Loading...Yesterday one of my fellow-travelers on a trip I’m taking wanted to talk about Paul and his self-image, and whether Paul had a rather (or extremely) exalted view of his own importance. I gave him one of my standard answers, that I think it’s impossible to engage in a psychological analysis of a person’s self-image when they lived millennia ago (it’s certainly hard enough when they share our time and culture and we’ve known them for years).
But it is possible to know, sometimes, what a person actually thought about themselves on some level. And however we evaluate the psychological elements involved, I do think it’s safe to say that Paul saw himself as an important and inspired person in the history of the salvation of the world. Make of it what you will!
Here’s how I have explained it before, based on my book Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene (Oxford University Press), edited here for the occasion.
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To make sense of how Paul’s conversion affected his actual life, not just his theology, it is important to recall how his conversion to the Christian faith affected his theology. As I’ve indicated on the blog before, at his conversion Paul came to realize that it is not necessary for gentiles to become Jews in order to be among God’s “chosen ones,” the “people of the covenant.”
They do not need to be circumcised, observe the Sabbath, keep kosher, or any of the rest. They need only to believe in the death and resurrection of the messiah Jesus. This was an earth-shattering realization for Paul. Prior to this, the followers of Jesus – the first Christians – were of course Jews who understood that he was the messiah who had died and been raised from the dead. But they knew this as the act of the Jewish God given to the Jewish people. Certainly gentiles could find this salvation as well. But first they had to be Jewish. Not for Paul. Jew or gentile, it didn’t matter. What mattered was faith in Christ.
Once Paul came to realize this he was blinded yet again by a further insight ,of direct relevance to his view of himself.
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Fascinating post. Thank you. I’ve always thought that the logical conclusion of Paul’s belief that Gentiles didn’t need to follow all the intricacies of the Jewish Law because of Jesus’s Death and Resurrection etc. is that the Jews don’t either. Did Paul ever discuss that point?
He argues that no one follows it perfectly (Romans 2), but that’s not his stated reason for understanding that it is for Jews and not Gentiles.
I sometimes get the impression that Paul had a very strong need for approval, or at least a very strong desire to defend his own importance and apostolic authority.
In several places, he seems to speak as if he was the one who established or greatly advanced Christianity in particular regions. But when we look more closely, it also seems that other people—such as Priscilla, Aquila, Apollos, and many unnamed believers—were already active in spreading the movement apart from Paul’s own work. Even in Rome, where Paul had not yet been, Romans 16 lists many Christians, which suggests that the church there was already fairly well developed before his arrival.
Because so many of Paul’s letters later became part of the New Testament, I wonder whether Christians have sometimes come to see Paul as the main person responsible for spreading Christianity, more than the historical evidence itself would justify.
Is this an unfair or overly skeptical reading of Paul? Am I underestimating his actual role in the spread of early Christianity?
I’d say it’s hard to know — precisely for the reason you mention: we don’t have sources of information about it… It *is* worth noting that even within Paul’s churches he seems to have as many enemies as friends and regularly lambastes “other” outside teachers/preachers.
I have often wondered this. Is it probable that Paul, from what we know about him through his letters, thought of himself as a messiah figure as well?
I don’t think so, no. He wsa firm that Jesus was THE messiah.
Sorry to ask an unrelated question, but I love your textbook on the NT and was wondering if you had any recommendations that do basically the same thing for the OT? Thanks!
Michael Coogan has an intro to the OT with Oxford that’s very informative. My favorite is John Collins Intro to the hebrew Bible.
“Part of the logic behind that suggestion is that it is misguided to think that Paul left one religion, Judaism, in order to adopt another, Christianity.”
As Paul’s ministry continued, it appears that he moved further away from Jewish thinking and ways. It likely appeared to the Jews Paul came in contact with thought him to be very odd or maybe to have even left Judaism, correct?
I don’t think so. He continued to insist that he was Jewish to the core till the end, and that he simly had the right *understanding* of Judaism.
Sorry. I meant isn’t it likely that other Jews saw Paul as odd and at times may have thought he even left Judaism. I know that Paul did not think that.
“Paul’s mission had been anticipated by the prophets of old. ”
1. Since the prophets did not have anything in mind regarding Paul, what was their real intention?
2. Did they really think that there was coming a time with the “nations” would turn to the one true God?
3. If so, did the prophets think that pagans would need to convert to Judaism in order to be accepted by God?
1. They were speaking to the crises they were faciing in their own day. 2. 2 Isaiah does at least 3. yes.
I usually see this ehrmanblog.org’s Recent Posts on Facebook, now I see something else, for example, Bart Ehrman asks on Facebook, Have You Seen “Disclosure Day?”
Are you putting the Hebrew God, the God of Israel, the God of the Bible not only above
Ancient Egypt and Ancient Sumer but above
who aliens recognize as Supreme?
