Galatians: A Commentary

© 2019 by Craig S. Keener

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakeracademic.com

Ebook edition created 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-1570-0

Unless indicated otherwise, translations of Scripture are those of the author.

Scripture quotations labeled NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

To Dwight Baker, Jim Kinney, and Tim West

Contents

Cover    i

Half Title Page    ii

Title Page    iii

Copyright Page    iv

Dedication    v

Excursuses: A Closer Look    ix

Acknowledgments    xi

Abbreviations    xiii

Translation of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians    xxxvii

Outline of Galatians    xlvii

Introduction: Interpreting Galatians    1

Luther’s Influential Approach    2

Galatians and Pauline Theology    4

An Apocalyptic Letter?    4

Some Dominant Themes    6

Author, Provenance, and Date    6

Paul’s Audience in Galatia    13

North or South Galatia?    16

Paul’s Opponents    22

Structure of the Letter    36

Rhetoric and Galatians    37

Letters and Epistolary Interpretation    41

Polemic    43

Was Paul’s Letter to the Galatians Effective?    45

Commentary on Galatians    47

Galatians 1:1–5    47

Epistolary Prescript: Gospel Greetings (1:1–5)    48

Galatians 1:6–12    58

Thesis and Refutation: No Other Gospel (1:6–12)     58

Galatians 1:13–2:21    74

Narrative Defense of the Gospel (1:13–2:21)    74

God Reveals the Gospel to Paul (1:13–17)    78

Far from Judea (1:18–24)    98

Consensus in Jerusalem (2:1–10)    108

Kephas Compromises Gospel Truth (2:11–14)    139

Made Right with God through Christ Alone (2:15–21)    167

Galatians 3:1–5:12    203

Argument Especially from Scripture (3:1–5:12)    203

Trading God’s Presence for Rules (3:1–5)    205

Either Abraham’s Blessing or the Law’s Curse (3:6–14)    220

Stick with the First Agreement (3:15–20)    260

The Formal Law as a Stopgap (3:21–25)    284

You Are All Heirs Already (3:26–29)    294

A More Mature Era in Christ (4:1–7)    319

Returning to Empty Practices (4:8–11)    352

Plea to Return to Earlier Relationship (4:12–20)    365

Abraham’s Free Heirs versus His Slave Children (4:21–5:1)    399

Circumcision Cannot Supplement Christ before God (5:2–6)    443

Beware of Your Deceivers (5:7–12)    461

Galatians 5:13–6:10    479

The True Basis for Ethics (Refuting Detractors) (5:13–6:10)    479

Serving One Another (5:13–15)    481

Following the Spirit’s Steps (5:16–25)    489

The Ways of Christ’s Law (5:26–6:10)    527

Galatians 6:11–18    558

Closing Appeal (6:11–18)    558

Bibliography    589

Index of Subjects    713

Index of Authors and Selected Names    715

Index of Scripture    747

Index of Other Ancient Sources    777

Back Cover    849

Excursuses: A Closer Look

Conversion    76

Advancing beyond Peers    81

Nabatean Arabia    93

Damascus    96

Ancient Images of Freedom and Slavery    114

Antioch    143

Did Jews Eat with Gentiles?    152

Reproof    161

Justification    173

Christ-Faith (Gal. 2:16; 3:22)    177

Law-Works (Gal. 2:16; 3:2, 5, 10)    183

Magic    208

Righteous Abraham in Jewish Tradition    226

Early Jewish Soteriology    238

The New Perspective on Paul    242

Ancient Wills    263

Paul and the Law    273

Pedagogues    290

Baptism’s Meaning in Its Ancient Context    298

Adoption    340

The Supreme Deity as Father in Ancient Thought    348

Pathos    365

Pregnant and Nursing Mothers    394

Paul’s Allegory in Gal. 4:21–31    402

Focus on Jerusalem    417

Personified Feminine Images    420

Rebirth, Conversion, Inheritance    435

Circumcision    445

Castration and Eunuchs    472

The Flesh    494

Correction in Antiquity    533

The Law of Christ    536

Supporting Teachers    547

Crucifixion    567

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Ben Witherington for inviting me to write a brief commentary on Galatians for Cambridge University Press, and am indebted to both Ben and Cambridge for allowing me to produce a larger, more fully documented version of the commentary for Baker Academic when it became obvious that I was going to run too long for the concise version alone. Those who want more details and academic documentation will thus find it in the present Baker Academic version. My 2018 Cambridge commentary on Galatians condenses this larger one but was published earlier than this one. Had both been published in 2018, those who use author-date citations would have had to juggle 2018a and b. (Avoiding that exercise is one reason that I have always preferred to cite works by short titles instead, though in this case that presents a similar problem.)

