Chapter 1

1 From Paul, an apostle (not from men, nor by human agency, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead) 2 and all the brothers with me, to the churches of Galatia. 3 Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory forever and ever! Amen.⁠ 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are following a different gospel— 7 not that there really is another gospel, but there are some who are disturbing you and wanting to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we (or an angel from heaven) should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be condemned to hell! 9 As we have said before, and now I say again, if any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be condemned to hell! 10 Am I now trying to gain the approval of people, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ! 11 Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 For I did not receive it or learn it from any human source; instead I received it by a revelation of Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I was savagely persecuting the church of God and trying to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my nation, and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.⁠ 15 But when the one who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace was pleased⁠ 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I could preach him among the Gentiles, I did not go to ask advice from any human being, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me, but right away I departed to Arabia, and then returned to Damascus. 18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and get information from him, and I stayed with him fifteen days. 19 But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother. 20 I assure you that, before God, I am not lying about what I am writing to you! 21 Afterward I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 But I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.⁠ 23 They were only hearing, “The one who once persecuted us is now proclaiming the good news of the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 So they glorified God because of me.

Texts in conversation

Compare Galatians 1:16 and Chagigah 15a

New Testament · Rabbinic

Summary

In Galatians, Paul describes a revelation of Jesus that gave him authority to teach. Rabbinic tradition in Tractate Chagigah describes a similar heavenly figure given authority alongside God, reflecting a tradition where divine visions give authority.

Passages

Galatians 1:16

New Testament

11 Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 For I did not receive it or learn it from any human source; instead I received it by a revelation of Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I was savagely persecuting the church of God and trying to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my nation, and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. 15 But when the one who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I could preach him among the Gentiles, I did not go to ask advice from any human being, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me, but right away I departed to Arabia, and then returned to Damascus.

48–55 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Galatians

Chagigah 15a

Rabbinic · Babylonian Talmud

§ The Gemara stated earlier that Aḥer chopped down the saplings, becoming a heretic. With regard to him, the verse states: “Do not let your mouth bring your flesh into guilt” (Ecclesiastes 5:5). The Gemara poses a question: What was it that led him to heresy? He saw the angel Mitatron, who was granted permission to sit and write the merits of Israel. He said: There is a tradition that in the world above there is no sitting; no competition; no turning one’s back before Him, i.e., all face the Divine Presence; and no lethargy. Seeing that someone other than God was seated above, he said: Perhaps, the Gemara here interjects, Heaven forbid, there are two authorities, and there is another source of power in control of the world in addition to God. Such thoughts led Aḥer to heresy.

450–550 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Chagigah

References

"... According to Galatians 1:16, Saul now understood that the glorious human figure seated on the throne was Jesus. There is an affinity of Paul’s views with those known in rabbinic sources, where a second power is given authority alongside God (e.g. bḤagigah 15a; 3 Enoch 16). These were exactly the views which were typical of the early Christians, including Paul, who on the basis of Psalm 110 (“The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand’”) gave the exalted Christ a position of prominence and divine authority, albeit derived from God the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24–28; compare Matthew 22:44). The problem posed for his contemporaries by Paul, was that he seemed to have engaged in what might have appeared as an “undisciplined” apocalyptic exegesis, whose christological consequences were at odds with the total exegesis of the Scripture he inherited from his Pharisaic teachers. Thus, for Paul, the Law of Moses and the culture in which he had been brought up took a subordinate place to the exalted messiah whom he had met in an apocalyptic vision. However much Paul may have protested, as the accounts in Acts suggest that he did, the basic challenge he posed was that it was not the tradition handed down from Moses through the elders and teachers to the ancient “fathers” which mattered, but the exercise of “apocalyptic imagination” which authenticated that tradition. That was the decisive move: first experience, and only then, the tradition ..."

Christopher Rowland, “Paul as an Apocalyptist,” in The Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the Shaping of New Testamenmt Thought, ed. Loren T. Stuckenbruck (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017), 131–154.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Galatians6 chapters

Compare Galatians 1:16 and Chagigah 15a

Summary

Passages

Galatians 1:16

Chagigah 15a

References

Tags

Your feedback

Leave a comment

Glossary

Search the Library