Abstract:
This thesis proposes to interpret the “Works of the Law” in Galatians (2:16, 3:2, 5 and 10) based on James Dunn. After presenting the status quaestionis, covering the time period from the first century up to the emergence of the “New Perspective on Paul” (first chapter), in the second chapter the letter to the Galatians is presented using the integrated methodology of Dunn, of redactional, literary and form analysis so as to underline the personal and apologetic character of the letter ( which uses rhetoric as a fundamental argumentative instrument), as well as its confection in the context of intra-Jewish polemics (having as a direct antecedent, the debate with Peter in Antioch). Based on this analysis and on the studies of Hans Dieter Betz, the obligation of argumentative coherency is imposed upon the Apostle – this obligation which gives ballast to the analysis done in the third chapter of this thesis, which, upon confronting the exegeses of the “Works of the Law” in Galatians, agrees with Dunn on most points, although it presents a fundamental disagreement about the interpretation of the genitive “of/in Christ”, which in the context of Galatians, seems to point to a more accurate answer to the dissertation of the E. P. Sanders about the (dis)continuity between the religion of Paul and that of his interlocutors. Besides this, the same disagreement about the interpretation of the genitive “of/in Christ” impacts on the nature of the “Doctrine of the Justification by Faith”, and influences yet another founding issue of Pauline theology, as to its argumentative consistency, which, in at least one sense seems to be questionable, especially in light of the use of the figure of Abraham as the proof argument of the Pauline thesis on Justification by Faith independent of the “Works of the Law”.
