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Loading...Those of you who read the comments on my posts know that my thread on Cephas and Peter elicited some very interesting responses. One person in particular who who took me on leveled some very learned and detailed critiques. It made my day(s)!
Richard Fellows is an unusual person, not to mention blog member. He is trained in a different field (Physics at Cambridge university) and works as an engineer, but he has published a number of articles in academic journals on the New Testament. Now THAT doesn’t happen very often. In fact, I don’t think I know of anyone else who has pulled it off (though I know a lot who have tried and a lot more who have wanted to). Academic journals are very demanding, whatever field you’re in, and without training, well….
But Richard has done it and is still doing it (he has another article coming out). His special interests are the apostle Paul and those associated with him, including Peter (whom he, like most other sentient beings, except me on alternating weeks, thinks in fact is Cephas). One of his articles is especially germane to the topic: “Paul, Timothy, Jerusalem and the Confusion in Galatia” Biblica 99.4 (2018) 544-566.
After Richard posted his critiques, it occurred to me I should have him write up his views at length in a couple of blog posts, based on his article And so here is the first. Let him know what you think!
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Let us start with what is universally agreed. Paul preached Jesus Christ in Galatia, which is in central Turkey. Later, Paul’s converts in Galatia came under the influence of agitators, who tried to persuade the men that they needed to be circumcised. Then, about 20 years after the crucifixion, Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians to persuade them that circumcision was not necessary. That much is agreed, but that is about where the agreement ends. As John Barclay noted, the problem is that reading Galatians is like listening to half of a telephone conversation and “it is so easy to jump to conclusions about what the conversation is about and, once we have an idea fixed in our minds, we misinterpret all the rest of the conversation”. What, then, was the other half of the conversation? What was the rumour that Paul opposes in his letter? Here I will offer a scenario that has not been considered before. Before you can test-drive this scenario and see whether it explains the text of the letter, you will need to forget everything that you think you know about the background of the letter. I’ll explain the new proposal with a story:
Paul became a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Chapel Hill. His expertise was respected by his students and he explained to them that the New Testament teaches the equality of the sexes. However, while he was away, some other professors visited Chapel Hill and pointed to evidence that the New Testament gives authority to men over women. This troubled the students, who explained that Paul had spoken for equality. The visiting professors said,
“Paul no longer buys into the egalitarian position: he continues to teach equality of the sexes to you, but just to please the leaders at Chapel Hill, for he has always been ambitious for advancement. He will not admit it to you, but he now shares our views”.
Paul has now heard about the confusion created by the visiting professors, and he needs to write to the Chapel Hillians to persuade them not to abandon their egalitarian stance. But what should he write? Before he can argue for equality, he first needs to convince his readers that he writes out of conviction, and not just to please the Promotions Committee of his institution. Anything he writes will be vulnerable to the rebuttal “Yeah – right! Paul is just saying that to please the big cheeses”. Paul must write with such intensity of emotion that his readers will realize that he is sincere. He needs to display exasperation that cannot be feigned, lest his readers think that he is secretly in favour of male authority. He writes,
“From Paul, a teacher, not under human direction, to the Chapel Hillians (1:1-2). There are some who are confusing you (1:7). If anyone teaches you anything contrary to what I taught you, let that one be accursed (1:9). In writing this, am I seeking the approval of committees? Or am I trying to ingratiate myself with people (1:10)? What I teach was not given to me by those people (1:11-12). You have heard, no doubt, about my earlier career in industry, how I was ambitious (1:13-14). But not anymore. When I entered academia, I did not seek out the big names right away (1:16-19), or try to get my face noticed (1:22). When I finally met with the promotions committee members (who they are means nothing to me), they gave me no directives about the content of my teaching (2:6). On the contrary, when they saw that I was qualified to teach my field, just as Professor Ehrman was his; Barbara, Bart, and Jennifer, the supposed bigwigs, gave me tenure (2:7-9). And when Bart came to Durham, I opposed him to this face (2:11) and corrected him in front of everyone (2:14). No, I have not come around to the views of the bogus visiting professors (2:5, 18; 5:11): I wish they would cut themselves to pieces (5:12)…”
In this story “Paul”, in his letter, distances himself from Barbara and Bart and Jennifer, but we cannot conclude that it is because he disagrees with them. On the contrary, it is because they agree. There was no personal or doctrinal quarrel between Paul and his Chapel Hill colleagues, but if we read his letter without knowing the background we could easily come to the opposite conclusion, for we all like a bit of court intrigue and juicy controversy.
