Factores turísticos competitivos según los trabajadores

Martyn introduces his commentary on Galatians by summarising the heart of Paul’s letter as the answer to two questions, namely ‘what time is it?’ and ‘in what cosmos do we actually live?’8 My focus here is on the first of these (the second will be addressed in chapter four). We saw in the previous chapter that Martyn’s commentary is driven by his conviction that the gospel presents to the Galatian believers an ‘epistemological crisis’. In the same way he argues that ‘God’s apocalyptic invasion of the cosmos… creates a radically new perception of time’ and that ‘the matter of discerning the time lies at the heart of apocalyptic.’9 For Martyn, there is, corresponding to the

epistemological crisis of the previous discussion, an eschatological crisis brought about by Paul’s gospel, a crisis which receives the following answer:

8 _{Martyn, Galatians, 23. In framing their approaches to Paul with these questions Martyn and Wright} share some common ground. Wright initially listed four questions (in Wright, NTPG, 369–70). He then added ‘what time is it?’ to this list (Wright, JVG, 138; cf. 467–471). For a discussion of these five worldview questions in the thought of the apostle Paul see now Wright, PFG, 538–69.

What time is it? It is the time after the apocalypse of the faith of Christ, the time, therefore, of God’s making things right by Christ’s faith, the time of the presence of the Spirit of Christ, and thus the time in which the invading Spirit has decisively commenced the war of liberation from the powers of the present evil age.10

This tightly-packed answer to the eschatological question is something of a summary of what ‘apocalyptic’ means for Martyn, containing his key themes of time, rectification, invasion, warfare and liberation from the powers of this age.11 It is this latter phrase which Martyn calls a ‘distinctly apocalyptic expression,’ and ‘a scheme fundamental to apocalyptic thought’,12 acknowledging the influence of the ‘two ages’ eschatological framework found in the ‘writings and traditions of Paul’s time.’13 However, as Martyn notes, Paul does not use the expression ‘the age to come’ in contrasting the two ages, but speaks rather of ‘the new creation,’ an expression which has other resonances but which nevertheless indicates Paul’s indebtedness to Jewish apocalyptic eschatology.

How, then, does Paul conceive of the relationship between ‘this present age’ and ‘the new creation’? For Martyn, this is a dynamic interrelationship characterised by the ever-present motif of ‘invasion’.14 The relationship between ‘before’ and ‘after’ cannot be described in simple terms as the end of the former and the arrival of the latter. Nor do the two ages stand in some kind of isolation. Rather, the ‘new creation’ disjunctively invades the present age: Christ, as Martyn often puts it, ‘comes onto the scene’. This ‘invasion’ motif, which can be described as a preference for the punctiliar over the

linear,15 is analogous to that which characterised Martyn’s epistemology. There,

knowledge according to the present age is rejected in favour of knowledge according to the invasion of Christ. Here, this epistemological pattern finds its eschatological

10 _{Ibid., 104–5.}

11 _{Compare, for example, the themes of this sentence with the more thorough exposition of ‘apocalyptic} theology in Galatians’ in his Comment #3 (97–105).

12 _{Martyn, Galatians, 97–8.}

13 _{Ibid., 98. Sadly Martyn does not here provide any indication of precisely which ‘writings and}

traditions’ he has in mind. All that can be deduced from the context is that Martyn has in mind the Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic writings.

14 _{Ibid., 99.} 15 _{See ibid., 347.}

corollary: the new creation has invaded the present age. Once again, we can thus see the ‘inextricable connexion between eschatology and epistemology’16 characteristic of Paul’s apocalyptic thought.

The recognition of this apocalyptic theme of the ‘two ages’ comes into its own in Martyn’s discussion of Galatians 4.3–5, the passage he calls ‘the theological centre of the entire letter.’17 There, in verse 4, Paul speaks of God’s sending of his Son ‘when the time had fully come’, a phrase which Martyn recognises as another ‘clear apocalyptic motif.’18 Martyn’s discussion of apocalyptic eschatology in Paul comes to a sharp focus in his exposition of this phrase. Surveying the interpretative options, Martyn examines the arguments for an understanding of τὸπλήρωµατοῦχρόνουas a point arrived at the end of a line, as redemptive history reaching its appointed end, but rejects such an interpretation. He argues, on the basis of the surrounding context, that the phrase should be better rendered as ‘at a time selected by [God]’19 and that it is a mistake to conceive of 4.4 as supporting evidence for Heilsgeschichte. For Martyn the conclusion is clear: in contrast to the Teachers, who were arguing for a linear redemptive-historical model, ‘Paul does not think of a gradual maturation, but rather of a punctiliar liberation, enacted by God in his own sovereign time. Stepping on the scene, that is to say, God has closed the enslaving parentheses of the Law at the time chosen by him alone.’20 Whether the implication that all redemption-historical approaches are characterised by ‘gradual maturation’ is a fair assessment will be explored in due course. For now, we note that at the heart of the issue is an eschatological dichotomy, assumed by Martyn, between the linear and punctiliar.