For Freedom

Two verses in Galatians 5 mention freedom: 1 and 13. I. Before briefly discussing both, let's look at two translations widely used in Protestant churches: ARA (Almeida, Revised and Updated, SBB): For freedom, Christ set us free; therefore stand firm and do not bend again to a game of slavery. (v. 1) For you, brethren, were called to freedom. But do not use your liberty to give occasion to the flesh, but out of love serve one another. (v. 13) ACF (Corrected Bible, Faithful): Stand firm, therefore, in the freedom with which Christ has set us free, and do not put yourselves again under the yoke of servitude. (v. 1) For you, brethren, were called to freedom. Then do not use your liberty to give occasion to the flesh, but serve one another out of love. (v. 13) A. There is no semantic difference regarding v. 13, just different word choices and syntactic order. B. As for verse 1, there is a fundamental difference: ARA translates "for freedom Christ has set us free"; AFC "in the freedom with which Christ has set us free". The Greek preposition is in the dative case, and may indeed be interpreted as instrumental or final; thus, case grammar alone does not resolve the issue. The immediate co-text also does not help to decide the question, it allows for both possibilities. Verse 13, however, is illuminating - and both ARA and AFC miss the translation: "Ὑμεῖς γὰρ ἐπ᾽ ἐλευθερίᾳ ἐκλήθητε" - the Greek preposition is epi - which Paul constantly uses in the sense of "based on" or "on the basis in". Thus, instead of "you were called to freedom", the more appropriate translation would be "you were called based on freedom (messianic liberation)". If so, then in v. 1 the best option will be "for freedom" (ARA). C. As is customary in the Christian translations of the NT, instead of Messiah we have the word, Christ. This distorts the Pauline sense, as it immediately refers to our post-Nicene/Chalcedonian Christological doctrine, and distances us from Pauline messianism. D. ARA and AFC supply the absent verb from the Greek text in the second part of v. 13; "do not use", I think it would be more appropriate to translate it like this: "do not let this freedom be an occasion/platform for the flesh" (and here Paul follows the same line as Rom 7:8.11, only in Rom it is "sin " which can serve as an occasion/platform for, through the Torah, to enslave us. The link between flesh/sin/Torah is shown in Gal 5:13-14: "be slaves (and not "serve yourselves", very simple) one another in love, for the fullness of the Torah, is found in one commandment - love your neighbor as yourself." The semantic game here is the same as in Romans 6-7: Messianic liberation places us in the realm of freedom, whose nature is bondage in love: to God and neighbor. Points out, in Galatians, that God does not appear in the equation... II. Notes for thinking about me above. More notes for reflection: Kant brilliantly simplified the game of freedom in What is the Enlightenment: Autonomy versus Heteronomy. Simplistic readers reduced freedom to self-satisfaction, losing sight of the Kan sense of autonomy ("I" am the source of the Law that governs me). In Paul, the game is similar: the Messiah frees humanity from heteronomy - from sin (it would be tempting to see here the Freudian drive towards death), from the flesh (the Freudian id), from the Torah (the Freudian superego). But the new freedom in the Messiah is intersubjective autonomy: I am the source of my ethics and morality: being a slave to my neighbor in love. And here we can play with Hegel, who speaks of love as the law of freedom, slavery is freedom... Just notes to think about... Based on the liberating act of the Messiah, we were freed from heteronomy and called to live in messianic autonomy: to be a slave to your neighbor in love.