(21 votes, average: 4.90 out of 5)
Loading...In my previous post I indicated that among the lost writings of early Christianity, one batch that I would especially like to see discovered would be those produced by Paul’s enemies among the Christians. I don’t know how many of his opponents were writing-literate, but possibly some of them were, and their own attacks on him and defenses of their own positions would be fascinating and eye-opening. Among these, I would especially love to see what his opponents in Galatia had to say for themselves. My hunch is that they were every bit as aggressive and confident in their views as Paul was in his.
I’ve always found the letter to the Galatians to be one of the most forceful, intriguing, and difficult letters of Paul. I’ve studied it for over forty years, and there are still verses that I don’t understand. My view is that most scholars don’t understand them either — even the scholars who think they do! It is a packed and theologically dense letter in places.
But the basic point is clear. A person is made right with God by faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus, not by observing the Jewish law. Gentiles who believe in Jesus must not think that they have to follow the law in order to be fully justified before God. Anyone who thinks so – who, for example, decides that he needs to be circumcised – has completely (not just kind-a) misunderstood the gospel and is in danger of losing his salvation.
Paul’s opponents among the Galatians think just the opposite.
As with all of Paul’s letters, the only way…
THE REST OF THIS POST IS FOR MEMBERS ONLY. If you don’t belong yet, JOIN WHILE THERE IS STILL HOPE!!! It doesn’t cost much, and all the money goes to charity!!
Shouldn’t Paul love his enemies, as Jesus commanded? I think it’s the case, in fact Paul wishes that his opponents would mutilate themselves so that they can “make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven”! And this goes back to Jesus’ tradition: amazing, isn’t it?? 🙂
Did Paul ever say anything about doing good works like is written in James (“not by faith alone” James 2:24)?
No, but some authors did in his name (cf. Eph. 2:1-10)
Just curious, not entirely related but somewhat, what is the Greek original of “keep on sinning” in 1 John 3:9 (“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s[b] seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.”) – some translations make it sound like the author is actually suggesting Christians can never sin?
Literally it says: Everyone who has been born from God does not commit a sin (or … commit sin). The verb “commit” is in the present tense, and some translators are nervous about the implications of what it might mean, and so stress the present character of the verb “keep on committing.” That’s probably an overtranslation.
Thanks – so would you say the author actually meant that Christians no longer sin, or did he mean ‘keep on committing’? And if he meant ‘no longer sin’, do you suppose he meant A) anything they do must be right because they are Christian, B) if they do something clearly wrong, it must mean they aren’t Christian regardless of their professed faith, or C) by ‘sin’ he means MAJOR sins like adultery or murder or something?
Probably he means something like “live lives of sin.”
Hi Bart, brilliantly explained as usual.
The question you posed is obviously fundamental to the Christian faith/belief as you have pointed out and the one that won in the end was Paul’s and not the other side and so that meant among other things that the Jews that Jesus said he came only to save, have been outcasts for nearly 2000 years. Do you know of any western Christian Church who doesn’t follow Paul’s view? I’m not sure what the Eastern Orthodox Church view is on this point?
Having said that, Paul’s meeting with Peter and James seemed to allow the Gentiles into the fold without obeying Jewish observance of the law and so wonder how that view held up with Paul’s enemies who would hardly go against the views of Peter and James would they?
The problem Paul had, was saying he received the Gospel directly from Jesus and no man. That must have sounded very presumptious and cocky to those that had received it another way and no wonder there was anger by the others.
I would argue this if I may Bart.
Paul did not hear Jesus preach during Jesus’s ministry only his disciples and others he met on the way did. He probably (Just a guess here) never got to read the Gospels/Manuscripts or sayings of Jesus as we know them today and apart from John’s Gospel who at one debate I heard you say, you can toss out! 😉 The majority of the text suggests that Salvation was NOT essential by a singular belief by faith in Jesus shed blood and resurrection. As you know, It was basically repent and be baptized ready for God’s Judgement that would take place shortly and THAT was all. Indeed the same as John the Baptist.
