The best-known sentence in Galatians, and one of the most frequently detached from its argument. Three features control it.

First, what kind of claim it makes. The verb is not ἐστίν but ἔνι — the shortened existential form, in Paul’s hands a categorical denial of presence rather than a mild statement of absence. And it is a present indicative: Paul is not prescribing a goal but reporting a state of affairs obtaining in a defined sphere (ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ). The σῴζω-style eschatological future is not used.

Second, the shape. Three pairs, each headed by οὐκ ἔνι, in asyndeton — no connective between them. The first two pairs are joined internally by οὐδέ; the third by καί. That single switch of conjunction, together with the switch from masculine substantives to the neuter ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ, is the exegetical crux: the third member is not formed like the other two, and the wording ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ is verbatim Gen 1:27 LXX.

Third, the ground. γάρ ties the denials to a positive confession — πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστε. Not neuter ἕν (‘one thing’), which Paul uses elsewhere (1 Cor 3:8), but masculine εἷς, ‘one [person]’. The plural subject takes a singular predicate, and the strain is the point.

The context is baptismal (v. 27, ἐβαπτίσθητε, ἐνεδύσασθε) and the argument is about Abrahamic sonship (vv. 26, 29). Everything the verse denies, it denies with respect to that status; what it does not say is what has provoked nineteen centuries of dispute, and the apparatus below marks the open questions rather than closing them.

ἔνι is the shortened form of ἔνεστιν (ἐν + εἰμί), functioning in Koine as an emphatic existential. It occurs in the NT only here (three times), at Col 3:11, and at 1 Cor 6:5 — all Pauline, and all in denials.

Two consequences follow, and the glossary already fixes them (cf. the entry at Jas 1:17, ἔνι):

1. English cannot distinguish it from ἐστίν. The emphasis is recorded in apparatus rather than rendered with an added adverb.
2. The clause is a categorical denial of existence, not a statement of mild absence. ‘There is not Jew nor Greek’ rather than ‘Jew and Greek do not matter’.

That second point is where most English renderings slip. ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek’ is accurate and is retained in the liturgical register; ‘Jew and Greek make no difference’ substitutes the inference for the verb, and ‘you are no longer Jew or Greek’ imports οὐκέτι, which Paul uses at Gal 3:25 and 4:7 and does not use here.

Note the accent: ἔνι, recessive, not the poetic preposition ἐνί. Printed accents in the earliest majuscules are absent, so the accentuation is editorial — but no competing construal is available.

Built onbdag · bdf

Proposed — pending reviewHenry George Liddell, Robert Scott, and Henry Stuart Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. with revised supplement, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

The structure is formally precise and then deliberately broken:

Two variables change at once in the third pair: the gender of the substantives and the conjunction. Neither change is textually in doubt.

The pairs stand in asyndeton — no καί or δέ between them. Per the standing asyndeton policy (Phil 3:2; 4:8; Gal 4:5; 5:4), no connective is supplied in English and the abruptness is reproduced; the accumulation of three identical openings is the rhetoric.

On the conjunctions: οὐδέ continues a negation already begun (per the corpus entry fixed at Gal 1:17), so οὐκ ἔνι Ἰουδαῖος οὐδὲ Ἕλλην is one negation covering two items. καί in the third pair is not negated separately: Paul writes οὐκ ἔνι ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ, which woodenly is ‘there is not male-and-female’. That is why the literal tier renders ‘male and female’ and not ‘male nor female’.

Built onbdf · na28

Proposed — pending reviewF. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.

Both nouns are anarthrous and qualitative: the categories, not identified groups. English supplies no article beyond what idiom requires.

Ἰουδαῖος is the civic-ethnic-descent designation, to be kept lexically distinct from Ἰσραήλ, the covenant-insider name (Rom 9:4; 11:1; 2 Cor 11:22). Paul’s distribution is deliberate and collapsing both to ‘Jew’ erases a distinction his argument uses. Per §5 two opposite distortions must be avoided: sharpening the term into a hostile collective, and softening it into a religious label (‘Jewish by religion’), which retrojects a modern category — compare φύσει Ἰουδαῖοι at Gal 2:15, where the sense is plainly descent.