In my Journal article I started by analysing Galatians and then moved on to explore whether Acts offers corroboration. Here I will explain the events chronologically.
Some activists, who were believers in Jesus, came from Judea to Antioch and argued for the necessity of circumcision (Acts 15:1). They claimed to have the backing of James (Gal 2:12) and the other Jerusalem church leaders, but they did not (Acts 15:24). Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem (Acts 15, Gal 2:1-10), where James and Peter and the other leaders agreed that circumcision should not be imposed, and they wrote a decree to that effect (Acts 15:23-29). Titus-Timothy was in Galatia when Paul arrived there, and Paul circumcised him (Acts 16:1-3), presumably as a ploy so that Timothy could gain a hearing among Jews. However, as Chrysostom pointed out, Paul could not explain his reason for the circumcision, otherwise the effect would be lost. Paul’s circumcision of Timothy was therefore liable to create confusion about what Paul really believed. Paul could easily be misunderstood, willfully or otherwise, especially by the activists who had earlier misrepresented the Jerusalem church leaders. We can then imagine a conversation between the pro-circumcision activists and Paul’s Galatian converts:
Activists: “You should be circumcised to complete your conversions. Paul now agrees, for he circumcised his friend, Timothy.”
Galatians: “But Paul delivered the decision of the Jerusalem apostles, that circumcision is not needed.” (Acts 16:4)
Activists: “Paul likes to please those in authority, for he has always been ambitious for advancement, so he delivered their message, as he had agreed to do, but he no longer believes it. He is now actually on our side and wants and expects you to be circumcised, and don’t believe him if he says otherwise.”
In my next post I hope to show that Galatians is best explained as Paul’s response to this mis-information. Meanwhile, read the letter once with the new view on the background in mind, and once with the old.
New view:
The Jerusalem apostles opposed circumcision for Gentile converts, and the activists were appealing to Paul’s authority against that of the Jerusalem apostles. Paul expresses as much exasperation as he can, to show his sincerity.
Old view:
The Jerusalem apostles favored circumcision for Gentile converts, and the activists were appealing to the authority of the Jerusalem apostles against that of Paul. Paul fails to contain his anger in his defence of his authority.
Excellent post Richard! As a pastor, I spend a lot of time preaching using Galatians as an example of how Christians should challenge traditional views of scripture (The Law) if they are to be faithful to the Spirit of Christ (Fruits of the Spirit). Your view never occurred to me, and yet it makes for a very compelling argument, and restores to Paul the level of mature leadership in Galatians that we usually see in his other epistles. Very impressive indeed! I would love to be able to read your other works.
Thanks. That’s an interesting point about Paul’s leadership. You can find links to some of my other published articles on my blog, which is called “Paul and co-workers”.
Eating blood or being not circumcised both regarded as uncleanliness by Yeshua’s followers or any practicing Jew even until nowadays.
Paul’s position is quite clear “ Type of food you eat makes no difference in your cleanliness”
Even same meaning was put on Yeshua’s lips “ you poop what you eat, it doesn’t impure you”
If Paul’s position was the same with the authentic Yeshua’s followers, Jerusalem council wouldn’t have propagated the abstinence of eating blood. Rather, it created 2 laws to follow. One for Jews (whole mosaic law) & one for non Jews (4 acts to abstain from).
They made this decision based on their firm belief in Jewish doctrines vs Saul Paul eloquence in conveying his belief. It was a compromise between both position.
Jewish faithfuls accepted decision because It served as a practical example of their supremacy of following 💯 of law vs the infancy of following 4% only.
While Saul Paul couldn’t concede the loss, he propagated a win by focusing only on circumcision redundancy.
Thank you for your post.
In reference to “James and Peter and the other leaders agreed that circumcision should not be imposed, and they wrote a decree to that effect (Acts 15:23-29).”
It is difficult for me to believe that the Jerusalem leaders agreed to this and wrote a decree to that effect.
I look forward to your next post.
You get to the heart of the problem, I think. We find it difficult to believe that the Jerusalem leaders endorsed Gentile liberty precisely because of he way we have read Galatians since the time of Chrysostom.
For me it’s impossible to believe.
The real, historic James The Just, the one whose unfair death by stoning was denounced by “ The fairest of the citizens and those most upset at the breaking of the laws” as Josephus wrote, an extremely pious jew as depicted by Hegessipus, would die from a heart attack only by listening to the beginning of Paul’s gospel, and so his brother Jesus.
