Paul's contestation of Israel's memory of Abraham in Galatians 3

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Spring, 2006 by Philip F. Esler

This essay proposes an explanation for the prominent role of Abraham in Galatians 3. While the view of existing scholarship that Paul is responding to a case being made by his opponents is accepted, there are difficulties with the current proposals. Paul's opponents are not likely to have invoked Abraham as part of a theological case, or because of his connection with circumcision or with blessings. An explanation is needed which focuses on the question of Abrahamic descent in the totality of its dimensions. By adopting aspects of theories of ethnicity, social identity and, above all, collective memory, it is argued, first, that Abraham was central to the ethnic identity and collective memory of first century Judeans and that Paul's opponents were offering his converts the exalted status of Abrahamic descent as a reward for becoming Judeans through circumcision. Second, Paul's argument in Galatians 3 represents a fundamental contestation of this memory. He formulates a counter-memory for installation in the hearts and minds of his audience. He does this by arguing that the "seed" or descendants of Abraham to whom God had made promises were not Judeans but rather Christ and those who were one with him in baptism. Thus he wrenches the prize that was Abraham from the Judeans and lodges it among his mixed congregations of non-Judean and Judean Christ-followers. The audacity of Paul's enterprise is evident in his leaving no room for Judeans who had not found faith in Christ to be Abraham's descendants, a radical position from which he would later withdraw in Romans 4.

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The function of Abraham in Paul's letter to the Galatians has received considerable attention from scholars, not least in G. W. Hansen's 1989 monograph and Jeffrey Siker's shorter treatment of the subject in 1991. Such attention is more than justified. Paul mentions Abraham nineteen times, but these instances are concentrated in two of his letters, with nine in Galatians, mostly in Chapter 3 (3:6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 16, 18, and 29) and one later in the section on Sarah and Hagar (4:22), and nine more in Romans, mostly in Chapter 4 (4:1, 2, 3, 9, 12, 13, 16), with the two remaining examples coming later (9:7 and 11:1). The remaining instance occurs in 2 Corinthians 11:22. None of the deutero-Pauline letters mentions Abraham.

Prominent themes in the current discussion of Abraham in Galatians include the reason Paul introduces him (probably in response to the case being mounted by his opponents in Galatia), the character of, and rationale for, his picture of Abraham (especially the question over the identity of his true descendants), and differences between the presentation of the patriarch here and in Romans.

My aim in this article is to investigate the role of Abraham in Galatians 3 in relation to the emerging interest in collective memory, especially the extent to which such memory embraces great figures from the past and is contested between groups. The recent interest on the part of biblical scholars in the field of collective memory, an area now embracing sociology and anthropology that was pioneered by Maurice Halbwachs before the Second World War but has only in the last two decades come to the forefront of social-scientific reflection, reflects, as Andreas Huyssen has noted, the emergence of memory as a key concern of contemporary society. In addition to the two seminal works by Halbwachs (1980; 1992), in the last twenty years there have been a stream of significant texts, with notable contributions by Paul Connerton, James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Gary Fine, Jeffrey Olick, Nachmann Ben-Yehuda, Barry Schartz and Eviatar Zerubabel. Jeffrey Olick and Joyce Robbins usefully surveyed this field as it then stood in 1998. It is disappointing and surprising, therefore, to find historians writing about memory without reference to the vibrant sociological and anthropological literature--as a case in point, Halbwachs is not mentioned in the admittedly excellent 2003 collection of essays edited by Katharine Hodgkin and Susannah Radstone, Contested Pasts: The Politics of Memory. For reasons that will shortly become apparent, I find it essential to integrate notions of collective memory within a broader investigative framework that includes perspectives on group identity and ethnicity.

There are five major sections to this article. In the first I survey the relevant data in Galatians 3 and briefly consider some current scholarly approaches to it. In the second I consider how Abraham and Abrahamic descent were closely connected with the ethnic identity of first century Judeans, including those in Galatia putting pressure on Paul's converts. In the third section I explain how Abraham featured in the collective memory of first century Judeans. In the fourth section I offer an interpretation of Galatians 3:6-29, arguing that here Paul is concerned to contest the memory of Abraham and to attach his descent to the Christ-movement, detaching it from Israel in the process. I offer some concluding observations in the fifth and final section.