Background on Swanson’s textual work on Galatians?

Tonight I came across an interesting website produced by Gary S. Dykes which claims to provide background information on the late Reuben J. Swanson’s process of collating NT manuscripts. Once you get past the colours, the information Dykes provides gives a lot of background on how Swanson worked and the completeness and accuracy of the published collations. Thankfully, he believes that Galatians is one of his most accurate volumes. On the other hand Dykes is quite harsh with regards to the quality of the gospel volumes and claims that Swanson made a large number of errors which made it to press because no double checking by a third party was carried out and his manuscript copies were often of poor quality.

Swanson, Reuben., ed. New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Variant Readings Arranged in Horizontal Lines Against Codex Vaticanus. Galatians. Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1999. 0842339744, 978-0842339742. William Carey, 2002. 0865850690, 9780865850699.

Antique Commentary Notes

I stumbled across Chuck Grantham’s Antique Commentary Notes on Galatians today. He has put a lot of work into pasting selections from Luther, Calvin, Gill, etc. Here is the link for his post on chapter five. He’s a “Southern Baptist of the Calvinist kind” so naturally his selected of material leans in that direction.

Pistis Christou and 2 Corinthians 4:13

Douglas Atchison Campbell, a strong proponent of the subjective genitive view has published an article in the latest issue of JBL in which he argues that 2 Corinthians 4:13 provides evidence for Jesus being the subject of the verb. He concludes:

this text provides an instance of the verb πιστεύω being used in Paul with Christ as its implicit subject, with a further application of his ongoing belief to the Christian by way of the Spirit, who is also specified in context. Consequently, this text contributes significantly to the πίστις Χριστοῦ debate even though its contributions might not be immediately apparent (356).

In this article he interacts extensively with the literature on Galatians and it is another worthwhile contribution to this debate, which seems to have become of extreme interest to him. By my count this is the eighth publication in which he has spoken to this issue. I have updated my bibliography with this article and another. Happy reading!

Campbell, Douglas A. “2 Corinthians 4:13: Evidence in Paul That Christ Believes.” Journal of Biblical Literature. 128:2 (2009): 337-356.

John Riches reviewed again

The latest issue of The Expository Times is out and John Riches’ Galatians Through the Centuries has garnered another review:

Reviewed by Stephen Chester, The Expository Times. 120:10 (2009): 490-492.

Three other reviews of this book are:

Reviewed by Martin Meiser: http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/6436_6950.pdf
Reviewed by John Dunnill: http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/6436_6951.pdf
Reviewed by Simon Gathercole, Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 60 (2009): 318-319.

Gupta reviews Fee

Nijay Gupta has begun a review of Gordon Fee’s Galatians commentary in the Pentecostal series. So far he has just introduced it and provided a list of other commentaries that Fee worked with. I’m not sure if this is that helpful because Fee was very specific in advanced exegesis class that he alway worked through a passage, identified the issues, and attempted to solve them himsef before consulating other works. He admitted that this isn’t the only way to proceed as his son believed in reading up on the passage first and seeing what issues are being wrestled with by others before approaching the passage himself. I will let you know when Gupta continues this review.

Gordon D. Fee,  Galatians: A Pentecostal Commentary. Deo Publishing, 2007. 1905679025, 9781905679027.

June 19 Gupta has posted part two of his review in which he summarises many of Fee’s positions and looks at how he relates to the NPP. It is definitely worth reading and provides a good summary and interaction with Fee.

New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Galatians

The late Reuben J. Swanson is best known for his New Testament Greek Manuscripts series in which variant readings are arranged in horizontal lines against Codex Vaticanus. His books, including that on Galatians, are now available from SBL in addition to Eisenbrauns.

Reuben J. Swanson, ed. New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Galatians. Variant Readings Arranged in Horizontal Lines Against Codex Vaticanus. William Carey International University Press, 2000. 0865850690, 9780865850699.

Jason Meyer on Galatians 3:10

Jason Meyer began a four part series today discussing “Galatians 3:10 and the ‘Works of the Law’ (ex ergōn nomou).” He introduces it as a slightly revised version of a discussion in his forthcoming book: The End of the Law: Mosaic Covenant in Pauline Theology. Nashville: B & H Academic, 2009. 080544842X, 9780805448429.

The first post is concerned with the meaning of “from the works of the law” (ex ergōn nomou eisin). He argues that it should be taken in a purely descriptive way; i.e. as “works demanded by the law.” In this he positions himself within the stream of Douglas Moo and Moises Silva. I will be interested to see where he takes this series in the next three sections.

June 5 The second post looks at the inferences of his conclusion about the interpretation “works demanded by the law.” According to this conclusion 3:10 should be translated as “for as many as are ‘of the works commanded by the law’ are under a curse.” The natural question is “why does a curse come to those who are of the works of the law?” This post looks at some of the ways in which scholars have dealt with the logic of 3:10. He promises that the next post will look at how to asses the various answers to the logic of 3:10.

June 7 Meyer’s third post claims that “Neither the traditional nor the redemptive-historical view goes far enough in its analysis of the law. The problem with the Law is three-fold: (1) anthropology, (2) ontology, and (3) chronology.” He then looks at the first two of these issues. He concludes with charting the law/flesh and faith/spirit contrast, concluding, “The joining of the Law and flesh highlights the two problems we have been discussing. The Law (though good and spiritual) does not have the power (ontological problem) to overcome the flesh (anthropological problem).”

June 8 Meyer completed his series on Galatians 3:10 today by discussing whether or not Paul implied that the Law requires perfect obedience. Not surprisingly, Meyer disagrees with Sanders and others of the NPP persuasion. He ends by hoping that this discussion will continue in the blogosphere.

Meyer seems to be solidly Baptist; currently assistant professor of Religion (New Testament and Greek) at Louisiana College in Pineville, Louisiana and holding degrees from Oklahoma Wesleyan University (BS) and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (MDiv, PhD). His PhD was earned under Tom Schreiner and his dissertation is being published later this year as the book mentioned above.