This essay begins by situating our discussion within a broader conversation about hermeneutics, authorial intent, and the reader’s position. Having done so, I give a summary of the major historical-critical attempts to decode what Paul meant in Galatians 2:10. In this section, I argue that the diversity of interpretations reveals significant issues with detached scholarship and the likelihood of understanding authorial purpose. In response to this viewpoint, I propose re-situating the passage in the light of the living Church, for whom it is sacred Scripture. This approach is more concerned with practical application than with abstract speculation about the author’s mental life. My main point is that biblical texts exist in the context of human action, and that language itself is a way of facilitating such expressions. My epistemology takes an ethical turn at this stage, because I affirm that how we live out our texts will have clear ethical, political, and social implications. I find the content of this ethical material in the narrative example of Christ, who is the subject of our text. After addressing issues of historicity in reconstructing this ethic, I suggest that the overarching thrust of Christ’s action is one of liberation and compassion for the oppressed and marginalised. I conclude this essay by returning our attention to the welfare state, arguing that it is one potential arena in which these theological symbols can be made understandable and concrete.
In a number of contexts, Paul teaches an ethic of charity that many see to be in continuity with a traditional Jewish grammar of generosity.[1] Attempts to demonstrate Paul’s commitment to helping the poor often cite the Jerusalem collection as evidence of a generous ethic, and many would interpret Galatians 2:10 in this context.[2] Of course, it would be impossible to claim that this reference to the poor resembles anything like an all-purpose clarification of his views on generosity. As we will see shortly, we can apply a variety of hermeneutical methodologies to this passage, each of which has the potential to produce a different meaning. Even if the meaning of this text was not obscured in some way, there is still the task of explaining why this text can or should be an interpretive tool for understanding the present. Indeed, we also need to consider the complicated relationship between the text and the actions of those that consider it sacred. These actions, at their application, exist quite separately from any knowledge about the psychic life of the author or their intent for the text. While historical awareness of authorial purpose may inspire specific actions, the plurality of behaviours out there demonstrates that these cannot be attributed to a singular textual meaning. All of these questions are profoundly entwined with the larger enquiry of what constitutes meaning and where it can be found. Is the meaning of our text a static and closed linguistic construct? Does the interpreter play a part in its construction? These questions are predicated on the assumption that our text does have a meaning, even if only in terms of discourse and practical application. Our challenge will be discovering what that meaning is, and how we should understand it in relation to the present day.
We will start this investigation by examining the approach taken by the vast majority of Biblical scholars. Indeed, during my undergraduate studies just two years ago, the bulk of my tutors took this approach. The historical critical method, also known as historical criticism, refers to a group of related hermeneutical methods that share their roots in Enlightenment thought. These can include source criticism, form criticism, textual criticism, and redaction criticism. The historical core of this approach is that biblical texts should be studied like any other ancient sources. As opposed to a single corpus of holy scriptures, individual texts are broken up and seen as artefacts of human construction and meaning. As John Tietjen describes it, ‘since the Scriptures were written by men in particular historical situations, the Scriptures can be studied and researched like other human writings.’[3] Given the difficulties discussed above, the historical critical approach may help us to find a fixed and objective meaning in the text and side-step concerns about the reader. In this view, scripture has only one meaning, which is attributed to it by the person who wrote it first in the light of their historical situation. Since the interpreter of history is still distinct from the historical subject, the subjective aspect is not fully excluded, but it is severely restricted. Perhaps this recently maligned approach can assist us in our investigation? After all, biblical texts like Galatians 2:10 propose to speak about real historical events. In this passage, Paul was not writing symbolic stories about things outside of the human experience, and so perhaps we should expect that at least some of its meaning will be found in that historical process.
