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Suffering and covenantal hope in Galatians: a critique of the ‘apocalyptic reading’ and its proponents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2015

John Anthony Dunne
John Anthony Dunne*
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, KY16 9QT, UKjad22@st-andrews.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article addresses the so-called ‘apocalyptic reading of Paul’, taking the representative work of J. Louis Martyn and Martinus C. de Boer as its primary focus. The chief contention is that the ‘apocalyptic reading’ does not resemble the historical phenomenon of Jewish apocalyptic literature, although the scope of this article has been intentionally limited to Galatians. The present study is composed of two halves. The first half offers a critique of what it means for Paul to be an apocalyptic thinker according to Martyn and de Boer. Their emphasis is on discontinuity, duality and dichotomy, which coheres neither with first-century apocalyptic literature and its antecedents, nor with the letter to the Galatians. Their nuanced notion of apocalyptic has led to an unnecessary bifurcation between apocalyptic and covenant (not to mention Heilsgeschichte) in the interpretation of Paul. However, this article suggests that the dichotomy has been misplaced, both in relation to the discontinuity that Paul does articulate (i.e. with the law), and the dichotomy reflected in apocalyptic literature, namely, the division between the present evil age and the glorious age to come. Thus, it is argued that Martyn and de Boer's focus on discontinuity hardly constitutes apocalyptic in a first-century historical sense. Rather, their specific emphasis owes its articulation to the theology of Karl Barth. After arguing that the ‘apocalyptic reading’ lacks historical precision (and possibly theological forthrightness), the second half of the study argues that some neglected features of Galatians, such as suffering and persecution, cohere with the apocalyptic character of the letter, and are common features of apocalyptic broadly. In fact, the division between apocalyptic and covenant in scholarship on Galatians is bridged by the themes of conflict and crisis. This is because apocalyptic hope often arises in the absence of the realisation of covenantal promises and expectations; a covenantal disconnect is created and aggravated by crises and hardships of various sorts, hence the need for apocalyptic hope. Suffering therefore ties together the strands of apocalyptic and covenant in Galatians. If Martyn and de Boer's ‘apocalyptic reading’ was truly apocalyptic in a first-century historical sense, it would have integrated the imagery of suffering and persecution found in the letter.

Keywords

apocalypticcovenantMartinus C. de BoerGalatiansJ. Louis MartynPaulpersecutionsuffering

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , February 2015 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2015 

Introduction

Since the early to mid-twentieth century an ‘apocalyptic’ interpretation of Paul has become prevalent in scholarly discussions.Footnote 1 This is due in large measure to the writings of Albert Schweitzer, Ernst Käsemann and J. C. Beker, who each placed a major emphasis on the apocalyptic contours of Paul's theology. More recently in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a new wave of ‘apocalyptic’ has been invading the scholarly world through the writings of J. Louis Martyn, Martinus C. de Boer, Beverly R. Gaventa, Douglas Campbell, Susan Eastman and others. Many attempts have been made to assess this scholarly phenomenon,Footnote 2 yet I would like to use the present study to move the discussion forward by limiting the scope of my interaction to the interpretation of Galatians. Thus, I will focus primarily on the writings of Martyn and de Boer since they have written extensively on Paul as an ‘apocalyptic’ theologian, utilising Galatians specifically as their key text.Footnote 3 Martyn's Anchor Bible commentary is often regarded as a masterpiece by both New Testament scholars and theologians,Footnote 4 and with the recent publication of de Boer's New Testament Library commentary this study is all the more relevant.Footnote 5 By assessing these representative figures, it is hoped that this study will have implications for wider discussions on interpreting Paul.Footnote 6 Despite what is found in the so-called ‘apocalyptic’ reading, I contend in this study that a truly ‘apocalyptic’ reading of Galatians – if it is to have any resemblance to first-century apocalyptic and its predecessors – would have been covenantal in outlook. It will be demonstrated that one significant thread which binds the covenantal and apocalyptic imagery together in Galatians is the (much neglected) background of suffering and persecution. I will begin by addressing the way that the ‘apocalyptic’ reading distorts Galatians in its emphasis on discontinuity before addressing how the experience of suffering ties the apocalyptic imagery together with God's covenantal purposes in Paul's understanding.

Duality and discontinuity in Galatians?

