Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Galatians 2:11-21, Peter leaves the table at Antioch
At Antioch Peter, who had been eating with Gentile believers, draws back when people come from James, and Paul rebukes him in front of everyone, arguing that Jews and Gentiles alike are put right with God through Christ and faith, not by doing what the law requires.
Galatians 2:11-21, in every translation this tool compares.
At Antioch Peter had been sharing meals with Gentile believers, but when men from James arrived he pulled back out of fear of the circumcision party, and other Jewish believers, Barnabas included, followed him. Paul confronted him publicly for living like a Gentile while pressing Gentiles to live like Jews. He goes on to argue that a person is put right with God through Christ and faith, not by doing what the law prescribes, and that if the law could make people righteous, Christ's death would have been pointless. It is unclear where his words to Peter end.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/eating-together\/","n":"Eating together","s":"Sharing a table made a bond of friendship, so who you ate with told everyone whose side you were on.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/food-laws\/","n":"Clean and unclean food","s":"The law of Moses sorted animals into clean and unclean, and keeping kosher marked Jews off from their neighbors. Strict Jews also avoided Gentile food, Gentile wine and Gentile tables.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/circumcision\/","n":"Circumcision and becoming a Jew","s":"Circumcision was the sign of God's covenant with Abraham and the mark of a Jewish man. A Gentile man who joined Israel was circumcised; the first great quarrel in the church was over whether Gentile believers had to be.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/honor-and-shame\/","n":"Honor before a crowd","s":"Public standing was the currency of the ancient Mediterranean. People competed for honor and dreaded being shamed in front of others.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/crucifixion\/","n":"Crucifixion","s":"Rome's public, shaming death for rebels, after flogging, with the charge posted for passers-by to read.","r":""}
Jews in Judea and Galilee who cared about their standing avoided eating with Gentiles, and rising nationalism in Judea pressed moderates such as Peter and probably James (the cultural backgrounds notes; Keener). When this happened is disputed: the Zondervan dictionary places it after the council, which had left open how Jewish believers should keep the law, while Carson, Moo and Morris think it more likely before. Who sent the visitors, and what they wanted, is read differently: the ESV Study Bible thinks they pressed Jewish believers to eat separately; Wright's biography has them insisting that Gentiles be circumcised. Wright reads the works of the law as the badges of Sabbath, food laws and circumcision; the cultural backgrounds notes and the ESV Study Bible read the phrase more widely, and Carson, Moo and Morris insist that justification by faith rules out works, of the law or any other. The cultural backgrounds article Paul's Jewish Opponents sets out both views and suggests they may have been legalists in practice whatever their theology. Whether 2:16 speaks of faith in Christ or the faithfulness of Christ is also disputed, the ESV Study Bible taking the first and Wright the second.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Galatians 2:11, 2:12 and 2:13-14
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Galatians 2:11, 2:12 and 2:16, and article Paul's Jewish Opponents
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Galatians 2:11-12 and 2:16
- N. T. Wright, Galatians, Commentary, Peter in Antioch (2:11-14) and The Great Transformation (2:15-21)
- N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, ch. 6, Antioch and Jerusalem
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry Paul
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 10, Galatians, Date and Galatians in Recent Study
