ABSTRACT
The commentary on Paul's epistle to his disciples in Galatia is sandwiched between the formulation, at one level and the resolution, at another level, of key questions that continue to intrigue us some two millennia after Paul. The very form of this procedure is a tribute to the topicality and enduring relevance of the Apostle's thought. This is not a typical commentary on Galatians, few of which can any longer lay claim to much originality at this late hour in Christian scholarship. Students of Paul's epistles are enmeshed in various disputes. There is, for example, no consensus regarding the authorship of Ephesians, its intended recipients, date of composition or even its provenance. Galatians is, however, mysterious for an unusual reason. The letter to the Galatians was probably penned some six hundred years before the Caliph Umar walked barefoot into Christian Byzantine Jerusalem to declare it a city under Muslim protection.
