Irony of Galatians: Paul's Letter in First-Century Context, The

Theology Today, Oct 2002 by Skinner, Matthew L

The Irony of Galatians: Paul's Letter in First-Century Context. Mark D. Nanos, Minneapolis, Fortress, 2002. 376 pp. $26.00.

Nanos argues that Galatians employs irony to rebuke believers who contemplate completing Jewish rites of proselyte conversion to shed definitively their identity and responsibilities as pagans in Greco-Roman society. Paddling against prevailing currents of scholarly opinion, Nanos asserts that those influencing Paul's congregations were neither believers, outsiders, nor necessarily resistant to Paul's mission, but Galatian Jews (possibly gentile proselytes themselves) aiming to help believers move beyond their status as guests within synagogue communities. Paul's letter castigates its addressees' misunderstanding of the gospel's power to grant them complete inclusion among the people of God through a new creation.

The author navigates via historical, rhetorical, and social-scientific approaches, which unfortunately never quite achieve a cooperative or coherent presentation. The book's disappointingly thin treatments of literary irony and some relevant historical contexts, as well as its striking inattention to numerous passages of Galatians that other interpreters have found central for determining the occasion of Paul's letter, leave Nanos's hypothesis unsubstantiated by the pertinent evidence.

Matthew L. Skinner, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN