Epistle to the Galatians

from my class notes:

- Galatians is the only letter where Paul doesn't give a greeting or praise to his audience.
(Paul is NOT in a good mood, he was ticked off)
- We think it was written in the 40s or 50s
- Written to a province, not a specific city - the province of Galatia - like modern Turkey, but more central - there were several churches within this province
- This letter is Paul defending his own ideas - he says, you're not listening to the right person because you're not listening to me. You've been listening to false teachers. You should be listening to me because I'm an apostle - then he defends his apostleship.
- Visual culture
- Paul references the armor of God and the breastplate of faith and love or the breastplate of righteousness - this imagery draws from the statues of soldiers with fancy breastplates all around the cities - not about a soldier going to war.
- I like to see ways Paul is resisting empire: he uses symbols the people know but says they stand for something different related to God's kingdom.