Pleasing God or Pleasing People? Defending the Gospel in Galatians 1–2 Paul’s letters, “in which [were] some things hard to understand” (2 Pet 3,16) for the ancients, have proven little better for present-day readers. In Gal 1,11-12 Paul would have his converts know that his gospel is from God. Despite his stated purpose and despite the consensus that this purpose governs 1,13–2,21, scholars have found the passage difficult to follow. Three common views of the text — that Paul defends both his gospel and apostolate, that he defends himself against accusations, and that he presents himself as a paradigm for the Galatians — drift from Paul’s stated course. This paper will critique these three views and then present an alternative from the text: Paul’s change in life direction from seeking to please people to seeking to please God in 1,10 substantiates his claim in 1,11-12 of the divine origin of his gospel. In Gal 1,6-12 Paul sketches the nature of the problem in the Galatian church and how he intends to counter it. He begins by defining the problem: the Galatians are turning to another gospel (1,6-7). His “let him be anathema” in vv. 8-9 reinforces the gravity of abandoning his gospel. Then after affirming his desire to please God rather than people in 1,10, Paul concludes in 1,11-12 that the gospel he preached to them is not a message of human invention because he received it not from human beings but from God himself 1. This conclusion is what he wishes for the Galatians to There is some controversy about whether h between “human being” and ¶ 1 “ God ” in 1,10 is disjunctive or conjunctive, i.e. does Paul say he does not seek to please people but that he does seek to please God (disjunctive h), or does he ¶ say that he does not seek to please either people or God (conjunctive h) ? The ¶ contrast between God and people throughout chaps. 1 and 2 would speak for disjunctive h. Even the rest of v. 10, by contrasting pleasing people with being a ¶ servant of Christ, is evidence for the disjunctive view. See J.H. SCHÜTZ, Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority (Louisville, KY 2007) 128-129, for h ¶ as conjunctive and B.C. LATEGAN, “Is Paul Defending his Apostleship in Galatians : The Function of Galatians 1:11-12 and 2:19-20 in the Development of Paul’s Argument”, NTS 34 (1988) 422-423, for h as disjunctive. ¶