Journal of Biblical Literature - Society of Biblical Literature

Critical Notes 327
guage of an agreement between him and the Jerusalem “pillars.” Furthermore, it is by
no means clear that Paul would have regarded himself as bound by the specific wording
of such an agreement—particularly when writing to the Christians in Galatia, which is
rather far removed from Jerusalem.
This, of course, opens up the possibility that Paul himself may not have included
2:8 in his letter to the Galatians. Thus, more than seventy years ago, Ernst Barnikol
argued that the verse should be viewed as part of a later, non-Pauline interpolation. 16
My own judgment is that Barnikol is correct, but this is the subject of another study. 17
For the moment, suffice it to note that Gal 2:8 does not attribute apostolic status to Paul,
as it explicitly does to Peter, and, in a letter attributed to Paul, this must be seen as quite
surprising.
William O. Walker, Jr.
wwalker@trinity.edu
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212
16 Ernst Barnikol, Der nichtpaulinische Ursprung des Parallelismus der Apostel Petrus und
Paulus (Galater 2 7–8) (Forschungen zur Entstehung des Urchristentums, des Neuen Testaments
und der Kirche 5; Kiel: Mühlau, 1931), translated into English by Darrell J. Doughty with B. Keith
Brewer as “The Non-Pauline Origin of the Parallelism of the Apostles Peter and Paul: Galatians
2:7-8,” Journal of Higher Criticism 5 (1998): 285–300. According to Barnikol, the interpolation
consists of v. 7b (beginning with th'" ajkrobustiva") and v. 8.
17 See William O. Walker, Jr., “Galatians 2:7b-8 as Non-Pauline Interpolation,” CBQ 65
(2003): 568–87.