Galatians

It may have been a typo in the previous reviewers comments, but Hansen clearly holds South Galatia as the destination. One could see this by the Google books preview below on p.17. He is correct about a later date though. South Galatia, post Jerusalem council date sometime after 50A.D.(p.21). Then narrows to 54-56 (p.22). Hansen ties together Gal.2 and Acts 15, yet doesn't allow for works of the law to mean more than "circumcision and purity laws", contrary to the opposition in Acts 15:5 pushing for gentiles to "keep the law of Moses"(see p.69 and footnote). Egalatarian reading of 3:28. Besides these things, I thouroughly enjoyed reading this and would definitely recommend to intro level readers looking for deeper understanding of the text. Very practical and pastoral. Like Schreiner's 'Galatians', I picked this up and read it through in a few days. Great read. Also, footnotes always begin with chapter and verse so it's not hard to place them in the text. Preferable to some because it doesn't distract one from the main writing.

I tend to disagree with Hansen on some minor contextual and exegtical stuff, but this still holds up as a decent intro commentary. I'd recommend this one ahead of other options directed at a more general audience.

Walter Hansen's IVPNTC takes the unusual approach of holding to a later date and North Galatian location while trying to reconcile it with Acts. I'm not sure he succeeds. I have a hard time with this series, because it tries to play to two audiences, having a flowing exposition at the top and some footnotes not clearly tied to any location in the main text (as footnotes usually are), and the level of detail in the footnotes is significant but without sufficient space to do so properly, so it requires pick-and-choose approach to which exegetical issues will get coverage. This is D.A. Carson's favorite introductory-level commentary on Galatians, and that's even despite his disagreements with Hansen over the historical issues. [Full Review]

[Full Review]