We cannot prove what Hebrews call God/Elohim didn’t come from their Babylonian Exile
and what Hebrews learned of Apsu, Tiamat, Marduk, Anu, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Inanna–
Ancient Sumer’s “Seven Gods Who Decree Fate”
An (Sky)
Enlil (Wind/Storms)
Enki (Water/Wisdom)
Ninhursag (Earth/Motherhood)
Nanna (Moon)
Utu (Sun)
Inanna (Venus/War/Love).
In the book UFO of God, Chris Bledsoe and his associates at NASA say there are intelligent non-humans who travel/commute in orbs. The Bible’s God the Father or a god council did not inform us humans were genetically engineeried by Enki and Ninhursag as in Atrahasis. It did not tell us of the Younger Dryas (12,000 years ago) but the local Hebrew theology with its failed apocalypse (tribulation > judgement > Kingdom ruled by the Son of Man on earth) and a local god who could not defend his son or temple is to be magnified?
Dear Dr Ehrman-On the issue of Christological identity, I must admit that the scope of Matthew’s Christology continues to elude me, as some argue that the Matthean use of ‘father’ and ‘son’ language acts purely as metaphor for a very close relationship between a human prophet and God. Yet I must confess that I am rather wary of this argument. Whilst of course Matthew was not written with Nicene Trinitarianism in mind, the divine authority of the Matthean Jesus as Son of God/Son of Man does seem to go far beyond the prerogatives of any earlier human prophet of the Hebrew Bible, from judging the world to declaring himself the unique revelator of the Father. If I may ask, would you describe Matthew’s use of ‘father’ and ‘son’ language as going beyond the purely spiritual and metaphorical? Any illumination would be very welcome. Once again, thank you.
I’m not sure what non-metaphorical would be in this case? A literal father-son relationship would be that God got a feminine being pregnant through intercourse.
The way to understand what “Son of God” means in matthew or elsewhere is to see how it is used in the tradition it (or the others) comes out of. I don’t see anything like pre-existence or world-creator- or anything of that nature in matthew’s view of Jesus.
Dear Dr Ehrman-Please forgive me, I fear I phrased my question rather poorly. To phrase it differently, is the Matthean Jesus, in his role as Son of God/Son of Man, portrayed as standing in a different eschatological category than other righteous Israelite prophets? In essence, does the Matthean tradition portray Jesus as not only as a righteous prophet, but as an eschatological King possessed of a unique role and title?
Yes indeed. He is uniquely connected with God as his Son.
Dr. Ehrman:
In Romans 1:16-17, Paul writes, “The Gospel is the power of God leading everyone who believes in it to salvation. For in the Gospel is revealed the justice of God, which begins and ends with faith. The Scripture says: “The just man shall live by faith.” What does he mean by “Gospel”? He certainly did not have access to the Four Canonical Gospels? Is he referring to his own writings? What gives in your view?
The term “gospel” simply means “good news” and in Paul’s writings it always refers to *message* of salvatoin through the death and resurrection of Jesus. The term Gospel did not come to refer to a kind of writing (a genre) or a specific book until the second Christian century.
Dr. Ehrman. In your understandings of the early Christian texts, do you think Paul invented the use of the term ‘evangelion’ (the Greek word for ‘good news’) or was he using it as a term that was already associated with the Christian/Jesus movements? Since the term ‘evangelion’ was frequently used in the Synoptic Gospels, including Mark who quotes Jesus himself using the term (Mark 1:15 8:35 10:29 13:10 14:9), this does not offer a clear clue, although it does not seem likely that Mark would have THAT quickly adopted the use of Paul’s term, assuming the writer of Mark would have even had access to Paul’s writings/ministries. From what I understand, the writer of the later Gospel of John, completely dropped the use of ‘evangelion’ or that term may have ever came from Jesus’ lips. Are there any theories as to why the writer of John dropped its use?
As a side note, people will often use foreign terms, such as ‘say la vie’ or ‘au revoir’ (French) or ‘dummkopf’ (German) without knowing the language. So, it is not impossible that Jesus may have used a foreign term.
It actually was a common word in Greek, simply meaning a “good report” or “good news” — e.g., brought by the messenger back to the city once a battle was won. It became a common word among Xns for the “good news” of salvatoin; later it came to refer to a book that reported that good news (the genre: Gospel)
The Gnostics get frustrated with Paul maybe because he just hasn’t traveled far enough East to learn of the Antiquarian Revival of Uruk that spreads esoterically through Mesopotamia, like Edessa.
But he’s great for being an interface with the West! And eventually Paul’s style that asks the littlest and promises the biggest is the most popular.
