Why was Paul upset? (Gal. 2.11-14)

Abstract: The tension between Jews and Gentiles is a well-recorded and pregnant debate within the field of biblical exegesis today. One of the biblical passages that directly relates to this special situation, often labelled the ‘incident of Antioch’, is Gal 2.11-14. In this passage Peter (Cephas), an early disciple of the Jesus movement that regularly ate and drank with the Gentiles, is told to draw back and sit in isolation as soon as an orthodox (Jewish) 'fraction of circumcision' (the party of James) arrives from Jerusalem. The main task of this thesis has been to investigate the reasons why Paul was upset. The investigation has been guided by a hermeneutical awareness that approaches to this problem varies depending on one's initial understandings on the predicaments of Paul, and three scientific perspectives on him (old, new, and radical new perspective). The primary material for the study has been four exegetes, Louis Martyn, James Dunn, Mark Nanos, and Magnus Zetterholm, whose different approaches I have studied without any preconceived preference. I have sought to let their elaborations be heard in all parts of the thesis where this has been relevant. I also reached the conclusion that the main interest should been on the history and the theological concepts surrounding this incident, and not the letter to the Galatians. The diversity of the church in Antioch probably existed appropriately in a Jewish sense. This cannot have been the reason why Paul was upset. I have found that even Paul must have lived in under this arrangement. At stake at the conflict at Antioch, then, is observance or non-observance to the trustworthy and permanent quality of God’s salvation. Any rejection of this would for Paul have meant a powerful denial of the reliability and reality of the Messiah. Maybe, in the discussions that arose, for Paul the traditional conversion advocated by the group of James (proselytization through circumcision) represented a turn away from God’s grace through Christ.