Martyn summarises his ‘apocalyptic’ interpretation of Galatians well with these words, ‘Galatians is a particularly clear witness to one of Paul's basic convictions: the gospel is about the divine invasion of the cosmos (theology), not about human movement into blessedness (religion)’.Footnote 7 Indeed, as part of the ‘apocalyptic’ scheme in Galatians, with Paul's critique of ‘the works of the law’, Martyn suggests that Paul's problem with Judaism is that he came to view it as a religion,Footnote 8 something to be sharply contrasted with God's newly invasive activity. The duality implied by the notion of ‘invasion’ lies at the core of the ‘apocalyptic’ scheme of Martyn and his former student de Boer. This emphasis on duality extends to multiple polarities, which they call ‘antinomies’, and these are ascribed to Paul's ‘apocalyptic’ theology.Footnote 9 Yet Martyn's understanding of this pattern owes more to the influence of Barthian theology than to Jewish apocalyptic. The dichotomy between apocalypse and religion echoes the title of the seventeenth paragraph of Church Dogmatics, ‘The Revelation of God as the Abolition of Religion’, and the language of ἀποκάλυψις as ‘invasion’ connotes the Barthian concept that revelation is ‘an event that encounters man’.Footnote 10 Thus, for Martyn, ‘Redemption has occurred in the human orb via an invasion that had its origin outside that orb’.Footnote 11 Yet this is based on an idiosyncratic interpretation of ἀποκάλυψις and ἀποκαλύπτω which neglects its universal meaning of ‘revelation’ or ‘unveiling’.Footnote 12 Additionally, it conveys an exaggerated transcendence which does not fit Jewish conceptions of cosmology, and it overstates God's activity to appear as if he is not expected to act. The language of invasion would fit much more convincingly in modern-day deistic circles than within first-century Jewish beliefs.Footnote 13

The Barthian dichotomy is further accentuated by Martyn and de Boer's excessive mirror-reading, which lead them to regard Paul's teaching as the exact opposite of the Teachers. Whereas Paul does claim that the Teachers have changed the gospel (μεταστρέφω in Gal 1:7), Martyn and de Boer overinterpret this verb to mean, ‘to change into the opposite’,Footnote 14 which causes all sorts of distortions in interpretation. Mußner does note similarly, ‘geht es nicht bloß um ein “verändern”, sondern um ein “verdrehen” des Evangeliums: es wird durch die Forderungen der Gegner geradezu in sein Gegenteil verkehrt, pervertiert, d. h. seines Sinnes beraubt’,Footnote 15 yet Martyn and de Boer go beyond Mußner and other scholars in positioning Paul and his opponents on opposite ends of the spectrum proclaiming opposite messages in a manner which is simply unhelpful.

A prime example where the emphasis on dichotomies distorts interpretation is in their understanding of Pistis Christou as a subjective genitive.Footnote 16 Extending a trajectory already present in Martyn's commentary, de Boer limits the references to human faith in the noun πίστις to Galatians 5:22 alone, and only on three occasions for the verb πιστεύω (Gal 2:16; 3:6, 22). This de-emphasis on human participation is a result of the Barthian dichotomy between religion and apocalypse, and is due to the overinterpretation of μεταστρέφω in Galatians 1:7. Thus, if the Teachers speak of human effort at all, then Paul must be preaching against all human activity. Of course, this apocalyptic version of Pistis Christou as a subjective genitive should be distinguished from that of N. T. Wright and Richard Hays, for example, who do not de-emphasise the role of human participation in faith.Footnote 17 The contrast between these two versions of Pistis Christou as a subjective genitive is symptomatic of the larger problem. It is not apocalyptic theology that leads Martyn and de Boer to undermine human activity, but it is the Barthian perception that Paul's message is the opposite of ‘religion’.

What is problematic about this dependence on Barth is not the fact that Martyn and de Boer's interpretation is Barthian per se. If Martyn and de Boer had initially set out to engage in theological interpretation and made it clear that they were approaching Galatians with Barth as one of their primary influences then I would not be criticising them along the lines set out in this study. By using the nomenclature of ‘apocalyptic’ they are pegging their interpretation onto a historical phenomenon with a literary legacy. By utilising this label, the ‘apocalyptic’ reading is open to criticism as it relates to ancient apocalypses and other forms of apocalyptic literature which share a similar worldview. Additionally, to compound the issue, it may even be the case that the Barthian influence present in Martyn and de Boer's commentaries is based on a misunderstanding of Barth which, at any rate, is too far afield from ancient apocalyptic.Footnote 18

One piece of scholarship surprisingly lacking in the commentaries of Martyn and de Boer is Semeia 14, which provides the generally agreed upon definition of the genre of apocalypse.Footnote 19 To slightly paraphrase, apocalypses disclose a transcendent reality which is both temporal and spatial, envisaging eschatological salvation and a supernatural world.Footnote 20 The basic theological perspective is that a future catastrophe would end the present evil age and usher in the age to come.Footnote 21 In their reading of Galatians, Martyn and de Boer take this understanding of historical discontinuity between the present age and the age to come, and apply it to the death of Christ on the cross and the sending of the Spirit. (This is in contrast to Käsemann and Beker, for whom apocalyptic was essentially synonymous with imminence;Footnote 22 which intriguingly led Beker to suggest that Galatians was not apocalyptic!Footnote 23) For Martyn and de Boer, the decisive apocalyptic event has already occurred. Commenting on Paul's words in Galatians 4:4 that God sent his Son ‘at the fullness of time’, de Boer states, ‘[This] signifies a clean break with the past and may be regarded as an apocalyptic assertion on Paul's part: it announces the end of “the present evil age” (1:4) and the beginning of the “new creation” (6:15)’ (emphasis mine).Footnote 24 Additionally, Martyn and de Boer argue that the manner in which Paul handles the Old Testament accentuates this notion of a historical break with the past. When Paul identifies Christ as the ‘one seed’ of Abraham in Galatians 3:16, Martyn declares that this has eclipsed ‘the sacred history of Israel’Footnote 25 by denying ‘a line of physical descent in the many generations between the patriarch and Christ’.Footnote 26 He then notes succinctly, ‘Paul's interpretation of the seed to whom God made the covenantal promise is as polemically punctiliar as it is polemically singular.’Footnote 27 Martyn also makes a similar comment about punctiliar interpretation on Galatians 4:28 where Paul declares that the Galatian congregations are children of promise like Isaac.Footnote 28