I think I figured it out — the Egyptian Yah is
Ea in Suen/Sin — that is the 28th day. This is similar to Akhenaten’s Aten being officially Ra-Horarkhty, Ra *and* Horus, called “Ra, who is Horus of the Two Horizons.”
There are 28 uses of 28 in the Hebrew Bible.
1. It’s the biggest Sabbat (Mesopotamian Sabbath).
2. No pork allowed
3. No leeks, or garlic allowed – (ofc you can grow leeks and garlic in the Levant, but look how Exodus says that leeks and garlic don’t exist there. 4. Ea means The Living One per Assyriologist Dr. Eespak. So the Eblaite variation, Hayya, turns into the hypercoristic -ya with all the “Life” root meanings.
5. The shawl fringes, in Akkadian sisiktu, in Hebrew tzizit had specific knots to press into clay as an id for the wearer in Mesopotamia.
Bart, most scholars, including you, believe Matthew 19:28 was something Jesus said historically. However, in that verse, Jesus seems to identify himself as Son of Man, which you argue he likely didn’t identify himself as. In the verse, he seems to refer to the Son of Man as future King, which you argue was what Jesus saw himself as.
Is your view that Jesus said something like Matt. 19:28 but not in those exact words?
“Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.’”
— Matthew 19:28 (NIV)
I don’t think the precise words are what Jesus said. I think it shows that Jesus indicated that the twelve disciples would be rulers in the kingdom. It’s hard (for me) to imagine that someone would make up that saying about Jesus being the Son of Man ruling and his *twelve*, including Judas Iscariot, would be ruling with him. So my view is that he it’s the kind of thing he probably did teach his disciples, not that we have his actual words.
Hello, rburack. The Gospel of Matthew was written entirely by the “Q” Community. The “Q” Community fabricated such teachings of Jesus. The “Q” Community fabricated the Bethlehem Nativity and the Return of Jesus. The “Q” Community are former Essenes (Judea) and former Therapeutae (Egypt). They did not follow the Twelve Apostles. They were not known to the group that followed the Twelve Apostles. They were not known to the High Priest nor to Saul of Tarsus. They did not scatter at the stoning of Stephen because they existed undetected. As the Apostle Paul taught inclusion to Gentiles, the “Q” Community opened to the Gentiles. These are the first Gnostic Christians. The clues are the Last Days, the Return of Jesus, Satan, exorcising demons, angels, and extraordinary miracles that only the disciples witnessed. The “Q” Community was influenced by Zoroasterism (Judea) and Buddhism/Hindu (Egypt). Jude is a good example because Enoch is cited. Enoch was written with Zoroasterism elements. Best regards.
I have been reading this book of yours since 2010, Dr. Ehrman, and I was amazed by the wealth of information you draw from the apocryphal. This is the dialogue between Peter and Paul in the Pseudo-Clementian Homilies 17,19. I quote verbatim:
«Peter is said to have scoffed:
«And if our Jesus appeared to you and became known in a vision
and met you as angry and an enemy, yet he has spoken only through
visions and dreams or through external revelations. But can anyone be
made competent to teach through a vision? And if your opinion is that
that is possible, why then did our teacher spend a whole year with us
who were awake? How can we believe you even if he has appeared to
you? . . . But if you were visited by him for the space of an hour and
were instructed by him and thereby have become an apostle, then
proclaim his words, expound what he has taught, be a friend to his
apostles, and do not contend with me, who am his confidant; for you
have in hostility withstood me, who am a firm rock, the foundation
stone of the Church. (Homilies 17.19)»
One can imagine Peter himself saying such a thing to Paul in
their controversy in Antioch: “You think you’re right because you
saw Jesus for a few moments on the road to Damascus? I spent
years with him!”»
My COMMENT: Just reading this argument of Peter, an intelligent person understands the magnitude of Paul’s deception: He managed to convince the whole world that Christ hid the truth from his disciples, who had been with him for months, and told Paul the real truth in a vision that lasted only a few minutes!»
As I understand it, the Assyrian invasion of Israel/Northern Kingdom took the people and assimilated them into other cultures. Is there any school of thought that Paul’s underlying mission was to reach the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel?
Yes, that’s the thesis of Jason Staples in his books published the past couple of years with Cambridge University Press (as it turns out, they are edited versions of his dissertatoin that I directed).
Dr. Ehrman, Let me cite two sentences. “They [Gentiles] do not need to be circumcised, observe the Sabbath, keep kosher, or any of the rest. They need only to believe in the death and resurrection of the messiah Jesus.” If so, then chapters 2 and 3 of Romans are problematic. The problem is traced to the Koine Greek word, “pistis”, which is translated as “faith”. However, it is a legal term. It is not belief (gnosis). In chapter 2, Paul wrote that believers and unbelievers are being judged equally by a Divine Universal Standard. “Pistis” is linked with “fides” (good faith). Unleash the AI on chapters 2 and 3 of Romans. Unbelievers have the Divine Universal Standard “written on the heart”. That is the human conscience that is in clear communication with the Deity. That is Socrates “little voice”. Justin Martyr wrote that Socrates was a Christian before Jesus was born.