Ἕλλην is properly a Greek by descent or language, but in Jewish Greek it is the standing counterpart to Ἰουδαῖος for the covenant outsider (Rom 1:16; 10:12; Col 3:11). The glossary retains ‘Greek’ so the lexeme stays distinguishable from ἔθνη (‘the nations / Gentiles’), which Paul has used six times earlier in this very chapter (3:8, 14). Rendering Ἕλλην ‘Gentile’ in the reading text substitutes one Greek word for another and hides that Paul switched vocabulary at the climax of the argument.

Built onbdag · silva-becnt

δοῦλος denotes owned, non-free legal status in first-century usage. Per the standing glossary decision and §§5, 9, ‘servant’ is excluded: it softens an ancient social institution the argument depends on, and in Galatians the δουλ- root is load-bearing throughout (1:10; 2:4 καταδουλόω; 4:1, 3, 7, 8, 9, 24, 25; 5:1, 13).

ἐλεύθερος is the legal counterpart — the manumitted or freeborn person — and is already fixed in the glossary as ‘free’, with the substantival use requiring a supplied noun in the literal tier. Galatians runs the ἐλευθερ- family hard (2:4; 4:22-31; 5:1, 13), and one English root is mandatory across adjective, noun, and verb.

Note what the verse does not say. It does not abolish the legal relation in the Roman world; Paul can still write to Philemon about a δοῦλος, and 1 Cor 7:21-22 presupposes the status while relativizing it. What is denied is that the status obtains in the sphere named at the end of the verse. Per §5 the ancient institution is described at face value and neither laundered nor amplified; the social implications drawn by later readers belong in Reception, not in the rendering.

Built onbdag · silva-becnt

Both are neuter substantival adjectives — ἄρσεν from ἄρσην, θῆλυ from θῆλυς — against the masculine substantives of the first two pairs. The grammatical gender is not referential: the neuter is the generalizing form appropriate to the created category rather than to individual persons (§3 distinguishes grammatical from referential gender, and only the latter constrains translation choice).

The phrase is verbatim Gen 1:27 LXX: ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποίησεν αὐτούς. The same wording recurs at Gen 5:2 LXX and is quoted by Jesus at Mark 10:6 and Matt 19:4 in the marriage discussion. The verbal identity is the single most important datum about this clause, and it is secure — no textual variation, and no other NT occurrence of the pair in this exact form that is independent of Genesis.

Two further lexical points:

• Not ἀνήρ / γυνή. Paul had the ordinary person-nouns available (and uses them constantly: 1 Cor 7; 11:3-12; Gal 4:4 γυναικός). He wrote the Genesis adjectives instead. Rendering ‘man nor woman’ substitutes ἀνήρ/γυνή and deletes the citation.
• Not ‘husband and wife’. The ἄρσεν/θῆλυ pair is biological-categorial, not marital.

Render ‘male and female’ in every tier, retaining καί. Excluded: ‘male nor female’ (levels the conjunction), ‘man and woman’ (substitutes a different lexeme), ‘male or female’ (weakens καί toward disjunction).

Built onbdag · muraoka-lxx · silva-becnt

The Hebrew of Gen 1:27 reads זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה בָּרָא אֹתָם, which the LXX renders ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποίησεν αὐτούς. Paul’s three words are that phrase exactly, with no introductory formula (no γέγραπται, no λέγει ἡ γραφή — contrast Gal 3:10, 13, both in this chapter).

An unmarked citation of this kind is common in Paul (cf. Gal 5:14, where Lev 19:18 is cited without formula), and per the standing policy on citations without an introductory formula the quotation punctuation in printed editions is editorial judgment, not manuscript evidence. The earliest majuscules are unpunctuated; most modern editions, including NA28, do not mark Gal 3:28 as a quotation at all.

Built onmuraoka-lxx · bdag

Proposed — pending reviewJ. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, 10th ed., London: Macmillan, 1890.

The ground-clause is four words of carefully arranged Greek: πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστε.