So we all know which view prevailed and so it really isn’t Christianity per se but as you said. Its Paulinity and therefore completely at odds with the Preaching and teachings of Jesus. No wonder the Jews exited stage right after that first generation had passed by.
No, I think Paul’s views eventually became dominant, and more or less remain that way for most Christians still today.
Would you agree that Paul’s stating that he did not get his message from the apostles before him and he got the message before meeting them is a possible hint that the “Judaizing” missionaries received their message from Jesus’ apostles?
I think that they themselves probably claimed to have done that, and Paul then “one-ups” them.
This argument about whether Christians need to be Jewish is fascinating and as always you make things so clear and concise. Thanks.
Do you think the story in Acts 15 of Paul’s harmonious meeting with the leaders in Jerusalem was an attempt to portray the Christian community as one big happy family, or maybe to “prove” that the Jewish Christians actually agreed with Paul’s views? It certainly doesn’t seem that way in Galatians.
Yup!
Hello, Bart: We know from Paul’s letters that he was a brilliant and passionate man who possessed a very healthy ego. Yet, to the modern ear, Paul letters also reveal a deeply troubled man, a man struggling to keep it together as the End Times rapidly approached. His writing in Galatians being a good example of this. I can’t help but wonder what modern mental health professionals would make of Paul’s letters if they were asked to simply render an opinion as to the author’s emotional stability. Paul clearly underwent a life altering event when he experienced the risen Christ. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Paul’s legendary Damascus Road experience was in reality Paul’s nervous breakdown?
Would the knife slipping double entendre be read at the time as more witty or vulgar?
I wish I knew!
“These “Judaizing” missionaries, who urged the keeping of the Jewish law for the followers of the Jewish Jesus, were probably themselves converts from paganism. ”
Why is it that converts to movements of any kind tend towards fundamentalism? My hunch is that’s exactly what this group of Judaizers were: holier-than-thou pagan fundamentalist converts. It would certainly explain Pau’s opprobrium.
Good question!
I have to say, I think Jesus would have probably sided with Paul’s opponents on this one.
Paul the pharisee really did a 180 on his views at his conversion, no?
yeah, I’ll address this in a post….
Bart, this is *totally* off-topic. But I can’t resist passing it on, in case you didn’t see it (on the CBS News website a few days ago). It’s a previously unknown (to me, at least, delightful) fact about your region.
Scientists have discovered that in what’s now North Carolina, 230 million years ago, the critters at the top of the food chain were bipedal, 9-foot-tall ancestors of…crocodiles!
That was one of the eras when all or most of the land on Earth was in one huge continent. “North Carolina” was near the Equator. Dinosaurs already existed in other parts of the world, but they hadn’t reached that region. In later eras, dinosaurs did become the top predators there, and the surviving ancestors of crocodiles became smaller – similar in size and build to modern jackals.
I know! It was in the papers! Amazing.
Some think it’s a crock!
Bart —
Your forty years of studying Galatians says a lot about your commitment, the epistle’s importance and also its inscrutability.
I recently checked the course bulletins of two prestigious universities and found not a single course on Paul in their English departments and only one in each school’s religious studies offerings. Paul is arguably the most influential essayist in the Western world, his rhetoric and opinions reverberating across two millennia and into the present day, yet his writings have for the most part evaded the scrutiny they deserve.
If Paul’s anger is white-hot in Galatians then it is magma-hot in 2 Corinthians. Paul attacks and belittles his opponents in the most ad hominem manner, sarcastically naming them the “super-apostles,” yet their side of the story never gets a fair hearing.
Paul pulls no punches, judging them in league with Satan, who “disguises himself as an angel of light. So is it not strange that if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness.” The partisan sniping in the US Congress seems tame by comparison.
All told, Paul’s diatribe against the “false apostles” reveals nothing about the substance of their alleged offenses but a good deal about his vindictive and possessive temperament also evident in Galatians.