However, to assume that this sort of interpretation undercuts prior history is mistaken. Paul's interpretation in Galatians 3:16 and 4:28 shows possible analogies with the pesher interpretations in Qumran. Paul shared a similar outlook to the Qumran community in some relevant respects, such as a sectarian mindset which saw the new covenant being fulfilled in their community, and it could not be suggested that by applying certain texts to the present community the Qumranites were intending to dissolve prior history. An example from 1 Corinthians 10 demonstrates that the same was true for Paul. Reflecting on the wilderness wanderings of ‘our fathers’ (1 Cor 10:1), Paul is led to say, ‘These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come’ (1 Cor 10:11 NRSV). To be sure, Paul sees a greater significance for the present, but his interpretation in no way undermines previous history.Footnote 29 As Christopher Rowland has noted, apocalyptic does not depart ‘from the view of God's covenant which was adhered to by the rabbis’Footnote 30 and indicates ‘a view of the future which stresses the outworking of God's purposes within history’.Footnote 31

Another reason why this emphasis on discontinuity is problematic in Galatians is because chapters 3–4 are largely rooted in Israel's story. As N. T. Wright has argued, Galatians 3 should be understood as an extended discussion on Genesis 15 and the promise to Abraham.Footnote 32 Additionally, there are multiple allusions to the exodus and exile throughout Galatians which recall Israel's experiences. Galatians 3:10–14 and the language of the law's curse probably alludes to the covenantal curses of Deuteronomy 27–8, the greatest of these curses being exile.Footnote 33 As David Starling notes, the likelihood that exilic motifs lie behind Galatians 3:10–14 is accentuated by the fact that 3:14 speaks of the ‘promise of the Spirit’ coming after the removal of the curse in 3:13, as in the prophetic expectation of the outpouring of the Spirit's during Israel's restoration from exile (cf. esp. Ezek 36–7 and Joel 2).Footnote 34 This leads into the exodus imagery of Galatians 4:1–7 (more on this later), and culminates in the citation of Isaiah 54:1 in the allegory of Galatians 4:21–31, which speaks of the end of exile. Thus, Israel's history is central to Galatians 3–4 and this makes the emphasis on discontinuity by Martyn and de Boer unconvincing.

The particular place where discontinuity is present in Galatians is the role of the law. This is so because the law naturally divides Jews and Gentiles. Paul knew that Abraham believed the promise of a large family (Gen 15:5) and that because of it he was counted as righteous (Gen 15:6; Gal 3:6), so Paul goes to great lengths in Galatians to emphasise the unity of Jews and Gentiles as both children of Abraham and children of God in the Messiah, the true seed of Abraham (cf. Gal 3:16, 29).Footnote 35 Naturally, the role of the law would be in question in this situation. Yet more ought not to be extrapolated from the discontinuity related to the law in the name of ‘apocalyptic’. The true apocalyptic dichotomy is between the two ages, the present age and the age to come, and the dichotomy relates chiefly to the elimination of evil in the age to come. Thus, it is important to note, from a first-century apocalyptic perspective, that Paul does not suggest in Galatians that the future age has fully arrived. The exhortations in Galatians 5–6, not least the allusions to judgement in Galatians 5:2, 5, 10, 21; 6:5,Footnote 36 7–9, point strongly to the conclusion that Paul did not believe that the future age had fully come. Indeed, in apocalyptic literature it is often the final judgement which is depicted as the climatic event which ushers in the fullness of the age to come since this is the event which provides the complete elimination of evil. In fact, the present experience of suffering and persecution, as depicted in Galatians, precludes any notion that the fullness of the age to come had arrived, which brings me to the next portion of the present study.

Apocalyptic and suffering

If Martyn and de Boer's ‘apocalyptic’ reading of Galatians was going to be apocalyptic in a first-century sense, I suggest it would have made a correlation between the apocalyptic motifs present in the letter with the multiple references to suffering and persecution. Granted, this latter feature is certainly one of the most neglected in scholarship on Galatians. This was rightly noted in an article from 1984 by Ernst Baasland, and the same holds true today.Footnote 37 Yet the theme of suffering and persecution is pervasive in the letter. Paul speaks of his own previous persecuting activity (1:13, 23), his present experience of persecution (5:11), the persecution of the children of the flesh against the children of the Spirit (4:29), and persecution directed towards the agitators from an unknown group (6:12). Paul also speaks of his ‘weakness of the flesh’ (4:13), his suffering of birth-pains (4:19), being crucified to the world (6:14), and bearing on his body the στίγματα τοῦ Ιησοῦ (6:17). Additionally, Paul's portrayal of Jesus is consistently as the crucified Christ (1:4; 2:20–1; 3:1, 13; 5:11; 6:12, 14), focusing primarily on his death with only one explicit reference to the resurrection in 1:1.