γάρ is rendered, never dropped (§10). It grounds the three denials: the reason there is no Jew-or-Greek is that the addressees are one. Argument structure in epistolary material is load-bearing, and ‘for’ preserves the grounding relation.

πάντες is anarthrous plural with the pronoun, and fronted before the postpositive γάρ — the emphatic slot. Per the standing πᾶς policies the anarthrous plural is unbounded within the addressed body: not ‘most of you’, not ‘everyone everywhere’, but all of you without exception. The fronting is preserved by keeping ‘all’ early in the English clause where idiom permits. Note that the pastoral deployment of πᾶς is a Pauline habit already recorded in this corpus (Phil 1:1, 4, 7, 8, 25; 2:17; 4:21).

ὑμεῖς is an expressed nominative pronoun, redundant to the 2pl verb ending and therefore marked. Per the standing entry on expressed nominative pronouns with finite verbs, it must be rendered visibly — ‘you all are one’, not absorbed into the verb.

εἷς is the crux of the clause and is grammatically striking: a masculine singular predicate with a masculine plural subject. Paul had the neuter ἕν available and uses it precisely where a thing rather than a person is meant (1 Cor 3:8 ἕν εἰσιν; John 10:30; 17:21-23). The witnesses offer ἕν in a small number of places; the masculine is secure in NA28 and is the harder reading.

ἐστε is present indicative and durative: a state obtaining, not a goal to be reached. Any future or hortatory rendering (‘you are to be one’, ‘you should all be one’) is excluded — §6 forbids shading toward either comfort or demand.

Built onbdf · silva-becnt · bauckham-god-crucified

Per the standing glossary decision, the bare prepositional phrase is preserved and not expanded to ‘in union with Christ’ or ‘as Christians’. The formula is usually incorporative in Paul but not invariably, and the reader must be able to see the ambiguity rather than receive a resolved paraphrase.

Three things this phrase does in the verse:

1. It names the sphere within which the denials hold. The three οὐκ ἔνι clauses are not unqualified cosmological statements; they are governed by the final prepositional phrase. Removing or paraphrasing it detaches the claim from its stated domain.
2. It closes the frame opened at v. 26. πάντες γὰρ υἱοὶ θεοῦ ἐστε διὰ τῆς πίστεως ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ (v. 26) → πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστε ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ (v. 28). Identical phrase, identical πάντες γάρ opening, with v. 27’s baptismal clause between. The English must render both identically so the inclusio is visible.
3. The word order is Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, title first. Per standing policy this is retained as written rather than normalized to ‘Jesus Christ’; the manuscript transposition is scribal assimilation to the commoner order and the reader should be able to see which order the text has.

Built onbdag · obrien-nigtc

The verse is textually stable in its essentials. Four points deserve record:

1. ἔνι (three times). Secure. A few witnesses substitute the full ἔστιν, which is Atticizing normalization of the shortened Koine form and carries no semantic weight. The harder ἔνι is retained; cf. the same form at Col 3:11.

2. οὐδέ / καί in the third pair. The καί of οὐκ ἔνι ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ is secure. Witnesses levelling to οὐδέ (assimilating the third pair to the first two) are secondary and show the direction of smoothing to be avoided — precisely the harmonization the apparatus is designed to resist.

3. εἷς (masc) vs ἕν (neut). The masculine is read by the critical text. The neuter is the easier reading (it removes the concord strain and assimilates to the commoner ἕν εἰσιν of 1 Cor 3:8 and John 10:30) and is to be recorded, not followed.

4. Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ word order. Some witnesses transpose to Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ. Scribal assimilation to the commoner sequence; the printed order stands.