Jesus, James,Cephas,John and everyone in the Jerusalem church were as jews as any other jew in Jerusalem.
Paul was raising a collection for the “saints in Jerusalem” and the ones who visited his galatian churches were claiming that he had no links to the Jerusalem church at all, on the contrary , he persecuted the church.
The so called “Jeruslaem council” was Paul invention to justify:
“They AGREED that WE should go to the Gentiles, and THEY to the circumcised. ALL THEY ASKED that we should continue to REMEMBER THE POOR” (Gal 2:10)
So he maintained both independence from the Jerusalem church and a justification for his collection.
Gentiles attended synagogues in the Diaspora, so it is not surprising that pious Jews, like James and Paul, would accept those same Gentiles into gatherings of Jesus believers. It has been argued that the opposition to including Gentiles was an innovation that arose because of nationalistic fervour in the 40s.
I see no reason to suppose that the piety of James was of the exclusivist type that would insist on circumcision for Gentiles. You appeal to Eusebius’s quotation of Hegesippus, but these men did not think that James’s piety was incompatible with Paul’s legacy, for Eusebius also writes:
“Hegesippus … states that on a journey to Rome he met a great many bishops, and that he received the same doctrine from all. It is fitting to hear what he says after making some remarks about the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. His words are as follows: “And the church of Corinth continued in the true faith until Primus was bishop in Corinth. I conversed with them on my way to Rome, and abode with the Corinthians many days, during which we were mutually refreshed in the true doctrine.”
Hegesippus was a fan of both James and Paul. There was no rift.
Eusebius states that Hegesippus also believed Vespasian besieged Jerusalem because of the death of James, not Jesus, something not universally acknowledged by Christians. Why do you think that is?
Paul was a Diaspora Jew, James certainly not, he was a very different one.
Do you think that James would like for “Gentiles attend synagogues” when he didn’t even want Cephas to just eat with them?
There never was a Jerusalem conference nor Paul was appointed “apostle to the gentiles ” and his own letters show that not only in Galatia his “title” was not recognized at all:
Philippi – Beware of dogs
“Watch out for those dogs… those mutilators of the flesh”
Paul has to demonstrate to the Phillipians (Phi 4:4-6) he was as Jew as those “dogs ” that evidently didn’t know Paul was appointed “Apostle to the Gentiles ”.
Corinth – The false apostles
“For such men are false apostles ..In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you.. Are they Hebrews? So am I. ”
Who were those Hebrew “false apostles” that visited Corinth??? Certainly they didn’t know about Paul being the “apostle to the gentiles”. Perhaps they considered Paul a “false apostle”.
Romans – Disobedients in Judea
“I may be rescued from those who are disobedient in Judea,”
What? be rescued? in Judea ? those disobedients also didn’t know about Paul’s arrangement with James?
Charrua,
(Is that your name?) You should read Dr. Robert Eisenman. “The poor” is Bible euphemism for Jamesian Essenes. Eisenman’s work is so fascinating, so exhaustive, and so crucial for understanding the Bible. I tell people no one will master it without his findings. This is the REAL history of the first century. ‘James the Brother of Jesus’ is his most important book. 1,000 pages. Just amazing stuff.
psychology teaches that everyone sees reality through a lens or glasses 🤓. Let’s call it a bubble you live in. This bubble is your culture, religion, perceptions and collectively your IDENTITY.
Now when your convictions clash & contradict evidence, there are 3 approaches to handle the clash.
1-Acknowledge faulty bubble & abandon it. E.g. Dr. Ehrman Christian belief . FYI (I did the same). This is the hardest & toughest decision because you strip yourself of your identity which is your shelter.
2- Condemn the needle of reality as false. E.g. flat earthers or Youg earthers.
3-Twist the needle of reality to prevent it from popping your bubble. E.g. your reconciliation theory. This is the easiest with least conflicts approach
Hopefully we can be driven by data and go wherever it takes us.
I think that “Paul” lost me when he claimed to be “not under human direction”!
Depends how you read that letter. But to me, the old view makes more sense if you don’t consider the Acts view on the subject as historical.
The view that Acts is unhistorical is based largely on the old view of Galatians. In the next guest post I’ll try to explain why I think the new view of Galatians makes better sense of the letter, even without regard to Acts.
That would be appreciated
We really will “need to forget everything that you think you know about the background of the letter.” Including whether Acts should be given equal weight with Paul’s letters when outlining events as they actually transpired.
