New insights from ancient texts of everyday life

Understanding the New Testament through language use in everyday life at the time lies at the heart of the PKNT series. The chapters of this volume contain new insights into passages and themes from Paul's Letter to the Galatians by situating them in the context of documentary papyri, ostraca, and tablets. The contributions explore the letter format and epistolary formulas, family terminology, Paul's opponents, Jews and Jewishness, curses and magical metaphors, the revocation of wills, inheritance, the adoption of slaves, as well as the deeper meaning of Paul's "birth pangs," the "proscribed Christ," and the "burden of love." Some notes on the material features of the papyri and parchments preserving Galatians conclude the volume. The appendix provides a glossary of terms frequently used in ancient administration, trade, and agriculture, as well as indexes of papyrological sources, passages of Galatians, and Greek terms including references to earlier volumes of PKNT.