Weber is convinced that the journey of
Paul reported in Gal. 2 precedes the apostolic conference, and that therefore the
date of the letter must also be fixed at a time before that conference. He
appeals to the supposed incongruency between Gal. 2 and Acts 15 [and] does so
for the following reasons, among others:
(a) If the apostolic conference is assumed to precede the writing o the letter to the Galatians, one must ask
himself how it can be that a teaching so solemnly and definitively repudiated
at Jerusalem can almost immediately be preached again in Galatia. Answer:
Heresy has never been abruptly and suddenly subjugated by the pronouncements of
the church. In his later letters, too, e.g., in the one to the Philippians,
Paul has to take up the cudgels against Judaism.
(b) Why does not Paul appeal simply to
the pronouncements of the apostolic conference instead of entering newly upon
profound argumentation about the freedom of the Gentiles from the ceremonial
law? Answer: He had already communicated these pronouncements to the
churches on his second journey (Acts 16:4). Hence, too, his marvelling at the
fact that they have no quickly allowed themselves to be brought around to the
heresy (Ga. 1:6). That in this letter he does not simply appeal to the
utterances of the apostolic conference, but instead resorts to the resource of
a new principal apology, that—in view of what he had communicated to them
during the visit of Acts 16:4—is to be explained by the nature of the
situation. Besides Gal. 2 illuminates the decisions reached at Jerusalem, and
can thus serve as a confirmation of what he has already communicated by word of
mouth . . .
(c) Why does not Paul appeal to the
utterances of James and Peter at the apostolic conference (Acts 15), so as to
make impossible for all efforts of the heretical teachers to set up a contrast between
him and them? Answer: In the presence of the Galatians Paul was not
concerned solely to maintain his essential unanimity with Peter and James: he
was concerned also to maintain his independence over against those apostles.
Hence he is at pains to show that at Jerusalem he did not for a moment betray
the position which he had independently taken right from the start, and that he
had receive the approval of Peter and James for his stand.
(d) How—if this letter that follows
the apostolic conference—is the attitude of Peter to be explained, as it is
described in Gan. 2:11 ff.? Answer: Peter’s weakness was not that he
demanded the observation of the Jewish ceremonies on the part of the Gentiles,
but rather that, later, when some had come from James to Antioch, Peter, being
a Jew, separated himself from the Gentiles with whom he had at first mingled
fraternally, in order himself, personally, to observe the Jewish ceremonies
again. This had not been forbidden by the apostolic conference at Jerusalem. It
is true that in so doing he was again making a distinction between Jewish
Christians and Gentile Christians; and thus he was also indirectly forcing the
Gentiles, in the event they wanted to sit at the table with their Jewish
brethren, to conduct themselves as Jews (Gal. 2:14). For that he was
reprimanded by Paul. But that was something quite different from what he had
been dealt with at the apostolic conference . . .
The main objection to the hypothesis championed
by Weber, and others, is however this: the supposition that Acts 15 and Gal. 2
refer to two different journeys runs into serious difficulties. And when one
tries to identify the journey of Gal. 2 with that of Acts 11:30, one is
confronted with a series of historical difficulties. Weber felt this to be true
himself. In a later study he is of the opinion that the journey of Gal. 2
should be identified with a still earlier one, not even named in the Acts.
That, of course, takes us even further into the area of hypothesis. For the
time being, therefore, we hold to the interpretation which has been powerfully
defended against the Tübingen criticism by S. Greijdanus, among others, namely,
that there is no insurmountable obstacle to an identification of the journeys
of Gal. 2 and Acts 15. There is no need of Weber’s hypothesis, even though
various elements of uncertainty remain. (Herman N. Ridderbos, The Epistle of
Paul to the Churches of Galatia: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition
and Notes [trans. Henry Zylstra; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1953], 32-35)
