Origin & Purpose of the Law, Marcionism and Galatians 3
It is a shocking discovery to many that the theology that argues that the law of Moses, what we call the old covenant was not given by God, but by evil angels, essentially by Satan among scholars. The view ranges from the law given by angels in absence of God, to the angels being evil or satanic.
Martinus Boer argues on Gal 3:15-18 that "the law is being likened to a bequest, as a set of specifications added to God’s promissory (covenant) of God with Abraham, “having been arranged through [the intervention of] angels,” who used Moses as their mediator to tamper with God’s promise, something they had no business doing", and says that "Paul comes close to regarding the angels he mentions as evil angels, who stand opposed to God, consistent with the traditions of cosmological Jewish apocalyptic eschatology (see Excursus 2). Cf. Schweitzer 69–70." in his commentary on Galatians, 2011.
- Albert Schweitzer, was a German theologian in the 20th century. The reference is to his book The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. london: a&C Black. German original, 1930.
Boer is a student of J L Martyn. Martyn in Galatians: A New Translation with James Louis Martyn· 1997, views Marcion with a high regard. Jason Martin, to whom Boer is responding in the quote of the OP, points out about Martyn that he cannot hide his Marcionist roots, in the book Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination:
Our own interpretive contexts have unique influences and give rise to different questions, though some do engage these prior readings in this contemporary debate. In contrast to the narrative of the Acts of Paul, the type of reading the Apocalypse offers will be more familiar to most NT scholars who are more aware of gnosticism, and particularly, Marcionism—a cousin of gnostic thought represented in the Apocalypse. To the extent that they mention it, those in the contemporary Eschatological Invasion group (as described in this volume’s Introduction) explicitly repudiate affinities with Marcionite retrospective readings. The fact that Martyn feels constrained to defend himself against resurrecting a form of Marcionism shows that more than one has seen the similarities between his reading strategy and theirs:[34] The radical newness in Christ has little continuity with what has gone before, what precedes Christ is only from the god of this world, and the law is mediated by (evil?) angels.[35] Martyn rightly defends himself by arguing that the temporal dualism in Paul cannot be confused for the ontological dualism in (some forms of) gnosticism that separates the physical from the spiritual and the creator from the most high God.[36]
Boer and Martyn reject the salvation history in Galatians upon which and the surrounding topic of the origin of the law have been the issue of debate with Maston.
- Heikki Räisänen, a prominent name in this camp writes in - Paul and the Law (1987), p 132
There are even more featu'resthat point to the direction that Paul did
not, at bottom, intend to exclude God altogether from the act o flaw-giving.
The temporal limit set to the law at the outset ('until the promised seed
comes') clearly indicates God's plans in regard with the law, including a pre
ordained subordination to the 'promise,.27 Furthermore, it is difficult not to see in the next passive form ἐδόθη in v. 21b a reference to God as the law-giver, for in this verse Paul speculates about the (unreal) possibility that a law capable of 'making alive' was 'given'; if the giving of the law had nothing to do with God, such a possibility was certainly excluded from the outset. Now Paul is at pains to produce an explanation why the law has been abolished. If it was just an invention of the angels, no further arguments would have been needed! These considerations also apply to the question raised by Paul in v. 21a: was the law then against God's promises? If the law was an addition on the angels' part to a 'will' to which nothing can be added, one would expect an affirmative answer. Instead, Paul answers with an emphatic 'No'. Finally, in v. 22 he shows how the law is to be integrated into God's overarching plan. The giving of the law is connected with the 'including' of everything 'under sin' by 'Scripture'. Thus, the law, at the deepest level, serves in all its negativity God's good purposes.
