Community-Identity Construction in Galatians: Exegetical, Social-Anthropological and Socio-Historical Studies (The Library of New Testament Studies)

The issue of community-identity construction in Galatians is considered using two methods: first, by applying anthropological theories to the mechanism and natures of community-identity and its construction, and second, by comparing the Galatian community with another minority religious community. Asano argues that Paul's effort at identity construction is partially conditioned by his self-awareness as an autonomous apostle and by the external pressures of the significant groups elsewhere. Paul's conflict, depicted in Galatians 2 and projected upon the Galatian situation, is understood as a conflict between the ethno-centred and the'instrumental mode'of community constructions, the latter of which is free from the constraints of core ethnic sentiment. Galatians 4.21-31 is identified as a conceptual framework (or'recreated worldview') for the community members to be assured of their authentic existence under marginalizing pressure. This recreated worldview is ritually acted out in baptism with the egalitarian motif (Gal 3.28) to help internalize the authentic identity. Finally, Paul's letter is suggested to have functioned as a physical locus of community-identity. Thus the autographic marker (Gal 6.11) directs the attention of the audience not only to the conceptual content but to the presence of the founding apostle that the letter replaces. This book considers issues of community-identity construction, with particular focus on the context and patterns thereof, as put forth in Paul's letter to the Galatians. Both the study of Galatians in particular and Pauline studies in general have been dominated since the Enlightenment by what is essentially a history of ideas; even the so-called "New Perspective" on Paul's relation to the Torah may be thought of as essentially a reformulation of this discussion of ideas. By focusing particularly on the issue of identity, the author offers to the "sculpture" of the earliest Church shaped by many forerunners in the field of New Testament studies, a new contour, i.e. a contour of the reality of religious experience. The author offers two approaches--one is the application of social-anthropological theories on identity, which provide insights not only on the "mechanism" of how community-identity is constructed but also on the nature of community-identity that gives insights to the relationship between communities involved in this study -- INTRODUCTION.