Galatia 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ¹  an apostle (not from men, nor by human agency, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead)

Galatia 2:6

2:6 But from those who were influential ²  (whatever they were makes no difference to me; God shows no favoritism between people ³ ) – those influential leaders ⁴  added ⁵  nothing to my message. ⁶ 

Galatia 3:19

3:19 Why then was the law given? ⁷  It was added ⁸  because of transgressions, ⁹  until the arrival of the descendant ¹⁰  to whom the promise had been made. It was administered ¹¹  through angels by an intermediary. ¹² 

Galatia 3:21

3:21 Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? ¹³  Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that was able to give life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. ¹⁴ 

[1:1]  ¹ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[2:6]  ² tn Or “influential leaders.” BDAG 255 s.v. δοκέω 2.a.β has “the influential men Gal 2:2, 6b. A fuller expr. w. the same mng., w. inf. added…vss. 6a, 9.” This refers to the leadership of the Jerusalem church.

[2:6]  ³ tn Grk “God does not receive the face of man,” an idiom for showing favoritism or partiality (BDAG 887-88 s.v. πρόσωπον 1.b.α; L&N 88.238).

[2:6]  ⁴ tn Or “influential people”; here “leaders” was used rather than “people” for stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy with the word “people” in the previous parenthetical remark. See also the note on the word “influential” at the beginning of this verse.

[2:6]  ⁵ tn Or “contributed.” This is the same word translated “go to ask advice from” in 1:16, but it has a different meaning here; see L&N 59.72.

[2:6]  ⁶ tn Or “added nothing to my authority.” Grk “added nothing to me,” with what was added (“message,” etc.) implied.

[3:19]  ⁷ tn Grk “Why then the law?”

[3:19]  ⁸ tc For προσετέθη (proseteqh) several Western mss have ἐτέθη (eteqh, “it was established”; so D* F G it Ir^lat Ambst Spec). The net effect of this reading, in conjunction with the largely Western reading of πράξεων (praxewn) for παραβάσεων (parabasewn), seems to be a very positive assessment of the law. But there are compelling reasons for rejecting this reading: (1) externally, it is provincial and relatively late; (2) internally: (a) transcriptionally, there seems to be a much higher transcriptional probability that a scribe would try to smooth over Paul’s harsh saying here about the law than vice versa; (b) intrinsically: [1] Paul has already argued that the law came after the promise (vv. 15-18), indicating, more than likely, its temporary nature; [2] the verb “was added” in v. 19 (προσετέθη) is different from the verb in v. 15 (ἐπιδιατάσσεται, epidiatassetai); virtually all exegetes recognize this as an intentional linguistic shift on Paul’s part in order not to contradict his statement in v. 15; [3] the temper of 3:1–4:7 is decidedly against a positive statement about the Torah’s role in Heilsgeschichte.

[3:19]  ⁹ tc παραδόσεων (paradosewn; “traditions, commandments”) is read by D*, while the vast majority of witnesses read παραβάσεων (parabasewn, “transgressions”). D’s reading makes little sense in this context. πράξεων (praxewn, “of deeds”) replaces παραβάσεων in Ì⁴⁶ F G it Ir^lat Ambst Spec. The wording is best taken as going with νόμος (nomo"; “Why then the law of deeds?”), as is evident by the consistent punctuation in the later witnesses. But such an expression is unpauline and superfluous; it was almost certainly added by some early scribe(s) to soften the blow of Paul’s statement.

[3:19]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “the seed.” See the note on the first occurrence of the word “descendant” in 3:16.

[3:19]  ¹¹ tn Or “was ordered.” L&N 31.22 has “was put into effect” here.

[3:19]  ¹² tn Many modern translations (NASB, NIV, NRSV) render this word (μεσίτης, mesith"; here and in v. 20) as “mediator,” but this conveys a wrong impression in contemporary English. If this is referring to Moses, he certainly did not “mediate” between God and Israel but was an intermediary on God’s behalf. Moses was not a mediator, for example, who worked for compromise between opposing parties. He instead was God’s representative to his people who enabled them to have a relationship, but entirely on God’s terms.

[3:21]  ¹³ tc The reading τοῦ θεοῦ (tou qeou, “of God”) is well attested in א A C D (F G read θεοῦ without the article) Ψ 0278 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy co. However, Ì⁴⁶ B d Ambst lack the words. Ì⁴⁶ and B perhaps should not to be given as much weight as they normally are, since the combination of these two witnesses often produces a secondary shorter reading against all others. In addition, one might expect that if the shorter reading were original other variants would have crept into the textual tradition early on. But 104 (a.d. 1087) virtually stands alone with the variant τοῦ Χριστοῦ (tou Cristou, “of Christ”). Nevertheless, if τοῦ θεοῦ were not part of the original text, it is the kind of variant that would be expected to show up early and often, especially in light of Paul’s usage elsewhere (Rom 4:20; 2 Cor 1:20). A slight preference should be given to the τοῦ θεοῦ over the omission. NA²⁷ rightly places the words in brackets, indicating doubts as to their authenticity.

[3:21]  ¹⁴ tn Or “have been based on the law.”