I am also grateful to Jim Kinney and Baker Academic for welcoming this more detailed Galatians commentary, and to my editors who have worked so helpfully on it, Tim West and Robert Maccini. Special thanks to Asbury Theological Seminary for a sabbatical in the fall of 2016, during which I was able to complete a significant amount of the writing of this commentary.

I have dedicated this commentary to Dwight Baker and Jim Kinney in appreciation for their supportiveness. I am grateful for how highly and sacrificially they have valued my work, especially in taking a (happily successful) risk on my mammoth Acts commentary. (I promise to keep this Galatians commentary shorter, not least because Galatians is only about 15 percent the length of Acts.) I have also dedicated it to Tim West for how carefully, patiently, and cooperatively he edits my work (Acts; Mind of the Spirit; and much of this project as well); such support and skill are a precious gift.

In contrast to the Cambridge commentary, which uses the NRSV, this commentary for Baker Academic features my own translation, which I intend as a more colloquial, dynamic-equivalent rendering except where it would impair the connection between the translation and the notes. I have done this partly to supplement more conventional translations and to differentiate my translation from theirs, to avoid duplication. Nevertheless, I recognize the advantages and disadvantages of a range of translation strategies for varied objectives. I have particularly tried to prefer ordinary language to theological designations that have become too familiar and to maintain in translation what I see as the relationship between some verb and noun cognates, such as of πιστεύω (pisteuō) and πίστις (pistis).

Because most readers use commentaries as reference works (though some of us also read them for pleasure), some repetition of key ideas will be necessary in this commentary at various points, as in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.

In the commentary I use nomenclature in conventional ways while recognizing its limitations. For example, normally when I speak of Greeks, Romans, and Jews, I refer to those in antiquity. Likewise, when I say ancient, I normally refer specifically to Mediterranean antiquity. By Christian I do not mean to import the entire subsequent history of Christian movements or to imply the exclusion of Jewish, an exclusion certainly inaccurate for Paul’s era. Because I am writing in English, however, I adopt many conventional usages widely accepted in the English language.

Works on Galatians continue to be published regularly.1 It is therefore possible only to engage select recent commentators here.2 Those wanting fuller surveys of earlier commentators will find them in the major commentators I am engaging.

1. See, e.g., sources in Seifrid, Bibliography; Tolmie, Research.

2. A practice noted by others—e.g., Soards and Pursiful, Galatians, xiv; Moo, Galatians, xii. Thus, regrettably, I have not been able to engage all commentators. I have tried to compensate by engaging patristic and later comments.

Abbreviations

General

Old Testament

New Testament

Ancient Texts, Text Types, and Versions

Modern Versions

Apocrypha and Septuagint

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha

Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Texts

Josephus and Philo

Mishnah, Talmud, and Related Literature

Targumic Texts

Other Rabbinic Works

Apostolic Fathers

Nag Hammadi Codices

New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha

Patristic and Other Early Christian Sources

Other Greek and Latin Works

1

Other Ancient, Medieval, and Reformation Sources

Papyri, Inscriptions, and Fragment Collections

Secondary Sources: Journals, Periodicals, Major Reference Works, and Series

1. Note that works are normally classified under the name of their putative author without necessarily implying authenticity. This is because too many cases are disputed to make this distinction useful, and readers will normally find works in collections of the putative author.