In Galatians Paul audaciously asserts that “God set me apart before I was born,” which likens him to another favorite son. He also claims he did not receive his gospel from a “human source” and that the revelation he received was entirely from God and he “did not confer with any human being.” However, in Luke-Acts 9: 10 – 19, Paul is tended to by Ananias. Because of Ananias, the scales fall from Paul’s eyes and it is then Paul receives the Holy Spirit. Ananias also baptizes him and Paul receives food (the eucharistic meal of thanksgiving described in the Didache?) to strengthen him (spiritually as well as physically?) Luke-Acts 9 precedes Ananias’s visit by giving him a visionary experience akin to Mary’s with the angel Gabriel – visions seemingly one of Luke’s fortes and making Paul’s baptism the fait accomplit of a non-human power.
In this day and age Paul would be called on the carpet for his dissembling a la Brian Williams of NBC News.
My apologies for rambling; it must be contagious.
Finally a question: Didache 11 recommends that itinerant baptizers be sent packing after three days. It also declares that those asking for money are “false prophets.” Could D. 11 be at least an indirect critique of Paul, who not only begged for money but who also remained in town via his letters, so to speak, long after he had departed?
Thank you for considering.
I don’t think Didache 11 is referring to Paul – since he’d been dead already for about 40 years. Moreover, Paul appears to have worked for a living so he *wouldn’t* have to sponge off his churches (so he explicitly says, e.g., in 1 Thess). The church in Corinth is a bit ticked off about that.
But mightn’t the basic substance of the Didache existed in oral form decades before it was put down on parchment (if that’s the material used)?
And, yes, I’ve heard you refer to Paul’s stock and trade as a leather worker, and this trade might have provided him a livelihood. However, he asks for money often. In 1 Corinthians 16 he lays out the collection process in detail, and 2 Cor. 8 is an inveigling fund raising appeal worthy of a tent revival huckster.
Paul doesn’t seem the least bit shy about asking for money. Perhaps he’s fundraising for a selfless purpose, but I don’t see that. Am I missing something?
Yes, parts of it may well have been oral, especially the “Two Ways” teaching
His requests for money are not for himself: he is taking up a collection for the church in Jerusalem. That was a very big deal for him.
I understand that Paul was required to raise funds for the Jerusalem ecclesia but he so chafes under any interference by “James’ people” and is so openly hostile to Peter because of Peter’s kowtowing to James, that I find it hard to imagine Paul being 100% committed to a fundraising effort on behalf of the Jerusalem church.
He brands Peter brands a hypocrite, and James’ people seem to be the targets of Paul’s outrage in 2 Cor. In an era without the strict accounting practices demanded of non-profits today, it seems as though Paul would have felt no guilt in pocketing some of the funds for his purposes and not the J. church.
What was there to stop him?
That’s the point. The collection was meant to show the unity of gentile and Jew in Christ. But it was not meant to line his own pockets.
These “Judaizing” missionaries were probably themselves converts from paganism? Does it means that there are Christian missionaries other than Paul were converting pagans at Paul’s time, or even earlier than Paul?
Yup!
Do you think Paul thought that there would still be a distinction between Jews and Gentiles in the Church? Or did Paul think Jews should completely give up their Jewish identity?
I think Paul thought that Jews should remain Jews, gentiles should remain gentiles, and all are equal before God and one another.
Hi Bart,
Do you think that Paul’s influence was due to his message or to preaching to the right people (the Gentiles)?
Thanks!
Both!
“I’ve always found the letter to the Galatians to be one of the most forceful, intriguing, and difficult letters of Paul. I’ve studied it for over forty years, and there are still verses that I don’t understand.”
Speaking of intriguing verses, when Paul says “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus was publicly exhibited as crucified!”, is he saying the members of the church in Galatia all somehow happened to be physical witnesses to the actual crucifixion in Jerusalem or is he talking about some sort of vision they witnessed of a crucified Jesus?
No, I think he’s saying that he portrayed Christ to them in this way (in his preaching), so that’s how they “saw” him
On a related matter to the Jew/Gentile thing, I believe I learned (I may have learned this from one of your Teaching Company lectures, although it could have been another professor speaking on the Roman republic and Early empire) that around this time, there were vast numbers of gentiles converted to Judaism throughout the Roman empire. I can’t remember but there might have been some privilege accorded Jews (avoiding local temple tax in exchange for an annual Temple tax to Jerusalem?) not to mention appealing qualities of ethical monotheism.
