(14 votes, average: 4.71 out of 5)
Loading...In my previous post I indicated that among the lost writings of early Christianity, one batch that I would especially like to see discovered would be those produced by Paul’s enemies among the Christians. I don’t know how many of his opponents were writing-literate, but possibly some of them were, and their own attacks on him and defenses of their own positions would be fascinating and eye-opening. Among these, I would especially love to see what his opponents in Galatia had to say for themselves. My hunch is that they were every bit as aggressive and confident in their views as Paul was in his.
I’ve always found the letter to the Galatians to be one of the most forceful, intriguing, and difficult letters of Paul. I’ve studied it for over forty years, and there are still verses that I don’t understand. My view is that most scholars don’t understand them either — even the scholars who think they do! It is a packed and theologically dense letter in places.
But the basic point is clear.
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I guess this is hard to say since we don’t have any of their writings, but for those who opposed Paul what was the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection? That it brought salvation but only for those who continued to follow the Law?
Yes, more or less. God chose Israel as his people and through them he would reach all people of earth. The people of God would keep his covenant. It was originally given to Israel, but anyone who joins the people of God joins the covenant. And that requires *joining*. Those who join NOW can have eternal life by the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is God’s messiah sent from God to his people. Anyone can now be right with the God of the Jews by the death of the jewish Messiah. But of course God hasn’t changed what is required to belong to the covenant. He said the covenant was *eternal* and he meant it!
The battleground here seems to be over the demands to be made on Gentile converts but wouldn’t the logic of Paul’s position be that Jewish believers no longer needed to be Torah observant?
He doesn’t say. He himself “lived as a gentile” on occasion, so he apparenlty didn’t think Jews *had* to keep Torah strictly; but he never ever tells Jews they weren’t allowed to (though Gal. 2:11-14 may suggest they shouldn’t when it came to eating and sharing the eucharist with gentiles)
“He himself “lived as a gentile” on occasion, so he apparenlty didn’t think Jews *had* to keep Torah strictly”
Are you sure about that Bart; as I read Galatians 2:14, it is specifically Cephas who had been ‘living as a gentile”; as too, by implication had Barnabas and the other Jewish Christians? Paul, no doubt, had done so too; but his point was that the behaviour now stigmatised as ‘living as a gentile” had for fourteen years been generally accepted as proper behaviour for Torah-observant Jews amongst gentile fellow-believers. For Paul, it is “those from James” who were the innovators.
From Galatians 2:12, “living as a gentile” is specified as “taking meals with gentile Christians”; the argument is about Cephas’s sharing table fellowship, not about his eating non-Kosher foods.
As for Paul himself, by the time he wrote to the Romans (applying his preferred self-identfication as “the one who is weak” Romans 14:2), he states he only ever eats the vegetables whoever he dines with. I don’t think it unreasonable to read this back into his stay at Antioch.
And Paul did teach that Jewish Christians had to keep the Torah strictly: Galatians 5:3
I was thinking of 1 Cor. 9:20-22.
Thanks Bart; though as I read 1 Corinthians 9, Paul describes himself as “becoming as a Jew/Gentile”, not as “behaving as a Jew/Gentile”. Are you proposing these as the same thing?
Paul is presenting here his justification for varying his preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, depending on his audience – whether fellow Jews, those under the Law, those not under the Law, or those who (like him) are weak. This is partly a matter of differing content; Paul’s Gospel to Jewish Christians states that they must be strict observers of the whole Law, while his Gospel to non-Jewish Christians states that, for them, the opposite is applies.
But further; for the purpose of “gaining” non-Jews, Paul “becomes” a non-Jewish rhetorical persona. We can see this latter strategy in action at Romans 7: 14-24, where Paul dramatises the catastrophic dilemma of a notional non-Jew faced with the absolute demands of the Law, but (not being a Jew “by nature”) being incapable of responding.
The passage is in the first person; the desparate rhetorical “I” is Paul “becoming a non-Jew”; the real Jewish Paul had faced no such problems (Philippians 3:6).