Translation of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians

1From: Paul, an agent commissioned neither from mere human beings nor through them, but instead through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from among the dead ones;

²and from all the brothers and sisters who are with me. To: the assemblies of God’s people in Galatia.

³May you be blessed with God’s abundant generosity and well-being, from God, our Father, and the Lord, Jesus Christ,

⁴who gave his life on behalf of our sins, so that he might deliver us from this present evil age, that being what our God and Father wanted.

⁵Let all the honor for this be to him [that sacrificially generous God] forever and ever. Amen!

⁶Look: I’m shocked that you’re so quickly abandoning the one who called you by abundant generosity [in Christ]2 for a different good news—

⁷—which is not really a different good news . . . it’s just that there are some who are unsettling you and want to twist the good news about Christ.

⁸–⁹But even if we or a heavenly angel were to announce to you a good news different from what we announced to you, let them be accursed! As we said, let me repeat: if anyone preaches a good news other than what you received, let them be accursed!

¹⁰For am I trying to persuade people or God right now? Or am I out to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I wouldn’t be Christ’s slave.

¹¹For I’m informing you, brothers and sisters, that the good news announced by me isn’t a human idea.

¹²Likewise, I neither received it from a human being nor was I taught it. Rather, I have it through Jesus Christ being revealed to me.

¹³For you’ve already heard about my previous devotion to Judean customs. That is, I was viciously persecuting God’s community and trying to wipe it out.

¹⁴Likewise, I was progressing in commitment to Jewish customs beyond many of my peers among my people, showing far more zeal for my ancestral traditions.

¹⁵But when God3—who had set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me through his abundant generosity—was pleased

¹⁶to reveal his Son in me, so that I might announce the good news about him among the gentiles, my first action was not to check with any human being.

¹⁷Nor did I travel up to Jerusalem to those who were already [Christ’s] commissioned agents before me. Instead, I left for Arabia [the region where the Nabatean Arabs live];4 after that I came back to Damascus.

¹⁸Then, after three years, I did travel up to Jerusalem to get to know Kephas, and I stayed with him for fifteen days.

¹⁹But I didn’t see any [of the Lord’s] other commissioned agents except Jacob, the Lord’s brother.

²⁰Look: I testify in God’s own hearing that I’m not lying about these matters I’m writing to you.

²¹After that, I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.

²²All that time, I was still unknown by sight to the assemblies of Judea that are in Christ.

²³They had just heard the report about me: The one who used to persecute us is now announcing the good news of the faith that he was once trying to wipe out!

²⁴And they were glorifying God because of me.

2Then after fourteen [more] years I traveled up to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas and taking Titus with me.

²I traveled there in accordance with what was revealed. I did solicit Jerusalem believers’ counsel concerning the good news that I preach among the gentiles. But I did this privately among the most respected figures, so that I would not be running, or have been running up to that point, pointlessly.

³In contrast to that concern, not even Titus, who was with me, was forced to be circumcised, despite him being a Greek.

⁴But this situation (some people challenging my gospel and trying to force Titus to be circumcised) was because of fake siblings, who snuck in to spy against our freedom, the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so they could enslave us!

⁵But we didn’t let them subjugate us even for a moment. (We resisted them) so that the truth of the good news would continue for you.

⁶And from the figures respected as being something—whatever they once were doesn’t matter to me; God does not play favorites—those respected figures added nothing for me.

⁷Instead, because they saw that I had been entrusted with the good news for the uncircumcised in just the same way that Peter had been for the circumcised—

⁸they recognized this because the one who effected Peter’s mission as agent for the circumcised also effected mine for the gentiles—

⁹and because Jacob and Kephas and John, those respected as pillars, perceived the special grace (God) had given me (for my mission), they extended the right hand of partnership to Barnabas and me. They did this with the understanding that we (would maintain our commission) to the gentiles, and they to the circumcised.

