Therefore, questions regarding the recipients and the destination of any biblical text are important for more than just critical scholars. In the first century B. Having been willed to Rome in 25 B. According to scholars, there are only two conceivable destinations for this letter. This, it would seem, makes the position of the Church fathers a good assessment of their contemporary common viewpoint, but no real indicator as to the actual intended audience of the Apostle Paul.
In fact, Carson and Moo list as many as eight points of positive argument for the proposition. For the discussion here, several will surely suffice. Their point is that the term was simply acceptable shorthand for the audience they claim as most likely. Next, it is argued that Phrygians would not have found the label of Galatians very appealing as a designative term to include them.
It is said that both Phrygians and Lycaonians would have perceived the term as an insult to them because it would remind them of their Roman rule. In both of these chapters Luke uses specific designations for certain cities in relation to their geography. The Apostle Paul was a traveling evangelist if he was anything, and his missionary journeys are famous. It would be perfectly in keeping with what we know of the Apostle Paul to consider his interest in making the most of an opportunity provided him by God to proclaim the Gospel to the people of north Galatia.
Yet, there is no mention of any opposition experienced by Paul in any Galatian city. It seems that a reasonable explanation for this confusion lack of persecution would be that the Apostle was writing not to several cities across the Roman province of Galatia, but to a particular people group — namely the Celtic tribes — in northern Galatia. The reasons listed here are all, with the exception of the last one mentioned, provided with a retort and even dismissed as they are listed in most of the material investigated for this essay.
As mentioned earlier, Galatia was a large Roman province that included a much greater expanse than the Celtic tribal loci. In fact, the cities of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe were all included in the southern region of Galatia. Luke writes of these named cities as places where the Apostle Paul founded churches on his first missionary journey, which is documented in Acts through Acts This ground of the debate is so vital that it hardly needs stressing, and one might think there be no reason to continue the discussion in terms of uncertainty regarding the destination of the letter to the Galatians.
Yet, there is more. Acts , 6. If the Apostle Paul would have actually made the trek north to the Celtic tribes located there, he would have started at another beginning point. Paul was repeatedly traveling to the cities and along the routes that would provide him the greatest numerical audience and farthest possible reach for his message. Paul would most certainly have gone anywhere and preached to anyone, but he was a masterful tactical evangelist.
The churches of North Galatia seem less likely to go unnoticed by the New Testament text than does a single church in northern Galatia.
While it is possible, it is all the more unlikely that the audience is multiple unknown churches northern Galatia. Additionally, the experiences of the Apostle Paul among the churches of Galatia recounted in the letter that bears the name are personal and seemingly extended over time.
Lastly, the churches of Galatia can hardly be thought to have gone completely unnamed while seemingly enjoying such broad knowledge and even guests from other places. The writer goes on to draw out the dating dilemma,. Paul visited Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe all cities in south Galatia on his first and second missionary journeys. If Paul wrote to southern Galatia, he probably wrote to those churches early in his career, shortly after the first missionary journey, or about the time of the Jerusalem Council Acts 15; cf.
The date most often given by those who hold this view is A. Indeed, this would prove to be incredibly noteworthy. If the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the churches of Galatia in or about 49 A. Christians would have good reason to see the foundational structure of the faith once and for all delivered to the saints Jude delivered specifically to the saints of Galatia very early on Galatians Download this article as a free PDF.
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