to the criticisms and exegetical insights introduced by those who interpret the text typologically, and second by demonstrating that Paul's use of (These character(s) cannot be represented in ASCII text) and (These character(s) cannot be represented in ASCII text) as guardians of a minor-a widely acknowledged crux interpretum-corresponds accurately to Roman legal practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the phrases 'weakness of the flesh' and 'temptation in my flesh' in Galatians 4:13-14. Evaluation of the prevailing illness and persecution interpretations; Reference to the pre-gospel conditions of the Galatians; Return of the Galatians to a commitment to Paul and his gospel.

Focuses on the role of reversal and Paul's use of scripture in Galatians Chapter 3 verses 10 to 13. Interpretation of the biblical scriptures; Concept of reversal.