The emphasis on suffering and persecution is often overlooked and marginalised due to the polemical nature of Galatians. Most suggest that Paul's language is exaggerated. Martyn and de Boer follow the majority of scholars who downplay the references to suffering. This is apparent in their comments on Galatians 4:29 where the ‘persecution’ referred to is merely the Teachers’ attempt to persuade the Galatians to be circumcised.Footnote 38 That Martyn and de Boer do not perceive physical conflict to be standing in the background of Galatians is also seen through their comments on Galatians 3:4. There Paul asks: τοσαῦτα ἐπάθετε εἰκῇ? It would seem natural to correlate this use of πάσχω with the multiple references to suffering and persecution in the letter, yet both Martyn and de Boer translate πάσχω as ‘experience’ and suggest that it refers to the work of the Spirit among the Galatians.Footnote 39 This is the interpretation taken by many scholars who suggest that the immediate context of the reception of the Spirit in 3:1–5 rules out a reference to suffering.Footnote 40

Yet I have argued, based upon lexical, contextual and thematic evidence, that πάσχω is best understood in 3:4 as a reference to suffering.Footnote 41 This is also in keeping with the history of interpretation; there were no opposing positions on this verse until Justus Christoph Schomer's posthumous commentary appeared in 1706.Footnote 42 Thus, in light of the multiple references to suffering and persecution in Galatians, and the fact that Paul can speak of the persecution of the children of the Spirit in 4:29,Footnote 43 it is quite likely that the use of πάσχω in 3:4, in a context about the Spirit, suggests that there may be a deeper theology of suffering and the Spirit at work in Galatians, perhaps something akin to what Paul displays in 2 Corinthians.Footnote 44

With the presence of suffering-related imagery in Galatians it is more apparent that there is a deeper correspondence with the literature designated as apocalyptic. It is quite likely that apocalyptic thought originally emerged as a response to oppression and conflict. This is wonderfully expressed in Portier-Young's recent book, Apocalypse Against Empire, in which she argues that the genre of historical apocalypse originated as resistance literature in response to Antiochus IV Epiphanes, stating, ‘The writers of the apocalypses intervened in the logic and program of terror, revealing the divine order and transcendent meaning in the midst of suffering.’Footnote 45

Indeed the function of apocalyptic thought broadly appears to be utilised to provide responses to particular crises of whatever sort.Footnote 46 In fact, apocalyptic appears to be the medium for wrestling with crisis and covenant. Surprisingly, J. Christiaan Beker, one of the figures associated with the ‘apocalyptic Paul’, wrote in his study on suffering, ‘apocalyptic authors like Daniel cling to the faithfulness of the God of creation and covenant, and refuse to surrender their hope in the justice of God and in God's triumph over the powers of evil’.Footnote 47 So, far from being the antithesis to covenant, apocalyptic is centrally covenantal, and seeks to address the disconnect created by unmet expectations related to covenantal promises. In other words, suffering creates cognitive dissonance with covenantal promises, and apocalyptic provides covenantal hope in the midst of suffering.

As a specific example from the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, Zephaniah prays:

You will save me from this distress. You are the one who saved Israel from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. You saved Susanna from the hand of the elders of injustice. You saved the three holy men, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, from the furnace of burning fire. I beg you to save me from this distress. (Apoc. Zeph. 6:10)Footnote 48

It was expected that God would act as he had done before on behalf of his oppressed people. Thus, many apocalyptic texts looked back on God's covenantal responses to suffering and saw in them patterns of God's activity. The most common example of this is the use of exodus imagery. Indeed, as Portier-Young has remarked, ‘Israel's traditions, especially flood and exodus narratives, established God's pattern of intervention and care.’Footnote 49 The linking of exodus traditions in apocalyptic texts to the present experience of suffering can be seen throughout apocalyptic literature, including, Daniel (9:15), 1 Enoch (89:19), 4 Ezra (1:7, 11; 2:1; 3:12–19; 14:1–36), Apoc. Zeph. (6:10) and elsewhere.

Indeed we even find this pattern in Galatians 4:1–7. In vv. 3–5, with the στοιχεῖα and the sending of God's Son at ‘the fullness of time’, Martyn finds what he calls ‘the theological center of the entire letter’.Footnote 50 Yet the apocalyptic character of this passage is at the same time covenantal. As argued by James Scott and others, exodus imagery permeates this text.Footnote 51 If this is the case, then Paul was certainly not undermining Israel's history by his use of apocalyptic imagery but rather – like the authors of apocalyptic literature! – he saw in the exodus a pattern of God's activity. With these allusions then, we have further reason to find Martyn's claims about Paul's perception of the history of Israel, prior to the cross, problematic.Footnote 52 What's more, I contend, the apocalyptic and exodus imagery in Galatians converge around suffering, as they often do in apocalyptic literature.

