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Cutting Too Close for Comfort

Paul's Letter to the Galatians in Its Anatolian Cultic Context

  • Paperback
  • 412 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • 15.5 x 22.9 x 2.6 cm

£41.68

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For theology students and serious Bible scholars

Explains the Anatolian cultural context of Paul

Help you understand the complex themes in Galatians

Unlock new insights into Paul's letter to the Galatians by exploring the ancient Anatolian cultural world.

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In Cutting Too Close for Comfort, Susan Elliot considers Paul's letter to the Galatians in its Anatolian cultic context. What does circumcision have to do with castration? Self-castrated devotees of the Mother of the Gods travelled in the central Anatolian territory where the audience of Paul's letter to the Galatians lived. The goddess was identified with many of the region's mountains. In a goddess-possessed frenzy, these galli castrated themselves and became lifetime cultic representatives as her slaves. Cutting Too Close For Comfort offers a thick description of this cult and other aspects of the Anatolian cultic context to provide solutions to several persistent puzzles in the letter. Starting with problems in the so-called "Hagar and Sarah" passage (4.21-5.1), Elliot argues that Paul attempts to dissuade his audience from being circumcised by identifying circumcision with the enslaving self-castration of the galli and by portraying the Law as a Mountain Mother. The Anatolian background is also seen in Paul's Flesh-Spirit dichotomy in Gal. 3.1-5 and in the Two Ways form in Galatians 5-6.
Cutting Too Close for Comfort and The First Christian Slave
The First Christian SlaveCutting Too Close for Comfort

  • Title

    Cutting Too Close for Comfort

  • Author

    Susan M. Elliott

  • Book Format

    Paperback

  • Publisher

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

  • Published

    April 2008

  • Weight

    577g

  • Page Count

    412

  • Dimensions

    15.5 x 22.9 x 2.6 cm

  • ISBN

    9780567034359

  • ISBN-10

    0567034356

  • Eden Code

    1226251