Let us attempt, then, to ascertain what exactly Paul meant when he spoke of the poor in Galatians 2:10. The generally accepted historical interpretation of Galatians 2:10 is that any acts of charity it promotes serve a specific historical function, namely Paul’s collection for Jerusalem. This consensus comes from an understanding of the poor (τῶv πτωχῶν) as an honorific title interchangeable with the Jerusalem Church as a whole. This line of thought is mostly attributed to Karl Holl, but Bruce Longenecker has shown that it is far from new and can be found in a number of early Church fathers.[4] It is remarkable how widespread and accepted this theory has become. For example, Dieter Georgi writes, ‘the absolute use of this appellation in Galatians 2:10 and the fact that it does not need any explanation show that it must have been a title commonly bestowed upon the congregation.’[5] Similarly, a 2010 commentary on the subject confidently asserts without much qualification that, ‘the poor here refer to Jewish Christians.’[6] The foundations of this consensus are found in the argument that the Jerusalem Church often referred to itself collectively as the poor. This self-designation of the community is thought to have been found in the earliest beginnings of the Christian community and ratified in the later identification of these groups as ‘Ebionites.’ The name Ebionite is derived from the Hebrew אביונים (ebyonim) meaning ‘the poor’. This name is thought to be a deliberate reminiscence of an earlier tradition, which Paul may be referring to in Galatians 2:10. As Hengel summarises, ‘the poor are not simply the materially poor; what we have here is a religious title which the earliest community adopted and which is preserved in later designation of the Palestinian Jewish Christians as ‘Ebionites.’[7]
If we equate the text’s historical content with its meaning and moral guidance, then Paul’s address to the body of Jerusalem believers does not constitute a universal moral language. Indeed, it is often argued that Paul’s concern for the poor was secondary, and that the subject is rarely addressed in his letters. Larry Hurtado suggests that the phrase remember the poor is often thought to be ‘of no real significance, and serves only to give an unimportant detail of the agreement with Jerusalem’.[8] If we accept scripture’s position as an instructive revealed morality, it is difficult to make the connection between this historical event and a clear moral requirement for a welfare state. But is it really the case that the phrase ‘remember the poor’ can be so narrowly defined? In the mid-1960s, Leander Keck offered major challenge to the argument that ‘the poor’ acts as a classification for the Jerusalem Church as a whole. Keck’s analysis convincingly shows that there is little evidence that the Ebionites’ self-identification can be traced back to the earliest church. As Keck puts it, ‘there is insufficient reason for thinking that the Ebionite literature, in so far as it is recoverable, reflects a continuous line between the Ebionites and the hypothetical group calling itself ‘the poor’ in primitive Christianity.’[9] Bruce Longenecker expands on Keck’s work by tracing a general Pauline ethic of care for the poor into Tertullian, Origen, and Athanasius, who all recognise the term without a clear geographical limit. Longenecker goes on to argue that the command to consider the poor is a precept to which Paul adhered ‘from the very beginning of his apostolic ministry (in accordance with the traditions of the earliest followers of Jesus in Jerusalem).’[10]
These conflicting historical reconstructions of our text are paradigmatic examples of the profound flaws of the historical critical method. In our quest for historical features that give meaning to our verse, we have encountered the unavoidable likelihood of numerous reconstructions. Perhaps the problem here is the claim that texts can have a singular pre-discursive meaning that is discoverable independently from how the texts are used. This degree of historical certainty is difficult to achieve because we are always kept at a distance from the historical and social conditions of textual development. Theology, as discourse, is shaped by the identity of the exegete and the social conditions in which they carry out historical research. As Schüssler Fiorenza puts it, ‘since alternative symbolic universes engender competing definitions of the world, they cannot be reduced to one meaning. Therefore, competing interpretations of texts are not simply either right or wrong, but they constitute different ways of reading and constructing historical meaning.’[11] Further, the problem with a historical enquiry of this kind is that this certainty can never be achieved, because new historical evidence can always be uncovered that will undermine the confidence of our earlier conclusions. Indeed, the importance of these historical facts is always measured against modern notions of objectivity, which assume that we can speak for and over the biblical writers. The historical critic, far from being objective, is forced to implicitly describe the characteristics of true history, always limiting the possibilities of what the text can disclose to us. In our example, by limiting the words of Paul to one historical referent, we have lost strategic vision of the wider questions that can be asked of the bible as whole. Instead, we have generated a discourse about the past that only exists as a subjective construct of the historian.
