I shared a paper nearly a year ago on the Identity of the Galatian Preachers.
The link is: http://mikeswhitney.com/here/PaperMa...lsIdentity.pdf
The general idea is that Paul never sought to correct the message or behavior of these preachers. This indicates that these preachers weren't Christians.
Galatians 6:12 has been narrowly interpreted to improperly think that the preachers could only be Christians. The phrase 'persecuted for the sake of the cross' normally is interpreted to be a description of the preachers' Christian viewpoint, however, the text can equally be describing the motives of the persecutors.
My reconstruction of the situation is that non-Christian Jews were promoting a law-accommodating gospel under pressure from a persecuting group of Jews (mentioned in 6:12). This latter group was pushing for the Jews in Galatia to disrupt the gentile Christians, to trip them up.
I am developing the idea further to describe what gospel was being preached. But I thought I would go ahead and open up the discussion on this 2017 topic.
The link is: http://mikeswhitney.com/here/PaperMa...lsIdentity.pdf
The general idea is that Paul never sought to correct the message or behavior of these preachers. This indicates that these preachers weren't Christians.
Galatians 6:12 has been narrowly interpreted to improperly think that the preachers could only be Christians. The phrase 'persecuted for the sake of the cross' normally is interpreted to be a description of the preachers' Christian viewpoint, however, the text can equally be describing the motives of the persecutors.
My reconstruction of the situation is that non-Christian Jews were promoting a law-accommodating gospel under pressure from a persecuting group of Jews (mentioned in 6:12). This latter group was pushing for the Jews in Galatia to disrupt the gentile Christians, to trip them up.
I am developing the idea further to describe what gospel was being preached. But I thought I would go ahead and open up the discussion on this 2017 topic.
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