All this does not mean that the natural literal understanding of 3.19.....:20, according to which the law was given by the angels alone, should be rejected. On the contrary, we are apparently once more faced. with an internal contradiction in Paul.
and in p. 139
In the letter of Barnabas we find the closest counterpart to Gal 3 in early
Christian literature. To be sure, the writer does not reject the law at all. The law of the OT belongs to the Christians who understand it in the right way. The Jews have misunderstood the law in interpreting the ritual precepts literally. In particular, 'Barnabas' attributes the literal understanding of circumcision to an evil angel (9.4)! The similarity to Paul is more verbal than real even in this case. Correspondingly, the apologist Aristides viewed the ritual law as a service rendered (through ignorance) to angels, not to God (ch. 14 in the Syriac text)
Brice L Martin, in Christ and the Law in Paul, writes under 2.3 Origin of the Law:
In Romans and 1 Corinthians the law clearly originates with God. The law is given by God (Rom 9:4) and written by God (gegraptai, 1 Cor 9:9; 14:21; cf 14:34) and is called "the law of God" (7:22, 25; 8:7). Some have argued, though, that in Galatians the law does not originate with God but with the angels.109 The key text is Gal 3:19. In the process of contrasting the later law which cannot nullify the earlier promise Paul says the law ''was ordained by angels through an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one; but God is one" (diatageis di’ angeldn en cheiri mesitou. ho de mesites henos ouk estin, ho de theos heis estin). Even here the view that the Torah did not spring from God is difficult to maintain. The preposition is dia not hypo; dia means not "by" but "through the agency of." The Torah stems ultimately not from the angels but from God. Diatageis, prosetethe, and edothe (vv 19, 21) should be viewed as Divine passives; God gave the law, he added the law after the promise, he ordained it through the agency (di’) of angels in the hands of a mediator (Moses). Also at Deut 33:2 (LXX), Josephus (Antiq. XV: 5: 3), Jubilees 1:27-29, Acts 7:53 and in Talmudic passages the presence of angels at the giving of the law is a mark of its excellence.
A great point on the preposition in Gal 3:19, showing most translations that use "by angels" instead of through, are technically wrong. The phrase is διαταγεὶς δια ἀγγέλων ἐν χειρὶ μεσίτου ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator. This itself demolishes the presupposition about rogue angels acting on their own as the giver of the law.
FF Bruce, rejects Marcionism, and writes about such interpretations in The Epistle to the Galatians (The New International Greek Testament Commentary Series NIGTC) 1982- describing The Purpose of the Law
Cranfield adds that the law also increases sin in the sense that it makes men sin more', especially because it tempts sinful men to try to use it as a means to the establishment of a claim upon God', which he regards as the essence of legalism ('St. Paul and the Law', 46f.). Cf. 1 Cor. 15:56, `the power of sin is the law'.
H. Hubner asks whose purpose it was that the law should produce transgressions, and finds the answer to his question in the following reference to angels. It was the angels who planned by means of the law to incite human beings to commit acts of transgression. Such angels are to be regarded as demonic beings who, unlike God, desired men's downfall, not their welfare (Das Gesetz bei Paulus, 28f.). It is evident', he adds (33), that Paul's whole course of argument here concerning the purpose of the law has a blasphemous sound in Jewish ears; it must shock Jews as such and not merely the Pharisaic section' But even if he is right in discerning the angels' hostile intention, their intention is viewed as overruled, if not directed, by God for the accomplishment of his purpose. Even in Galatians the law is ultimately God's law (if only by implication). E. P. Sanders (PPJ, 550) concedes that Paul makes an extreme statement here in the heat of the argument', but finds evidence of soberer reflection' in Rom. 2:13; 10:2; Phil. 3:6.
- Adolf von Harnack was a Baltic German Lutheran theologian and prominent Church historian who lived from 1851 to 1930. His book Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott (Marcion- The Gospel of an Alien God) book is dedicated to Marcion. You can find many such scholars in the bibliography of the books of the Martyn and Boer.
Grant, R. M. (1959). Gnosticism and early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 16
Both Simon and Saturninus state that the Old Testament prophecies were inspired by angels. Simon specifically says that they gave the Old Testament law, while Saturninus adds that some of the prophecies came from Satan.
In an attempt to classify this doctrine about the origin of the old covenant (Old Testament), it appears that the common denominators among these scholars are Lutheranism and its branch New Perspective on Paul. However, this doctrine is a fringe subset. Any hermeneutics which is fundamentally flawed in interpreting Galatians in believing that the law was evil or useless, will inevitably lead to such conclusions that relates to the Gnostic theology, as seen throughout history.