At this point, we may be paralysed on several fronts. If we focus on the text as a historical artefact, we can be tempted to exclude it from daily circumstances and relegate its purpose to the realm of history. If we focus too intensely on our failure to achieve historical truth, then we risk losing contact with the text until such a time that we can speak more definitively of its meaning. It would be wrong, however, to fall into these traps, which imply the possibility of any free-floating text with no real-world consequences. Even if we wanted to, it is simply not possible to consign the meaning of the Bible to the past. The substance of the bible is very much alive and active in the Christian community’s use of it as authoritative scripture. I’d like to make the case here that we should shift our understanding of our text away from the reflective to participatory, in a way that affirms that exegetical agents, regardless of subjectivity, must always live out the implications of their reading. If textual precision was a prerequisite of action, then there would be no meaningful engagement with other people, because there would be nothing for our language to take as its object. But on the contrary, despite the imprecision of everyday talk, humans enjoy a rich abundance of meaningful action, which they employ in the context of lived experience. As a result, though it is true that texts cannot talk without readers, these readers cannot read apart from the rich ways in which they relate their understanding to the real world. The line between meaning and application becomes blurred here. These attitudes, acts, and community arrangements are answers to biblical questions, which, as Walter Wink puts it, ‘can only be answered participatorily, in terms of a lived response.’[12]
This method attempts to demonstrate that biblical texts exist in the context of human activity, and that language itself is a means of facilitating those expressions. We create the space to differentiate between what the author might have intended and what the living faithful community actually does. Nonetheless, if taking concrete action does not necessitate knowing precisely what Paul meant in Galatians 2:10, then our text might lead to an immense number of possible cultural applications. At first, it is difficult to see how this brings us any closer to understanding the text in relation to the present day welfare state. The actions surrounding, and in a sense inspired by the text, can be multiple, and as Robert Morgan has put it, ‘a Bible that can mean anything means nothing.’[13] Here there is value in applying some limits to our hermeneutical endeavour. Human acts, while meaningful, are not autonomous or self-contained to particular moments, but are inevitably linked to the effects they cause. Since these actions will have clear ethical, political, and social consequences, our hermeneutics must take an ethical turn. If scriptural texts have the power to promote both war and liberation, then the role of the exegete shifts from merely relaying authorial intent, to thinking about what kind of interpretation maximises human flourishing. As Schüssler Fiorenza has described it, ‘the rhetorical character of biblical interpretations and historical reconstructions, moreover, requires an ethics of accountability that stands responsible not only for the choice of theoretical interpretive models but also for the ethical consequences of the biblical text and its meanings.’[14] This ethical action model I propose allows us to discern the forms of action we consider meaningful without forcing us to accept any action as true. Our meaning is expressed in our actions insofar as our interpretations lead to responsible actions.
Thus, I am inviting us to consider that our understanding of Galatians should be based more on reflection about what kind of ethical community the Church wishes herself to be, than a historical dogma posing as objectivity. But where do we find the ethical principles that will illuminate our interpretation and action? A significant question here is whether we believe our text shapes us on the basis of the human Paul or transforms us through the divine Christ. Dissecting the text into the elements from which it is said to have derived obfuscates this point and distracts us from its key focus, which is ultimately the revealed Messiah. Paul himself writes, ‘for I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ’ (Galatians 1:11-12). This Christological center to our action gives us space to hear the full range of ethical factors at play. Since the Scriptures speak of this incarnate Christ, not as a neutral object of history, but as a living Messiah, we find in this textual emphasis a guiding core for our ethics. This is not a concept placed from above onto the text, but rather arises from it in a comprehensible and ethically informative manner. We are not interested here in using the historian’s scientific methodology to determine how much Paul knew about Jesus. We are concerned with illustrating that Jesus is fundamental to Paul’s life and thought in such a way that he becomes ethically important in considering our own responses to Pauline texts. Since our hermeneutics eventually leads to action, we are particularly concerned with the narrative revelation of Christ and how his story can inform our own. After all, Jesus was revealed in the context of an earthly narrative and as Sallie McFague puts it, ‘for the Christian, the story of Jesus is the story par excellence.’[15]
