The Epistle to the Galatians (Black’s New Testament Commentary | BNTC)

by James D. G. Dunn

Publisher:

Continuum

, 1993

Overview

Paul's letter to the Galatians may be the boldest exposition of the Gospel and one of the best examples that Paul's theology first and foremost emerged within the framework of a living community. James D. G. Dunn's sensitivity to the letter's larger flow of thought and his adept hand at guiding us through the sometimes murky waters of Paul's thought combine to make this commentary refreshingly accessible and eminently serviceable. With a penetrating but never pedantic analysis, Dunn opens Paul's letter to the troubled believers in Galatia with a skill that comes only with knowing the subject exceedingly well.

Contents

Top Highlights

“In short, the letter makes clearest and fullest sense if we see it as a response to a challenge from Christian-Jewish missionaries who had come to Galatia to improve or correct Paul’s gospel and to ‘complete’ his converts by integrating them fully into the heirs of Abraham through circumcision and by thus bringing them ‘under the law’.” (Page 11)

“The issue expressed in ‘works of the law’, in other words, was not whether membership of the people of God entailed various obligations (Paul had no doubt that it did), but whether it entailed an in effect sectarian interpretation of these obligations, whether it entailed obligations designed to exclude others, whether it entailed that Jew remain distinct from Gentile (similarly Rom. 3:20—see my Romans 153–5, 210, 213; also ‘Works’ 219–25, 237–41; also ‘Once More, Works’).” (Page 137)

“‘Works of the law’ would mean in principle all that the faithful Israelite had to do as a member of the chosen people, that is, as distinct from ‘Gentile sinners’.” (Page 136)

“in Hebrew thought ‘righteousness’ was more a concept of relation.” (Page 134)

“to be righteous was to live within the covenant and within the terms it laid down (the law)” (Page 134)

Praise for the Print Edition

It is welcome news that the addition to this well-known series of New Testament commentaries intended for a wide readership has now been supplied. A special welcome awaits James Dunn's edition of Galatians which stands as a companion piece to his monumental Romans. The new volume is accessible to a wider audience since it is written in an attractively simple and succinct style, yet tackling the hard problems this epistle poses. Ministers and students will appreciate Dunn's restatement of his earlier contributions to Pauline theology and his reactions to the ongoing debate on such issues as the 'works of the law.' The general reader, moreover, will find this a sure-footed and profitable guide to what is in some ways the heart of Paul's gospel, both doctrinal and ethical.

—Professor R. P. Martin, The University of Sheffield

Product Details

• Title: The Epistle to the Galatians
• Author: James D.G. Dunn
• Publisher: Hendrickson
• Publication Date: 1993
• Pages: 400

About James D. G. Dunn

James D. G. Dunn (1939–) is emeritus Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham and is a leading British New Testament scholar. Dunn is a significant proponent of the New Perspective on Paul, and coined the term in a 1982 lecture. He received a PhD and DD from the University of Cambridge, and a MA and BD from the University of Glasgow. In 2002 he became only the third British scholar to be made the president of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas.

His recent works include Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? The New Testament Evidence, A New Perspective on Jesus: What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed, the volumes Romans 1–8 and Romans 9–16 of the Word Biblical Commentary, and The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon in The New International Greek Testament Commentary (12 vols.).