God's response to Israel in Egypt was predicated on hearing their ‘cry’ (Exod 3:7) and this was reflected elsewhere in exodus traditions, such as the retelling of Israel's history in 1 Enoch 89, when Israel, depicted as sheep, cry out with all their strength (89:19) and then the subsequent exodus narrative and history of Israel is retold. Thus, in Galatians 4:6, it seems highly probable that the Abba-cry was a cry in the midst of suffering,Footnote 53 rather than a baptismal response as suggested by Martyn and de Boer.Footnote 54 It is a cry to God for assurance in the midst of the uncertainty which suffering brings. This is consistent with Jesus’ use of αββα in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:36). The Spirit's activity in the utterance of the Abba-cry provides hope that the inheritance spoken of in Galatians 3–4 will still be gained despite the present suffering. Since it is ‘the Spirit of promise’ which is given (cf. 3:14), the connotation is highly covenantal, and, since it is the Spirit of God's Son, the connotation of suffering is further enhanced because the Messiah is consistently depicted in Galatians as the crucified Messiah (cf. the link between the cross and the Spirit in the flow from 3:1 to 3:2–5). Likewise, this also brings out the hope for vindication since the Messiah was vindicated (Gal 1:1). This suggestion finds strong coherence with Romans 8, where Paul refers to the ‘Abba-cry’ in a similar apocalyptic context about the Spirit, sonship and inheritance, and there the references to suffering are even more explicit (cf. Rom 8:17–23). If this interpretation of Galatians 4:6 is correct, this would cohere further with what I noted about Galatians 3:4 and 4:29 regarding the relationship between suffering and pneumatology in Galatians.

The fact that Martyn and de Boer do not integrate the references to suffering and persecution in Galatians into their ‘apocalyptic’ reading is a major deficiency.Footnote 55 Given the presence of apocalyptic imagery alongside multiple references to suffering and persecution, I contend that Paul has utilised apocalyptic imagery in the letter for this very purpose: to provide hope in the midst of suffering. Thus, the present evil age is ‘evil’ partly because of the present experience of suffering (cf. Gal 1:4). Additionally, the reference to the Jerusalem above in Galatians 4:26 likewise functions as a vision of apocalyptic hope in the midst of oppression. This is similar to the way the imagery functions in Revelation 3 to the church in Philadelphia and in the vision of Revelation 21, as well as in 4 Ezra (8:52; 10:25–59) and 2 Baruch (4:1–7; 6:9).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the ‘apocalyptic’ reading of Galatians espoused by Martyn and de Boer does not appear to be apocalyptic in a historical sense. The antithesis with covenant is unwarranted and the function of apocalyptic imagery as a response to a community in crisis is neglected. As I have attempted to show, in many ways suffering helps demonstrate that Paul's apocalyptic perspective in Galatians and his covenantal theology are two parts of the larger whole. The problems with Martyn and de Boer's ‘apocalyptic’ reading as I see it – sins of commission and omission if you will – ultimately stem from theological commitments and not from apocalyptic literature. It is hoped that the implications of this study are likewise relevant for assessing the ‘apocalyptic’ reading of Paul broadly and its various proponents. Since 1977 the Lutheran Paul has faced heavy criticism from the academy on the grounds of the imposition of foreign categories on Paul's thought. Is it time the same criticism was applied to the Barthian Paul?

References

1 An earlier version of this article was presented at the 32nd Annual British New Testament Conference, King's College, London, Sept. 2012.

2 E.g. Matlock, R. Barry criticised the ‘apocalyptic’ reading in his Unveiling the Apocalyptic Paul: Paul's Interpreters and the Rhetoric of Criticism, JSNTSup 127 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996)Google Scholar. Yet his study was published a year before Martyn's commentary on Galatians came out, and focused primarily on the first wave of the ‘apocalyptic’ interpretation as espoused by Käsemann and Beker especially. Recently, with the publication of Douglas Campbell's The Deliverance of God, Matlock has responded with his own critique (‘Zeal for Paul But Not According to Knowledge: Douglas Campbell's War on “Justification Theory”’, JSNT 34/2 (2011), pp. 115–49), and a similar critique can be found from Grant Macaskill in the same volume (‘Review Article: The Deliverance of God’, JSNT 34/2 (2011), pp. 150–61). These critiques focus primarily on Romans and Campbell's estimation of ‘justification theory’.

3 For additional studies see de Boer, Martinus C., ‘Paul and Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology’, in Marcus, Joel and Soards, Marion L. (eds), Apocalyptic and the New Testament: Essays in Honor of J. Louis Martyn, JSNTSup 24 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), pp. 169–90Google Scholar; de Boer, , ‘Paul and Apocalyptic Eschatology’, in Collins, John J. (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, 3 vols (London: Continuum, 2000), vol. 1, pp. 345–83Google Scholar; Martyn, J. Louis, Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997)Google Scholar.

4 Martyn, J. Louis, Galatians, AB 33A (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

5 de Boer, Martinus C., Galatians, NTL 43 (Louisville, KY: WJK, 2011)Google Scholar.

6 By extension, the present study has implications for Douglas Campbell's recent tome, The Deliverance of God. Campbell wrote regarding Martyn's commentary on Galatians that it ‘is arguably one of the finest commentaries on Paul ever penned’ (p. 837) and notes regarding Martyn and de Boer's work, ‘our broad strategic goals remain identical’ (p. 846). See Campbell, Douglas, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009)Google Scholar.