Here we might be challenged by the claim that any reliance on Jesus Christ necessitates a historical reconstruction of his person. However, for us to make Jesus’ life true and active today, the most important epistemological category is praxis, and not historicity. The key thing for us is to ascertain is what in Jesus prompted and continues to compel active engagement in ethical action. As Leonardo Boff points out, Christians can never speak of Jesus as if he were an object of history in a subject-object dichotomy; they must speak with him as a starting point and ‘as people are touched by the significance of his reality.’[16] Our interest, therefore, lies in discovering the essential structure of his practice, which will reveal the essential structure of his ethics. This stripped back approach, as paradoxical as it may seem, is as close to a historicity as is desirable for us to find. Jesus Christ did not come to offer an ethic that exists only in history and text, but to embody in action a call to become a part of a liberative community. In short, we are interested in the value that Jesus attached to his own life and actions, especially in the narrative aspects of his ethical life. To that end, the ethical principles which Jesus championed and for which in part he was killed were care for the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalised. The ethical thrust of Jesus’ incarnational revelation is one of love, justice, and mercy. This Kingdom preaching is participatory and action-oriented; he encourages us to follow in his footsteps and change the world around us. As Boff puts it, this social change is accomplished ‘in terms of a liberation from legalism, from conventions without foundations, from authoritarianism and the forces and powers that subject people.’[17]
Therefore, when we turn to Galatians 2:10, what is desirable for us to recover is a reading that promotes a moral life in accordance with Jesus’ own. Since we are not particularly interested in historicity or what our long-dead author intended, our focus can turn to what this living text has done and continues to do in the life of the Church. As David Clines describes it, if we are to take the bible seriously, ‘we have to concentrate on what people are making of the Bible, what reception it is receiving, how it is being understood, what it is capable of meaning to real live people who are friends and neighbours, enemies and interlocutors.’[18] In his work, Longenecker draws our attention to Jerome’s handling of Galatians 2:10, which is directed towards the practical application of the passage. In his letter ‘To Salvina’, Jerome instructs that care for the widows in the Church should be understood in relation to Paul’s general concern for the poor.[19] Shifting our focus to the contemporary situation, we can see that Galatians 2:10 is similarly a passage of influence for the faith based charity Church Action for Tax Justice (CATJ). In the run up to the 2019 UK General Election, CATJ released a statement imploring Christians ‘voters to ‘remember the poor’ as they consider[ed] their response to the Conservative, Labour, and Liberal Democrats manifestos.’[20] This call was part of their message that ‘the tax regime can be used to address issues of poverty and inequality and so in the words of the apostle Paul ‘remember the poor’ (Gal 2:10).’[21] Here are just two examples of a textual approach that values the ethical life and Christ’s example as the theological center that underpins all interpretation. We have moved from verse to action in such a way that meaning is illuminated practically, and in ways that go beyond what could be conclusively known about any particular author’s or redactor’s intentions.
The example of CATJ is particularly pertinent to this examination because they are a contemporary reminder that a hermeneutic of action is not concerned with an epistemology of pure discovery but with one of transformation. It is a theology that engages with social, economic, and political realities as primary arenas where theology is done and interpretation is made meaningful. Here we can engage with the welfare state as useful and practical opportunity for moving from theological symbol to political praxis. In response to Galatians 2:10, a modern reader might consider a welfare state to be a public expression and representation of the type of society a Christian should want to build. For example, in 2015, archbishops Justin Welby and John Sentamu wrote a series of essays praising the welfare state and acknowledging the Church’s position as both an influence and an instrument in its realisation.[22] In the ideal of the welfare state, the welfare of individuals is placed firmly in the context of the collective, in such a way that the flourishing of the poor is declared inseparable from the political arrangements that have the power to bring that about. For the Christian, a society that is committed to these values becomes a particular kind of society, a lived expression of the ethical foundations they have found in Christ. There are some Christians who advocate for individualism and believe that a welfare state is not the best way to remember the poor. There isn’t much space in this essay to delve further into these concepts, but it’s worth noting that these considerations are secondary. To claim that a welfare state is one potential answer to Christ’s message is not to say that it is the only possible response. For example, according to the 2019 Statistics for Mission data, 77 percent of Anglican churches were involved in one or more forms of social action, totalling 35,000 individual projects.[23] This is not to say that these responses are without value, but rather, that there are many ways to make the message of Christ known in the arena of every day action.