Also, I was a little confused by
‘In this story “Paul”, in his letter, distances himself from Barbara and Bart and Jennifer, but we cannot conclude that it is because he disagrees with them. On the contrary, it is because they agree.’
I did not get this from the story. Was “Bart” one of the visiting professors? Why would “Paul” confront him?
I await the rest of your posts although it feels like we are importing a great deal of speculative background where parsimony would seem to be called for.
Yes, parsimony is the criterion for judging hypotheses. In the story “Barbara and Bart and Jennifer” = “the leaders at Chapel Hill” = “the big cheeses” = “the promotions committee”, and they are analogous to James, Peter, and John.
Wonderful stuff, Richard! Very entertaining! very insightful Left-field, out-of-the-box thinking etc!…….. but I think you’re wrong! I think you’re wrong because of the 2nd half of Gal 2:14, which doesn’t fit with your hypothesis: Paul to Cephas (in front of everyone) “How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?”
Thanks for the pushback. In Gal 2:11-14 Cephas and others are acting hypocritically, in contradiction to their own doctrine. Cephas ate only with Jews, out of fear of other Jews (2:12), not out of a doctrinal commitment. Peter/Cephas often lacked the courage of his convictions (see the gospels). Verse 14 reads, “I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”. As the commentaries point out, the last clause, in context, is referring to the fact that Cephas was eating only with Jews. Paul’s point is that by withdrawing from joint meals, Cephas was effectively saying to the Gentiles, “you have to follow Jewish rules if you want to eat with us”. So there is nothing in the text to suggest that Cephas would have told Gentiles to be circumcised.
It is significant that Paul writes that he challenged Cephas “before them all” (2:14) and “to his face” (2:11). His point is that he was not Cephas’s sycophant. He was preaching Gentile liberty, not to please Cephas (as the activists supposed), but because he believed in it.
“out of fear of other Jews”, well those were not just “other jews”,
see Gal 2:12:“For before certain men came from James”,
he fear those Jews because THEY CAME FROM JAMES, and James was not only the real leader of the Jerusalem church, he was a zealous jew that don’t even accept Cephas “to eat with the Gentiles”, here is when Bart last series of post about God wrath in the OT and the concept of “purity” come to explain what’s happen here, Cephas was the “envoy” of the Jerusalem church to Antioch , this put him more in contact with gentiles that back in Jerusalem, James was so suspicious about the contact with those dangerous “outsiders” (see https://ehrmanblog.org/why-god-had-to-destroy-the-outsiders/) that he send others to oversee his own men. So Cephas withdrew from his former position of being not enough “jew” as James wanted.
Again, the key point is that the Jerusalem church was light years away from Paul’s gospel, perhaps Cephas was a step forward in that direction , but just a step…
James fully endorsed Paul (2:6-9). Period.
Some people use the men from James of 2:12 to suggest that James changed his mind, but this assumes that these men came to Antioch after the events of 2:6-9. Stephen Carlson has shown that Paul wrote “he came”, not “they came” at Gal 2:12, since it is in the best manuscripts and is the superficially harder reading.
https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/handle/10161/5597
Also, on any hypothesis, Paul jumps back in time between 2:11 and 2:12a, and this is explicable if the men from James came BEFORE the meeting of Gal 2:1-10 (otherwise why does Paul not narrate chronologically?). These observations change the sequence. Paul ate with Gentiles. Then men came from James. These were probably the men from Judea in Acts 15:1, who did not have the endorsement of the apostles that they probably claimed (see Acts 15:24). Then Paul went to Jerusalem (Acts 15 = Gal 2:1-10), then Peter came to Antioch and withdrew from eating with Gentiles for fear of Jews. It is doubtful that the men “from James” had his support for preaching circumcision to Gentiles when they came from him, and it is even less likely after the conference.
Have you read Dr. Robert Eisenman? He says Paul killed James, according to multiple apocryphal sources, including the DSS Habakkuk Pesher.
“Stephen” in Acts 7 is the cover story.
I read Eisenman about 15 or 20 years ago, but not really since then. I was unimpressed.
James fully endorsed Paul (2:6-9). Period
And you take his word for it? The Essenes’ Spouter of Lying? The one Jesus himself condemned in John’s Apocalypse Rev. 2:2, 14? Not to mention Matt. 5:17-19, and 7:15/Genesis 49:27?
The problem is that you trust so much in Acts.
The author of Acts wanted to do exactly what you are doing just now, but he did it almost 2.000 thousand years ago and his work made it to the NT.