Later, the Empire sort of reversed policy on this and these converts were persecuted — subjected to special additional taxes (probably related to the Jewish Revolt in Judea?) I seem to recall anecdotes of rival calling out enemies as being Jews and exposing them by forcing them to display their circumcision.
All very interesting in itself — Judaism as once a proselytizing religion — but wouldn’t this have provided a large population of “Judaized” gentiles upon which the early church could have spread (and a large in situ faction in most places, already circumcised, who “conservatively” supported the school that Paul opposes?
I actually don’t think there were large numbers of converts to Judaism, even before the fiscus judaicus was implemented.
I have known several Evangelical Jews or ‘Jews for Jesus’ followers over the years. While I am an atheist, I do have to say that I have found them fascinating in their attempts to reconcile the two.
Bart, quick question that’s bothering me. You often say that we can’t be sure of the gospels’ accuracy (due to intentional and unintentional changes over time and location). The idea is that we can’t know what the original really said (even if it names its author (e.g. 1 Tim, 2, Tim, etc.). You often say there are so many changes that we can’t really know what the original was. I always assume you mean in the small details and that you assume the main sense of the texts are fairly accurate to the original. Anyway, I’ve heard you say emphatically that Paul wrote Galatians, etc.. but by your standard for the other writings (say, Mark or John), then why don’t you have the same doubts that Paul wrote his letters? Surely we don’t have originals of Galatians…why no possible scandal here? So what gives? Why are you so sure Paul’s seven letters are solidly in the Pauline camp? How do you know he knew James and John? Wouldn’t Paul calling out Peter illustrate there was something to this Paul character? He was a boss.
Ah, I can see the confusion! But not knowing the exact words of some verses in the book of Galatians is not the same as saying that we have a pretty good and relatively certain sense that Paul actually wrote Galatians. There are reasons for doubting the authorship of 1 Timothy or of the Gospel of Matthew; but there aren’t any good reasons for doubting the authorship of Galatians. There are detailed arguments that one can (and many have) made about this, that I obviously have not gotten into on the blog. Maybe I’ll add your query to the Readers Mailbag!
Awesome. I want to clarify. My question is twofold:
1. What makes the seven “real” Pauline epistles legitimately Pauline (over Titus for example-both claim Paul as author)?
2. More importantly, what makes Galatians more reliable in its content regardless of its author than say Mark or John (considering P52 and all that). I understand John added to Jesus’ words in the original, but why do we have less confidence that the original content of the gospels are more corrupted than the original content of Galatians? Even if we can safely assume Paul’s authorship, don’t the same issues for the gospels (no originals, variances in earliest copies, etc,)… Don’t these same issues exist for Galatians? Why doesn’t this cast doubt on both the author and content of Galatians? If the idea is it’s probable a few issues do exist in Galatians, but the overall “sense” of it is likely close to the original, then why does that not also apply to the content of “Mark” and “John”? Again, not whether what the gospels wrote perfectly accurate, but whether they wrote is accurately reflected in the critical text of today.
Sorry for how long this was. i appreciate your taking the time to answer very much!
Ah, these are big questions — too big to comment on here. I’ll add them to the Weekly Readers’ Mailbag! But I do want to stress that having P52 doesn’t make John any more or less reliable. Having *manuscripts* allows you to know what an author wrote; whether what he wrote is accurate or not is a completely separate question. I could know *exactly* what Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf based on, say, a surviving original manuscript; but that wouldn’t mean that what he wrote was reliable.
”
Paul’s opponents vehemently disagreed with these views. They no doubt said so with vigor. I think it is much to be regretted that we only get Paul’s side of the argument, the side that became part of the Christian canon. What we would give to see what they said in reply”
this makes noo sense to me. how come those galatians weren’t convinced by modern day apologetic argument that paul the persecutor joined a persecuted religion and risked his life?
Mainly because it has no bearing on the question of whether his views were right or not. Many, many converts throughout history have been convinced they were right, as opposed ot other converts who were convinced they were wrong.