Built onna28 · metzger-tc

Three considerations have made many readers suspect that Paul is quoting rather than composing vv. 27-28:

• The immediate baptismal reference (ὅσοι … ἐβαπτίσθητε, Χριστὸν ἐνεδύσασθε, v. 27).
• The parallel lists at 1 Cor 12:13 (οὔτε Ἰουδαῖοι οὔτε Ἕλληνες, οὔτε δοῦλοι οὔτε ἐλεύθεροι — two pairs, in the same order, also with βαπτίζω) and Col 3:11 (Ἕλλην καὶ Ἰουδαῖος, περιτομὴ καὶ ἀκροβυστία, βάρβαρος, Σκύθης, δοῦλος, ἐλεύθερος — expanded, reordered, and with no third pair).
• The formal, acclamatory rhythm: three identical openings in asyndeton, a fronted πάντες, and a confessional εἷς ἐστε.

What is secure is the structural function in Galatians. The verse is not a free-standing social manifesto but the penultimate step of an argument running from 3:6 (Abraham believed) through 3:16 (the σπέρμα is one, and is Christ) to 3:29 (if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s σπέρμα, heirs according to promise). The three denials clear away every ground of differential standing within that inheritance. Reading the verse apart from κληρονόμοι in the next clause is reading it apart from what Paul wrote it to prove.

Proposed — pending reviewJ. Louis Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 33A, New York: Doubleday, 1997.

The verse asserts something and does not assert a great deal more, and the discipline of §§4-6 requires that both be visible.

What is asserted. Within the sphere ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, in respect of the standing under discussion in this chapter (υἱοὶ θεοῦ, v. 26; σπέρμα Ἀβραάμ and κληρονόμοι, v. 29), three paired categories do not exist as determinants. The verb is existential and categorical; the tense is present. Nothing is hedged.

What is not asserted, and must not be imported.

• Not the abolition of ethnic descent as a fact. Paul writes Ἰσραηλίτης of himself at Rom 11:1 and Phil 3:5, and Rom 9-11 is written on the premise that Israel’s identity persists.
• Not the abolition of the legal institution of slavery in the empire. Paul can address a δοῦλος and a κύριος in the same letter.
• Not, of itself, the abolition of sexual differentiation. The clause cites the created pair without commenting on its continuance.

Built onsilva-becnt · bauckham-god-crucified · hurtado-ljc

Proposed — pending reviewRichard N. Longenecker, Galatians, Word Biblical Commentary 41, Dallas: Word Books, 1990.

Recorded as how the verse was read, never as evidence for what it says.

Patristic. The Greek commentators read the verse as a statement about the equality of access to baptismal sonship. Chrysostom (Hom. in Gal.) presses the unity on the Jew/Greek axis as the dissolution of the ancestral advantage, and takes εἷς ἐστε as corporate: the many have put on one garment and so present one appearance. Theodoret and the catenae similarly treat the three pairs as instances of a single point about the levelling effect of the one baptism, and do not isolate the third pair for separate comment — a silence worth recording. Jerome, commenting on Galatians, is alert to the Gen 1:27 wording and relates the clause to the restoration of what was constituted in creation. Augustine (e.g. De Genesi ad litteram, and in the Galatians exposition) reads the ἄρσεν/θῆλυ clause as concerning the renewal of the mind in the image of God, where the distinction does not obtain, while holding that the bodily distinction remains — a distinction later much contested.

Latin and other versions. The Vulgate reads non est Iudaeus neque Graecus, non est servus neque liber, non est masculus neque femina. Two things to note: Latin non est cannot reproduce the force of ἔνι, and — more significantly — the Vulgate renders the third conjunction neque, levelling it to the first two. The third pair’s καί is thereby lost to the whole Western tradition and to the English versions that descend from it. This is the clearest instance in the verse of reception obscuring a textual feature, and per §11 it supplies no evidence for the rendering. The Peshitta likewise does not preserve the conjunction-switch.

Later tradition. The verse has carried enormous weight in debates over slavery, over Jewish-Christian relations, and over the ordering of ministry, in all of which it has been quoted detached from κληρονόμοι in v. 29. The Gospel of Thomas 22 saying about the two becoming one and the male and female becoming a single one is regularly cited as a parallel; its date and its relation to Paul are both disputed, and it cannot be used to establish the sense of ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ.

The weight of this reception is real and is named here as a known point of theological-tradition interest. It is not an input to any decision above.

Proposed — pending reviewMark J. Edwards (ed.), Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament 8, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999.