Luke (say he was the author , I think in fact he was a scholar pagan hired by the early church, as bizarre as it may sound) wanted to answer your question “Was Paul Really at Odds with Peter and James?
” and his answer was obviously NO, because that was what the church wanted to show more than half a century after the disagreement between the two great apostles.
The incident in Antioch is quite clear as it is written in Galatians, James even rejected “to eat with the Gentiles” , that’s why Cephas had to “draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles ” when he saw “certain men came from James”. Cephas knew very well what James the boss thought about these “close” encounters.There’s not a second reading of what happened only the need to show that …. Paul was not Really at Odds with Peter and James
Charrua, my other comments answer some of your points. We just do not find evidence of a rift between Paul and Jerusalem over circumcision. From 1 Corinthians we know that Apollos and Cephas had influence on the Corinthians, yet the issue of circumcision is hardly addressed in the letter. This would be surprising if Paul’s views on the matter differed dramatically from theirs. Andronicus and Junia were in Christ before Paul, yet he greets them warmly and praises them highly. At Rom 15:15 Paul says that he has written by way or reminder, and this shows that his teaching is not very different from what they had been taught by others.
Acts is not shy about revealing conflicts within the Jesus-believing community, so it is quite arbitrary to suppose that it has suppressed a rift between Paul and Jerusalem. Clement of Rome speaks highly of both Peter and Paul, associating them with each other. Hegessipus approved of both James and Paul’s legacy. I guess one could suppose that there was a grand conspiracy that suppressed all evidence of the supposed rift, except the supposed evidence in Galatians. But why, then was Galatians itself not suppressed?
“We just do not find evidence of a rift between Paul and Jerusalem over circumcision. ”
Paul:
“I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.”
“I said to Cephas.. “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile .. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?”
FORCE Gentiles to follow Jewish customs…
Is not the circumcision a Jewish custom?
Galatians suppressed???
That was not the way the early church handled problems.
Was 1 Thess suppressed because of the utterly failed Paul prophecy in 1 Thess 4:17?
It was not easy to “suppress” all copies of the very first works of Paul, in fact the ones that got too upset with the failed prophecy forged 2 Thess to avoid the fail suggesting that 1 Thess was forged (2 Thess 2:15) but didn’t work and both made it to the NT.
The same with the gospels, if we don’t like all of Mark we can write new gospels, to suppress the very older one would be very confusing to the churches, in fact that’s why we still have Mark in the NT (with a bonus verses in the that made it fully NTtish).
If you think that the circumcision in not aimed in “ force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs” consider the context.
What Galatians is about?
Paul writes Galatians to address the problem of those who “are turning to a different gospel”.
In what way?
Well, those unknown visitors were compelling the Galtians to be circumcised:
Gal 5: 2-6
“I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.”
Gal 6: 12-16
“Those who want to impress people by means of the flesh are trying to compel you to be circumcised”
What those unknown visitors were doing in Galtia???
Forcing Gentiles to follow Jewish customs , just as Cephas in Antioch.
Circumcision is the main problem addressed in Galatians , a problem that didn’t stop here as the letter to the Phillipians attested, a problem Paul fought all his career and that made him leave Antioch and to start his own gospel from the end of the Greek speaking world (Macedonia – Phil 4:15) just as he did in his finals day when he wanted to start all over again from the edge of the empire (Hispania – Rom 15:24).
Wikipedia
New Testament books identified as forgeries by Ehrman
First Epistle of Peter
Second Epistle of Peter
Acts of the Apostles
Epistle of James
Epistle of Jude
Second Epistle to the Thessalonians
First Epistle to Timothy
Second Epistle to Timothy
Epistle to Titus
Epistle to the Ephesians
Epistle to the Colossians
I have given this series of posts a thorough re-read, including all the comments.
Richard’s interpretation of Galatians makes a lot of sense to me, and I am inclined to think that it is broadly correct. I’m not qualified to comment on the textual evidence, but it has an internal plausibility I find compelling. It makes Paul a more believable personality, whereas the “old view” paints him as emotionally unstable with a deficit of self-awareness.
However, I part ways with Richard when he suggests that his interpretation, if true, overcomes the main reasons for doubting that Acts was written by someone who knew Paul. He certainly did not demonstrate that in this series. I also find Richard’s sequence of events in the comment above implausibly convoluted, but it is clearly not central to his thesis.
