Recreating the Cosmos

This book is a meditation on Paul''s letter to the church in Galatia with the purpose of reclaiming Paul for those of faith who have grown tired of thinking that Christians are the people who draw lines, make distinctions, and police religious borders. This book is an attempt to reclaim the vision of Paul that is beyond Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female: the new creation. Ultimately, the vision of Paul was not Paul''s vision, but God''s vision of the cosmos. As readers reclaim this vision of a new creation, they begin to reclaim God''s new creation experienced in our lives and within the world around us. God, as the grand creator of the cosmos, is attempting to inject the same creative process into the cosmos through humans. Rather than simply seeing humans as the destroyers of the cosmos, Barrier invites us to consider this beautiful thought: ""The earth could be renewed daily by . . . humanity.""""In the midst of a plethora of rhetorical, literary, and social-scientific approaches to Galatians, Dr. Barrier provides another much-needed emphasis--the theological, even existential. What this book offers is not primarily a new perspective, but a helpful reminder that there is a fundamental theology espoused in this letter--one that is rich and practical. Dr. Barrier''s work is intended to be instrumental in helping us deal with big questions in a big way.""--Nathan Guy, Assistant Professor of Bible and Philosophy, Harding UniversityJeremy W. Barrier is Associate Professor of Biblical Literature and Director of the Graduate Program at Heritage Christian University in Florence, Alabama. He is the author of a number of academic journal articles and books, such as The Acts of Paul and Thecla: A Critical Introduction and Commentary (2009).