Galatians New Testament

Introduction to Galatians

Galatians is Paul’s earliest letter that he wrote just before the Council of Jerusalem in AD 50. Paul had just recently planted these churches in the South Galatians region, when to his surprise, false teachers entered these churches after he left in order to turn these new believers from grace to legalism. In Galatians, Paul argues for his apostolic authority and for grace over law.

Authorship

Paul claims to be the author of this letter (Gal. 1:1; 5:2), and hardly anyone contests this claim. Even the highly critical Tübingen School of F.C. Baur of the 19^th century believed that this letter was genuine. Baur wrote that Galatians bears “so incontestably the character of Pauline originality, that there is no conceivable ground for the assertion of critical doubts in their case.”[] Today, even “extreme critics agree that it was written by the apostle Paul,”[] and it is the “best authenticated”[] of Paul’s letters.

Date: When was Galatians written?

Since we adopt the South Galatian theory (see below), we can date this letter just before the Council of Jerusalem. Carson and Moo write, “If the council [of Jerusalem] is rightly dated A.D. 48, then this is the date of Galatians.”[] Paul probably wrote Galatians in Acts 14:28. During this time, Paul was resting in between his first missionary journey and the forthcoming Council of the Jerusalem (Acts 15). He must have written this letter almost immediately after he planted the churches in the Galatian region, because he writes that the believers had so “quickly” deserted the gospel (Gal. 1:6).

Scholars claim that Paul was converted on the Damascus Road sometime between 1-3 years after Jesus’ resurrection. Presuming that we date Christ’s death to AD 33 (see Dating Jesus’ Death: April 3, AD 33), we can know that Paul’s letter was written at least fourteen years after his conversion. This would put us around AD 48 for his visit to Jerusalem.[] This means that this letter could not be written earlier than AD 48, because he mentions this fourteen-year gap in his letter:

(Gal. 1:18) “Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days.”

(Gal. 2:1) “Then after an interval of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along also.”

Most commentators do not believe that we should add the three years of Galatians 1:18 with the fourteen years of Galatians 2:1. Instead, both figures are dated from Paul’s conversion: Three years after his conversion he went to Jerusalem, and fourteen years after his conversion he went up again to Jerusalem.

Paul tells the Corinthians that he instructed the Galatians to give to the poor (1 Cor. 16:1). And yet, when we read Galatians, Paul doesn’t mention this to them, even though he does mention ministering to the poor in general (Gal. 2:10). This means that Paul likely spoke to the Galatians after this letter was written but before 1 Corinthians was written. Most scholars agree that 1 Corinthians was written sometime around AD 55.[] Therefore, Paul must have written Galatians before this time. Thus, R. Alan Cole,[] Ronald Fung,[] and Timothy George[] date the letter sometime around AD 48-49, right before the Council of Jerusalem. Consequently, many scholars believe that Galatians is arguably the earliest NT letter. If this is the case, then this is Paul’s first letter,[] and maybe the earliest letter in the NT (though compare with the letter of James).