7 Martyn, Galatians, p. 349.

8 Ibid., pp. 154, 164.

9 Martyn, J. Louis, ‘Apocalyptic Antinomies in Paul's Letter to the Galatians’, NTS 31 (1985), pp. 410–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 CD I/2, p. 280.

11 Martyn, Galatians, p. 389.

12 As Ashton notes, ‘Martyn invests the Greek word with a significance it did not have’. See Ashton, John, The Religion of Paul the Apostle (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 25Google Scholar. Cf. Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich Lexicon (BDAG), p. 112.

13 Note the words of N. T. Wright, writing before the publication of Martyn's commentary, ‘The real problem is that much modern reading of these texts has taken place within a tacitly deist framework, in which one either believes (a) in an absent god [sic] and a closed space-time continuum or (b) in a normally absent god [sic] who occasionally intervenes and acts in discontinuity with that space-time continuum.’ Wright, N. T., The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), p. 298Google Scholar.

14 De Boer, Galatians, pp. 43–5; Martyn, Galatians, p. 112.

15 See Mußner, Franz, Der Galaterbrief, HTKNT 9 (Freiburg: Herder, 1974), p. 58Google Scholar. Cf. also Schlier, Heinrich, Der Brief an die Galater, KEKNT 7 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1951), p. 13Google Scholar; Dunn, James D. G., The Epistle to the Galatians, BNTC 9 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1993), p. 43Google Scholar; Georg Bertram, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT), s.v. ‘μεταστρέφω’.

16 Cf. my review of de Boer in JETS 55/2 (2012), pp. 439–42.

17 Hays, Richard B., The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Structure of Galatians 3:1–4:11, 2nd edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002)Google Scholar; Wright, N. T., Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2009)Google Scholar.

18 Green, Garret offered a new translation of paragraph 17 from Church Dogmatics (On Religion: The Revelation of God as the Sublimation of Religion (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2007))Google Scholar in which he states, ‘the translation of the title – The Revelation of God as the Abolition of Religion – has left generations of English readers with the false impression that Barth thinks revelation simply replaces religion with something else’ (On Religion, p. viii). The German word rendered ‘abolition’ is Aufhebung, which Garrett suggests should be rendered as ‘sublimation’ (On Religion, p. ix), meaning that religion ‘will become higher and better as a result’.

19 One also notices the dearth of interaction with important scholarship on apocalyptic generally. Between the two commentaries there are only three citations of John Collins (Martyn, Galatians, p. 100, n. 55, p. 124, n. 115; de Boer, Galatians, p. 33), two citations of Paul Hanson (Martyn, Galatians, p. 96, n. 47; p. 98, n. 53), one citation of D. S. Russell (de Boer, Galatians, p. 32), and zero references to Christopher Rowland.

20 Collins, John J., The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 5Google Scholar.

21 Rowland, Christopher, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1982), p. 25Google Scholar.

22 See e.g. Käsemann, Ernst, ‘On the Subject of Primitive Christianity’, in New Testament Questions of Today (London: SCM, 1969), pp. 108–37Google Scholar.

23 In Beker's scheme, Galatians threatened to undo his understanding of God's imminent triumph as the coherent core of Paul's thought since ‘the eschatological present dominates the letter’. See Beker, J. Christiaan, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), p. 58Google Scholar.

24 De Boer, Galatians, p. 262.

25 Martyn, Galatians, p. 29.

26 Martyn, Galatians, p. 33.

27 Martyn, Galatians, p. 347 (emphasis original).

28 ‘His exegesis is thoroughly punctiliar, in the sense that he sees a divine correspondence between two points, God's action in the birth of Isaac and God's action in the birth of the Galatian congregations’ (Martyn, Galatians, p. 444; emphasis original).

29 In Bruce Longenecker's attempt to reconcile covenantal and apocalyptic readings of Galatians, he asserts, ‘If in Galatians Paul does not defend a line of salvation-historical continuity leading from the covenant people of Israel and culminating in Christ, neither does he intend to repudiate that a form of covenant relationship existed between God and ethnic Israel prior to Christ’. Longenecker, Bruce W., The Triumph of Abraham's God: The Transformation of Identity in Galatians (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), pp. 178–9Google Scholar. Yet I would make more positive statements about the importance of Israel's history in Gal 3–4.

30 Rowland, Open Heaven, p. 30.

31 Ibid., p. 38.

32 Wright, N. T., The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), p. 140Google Scholar.

33 Thielman, Frank, From Plight to Solution: A Jewish Framework for Understanding Paul's View of the Law in Galatians and Romans, NovTSup 61 (Leiden: Brill, 1989), pp. 68–9Google Scholar.

34 Starling, David I., Not my People: Gentiles as Exiles in Pauline Hermeneutics, BZNW 184 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), p. 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 See esp. Wright, N. T., ‘The Seed and the Mediator: Galatians 3.15–20’, in Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), pp. 157–74Google Scholar.

