David Wyman examines documentary and literary sources to compose a detailed description of civic benefaction, including the phenomenon of benefactors who risk their lives. He then analyzes how Paul's letter to the Galatians incorporates the language, motifs, and relational dynamics of benefaction.
Paul's use of χάρις in his letter to the Galatians provides a gateway to understanding the letter within the broader cultural framework of civic benefaction. In this book, David Wyman examines literary and documentary sources to reconstruct a Hellenistic cultural encyclopedia of gift-giving and civic benefaction within which to situate Paul's letter to the Galatians. This perspective illuminates numerous words, phrases, themes, and relational dynamics within the letter. Paul inherits and uses aspects of benefaction in a way that conforms to his cultural context yet reveals his own individuality.
Table of contents:
Chapter 1: Benefaction in the Study of Galatians
Chapter 2: Benefaction - Gratitude and Decisions
Chapter 3: Benefaction - Select Motifs
Chapter 4: Endangered Benefaction
Chapter 5: Endangered Benefaction in 1 Maccabees and Josephus's
Life
Chapter 6: Convergence of Motifs
Chapter 7: Endangered Benefaction in Galatians
Chapter 8: Civic Freedom and »The Law of Christ«
Chapter 9: Other Aspects of Benefaction in Galatians
Chapter 10: Conclusion 
