BLACK’S NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

JAMES D. G. DUNN

Black’s New Testament Commentary

The Epistle to the Galatians

First published 1993, A & C Black (Publishers) Limited, London

Copyright © 1993 James D. G. Dunn

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Reprinted March 2006 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The mosaic fretwork on the cover comes from the Galla Placidia Mausoleum in Ravenna and is used courtesy of ITALCARDS, Bolongna, Italy.

To

Martin and Marianne Hengal

in celebration

of our

Durham-Tübingen partnership

CONTENTS

Preface

Bibliography

Commentaries cited

Other works cited more than once

Short titles of author’s works referred to in text

Abbreviations

General

Books of the Bible with Apocrypha

Other early Jewish literature (OT Pseudepigrapha)

Other Jewish writings

Dead Sea Scrolls

Philo

Josephus

Rabbinic writings

Early Christian writings

Map

Introduction

1 The letter

2 The author

3 The recipients

4 The date

5 The opponents

6 The situation reconstructed

7 The structure of the letter

Analysis of the Epistle

Translation and commentary

Index of modern authors

Index of subjects

Index of ancient sources

PREFACE

Galatians is a document with which I have lived in close communion since the end of the 1970s. I had long been fascinated by the theology of Paul, both in academic terms and for its stimulus to my own theologizing. But it was about then that the significance of Galatians within the collection of Paul’s letters became sharply clearer to me. Not only because it is the most pungent and forthright of Paul’s expositions of his own understanding of the Christian gospel; that had been common knowledge at least within Protestant circles from Luther onwards. But particularly because it provided insights into the development of Paul’s theology and its contextual character which cannot be found anywhere else.

It was about then that the conviction took firm root that the incident at Antioch (2:11–14) is a key to opening up and understanding the development both of Paul and of Christianity itself which had been insufficiently exploited. The resulting paper was first delivered at the inaugural meeting of the British New Testament Conference in 1980. One study on the opening chapters of Galatians led to another. In all a sequence of six studies was completed in the course of the 80s (see pp. xvi–xvii below). My principal project during that period was a commentary on Romans, for which careful ...