Galatians 1:3

1:3 Grace and peace to you ¹  from God the Father and our ²  Lord Jesus Christ,

Galatians 5:4

5:4 You who are trying to be declared righteous ³  by the law have been alienated ⁴  from Christ; you have fallen away from grace!

Galatians 1:6

Occasion of the Letter

1:6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one ⁵  who called you by the grace of Christ ⁶  and are following ⁷  a different ⁸  gospel –

Galatians 2:12

2:12 Until ⁹  certain people came from James, he had been eating with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he stopped doing this ¹⁰  and separated himself ¹¹  because he was afraid of those who were pro-circumcision. ¹² 

Galatians 4:24

4:24 These things may be treated as an allegory, ¹³  for these women represent two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery; this is Hagar.

Galatians 2:6

2:6 But from those who were influential ¹⁴  (whatever they were makes no difference to me; God shows no favoritism between people ¹⁵ ) – those influential leaders ¹⁶  added ¹⁷  nothing to my message. ¹⁸ 

[1:3]  ¹ tn Grk “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:3]  ² tc ‡ The unusual order καὶ κυρίου ἡμῶν (kai kuriou Jhmwn), which produces the reading “our Lord Jesus Christ” instead of “God our Father,” is read by Ì^46,51vid B D F G H 1739 1881 Ï sy sa, while the more normal ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου (Jhmwn kai kuriou) is found in א A P Ψ 33 81 326 365 2464 pc. Thus, the reading adopted in the translation is more widespread geographically and is found in the two earliest witnesses, along with several good representatives of the Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine texttypes. Internally, there would be a strong motivation for scribes to change the order: “from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” is Paul’s normal greeting; here alone is the pronoun attached to “Jesus Christ” (except in the pastorals, though the greeting in these letters is nevertheless unlike the rest of the corpus Paulinum). Intrinsically, the chosen reading is superior as well: Scribes would be prone to emulate Paul’s regular style, while in an early letter such as this one his regular style was yet to be established (for a similar situation, cf. the text-critical discussion at 1 Thess 1:1). Hence, there is a strong probability that the reading in the translation is authentic. Although B. M. Metzger argues that “the apostle’s stereotyped formula was altered by copyists who, apparently in the interest of Christian piety, transferred the possessive pronoun so it would be more closely associated with ‘Lord Jesus Christ’” (TCGNT 520), one might expect to see the same alterations in other Pauline letters. That this is not the case argues for “our Lord Jesus Christ” as the authentic reading here.

[5:4]  ³ tn Or “trying to be justified.” The verb δικαιοῦσθε (dikaiousqe) has been translated as a conative present (see ExSyn 534).

[5:4]  ⁴ tn Or “estranged”; BDAG 526 s.v. καταργέω 4 states, “Of those who aspire to righteousness through the law κ. ἀπὸ Χριστοῦ be estranged from Christ Gal 5:4.”

[1:6]  ⁵ sn The one who called you is a reference to God the Father (note the mention of Christ in the following prepositional phrase and the mention of God the Father in 1:1).

[1:6]  ⁶ tc Although the majority of witnesses, including some of the most important ones (Ì⁵¹ א A B F^c Ψ 33 1739 1881 Ï f vg sy^p bo), read “by the grace of Christ” (χάριτι Χριστοῦ, cariti Cristou) here, this reading is not without variables. Besides alternate readings such as χάριτι ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ (cariti Ihsou Cristou, “by the grace of Jesus Christ”; D 326 1241^s pc sy^h**) and χάριτι θεοῦ (cariti qeou, “by the grace of God”; 327 pc Thret^lem), a few mss (Ì^46vid F* G H^vid ar b Tert Cyp Ambst Pel) have simply χάριτι with no modifier. Internally, the reading that seems best to explain the rise of the others is the shortest reading, χάριτι. Indeed, the fact that three different adjuncts are found in the mss seems to be a natural expansion on the simple “grace.” At the same time, the witnesses for the shortest reading are not particularly impressive, being that they largely represent one textual strand (Western), and a less-than-reliable one at that. Further, nowhere else in the corpus Paulinum do we see the construction χάρις (cari", “grace”) followed by Χριστοῦ without some other name (such as κυρίου [kuriou, “Lord”] or ᾿Ιησοῦ). The construction χάρις θεοῦ is likewise frequent in Paul. Thus, upon closer inspection it seems that the original wording here was χάριτι Χριστοῦ (for it is difficult to explain how this particular reading could have arisen from the simple χάριτι, in light of Paul’s normal idioms), with the other readings intentionally or accidentally arising from it.

[1:6]  ⁷ tn Grk “deserting [turning away] to” a different gospel, implying the idea of “following.”

[1:6]  ⁸ tn Grk “another.”

[2:12]  ⁷ tn The conjunction γάρ has not been translated here.

[2:12]  ⁸ tn Grk “he drew back.” If ἑαυτόν (Jeauton) goes with both ὑπέστελλεν (Jupestellen) and ἀφώριζεν (afwrizen) rather than only the latter, the meaning would be “he drew himself back” (see BDAG 1041 s.v. ὑποστέλλω 1.a).

[2:12]  ⁹ tn Or “and held himself aloof.”

[2:12]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “the [ones] of the circumcision,” that is, the group of Jewish Christians who insisted on circumcision of Gentiles before they could become Christians.

[4:24]  ⁹ tn Grk “which things are spoken about allegorically.” Paul is not saying the OT account is an allegory, but rather that he is constructing an allegory based on the OT account.

[2:6]  ¹¹ tn Or “influential leaders.” BDAG 255 s.v. δοκέω 2.a.β has “the influential men Gal 2:2, 6b. A fuller expr. w. the same mng., w. inf. added…vss. 6a, 9.” This refers to the leadership of the Jerusalem church.

[2:6]  ¹² tn Grk “God does not receive the face of man,” an idiom for showing favoritism or partiality (BDAG 887-88 s.v. πρόσωπον 1.b.α; L&N 88.238).

[2:6]  ¹³ tn Or “influential people”; here “leaders” was used rather than “people” for stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy with the word “people” in the previous parenthetical remark. See also the note on the word “influential” at the beginning of this verse.

[2:6]  ¹⁴ tn Or “contributed.” This is the same word translated “go to ask advice from” in 1:16, but it has a different meaning here; see L&N 59.72.

[2:6]  ¹⁵ tn Or “added nothing to my authority.” Grk “added nothing to me,” with what was added (“message,” etc.) implied.