(That said, Bart, would you like to give a second opinion on Richard’s statement that “Stephen Carlson has shown that Paul wrote “he came”, not “they came” at Gal 2:12”? I doubt it’s very consequential, but I’m a little curious.)
I think it’s an open question, but the manuscript evidence supports his views. Most interpreters and translators, I believe think that the internal logic of the passage support the other view. He makes the best case that can be made, though, I think.
I would be very interested in any book recommendations you might have that discuss Paul’s life and theology from a non-conservative perspective! I have been struggling to find them. Jesus is easy — Paul, not so much. 😉
You might like Udo Schnelle, “Apostle Paul: His Life and Theology” (Baker, 2005)
Thank you Richard. Most interesting.
I have a question fro Dr Ehrman which is linked to your post only in that it occurred to me while reading it.
Is Biblical textual criticism a product of Protestantism?
It seems to me that the Jewish, Catholic and Orthodox faiths rely north on scripture and tradition (the accumulated interpretations and theological conclusions of religious leaders) for finding ‘truth’.
Protestants though, even of not of the ‘scripture alone’ type, reply overwhelmingly on scripture for their ‘truths’. Did the Protestant drive for a basis emphasising scripture above all else in the end lead to your discipline Dr Ehrman? Had the Reformation not occurred would you be teaching something entirely different?
Interesting – Gal 5:12 “But if I, brethren, still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted?” seems to only be compatible with the “New view”.
Yes, and I will discuss this verse in the follow-on post.
Hi Dr Ehrman!
How do you understand Exodus 21:22-25? Is it saying that the premature birth is one in which the babies are fine and thus there is no serious injury to either party… so an abortion would constitute the law of Lex Talionis? Or is it saying that the premature birth is a miscarriage and thus the fact that there is “no serious harm” indicates the importance placed on the health of the woman and not on the fetus?
Thank you!
Wow…great post. I’m still learning but this changed my view on this topic. I’ve discussed it several times with others and this changes my perspective. I need to read it again lol. Thanks!
You really helped solidify my thinking. I always thought it was odd that Peter would eat with non-Jews, be totally cool with it and then “out of fear” of the men from James decide to “nope out” until they were circumcised. What an odd thing to do.
That really makes very little sense UNLESS : there wasn’t really a difference between Paul and the Jerusalem Church.
Richard: Do you find it likely that when Paul was in Jerusalem and they agreed and shook on him taking the Way to the Gentiles, that he hid his belief that circumcision was not needed or that he somehow came to this view later? FTR I do not.
But if all that were true: Peter didn’t even blink at the idea of it, Jerusalem knew +/- precisely what Paul was saying, I couldn’t conceptualize who these men were. Until now.
I agree. Given the communication between Antioch and Jerusalem, it would be very difficult for Paul to preach something radically different from the pillars without them finding out. Judea had heard about Paul’s preaching and they approved of it (Gal 1:22-24). Also, Paul presented his gospel to the Pillars (2:2), and they entrusted him with the task of preaching to the uncircumcised. I don’t think Paul would have been able to greatly misrepresent his public preaching without opponents or others calling him on it. James, Peter, and John really did find Paul’s thinking to be in line with their own, and there is no reason to think that they changed their minds.
It would be hard to argue that Paul innovated the gospel of Gentile liberty after the conference of Gal 2:1-10, since (for example) κηρύσσω (preach) in 2:2 is present tense.
Various arguments have been made (eg. by Tertullian and Marius Victorinus, Cf. B. W. Bacon, SBL 1923) against οἷς οὐδὲ in Gal 2:5.
Within the logic of this “new view”, what is your leaning vis-a-vis the presence or absence of οἷς οὐδὲ in the hypothetical original, authorial text of Gal 2:5?
Great question. The grammar in 2:4-5 is broken. There seem to be some missing implied words at the beginning of verse 4, such as “I circumcised him” (and his circumcision of Titus-Timothy was the elephant in the room). It has been suggested that he was agitated or embarrassed as he wrote, and thus made an error. Burkett, for example, wrote, “Who can doubt that it was the knife which really did circumcise Titus that has cut the syntax of Gal. 2. 3–5 to pieces?”. However, with the “new view”, it is not just that Paul cannot bring himself to say “I circumcised him”. Paul wants the Galatians to KNOW that he cannot bring himself to say “I circumcised him”. The broken grammar serves Paul’s purpose of convincing the Galatians that he is not hiding a belief in circumcision from them. Here and throughout the letter Paul expresses his emotional commitment in ways that it would be hard for a pretend supporter of Gentile liberty to make up (to show that he is not a pretend supporter).
