Overview

Paul's letter to the Galatians begins with the proclamation of liberation from destructive powers, and ends with the confident cry, ""new creation!"" Throughout the letter, Paul encourages his listeners to stand fast in the confidence that God in Christ will bring them from their beginning in the faith to their completion. His language is emotional, relational, and powerful, as he ""uses the intimate imagery of family life to draw his converts back into the thread of conversation that mediates their life together."" This study investigates the powerful effects of Paul's maternal imagery--his embodied, vulnerable, and authoritative ""mother tongue""--in catalyzing and sustaining the communal life of faith.

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9781532694134

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Recovering Paul's Mother Tongue is the work of one of the most important voices in contemporary Pauline interpretation. Not content with the standard repertoire of exegetical problems, Susan Eastman asks how God's radical intervention in the gospel both transforms and sustains human lives. The resulting study merits the attention of students of Paul at all levels. --Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Princeton Theological Seminary, emerita Eastman's scholarship has attracted broad interest and earned respect and praise. In the past, Gal 4:12-20 has not been given the attention it deserves as a central passage of interest, but Eastman convincingly demonstrates that here we see the heart and 'mother tongue' of Paul. This expanded edition offers new insights from Eastman and invites a new generation of students and scholars into the conversation. --Nijay K. Gupta, Northern Seminary Recovering Paul's Mother Tongue expertly explores Paul's discourse of person, relationality, and transformation in Galatians. This fine study is now enhanced further (in this second edition) with the inclusion of two further chapters, expanding Eastman's presentation forcefully, including an important watershed in the interpretation of the disputed term 'the Israel of God.' This is a rich theological contribution. --Bruce Longenecker, Baylor University This reedition serves once again to invigorate studies of Paul by demonstrating the power of asking new questions and of engagement outside the circle of Pauline scholars. Eastman displays a rare combination of intellectual clarity and curiosity, of poetic sensibility, along with rich and significant scholarly interaction with the biblical text and biblical scholars. As an added bonus, there are phrases that preachers will want to steal. --L. Ann Jervis, University of Toronto Eastman argues that Paul's language is central to the transformative impact of his gospel. His maternal and family metaphors serve to empower a new identity which mirrors God's actions in Christ. Paul calls his readers to new ways of belonging to one another in union with Christ that subvert human divisions and hostilities. It is hard to imagine a more important theological focus in the contemporary world. --Stephen Chester, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto

Recovering Paul's Mother Tongue is the work of one of the most important voices in contemporary Pauline interpretation. Not content with the standard repertoire of exegetical problems, Susan Eastman asks how God's radical intervention in the gospel both transforms and sustains human lives. The resulting study merits the attention of students of Paul at all levels. --Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Princeton Theological Seminary, emerita Eastman's scholarship has attracted broad interest and earned respect and praise. In the past, Gal 4:12-20 has not been given the attention it deserves as a central passage of interest, but Eastman convincingly demonstrates that here we see the heart and 'mother tongue' of Paul. This expanded edition offers new insights from Eastman and invites a new generation of students and scholars into the conversation. --Nijay K. Gupta, Northern Seminary Recovering Paul's Mother Tongue expertly explores Paul's discourse of person, relationality, and transformation in Galatians. This fine study is now enhanced further (in this second edition) with the inclusion of two further chapters, expanding Eastman's presentation forcefully, including an important watershed in the interpretation of the disputed term 'the Israel of God.' This is a rich theological contribution. --Bruce Longenecker, Baylor University This reedition serves once again to invigorate studies of Paul by demonstrating the power of asking new questions and of engagement outside the circle of Pauline scholars. Eastman displays a rare combination of intellectual clarity and curiosity, of poetic sensibility, along with rich and significant scholarly interaction with the biblical text and biblical scholars. As an added bonus, there are phrases that preachers will want to steal. --L. Ann Jervis, University of Toronto Eastman argues that Paul's language is central to the transformative impact of his gospel. His maternal and family metaphors serve to empower a new identity which mirrors God's actions in Christ. Paul calls his readers to new ways of belonging to one another in union with Christ that subvert human divisions and hostilities. It is hard to imagine a more important theological focus in the contemporary world. --Stephen Chester, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto

Author Information

Susan Grove Eastman is associate research professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, and an Episcopal priest. She is the author of Paul and the Person: Reframing Paul's Anthropology (2017).

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