Scripture & Theology Conference on Galatians at St. Andrews

If you’ve not already heard, there’s an exciting conference at the University of St. Andrews this summer, July 10-13 2012. Here’s the link to the School of Divinity’s website.

Not only is St. Andrews one of the most beautiful places in the UK, but the line of scholars participating is impressive.

I have plans to attend and, Lord willing, will present a paper on Messiahship in Galatians. Here’s the abstract of the paper’s argument.

Since at least the time of Nils Dahl, it is commonplace to assume that for Paul Jesus’ Messiahship had little to no influence on the theological arguments and applied imperatives contained in his letters. While there is a sea change afoot within Pauline studies led by scholars such as N.T. Wright and Richard Hays, there is still considerable work to be done on the question of Messianism in Paul. This paper will develop a line of research on this question in Galatians. The thesis of the paper is: far from being irrelevant to Paul’s applied theology as most assume, Jesus’ identity as the Jewish Messiah is the matrix for all Paul’s theologizing. This thesis will be pursued through discussion of few key Galatian texts.