¹⁰Their only condition was that we should keep in mind the poor—which was exactly what I was already eager to do anyway.

¹¹But when Kephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.

¹²The reason was this: before certain people came from Jacob, Kephas used to eat with gentiles. But when they came, he started pulling back from that and set himself apart, because he was afraid of the circumcised.

¹³And the other Jews present joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas got carried along in their hypocrisy.

¹⁴In contrast to the others, when I saw that they weren’t walking the straight way of the truth of the gospel, I said to Kephas in front of everybody, "If you, though you’re a Jew, act like a gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

¹⁵"We are Jews ethnically and not sinners from among the gentiles.

¹⁶"Yet we know that a person isn’t righted with God by law-works, but instead5 through faith in Jesus Christ. And we ourselves have committed our faith in Christ Jesus, so that we may be righted with God on the basis of faith in Christ and not law-works. That is because nobody will be righted with God on the basis of law-works.

¹⁷"But if, while we are seeking to be righted with God in Christ, we ourselves have also6 been found to be sinners, doesn’t that make Christ a facilitator of sin? No way!

¹⁸"For if I rebuild the things that I once tore down, I show myself to be a transgressor.

¹⁹"For through the law I died with respect to the law so that I might live with respect to God. I’ve been crucified with Christ;

²⁰"and it’s no longer I myself who live, but Christ lives in me. I’m now living in this body by faith in God’s Son, who loved me and gave himself on my behalf.

²¹I don’t nullify God’s generosity [grace]; for if being righted is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!

3You foolish Galatians! Who cast a spell on you? You, in whose very sight Jesus Christ was depicted as crucified!

²I just want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by law-works? Or by the message that invites faith?

³Are you really so foolish as this? After you began with the Spirit, are you now completing yourselves with flesh?

⁴Did you experience so many things pointlessly? If it was really pointlessly?

⁵So the God who supplies you with the Spirit and performs miracles among you—is that by law-works or by the message that invites faith?

⁶In the same way, Abraham put his faith in God, and it was accounted to him as being righted with God.

⁷So recognize7 that the faith-people8 are the ones who are Abraham’s children.9

⁸And the Scripture saw in advance that God would right gentiles with him by faith. Therefore10 the Scripture announced the good news in advance to Abraham, by saying: All the nations/gentiles will be blessed in you.

⁹Thus the faith-people will be blessed with Abraham, the one who had faith.

¹⁰For all the law-works people stand under a curse. This is clear because the Bible says, Cursed is everybody who doesn’t keep doing everything written in the book of the law!

¹¹And it’s clear that no one will be righted with God by the law, because The righteous one will live by faith.11

¹²But the law isn’t based on faith; on the contrary: One who does these things will live by them.

¹³Christ purchased our deliverance from the above-mentioned curse of the law, by becoming a curse on our behalf. This is because the Bible says, Everyone who was hanged on a tree is cursed.

¹⁴This was so that in Christ Jesus the blessing promised to Abraham might come to the gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

¹⁵Brothers and sisters, I’m giving you now an analogy on the human level. This is like12 the case of a human testament13 that has been validated: nobody nullifies it or adds to it.

¹⁶The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his progeny. It doesn’t say and to progenies, as if it referred to many people. No! Rather, it says and to your progeny, as to one person: namely, Christ.

¹⁷What my analogy means is this: the law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant that God has already validated, and thus negate the promise.

¹⁸For if the inheritance is based on the law, it no longer rests on a promise. But God clearly gave it to Abraham through a promise.

¹⁹So what was the point of the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the progeny would come concerning14 whom the promise was made. The law was appointed through angels by means of a mediator.

²⁰But a mediator isn’t for just a single person;15 yet God is one.

²¹Does this mean that the law is in opposition to God’s16 promises? No way! For if a law had been given that really was able to give life, then being righted certainly would have been based on law.

²²Instead, the Scripture has locked up everything under sin’s power, so that