The Letter to the Galatians is intended to resolve a conflict. New missionaries are spreading the view that one has to be circumcised in order to belong to God=s people. Against this, Paul argues that through Jesus Christ, the son of Abraham and the son of God, and his sacrifice on the Cross, those who belong to him are also children of Abraham and at the same time children of God, and they are free from the Law. This view of the Gospel as representing freedom from the Biblical and Jewish Law went on to make history& often with anti-Jewish undertones. But in the Letter to the Galatians, Paul again advocates a very much wider understanding of the Hebrew Bible. On the basis of that understanding, he presses the view that devotion to Jesus Christ means liberation into a new life. In hermeneutic reflections and in a longer concluding section, the commentary enters into an engaging and critical discussion with the Pauline Gospel.

Peter von der Osten-Sacken is Emeritus Professor of New Testament and Christian&Judaic Studies and Director of the Church and Judaism Institute at Humboldt University, Berlin.