Yes, I’d say the standard interpretatoin is that if Paul a Jew says that he “became a Gentile” to the gentiles he means that at those times was not adhering to Jewish law. He doesn’t say anything about preaching a different message. I think one of the very big points he tries to make thorughout his wriitngs is that it’s the same message for Jew and Gentile (Rom 1-3 etc.)
Sorry to go on about this, Bart; but might it not be that the “standard interpretation” errs in interpreting this passage according to Paul’s discussions about forbidden foods (in our Chapter 8); and not paying attention to his focus on preaching here? So, Paul states at 1 Corinthians 9:23: “I do it all for the sake of preaching the Gospel” – as indeed I count six other references to “preaching” or “preaching the Gospel” in our chapter 9 – but nowhere mention of food laws.
As to Paul’s presentation of Jews and Gentiles in Romans; I would see these as framed by his preferred metaphor of the Law as a cultivated olive tree (Romans 11:24), from which some (Jewish) branches have separated – due to their rejection of Jesus – and wild (Gentile) branches have been grafted in their place. In due course, the Jewish branches must be grafted back too; but the two graftings are not the same – that for the Jews is “by nature”, while that for the Gentiles is “against nature”. Consequently, though Jew and Gentile branches will flourish they will continue to bear different fruits, and will require different husbandry.
Hi Bart, I’m having a hard time understanding what has scholars so convinced that the author of the Epistle of James is pretending to be the Jesus’s brother; it seems entirely possible that the author is an otherwise unknown Jewish-Christian named James.
Many of the arguments that are used against the idea that the brother of Jesus wrote the epistle also appear to be reasons against believing the author is pretending to be Jesus’ family in the first place. One could use the slow acceptance of the text into the canon to support pseudonymous authorship, but if the recipients of the letter knew the author was a different James, that would also explain why it took so long.
Additionally, the author doesn’t take any opportunity to claim a personal relationship with Jesus. I’ve read it argued that the fact that James uses Job as a model of one willing to suffer in 5:11 is evidence of pseudonymous authorship, but wouldn’t one also expect the author to use Jesus as the example here if he was pretending to be his brother? Isn’t this point best explained by an author who is *not* pretending to be the leader of the church in Jerusalem?
It’s a long argument, but the basic reason for thinking he is claimign to be Jesus’ brother is that (a) he is writing to Christians scattered throughout the world, (b) most of whom he could not have known personally, and (c) he calls himself James, but (d) he doesn’t say *which* James he is, (e) even though James was an exceedingly common name. And so, he appears to be assuming that they’ll know who he is, and that makes best sense if they are expected to understand, O, it’s THAT James…..
Professor, I wonder if there is scripture I missed growing up, in which Paul receives his gospel “directly from Christ himself, who appeared to him after the resurrection.” In the appearance I recall, Jesus only told him to get up, go to Damascus and meet Ananais (sp?), for further instruction.
You’re thinking of the account in Acts. In Galatians Paul insists he got his “gospel” straight from God who “revealed his son to me,” not from any human. Read Galatians 1-2 and you’ll see.
Dr. Ehrman, if you had the opportunity to bring one, and just one, lost work from early Christianity back to light in its original form, which would you choose? Q? Papias? The Gospel of the Hebrews? One letter from Paul’s adversaries? Any other work?
Yes to all of the above! Or the original Gospel of Peter. Or the very first Gospel written that we’ve never heard of. Or one of Paul’s many other letters. Yikes — do I have to choose?
Do we have any idea why such an angry book as Galatians was preserved? They didn’t tear it up when they got it. Somebody must have thought it was worth copying. Was it just because it came from Paul?
Most people think and have from the beginning thought that it was justified anger and that Paul really nailed it!
From what historians can deduce about Jesus, do you think Jesus wanted to create a following among gentiles? Or had any expectation of a following among gentiles?
I don’t think so. But he did think gentiles would enter the kingdom if they treated others well (as in the Sheep and the Goats)
I would be curious to know what verses in Galatians you don’t understand.
