Thursday, April 2, 2009

Gospel Galatians

The Epistle to the Galatians is a book of the New Testament. It is a letter from Paul of Tarsus to a number of early Christian communities in the Roman province of Galatia in central Anatolia. It is principally concerned with the controversy surrounding Gentile Christians and the Mosaic Law within Early Christianity. Along with the Epistle to the Romans, it is the most theologically significant of the Pauline epistles, and has been particularly influential in Protestant thought.
Galatians was presumably written between the late 40s and early 50s. There are three main theories about when Galatians was written and to whom. The North Galatian view holds that the epistle was written very soon after Paul's second visit to Galatia. The visit to Jerusalem, mentioned in Gal 2:1–10, seems identical with that of Acts 15, or Acts 18:22, and it is spoken of as a thing of the past. Consequently, the epistle seems to have been written after the Council of Jerusalem. The similarity between this epistle and that to the Romans has led to the conclusion that they were both written at the same time, namely, in the winter of AD 57–58, during Paul's stay in Corinth
This letter to the Galatians is written on the urgency of the occasion, tidings having reached him of the state of matters; and that to the Romans in a more deliberate and systematic way, in exposition of the same fundamental doctrines of the gospel. It should be noted that the Gospel of Luke and Acts which is said to be written by the same author as Luke were written much later than Paul's epistles therefore its most likely Paul's description of the Council or Jerusalem in c50 CE was written decades before Luke and Acts so the reference above is backwards. Paul's description of the Council of Jerusalem was written before Acts and is therefore the more accurate.
In Acts (c70-80CE) written later than Galatians , Peter claims that Jesus selected him to minister to the Gentiles which is the opposite of what Paul states in Galatians 2:7 "...they saw that God had given me the task of teaching the Gospel to the Gentiles,just as he gave Peter the task of teaching the Gospel to the Jews". According to Paul Peter was firmly in the camp of those insisting Gentiles must first be circumcised and follow Mosaic Law to the point of having sharp words with Paul Galatians 2:11 "But when Peter came to Antioch I rebuked him in public for he was clearly wrong." In fact when men sent by James, the Just (brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem Jesus Movement) arrived there, Galatians 2:12 "Peter had been eating with the Gentile Believers but when these men arrived, he drew back and would not eat with the Gentiles".
Peter was certainly subservient to James the Just who was the leader of the Jerusalem Jesus Movement in Galatians while in the much later Acts Peter is the one chosen by God to preach to the Gentiles and the protagonist for the Gentiles at the Council of Jerusalem while it Galatians the situation is reversed. Its more likely the later Acts written by the same author as Luke whose works were slanted towards Gentiles was a rewrite to provide the basis for the claim of Peter as the Rock up which the orthodox Christian church was based alone with the invention of Apostolic succession. I was James the Just who succeeded Jesus and was executed by by Anas is c60CE and that until then Peter was one of the Apostles but not the leader of the group. If one must chose between a later autograph accepting as the argument goes above that there is no doubt Paul wrote Galatians then its likely author of Luke and Acts glossed the story to support the position the reapidly evolving Jesus Movement to support the views of those leading the movement (church) at that point.

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