36 For those who interpret Gal 6:5 as a reference to the final judgement, see Eastman, Susan, Recovering Paul's Mother Tongue: Language and Theology in Galatians (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), p. 167Google Scholar; Schreiner, Thomas R., Galatians, ZECNT 9 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), pp. 362, 368–70Google Scholar; Matera, Frank J., Galatians (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), p. 215Google Scholar; Mußner, Der Galaterbrief, p. 401; Bonnard, Pierre, L’Épitre de Saint Paul aux Galates, Commentaire du Nouveau Testament 9 (Neuchâtel; Paris: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1953), p. 125Google Scholar. Contra Betz, Hans Dieter, Galatians, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), p. 304Google Scholar.

37 Baasland, Ernst, ‘Persecution: A Neglected Feature in the Letter to the Galatians’, Studia Theologica 38/2 (1984), pp. 135–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Goddard, A. J. and Cummins, Stephen Anthony, ‘Ill or Ill-Treated? Conflict and Persecution as the Context of Paul's Original Ministry in Galatia (Galatians 4.12–20)’, JSNT 52 (1993), pp. 93–126Google Scholar.

38 Martyn, Galatians, p. 445; de Boer, Galatians, p. 307.

39 De Boer, Galatians, p. 180; Martyn, Galatians, p. 285.

40 See e.g. Oepke, Albrecht, Der Brief des Paulus an die Galater, THNT 9 (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1973), p. 101Google Scholar; Schlier, Der Brief an die Galater, p. 124; Longenecker, Richard N., Galatians, WBC 41 (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1990), p. 104Google Scholar; Vouga, François, An die Galater, HNT 10 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), p. 69Google Scholar; Witherington, Ben III, Grace in Galatia: A Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Galatians (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 214–15Google Scholar; Williams, Sam K., Galatians, ANTC (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1997), p. 85Google Scholar; Mußner, Der Galaterbrief, p. 209; Bonnard, L’Épitre de Saint Paul aux Galates, pp. 63–4; Silva, Moisés, Interpreting Galatians: Explorations in Exegetical Method, 2nd edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001), pp. 57–8Google Scholar; Das, A. Andrew, Galatians, Concordia Commentary (St Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2014), pp. 296–7Google Scholar.

41 Dunne, John Anthony, ‘Suffering in Vain: A Study of the Interpretation of ΠΑΣΧΩ in Galatians 3.4’, JSNT 36/1 (2013), pp. 3–16Google Scholar.

42 Ibid., pp. 4–6.

43 For a defence of the position that ‘persecution’ in Gal 4:29 refers to the behaviour of the agitators towards the Galatians, see Dunne, John Anthony, ‘Cast Out the Aggressive Agitators (Gl 4:29–30): Suffering, Identity, and the Ethics of Expulsion in Paul's Mission to the Galatians’, in Kok, Jacobus (Kobus), Nicklas, Tobias, Roth, Dieter T., and Hays, Christopher M. (eds), Sensitivity to Outsiders: Exploring the Dynamic Relationship between Mission and Ethics in the New Testament and Early Christianity, WUNT 2/364 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), pp. 246–69Google Scholar.

44 So rightly Schreiner, Galatians, p. 185. For suffering and pneumatology in 2 Corinthians see Hafemann, Scott J., Suffering and the Spirit: An Exegetical Study of II Corinthians 2:14–3:3 Within the Context of the Corinthian Correspondence, WUNT 2/19 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1986)Google Scholar.

45 Portier-Young, Anathea E., Apocalypse Against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), p. 386Google Scholar. The work of Kenneth Jones is also noteworthy. He looked at various Jewish responses to Rome after the destruction of Jerusalem, including many apocalyptic sources (such as 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, etc), and provided a study which is complementary to Portier-Young's, although, intriguingly, he concludes that the literature surveyed in his study is not ‘resistance literature’. See Jones, Kenneth R., Jewish Reactions to the Destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70: Apocalypses and Related Pseudepigrapha, JSJS 151 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 278CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, resistance is inevitable, though this need not be seditious or require a violent response. Through the medium of ‘apocalyptic’ the imagination is conditioned to resist the empire's broad-sweeping claims about itself, its subjects and the nature of reality. Cf. my review of Jones in Themelios 38/2 (2013), pp. 269–70.