Thanks. Gnosis means “knowledge” and “pistis” is used in a wide range of contexts in ancient Greek.
Dr. Ehrman, I invite you to review the “Pistis Christou” Debate. The 16th-century Protestant Shift (Objective Genitive) v. the Greek/Latin (Subjective Genitive).
AI Summary, “Across Romans 3:22, Galatians 2:6, and Philippians 3:9; your proposal holds up structurally and historically. The 16th-century Reformers effectively psychologized (AI’s word) the New Testament.”
AI Summary [edited] “Your proposal is supported by linguistics. By translating pistis and fides as ‘belief’, the 16th-century Protestant translators altered the structural framework of Romans 2 and 3. Jerome’s Vulgate is structurally closer to the original Koine Greek text.”
Best regards.
So Paul really emphasizes he hasn’t been taught anything but at the *local* level. He’s a little siloed in his education. He’s vibe coding.
In the Mesopotamian antecedents of written religion, Ea, the freshwater ablution savior deity, has a son called Asar, which is also the original name for Osiris. (And the Ethiopians said Osiris marks the beginning of a colony in Egypt.)
The logogram phonetically for Asar, Dasar-res, to me just reads to me like Dushara/Dusaras. So I think this explains why Epiphanius of Salamis said that Petra had a January 15th Epiphany day much the same as Jesus’ Epiphany, except that it celebrated Dushara.
Just want to add to what I said above as far as Paul not having education in the religion that influenced the Hebrew Bible — that Ea is only appealed to heal nobility (like Alexander the Great) and it is his SON who heals the common man. His son with the crown of thornbushes, the purifying spittle, the perfume and resurrection attributes.
Jesus is declared The Son of The Living One in the Gospel of Matthew. Since new research shows Ea means The Living One, if the Jesus movement is a product of the Antiquarian Revival that begins in Seleucid Uruk this would be Ea’s *son*. In logogram Ea’s first-born son (in the Babylonian tradition absorbed to Marduk, but not all) is Dasares, so I think that’s simply the Dusares of Herod Antipas’ own Nabataean family and first wife.
Dear Bart!
What happens when a later-added name or title becomes not merely a textual variant, but a confessional identifier?
A good bit of controversy, usually….
Yes, exactly — “a good deal of debate” is probably unavoidable here. But I think that is precisely the point: once a later-added name or title becomes not merely a textual variant, but a confessional identifier, the issue is no longer only textual-critical. It becomes hermeneutical and theological as well.
My concern is not about “erasing” someone whom many confess. Rather, it is about recognizing that a confessional form of a name may not always be identical with the earliest recoverable textual form. In such cases, textual criticism does not destroy faith; it shows where later confession may have begun to read itself back into earlier texts.
So perhaps the real question is this: when a later expansion becomes confessionally normative, do we still allow the earlier textual form to speak on its own terms?
Depends who “we” are. I and most serious scholars do. Most believers who simply read the Bible for what it says do not.
The question is not whether we want to erase the one whom many confess. Rather, the question is whether we have the right to build confessional certainty on a form of the name that was not certainly present in the earlier textual layer. If a later expansion of the name becomes a dogmatic identifier, then textual criticism does not destroy faith; it shows where we have read a later confession back into an earlier text.
Regarding this topic, I just came from a forum in my native language where Origen is cited as quoting 2 Corinthians 11, where Paul supposedly describes himself as ‘unskilled in speech’ (or ‘rude in speech’). I previously found a claim that scholars have failed to properly partition or analyze 2 Corinthians, but I actually have managed to deconstruct it myself… Now I found you article https://ehrmanblog.org/is-2-corinthians-five-letters/ – see you there
The omission of the name is not an anti-faith erasure, but the recognition that the confessional form of the name is not always identical with the earliest textual form.
#1 Saul was the most educated follower
#2 he worked harder than the 12. trait of not leadership, as St Stephen & the deacons
if Saul was an apostle, from his contributions, but the last apostle was Matthias, chosen by casting lots
other merits to chose the 12th:
#3 James, brother of Jesus head of Jerusalem church chosen it seems from nepotism rather than merit (walking the walk & living the life w/Jesus)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_the_Apostle
For over a decade I tried to eliminate his teachings to my Christian life in Shanghai walk, IMPOSSIBLE for me
Of course the situation, translating Hebrew/Aramaic life into Koine/Greek, not the same!
Do you think Paul, and anyone who wrote in his name, ever thought their letters would become the “Word of God?”
I’d imagine since he believed the end was imminent, probably not.
Nope, not in the least!