I’d say 2:18-19 and 3:16, 19 are especially tough. I can “wing” an explanation when called upon to do so, but I’m never quite sure if I’ve got it right. They are much debated among Pauline scholars.
I see Galatians 3:19 as problematic for someone proposing that Paul understood Jesus to have had pre-existence as an ‘angel’; as the wording appears to contrast God’s promulgating the Law through an angelic intermediary, against God’s direct action through Jesus (without an intermediary). Is that your uncertainty?
On Galatians 2:18, I would suggest that Paul is referring back to Galatians 2:14; Paul’s bitter accusation against Cephas, that since Cephas had withdrawn from table fellowship with Gentiles he was paradoxically now “living as a Gentile”; which, and contrary to the assertions of ‘those from James’, he had not been doing before. Gentiles, in Jewish understanding, were by nature sinful (Galatians 2:15). To build again the barriers to fellowship between Christian Jews and Gentiles, which their mutual faith in Christ had justified as being dismantled, would be to interpret the Law as justifying transgression. Which, to Paul, truly constitutes “exchanging the truth of God for a lie” (Romans 1:35) ; so ‘living as a Gentile’.
The key point, I suggest, being to note that Galatians 2:14 is in the present tense; Cephas’s “living as a Gentile” must be referring to *now*, not *then*.
These are obviously difficult passages. I don’t think Paul’s attack on Cephas makes sense if he is saying that Cephas is forcing other Jews not to do precisely what he is doing himself at the moment. Like all tenses, of course, the present does not indicate time only or maybe even exclusively, bu taspect. In 3:19 Paul is talking about a specific event at Sinai; I don’t see it as having relevance to whether he imagined Jesus himself to be a kind of angelic being in his pre-incarnate state.
” I don’t think Paul’s attack on Cephas makes sense if he is saying that Cephas is forcing other Jews not to do precisely what he is doing himself at the moment.”
You are not wrong to say this is a difficult passage Bart, but I do not see anyone proposing Cephas as the one forcing the Jewish Christians of Antioch to withdraw from table fellowship with Gentiles. Rather Paul identifies these bullies as “those of the circumcision” (presumably a different group from “those from James” – maybe they are the “false brethren” of Galatians 2:4, whom James, Peter and John had faced down at verse 9 on the issue of whether Gentile believers should circumcise?)
Reading Paul’s words to Cephas all the way to verse 18, the substance of his criticism appears that, through re-erecting barriers to fellowship in Jesus Christ that had previously been dismantled, Cephas’s behaviour demonstrates the marks of a transgressor – as though he were a “Gentile sinner” rather than the “Jew by nature” that he is (Galatians 2:15); hence “living as a Gentile” while compelling the Gentiles to “Judaize”. But as to what ‘Judaizing” refers to here, I admit ignorance.
Fascinating Bart. I think we can do more than guess. The pro-Paul book of Acts probably gives us a sanitised version of what the *majority* (thousands?) of the Jerusalem church said about Paul:
Acts 21:20 Then they said to Paul: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are *zealous for the law*.
21 They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs….
28…..shouting, “Fellow Israelites, help us! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and our law and this place.
…22:22 Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live”.
Because Paul had already identified the martyr Stephen as belonging to that very mob (22:20 “And when the blood of *your* martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval”), I suggest that some of those calling for Paul’s death were ‘Zealous-for-the-law’ Jewish Christians!!
Hello, Bart,
Two questions:
1) How should Christians think of Isaiah prophecy of the virgin birth in the Gospel narrative when the correct word is actually alma (young woman)? What does this say about the author and could it still, knowing the word is incorrect be regarded by Christians as inspired words by God?
2) I feel like my faith is based almost entirely on an emotional basis. Seeing issues, how can I overcome the emotions I have regarding the faith?