46 Hellholm saw the social function of apocalyptic texts as central to defining apocalyptic and so he wanted to add a final clause to the Semeia 14 definition which read: ‘intended for a group in crisis with the purpose of exhortation and/or consolation by means of divine authority’. See Hellholm, David, ‘The Problem of Apocalyptic Genre and the Apocalypse of John’, Semeia 36 (1986), p. 27Google Scholar. A similar perspective on the importance of crisis for the function of the genre can be seen in the work of others, e.g. Hengel, Martin, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period, 2 vols (London: SCM, 1974), vol. 1, pp. 194–6Google Scholar; Vielhauer, P., ‘Apocalypses and Related Subjects’, in Hennecke, E. (ed.), New Testament Apocrypha, 2 vols (London: SCM, 1974), vol. 2, p. 598Google Scholar; Hanson, Paul D., The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), pp. 25–6Google Scholar; Sanders, E. P., ‘The Genre of Palestinian Jewish Apocalypses’, in Hellholm, David (ed.), Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East, 2nd edn (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1989), p. 459Google Scholar; Wright, New Testament and the People of God, p. 288. On the other side of the spectrum is L. Grabbe who argues that apocalypticism does not necessarily arise in times of crisis and is not always the product of the oppressed. As an example of this, he draws upon evidence from social anthropology and notes the way that evangelical Americans incorporate apocalyptic thought into their religious beliefs. He concludes from this comparison that ‘apocalyptic thought may have little relation to the social or economic status of those who are part of the movement’. See Grabbe, Lester L., ‘The Social Setting of Early Jewish Apocalypticism’, JSP 4 (April 1989), p. 31Google Scholar. Cf. also Grabbe, , ‘Prophetic and Apocalyptic: Time for New Definitions – And New Thinking’, in Grabbe, Lester L. and Haak, Robert D. (eds), Knowing the End from the Beginning: The Prophetic, The Apocalyptic, and Their Relationships, (London: T&T Clark International, 2003), pp. 124–7Google Scholar. Yet American evangelicalism has questionable bearing on determining the social function of Jewish apocalyptic literature, because they are separated by two millennia. Twentieth-century apocalyptic outlooks among middle-class American evangelicals determine nothing about the Sitz im Leben of, say, Daniel or Revelation. All that is demonstrated is that these texts are influential in American Christianity. Furthermore, Collins notes judiciously that the idea of apocalyptic literature being written for oppressed groups can apply to Israel in her entirety (see Collins, John J., ‘From Prophecy to Apocalypticism: The Expectation of the End’, in Collins, (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, 3 vols (London: Continuum, 2000), vol. 1, p. 158)Google Scholar and additionally, the crises and distresses being addressed should be understood broadly, encompassing many different scenarios (see Collins, Apocalyptic Imagination, p. 38). This broad approach to the functional role of apocalypses in regards to various crises is what I advocate in this study.

47 Beker, J. Christiaan, Suffering and Hope: The Biblical Vision and the Human Predicament, 2nd edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), p. 58Google Scholar.

48 Trans. by Wintermute, O. S., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, ed. Charlesworth, James H. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), p. 513Google Scholar.

49 Portier-Young, Apocalypse Against Empire, p. 347.

50 Martyn, Galatians, p. 388.

51 The four most convincing reasons for this interpretation are (a) the singular ὁ κληρονόμος in 4:1 is probably a collective reference to Israel with the article functioning anaphorically to refer back to κληρονόμοι in the previous verse in 3:29, (b) νήπιός in 4:1 is not a technical legal term for a minor, but is more probably alluding to the reflection on the exodus narrative in Hos 11:1 LXX, (c) κύριος πάντων in 4:1 is a Hoheitstitel referring to the Abrahamic promise of inheriting and ruling the world, and (d) τῆς προθεσμίας τοῦ πατρός is not a reference to the end of legal guardianship in Graeco-Roman custom, but rather the determined date of the exodus set by God, referring back to the 430 years of 3:17. See Scott, James M., Adoption as Sons of God: An Exegetical Investigation into the Background of Huiothesia in the Pauline Corpus, WUNT 2/48 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1992), pp. 123–49Google Scholar. Hafemann tweaks (d) by suggesting that Israel is still experiencing an exilic-like slavery. See Hafemann, Scott J., ‘Paul and the Exile of Israel in Galatians 3–4’, in Scott, James M. (ed.), Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions, JSJSup 56 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 331–49Google Scholar. Cf. also Keesmaat, Sylvia C., Paul and his Story: (Re)interpreting the Exodus Tradition, JSNTSup 181 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Forman, Mark, The Politics of Inheritance in Romans, SNTSMS 148 (Cambridge: CUP, 2011), pp. 176–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 So rightly Keesmaat, Paul and his Story, p. 230.

53 So rightly Keesmaat, Paul and his Story, pp. 179, 181.

54 Contra Martyn, Galatians, pp. 391–2; de Boer, Galatians, pp. 265–6; similarly Mußner, Der Galaterbrief, p. 276.

55 This trend is also noticeable in the writings of other ‘apocalyptic’ interpreters. Commenting on Gal 4:19 that the use of ὠδίνω stems from apocalyptic texts about the birth pains of creation, Beverly Gaventa asserts that Paul's suffering birth pains ‘reflects the anguish of the whole created order as it awaits the fulfillment of God's action in Jesus Christ’. See Gaventa, Beverly Roberts, Our Mother Saint Paul (Louisville, KY: WJK, 2007), p. 34Google Scholar. Yet this attempt to correlate suffering and apocalyptic actually ignores the experience of suffering among Paul and the Galatians. In a similar study on maternal imagery in Galatians, Susan Eastman does correlate Gal 4:19 and other passages within the present experience of suffering mentioned throughout the letter. See Eastman, Recovering Paul's Mother Tongue. For this, Eastman's study is to be commended as one of the rare works on Galatians associated with the ‘apocalyptic interpretation of Paul’ which correlates apocalyptic with suffering. However, both Gaventa and Eastman are susceptible to much of the criticism marshalled against Martyn and de Boer in this article.