Review of Livesey, Galatians and the Rhetoric of Crisis

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Nina E. Livesey, Galatians and the Rhetoric of Crisis: Demosthenes - Cicero – Paul. Salem, OR: Polebridge Press, 2016. Pp. 273. ISBN 9781598151749. $26.00 (pb). Reviewed by Alexandra Gruca-Macaulay, Saint Paul University, Ottawa (amacaulay@ustpaul.ca).

The New Testament Letter to the Galatians continues to raise questions regarding the function of its sustained polemics against the primacy of Mosaic law and the requirement for male circumcision for gentile adherents to the early Christ movement. In Galatians and the Rhetoric of Crisis, Nina Livesey has sought to bring the Letter to the Galatians into a comparative analysis with selected passages from Demosthenes’ and Cicero’s Philippics from within a “rhetoric of crisis” framework, in an attempt to uncover “a viable explanation...for Paul’s stance regarding circumcision and Torah adoption of non-Jews” (p. 8).

[...]

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.