1. He was reading the text in Greek and so was following what he read. Christians who think there can’t be any errors of any kind in the Bible would try to explain the problem away. Most everyone else would say that Matthew has interpreted a non-messianic passage messianically and, hey, isn’t that interesting? 2. If factual informatoin affects your faith, or at least informatpoin that you conclude is factual does, then I’d say your faith is not completely based on emotion. For those of us interested in knowing what really ahppened in the past, who are willing to admit mistakes when we read them, and see contradictions when they’re pointed out to us, if we have faith, it can be emotionally very traumatic — at least it was for me. Changing your deeply held convictions can be wrenching. But my view has always been that it’s better not to believe something that isn’t true. BUT, the “untrue” thing may simply be that the Bible MUST be without error. Many, many Christians are committed Christians while realizing the Bible is a very human book, warts and all.
Thank you very much for what you told me!
Bart, I’ve heard that these “judaizers” might have gone to Galatia to attack Paul, following the directions of James, the brother of Jesus and the head of the Jerusalem church. I presume there is no direct evidence of this but is this a reasonable possibility?
It’s certainly possible, but it doesn’t seem likely. Both Paul and Acts agree that James agreed on the law-free mission to Gentiles, that, e.g., Gentile men didn’t need to be circumcised. Their falling out was over whether Jewish follower of Jesus should avoid eating meals with gentile followers, since sharing meals would violate kosher laws. James appears to have thought that gentiles could indeed be followers of jeus without converting to Judaism, BUT Jews who followed Jesus still needed to keep the law. That is very different from what the Judaizers appear to have argued.
Bart, in your brilliant lecture this evening, even though your main argument relied a lot on a forged letter!, I think you have convinced me that Paul and Peter never did fully settle their dispute and neither did Paul and James. Paul definitely preached a different gospel to the Gospel Jesus preached during his life ‘in the flesh’ and I don’t think Jesus ever envisaged the law of Moses as being superseded…. although Jesus did have a gentile / Samaritan inclusive outlook – so maybe he did anticipate the apparent progression of revelation in Paul’s gospel? Despite, the rules of apostolic and dynastic succession, I think Paul’s view was ultimately more inclusive than that of Peter, James and the Jerusalem Church, which is why it survived until today. The successors of the original apostolic Jerusalem church, the Ebionites who condemned Pauline theology as ‘lawless’ vanished very early. My theological / faith view is that Paul’s Gospel is more in line with God’s plan, but I think that Paul’s penal substitutionary atonement is too literal an interpretation of the suffering servant / lamb of God, which I think has a deeper more subtle redemptive and representational significance.
Right! But I wasn’t using the forged letter to make my argument about the historical Peter and Paul, only about the later traditoins connected with them.
Galatians is largely about faith, but it’s also very much about Paul—as are most of his letters. Long before he gets to faith, he dwells at length on his own authority. He really doesn’t tolerate dissent in his churches, and he goes to great lengths in Galatians to show how important he is—even quoting Isaiah to claim he was set apart in his mother’s womb (without explaining how the persecution of early Christians fits into this vocation).
So, yes, faith and Hagar and Jerusalem and all that fun stuff, but what Galatians is *really* about is those stupid Galatians not recognising his authority, his validity, his apostleship. This letter was absolutely written in white-hot anger, but I think it was because they didn’t respect Paul enough, not because they misunderstood. 1Thess corrects misapprehensions, but it’s nowhere near as angry, and Paul is significantly less pompous and self-absorbed (but still at least somewhat pompous and self-absorbed), because he’s writing to believers who are loyal to him, which is something that really matters to Paul.
“there are still verses that I don’t understand”
Could you name some of these? Most curious.
Thank you.
I’ve always thought 2:19 and 3:19-20 are difficult if you look at them very closely. Hard to figure out what he means (though there are lots of options!)
