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<\/a><\/p>\nQ. Gal. 3.28 has been called \u2018the Magna Carta of Christian freedom\u2019 by my old Harvard prof, Krister Stendahl and many others thereafter. While Paul is not saying any of these categories don\u2019t matter any more (Jews for instance are still Jews, and females are still females), what he is saying is that these categories don\u2019t determine status or standing or for that matter one\u2019s salvation in Christ. You do mention that Paul is alluding to Genesis when he breaks the parallelism by saying \u2018no male and female\u2019 rather than a neither\/nor contrast. I have wondered if this is not because perhaps some of the agitators were arguing: 1) that the Gentile men need to be circumcised, and 2) that this doesn\u2019t leave the women as second-class citizens in the faith if they are joined to a male by marriage (ala Genesis), to which 3) Paul responds one doesn\u2019t need to be married to be first class citizens in Christ. Indeed, singleness is in some ways to be preferred for men and women (e.g. 1 Cor. 7). Do you think there might be something to this? Why else would he be alluding to Gen. 1 in this phrase here\u2026. but not in the parallels in<\/p>\n
Corinthians or Colossians where there is no reference to \u2018no male and female\u2019 in Christ? What do you see as the real social cash value of Gal. 3.28? Is it a sort of Magna Carta of freedom?<\/p>\n
A. Well, sort of. It looks to me as though he may be alluding to an early Christian saying and\/or the Jewish prayer (for which there are pagan parallels as I point out in the commentary) which thanks God \u2018for not making me a gentile, a slave or a woman\u2019. Of course, like all texts, if taken out of context, even in order to wave it around as a \u2018magna carta\u2019, it can be misunderstood \u2013 as with those who take the \u2018no male and female\u2019 to indicate a kind of quasi-gnostic androgyny . . . (see H-D. Betz ).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Q. Gal. 3.28 has been called \u2018the Magna Carta of Christian freedom\u2019 by my old Harvard prof, Krister Stendahl and many others thereafter. While Paul is not saying any of these categories don\u2019t matter any more (Jews for instance are still Jews, and females are still females), what he is saying is that these categories […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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