Some manuscripts omit οἷς οὐδὲ to fix Paul’s grammar, not realizing that he did not want it fixed.
Re: “…if I am still preaching circumcision…” Gal 5:11
In the logic of this “new view”, if you suppose there was a time when Paul did indeed “preach circumcision”, when would you suppose he quit?
The Jerusalem decision was that established communities of believers need not be circumcised, and the Galatians were thinking that Paul delivered that message to them out of loyalty, but that he would preach circumcision in his new territory (in Europe). They were thinking “Paul preached circumcision to Timothy, and he is still preaching circumcision (this time publicly)”. While Paul was in Galatia he publicly spoke against circumcision and was persecuted because of it, and he is still being persecuted in Europe, so he writes, “why am I still being persecuted if I am still preaching circumcision”. This verse makes most sense if the two stills refer back to the same earlier time. At that earlier time Paul must have been preaching Gentile liberty publicly while preaching circumcision privately (according to the Galatians) otherwise Paul’s logic does not work. The verse therefore refers to Paul’s circumcision of Titus-Timothy. Does that help?
Let me try to spell out what I make of this. According to Acts, Paul circumcised Timothy (Titus) after the Acts 15 conference where it was first established that “communities of believers need not be circumcised”. Paul’s first visit to Galatia was before the Acts 15 conference and his second visit was after the Acts 15 conference. It was there in Galatia during his second visit that he both let it be known privately that he had circumcised Timothy (Titus), and also publicly delivered the Acts 15 decision. After leaving Galatia that second time, he came to regret circumcising Timothy (Titus), and it was then, at the point of regret, that he was no longer preaching circumcision, either publicly or privately. He wrote the letter to the Galatians after that point of regret and said, “If I am still preaching circumcision (he was not, either publicly or privately), why am I still being persecuted? That is, he was being persecuted by those who wanted him to preach circumcision, and were claiming that he indeed still was.
How is that?
Your reconstruction is close to mine. I don’t think the Greek requires that Paul is conceding that he preached circumcision at any time. He recommended (so in a sense he preached) circumcision to Timothy as a ploy to make him acceptable to Jews, but he did not preach to Timothy that circumcision was necessary for salvation. The ploy would work only if Paul and Timothy encouraged (or at least allowed) people to assume that the circumcision was genuine. It is therefore not surprising that the activists thought (or at least claimed) that Paul had preached the value of circumcision to Timothy. I don’t suppose Paul regretted circumcising Timothy until he realized how much confusion the act had created. The persecution that Paul suffered in Europe was from Jews who knew that he included Gentiles without requiring Law observance (that is why they persecuted him). I think that Titus-Timothy was circumcised in Galatia, as Acts says, and only after false brothers let it be known that his father was a Greek (before then he passed himself off as a Jew). At Gal 2:3-5 Paul is saying that the false brothers found out about Titus’s Gentile background through dishonourable spying.
Isn’t there a difficulty in seeking corroboration for Galatians in Acts, when the sequence of events surrounding Paul’s conversion described in Galatians 1:15-24 so clearly conflicts with the sequence described in Acts 9:19-30?
Good point. There is indeed some tension between the accounts of the first Jerusalem visit. However, the sequence of events in Acts 16-20 agrees well with what we find in the undisputed letters (but not with the forgeries). The author of Acts had good information about this later period and this would not be surprising if he was a companion of Paul at the time. Anyway, the background of Galatians can be discerned from the letter on its own.
It seems to me that the best explanation is that Paul wants the Galatians to believe it is God’s will they not follow the law because Jesus allows them to be justified by faith alone. This belief is in conflict with the beliefs of the Jerusalem church, which advocate for a view that there is need for works and that the best way to be a Christian is to follow the law as well as believe. The Jerusalem church will allow Paul to attract converts to Christianity, but in their heart of hearts they don’t believe these uncircumcised converts are as good Christians as the fully Jewish ones. Galatians 5:12 from this perspective is merely pointing out that it makes no sense for him to be advocating for circumcision since the ones from James are persecuting him. Acts somewhat supports this conclusion since Paul had to work so hard to convince James that he should be allowed to continue preaching that the gentiles didn’t need to follow the law. Note no mention by James of whether or not the Jewish Christians needed to stop following the law.
I don’t see evidence that Paul had to work hard (or work at all) to convince James.
The key to undestand where Richard’s arguments fail is BUT THEN.