Hi Bart, Happy Transgender Day of Visibility! Like you, I’m a former Christian-turned-atheist (actually went through an Orthodox Christian phase in my younger days) and I’ve been thinking about the resurrection narrative the past few days. I enjoyed your resurrection debate with Mike Licona so much I decided to join as a Platinum member. (Tangentially) related to your blog post here, has it ever been suggested or hypothesized that Paul’s “illness” may have been psychiatric in nature? My dad unfortunately had an stress-induced mental episode a few years ago which did temporarily involve hallucinations but also led to a permanent change in his personality and worldview. The whole thing made me realize how fragile the human mind is, and strikes me as a possible secular explanation for Paul’s vision of Jesus and conversion.
Yes, others have argued that. Some have also suggested epilepsy. And other optoins. And I completely agree on the mind — and have since I first read up on Phineas Gage…
Are we sure it didn’t sound like this in Ancient Greek times? “Zeus, watch how they treat me on this planet”.
Dr. Ehrman, I love to see a post on Solon and the story of Atlantis!
John Mark (and certainly his mother) seems to have had close connections with Peter. Could the reason he ‘deserted’ Paul and Barnabas’s first mission be because he felt uncomfortable with Paul’s views and actions with respect to keeping the Jewish law? Might he have gone back to Peter and James and told tales about Paul? Maybe therefore, Paul regarded John Mark as one of those ‘false believers” who had “infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in the Messiah” ? Gal 2:4. It’s certainly interesting that Paul’s fall out with Barnabas over the matter appears in Acts 15 just after the passage about the Jerusalem council!
Could be! I wish we knew! (Assuming the account in Acts is historical about their contretemps)
An imagined dialogue between Paul and Barnabas over the dispute about John Mark (based on Galatians). Part 1:
P: You must be out of your mind Barnabas! I’m not taking deserter with us again, he’s even deserted the one who called him to live in the undeserved favour of the Messiah and turned to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all. By perverting the gospel of the Messiah, he’s even confusing you, Barnabas. As far as I’m concerned, anybody who preaches a gospel other than what you accepted, he should be put under God’s curse!
B: Oh don’t be so ridiculous Paul. He was a believer in Jesus long before you were and he received the gospel from Peter himself and he actually met Jesus! Not everyone has exactly the same view of what the gospel is as you do!
P: I did not receive the Gospel from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
The gospel I preach is not of human origin. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was
B: John Mark is only young man
P: Yes and when I was his age, I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my father. Anyway, he’s a false believer, who effectively infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to try and make us slaves all over again!
B: What are you talking about, Paul?
P: you know exactly what I mean, Barnabas! Jonn Mark wanted us to set aside the grace of God by persuading us to try and gain righteousness through the law! If we had acceded to this, then it would imply that we believed that Christ died for nothing! He then went back to Peter and James, and the other apostles in Jerusalem, and told them that we had become lawless among the sinners, which caused a lot of trouble for our mission! As a result, we had to go all the way back to Jerusalem, and defend ourselves to the leaders of the Jerusalem so-called head office of the movement. Anyway we did not give in to them for one moment…TBC
I wonder how a pagan in antiquity could become a Jew. I know that there were proselytes, and, as far as I know, they had the same rigths as other Jews, if they followed the Jewish law. But were they really considered as equals to those who were born Jews, considering that they were not believed to be blood descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
Yes, these would be proselytes who, based on circumcisoin and a commitment to follow the laws of Torah, would be admitted into the Jewish community with full rights and responsibilities. Whether all other Jews in the community accorded them full respect as fellow Jews is another question….
Regarding the conflict between Peter/Cephas and Paul in Galatians:
Was it really forbidden for a Jew in antiquity to eat together with gentiles, despite that they didn’t eat the same thing?
I suppose (correct me if I am wrong), that today, that I can go to a restaurant together with an orthodox Jewish friend, where I eat pork and he eats beef, and this would be no problem for my friend….?
An orthodox Jewish friend would not eat in any ole restaurant with you because the kitchen itself with its utensils etc. would have to be kosher. A Reformed Jew — no problem. We don’t have legal codes for Jews from the first century, but the normal assumption is that if you kept kosher, you couldn’t share a meal in a gentile’s house (though presumably she/he could share one in yours)