Thus, as I hope this essay has demonstrated, it is not feasible nor desirable to fully understand what Paul meant when he wrote Galatians 2:10. While these subjective speculations may be interesting as an intellectual exercise, they do not provide a solid basis on which to construct our ethical outlook because they are continually subject to change in light of the ever-advancing historical process. On the contrary, the value of this passage comes from an understanding of the object of faith about whom it speaks. By refocusing our attention on the Christ of the text, and the rich links to his incarnational revelation, we find an alternative to historicity which is built on an epistemology of action. Our hermeneutics becomes meaningful when it is lived out in the world and when our acts are consistent with Christ’s lived example. To the modern reader, the welfare state can provide a practical arena in which to give these interpretations meaning, and where they can live out their calling to remember the poor. Although a welfare state is not the only way to fulfil this commandment, the Church’s historic and current involvement with it helps to exemplify her character and response to Christ’s liberatory message.
[1] Nathan Eubank, ‘Justice Endures Forever: Paul’s Grammar of Generosity’, Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters 5, no. 2 (2015), 169.
[2] Nathan Eubank, ‘Justice’, 169.
[3] ‘Faithful to Our Calling’, Faculty of Concordia Seminary, 1973, http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/concordiaseminaryfaithfulpt2.pdf.
[4] Bruce Longenecker, Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty, and the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge, U.K.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub, 2010), 172.
[5] Dieter Georgi, Remembering the poor: the history of Paul’s collection for Jerusalem, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 34.
[6] Thomas Schreiner, Galatians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 131.
[7] Martin Hengel, Acts and the History of Earliest Christianity (Eugene, Or.: Wipf and Stock, 2003), 118.
[8] Larry Hurtado, ‘The Jerusalem Collection and the Book of Galatians.’ Journal for the Study of the New Testament 2, no. 5 (1979): 51.
[9] Leander Keck, ‘The Poor among the Saints in Jewish Christianity and Qumran.’ Zeitschrift Für Die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Und Die Kunde Der Älteren Kirche 57, no. 1-2 (1966): 64-65.
[10] Bruce Longenecker, Remember the Poor, 339.
[11] Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), 43.
[12] Walter Wink, The Bible in Human Transformation: Toward a New Paradigm for Biblical Study (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), 2.
[13] Robert Morgan and John Barton, Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003), 3.
[14] Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, ‘The Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: Decentering Biblical Scholarship.’ Theology, History, and Biblical Interpretation (2015), 15.
[15] Sallie McFague, Speaking in Parables: A Study in Metaphor and Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 138-139.
[16] Leonardo Boff, Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology for Our Time (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979), 43.
[17] Leonardo Boff, Liberator, 72.
[18] David Clines, The Bible and the Modern World (Sheffield: Phoenix Press, 2005), 17.
[19] Bruce Longenecker, Remember the Poor, 160-162.
[20] ‘‘Remember the poor’ – says Church Action for Tax Justice in response to main parties’ manifestos, Church Action for Tax Justice (CATJ), November 26 2019, https://www.catj.org.uk/uploads/1/1/8/6/118613197/church_action_for_tax_justice_november_2019_press_release.pdf.
[21] CATJ, ‘Remember the Poor.’
[22] Andrew Brown, Archbishops try to inject Christianity into welfare state with inequality attack, 15th January 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/15/archbishops-john-sentamu-justin-welby-christianity-welfare-state-essays.
[23] Hannah Rich, ‘Growing Good: Growth, Social Action and Discipleship in the Church of England’, November 2020, https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/cmsfiles/GRACE-CUF-v10-combined.pdf.