Galatians 2:11 starts BUT THEN(ὅτε δὲ) that clearly show that:
1) Whatever happened in Jeruslaem in Gal 2:1-10 it was BEFORE Gal 2: 11-21.
“I went up again to Jerusalem” … “But when Cephas came to Antioch”.
So , those men that “CAME FROM JAMES” couldn’t be those in Acts 15:1 because
they visited Antioch even BEFORE Gal 2:1-10.
2) Whatever the agreement in Jerusalem , Cephas did not endorsed it in Antioch
That’s the meaning of BUT, so Paul “resisted [Cephas] to the face,” and “” said unto Cephas before them all” why “compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? “
Conclusion:
The inital agreement in Jerusalem (or the agreement Paul thought or said he reached, we don’t know what the Jerusalem curch said about it) was not endorsed after the so called “Jerusalem council”, the Jerusalem curch insisted in compelling” the Gentiles to live as do the Jews” ,and the unknown visitors to the galatian churches were doing the same, probably because they were following the Jerusalem church policy about gentiles converts.
I have already answered these points. See my reply to Neurotheologian on Sept 2, and my reply to you on Sept 3. It is also worth taking the time to read Carlson’s work.
Sorry Richard ,what I really think happened in Jerusalem was something like :
Cephas – We know you came with Barnabas but we heard you are even better than him
John – What a good idea to bribe Elymas , he played the blind for a time ! Now Sergius Paulus is a christian convert and supports the church in Paphos with Elymas as the local leader. A win-win strategy !!! Certainly with people as smart as you we will end up in Rome with a temple even bigger than that of Herod!
James – Paul,we are sure you could do it alone …
Paul – But , you know, I was a tentmaker and …
James – You can’t afford your apostle license, no problem,go … but you should remember the poor (wink)
Cephas – And remember Ananias and his wife too (another wink)
Paul (thinking) – I will invent a quarrel with Barnabas , start again on my own and rise a collection for those poors James,Cephas and John, if I’m good enough I can save a sum for my retirement, ask the roman christians for a ticket to Spain and spend the rest of my life in Ibiza.
I don’t see why anyone cares WHAT Paul says about anything. The ones who knew him best, James and his Jerusalem and Qumran followers called him out as Liar.
“He builds a City of Blood and established a township on Unrighteousness. Behold, does this not come from the Lord of Hosts, that the Peoples labor for the sake of Fire and the Peoples tire themselves out for the sake of Nothingness. The interpretation of the passage is about the Spouter of Lying, who leads Many astray [Paul in Matt. 24:5, without the corrupting commas].” – Habbakuk Pesher X:6-9.
PAUL is the Spouter of Lying. And this Pesher was likely written by James.
“Titus-Timothy was in Galatia when Paul arrived there, and Paul circumcised him ”
Endlessly fascinating. Me, I don’t think I’d have held still . . .
This is a fascinating take. I am really glad to see it proposed. I (who have no expertise or training in any of this, and who definitely can’t read anything written without spaces and punctuation), much less Koine) remain far from persuaded, though.
If we were only looking at circumcision, that would be one thing. But we do get some glimpses at the other side of these conversations in other matters. Consider Matt 5:18-19. Who is the author of Matthew talking about with that “anyone who teaches otherwise” phrase?
This, combined with the sorts of arguments and compromises over dietary laws makes it seem that there was far from a consensus on the Pauline approach. And the only time Jesus ministers to a non-Jew, he has to be flattered into doing so as “even a dog gets crumbs from the master’s table.”
So sure, if we were looking at that one letter, we could read it as you describe, but it is hard to do so in the light of so much reason to believe that many influential al early Christians believes that one had to be Jewish to be Christian.
I don’t think that Matt 5:18-19 helps us much, since it was written a long time after Galatians and concerns a period before the Cornelius episode, which was influential in moving Peter and the church to accept Gentiles, and it does not mention Gentiles. If we could show that the author of Matt 5:18-19 believed that Gentiles needed to be circumcised AND that the Jerusalem pillars likely shared the same views as this author, then we would have a reasonable argument against the new view of Galatians. Are you able to substantiate both these premises?
The standard interpretation of Galatians casts Paul, an influential early Christian, as an extremist, angry, opponents of circumcision (for Gentiles). The new view of Galatians, on the other hand, shows that he was a moderate opponent of circumcision, who writes out of exasperation, not anger, and exaggerates his feelings. Thus, the old view of Galatians creates MORE diversity of views, not less.
Or have I misunderstood where you are going with these observations?