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Did Paul Institute the Last Supper tradition?

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Hngerhman

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August 29, 2019 - 11:15 am

Ok, here’s an attempt to inch just a tiny bit forward. It’s too long and not tightly argued, but I felt getting it out to discuss is better than attempting to hone it in a solipsistic vacuum…

From Galatians, we know Paul visited Peter at least once prior to penning 1 Cor (15 days visit), and we’ve agreed to provisionally stipulate that he had done so two other times (Antioch and Pillars meeting). Thus, by the time Paul penned 1 Cor (and called back his prior sharing of the LS tradition with the Corinthians), he had interacted with Peter at least 3 times.

Let’s start with the 15 days visit. Only appropriate since, by Paul’s own hand, this is his first interaction with Peter.

Please correct me if I’m mistaken, but I think I read (somewhere on the main blog, in a comment you made outlining the Greek employed) that the verb Paul chooses to describe his encounter with Peter during this 15 day period connotes more than just a chat, but more akin to a friendly interrogation to extract the history. As you know, I don’t know Greek, so please tell me if I have that wrong. The reason I bring that up is that, if my recollection is correct, it provides some small, additional circumstantial evidence that Paul is the kind of person who would want to drill as far as he could.

Coming into this 15 day visit, Paul either knew a version of the LS tradition, or he did not. Also, during this 15 day visit, the topic of an LS tradition either came up, or it did not. Two radically simple statements that, given they are in the form of “either P or not-P”, are necessarily true statements (and thus have a prob(x) = 1). These two statements create 4 scenarios.

	Knew LS	~Knew LS
Came Up	A	B
~Came Up	C	D

Let’s take the two “the topic of LS came up during the 15 days” scenarios, labeled A & B above.

It’s pretty easy to see what the outcomes of these scenarios would be:

– A: if Paul knew an LS tradition and it came up during the 15 days, Peter either:

– A1: denied it (no LS),

– A2: corroborated it, or

– A3: corrected it.

– B: if Paul didn’t know a LS and it came up during the 15 days, then he learned it from Peter

Since Paul explicitly outlines an LS tradition, we know that outcome A1 is eliminated (for if Peter had denied it, Paul wouldn’t continue to spout it). So, the range of outcomes in scenarios A and B is from (i) Peter first told LS to Paul to (ii) Peter confirmed/corrected the version Paul learned previously. This much is simple, but it explicitly assumes the topic came up in the 15 days.

It’s the scenarios C & D, where we assume the topic of LS didn’t come up during the 15 days, that are the more intriguing ones.

In scenario C, Paul came in knowing a LS tradition, but the topic did not come up in the 15 days visit.

Given the Paul we know from his own epistles (with or without the extra spicing from the character development in Acts), he is driven, pushy, detail-oriented, punctilious for correct belief and actions, combative and unafraid of causing offense or challenging authority. It’s hard for me to see how – if there was such an important tradition that Paul knew of, that was wildly insider in nature, one that he later thought was important to share, to institute as a(n at least semi-) liturgical practice, and to then call it back, despite knowing that the Corinthians had access to Petrine traditions (if not Peter himself) – he, the contentious pain-in-the-butt Paul we know and love, would not have thrown up a red flag at the time (or at least a later meeting).

The counter cannot be that there was not ample opportunity for it to come up (or for Paul to force it) during the 15 days visit. There was presumably ample opportunity. If they were together for the better part of the day each day, there were 2-3 shots on goal each day (breaks for repast). If they were only together briefly each day, there were still two neon-sign opportunities for it to come up: the occurrence (either together or not) or lack thereof of the Jerusalem community’s communal meal.

We’re presently assuming Paul knew of the LS tradition, which commands that when you break bread and drink wine, you are to remember Jesus (and his sacrifice). 15 days falls over at least 2 weekly communal meals. If Paul partook of table fellowship with Peter during this time, then it’s nearly unfathomable (hyperbole of course, but to make a point) that our Paul would let it pass without mentioning it. And then, if they didn’t partake together, while not a slam dunk, it’s hard for me to get my head around Paul not mentioning it, perhaps “hey, is it today that you eat with the community?” And if the answer is “yes”, then “how do you remember Jesus at table in your community?” or “as I learned in Damascus, this is the time that you remember the Lord?” or something along these lines seems not just easily natural but very likely to have transpired. And if the answer was “no”, Paul’s response would have been, “what?!?!?” Again, this is the same guy who, to make sure the particulars of his gospel weren’t out of whack with the pillars (when he might have just continued to avoid them until forced to meet), says he trekked to Jerusalem to confirm his facts were in good stead.

Additionally, if indeed Paul somehow passed 15 days knowing of a LS tradition but neither he nor Peter ever brought it up, not even across the two points at which a weekly communal meal should have transpired, it would strike me that the Paul we know would question, at a later point, “well, why is that? That’s kinda weird.” Leading to a later desire to address the question at another opportunity.

So, for scenario C: It’s clearly not an airtight set of (circumstantial) arguments, and there is neither a logical or historical necessity involved, but it seems highly suggestive that if Paul knew an LS tradition coming in, and Peter didn’t bring it up, Paul likely would have.

Now, a little fun with numbers exercise.

Simulation 1

Let’s assume:

– 15 days visit

– each day there is one point at which there is just a measly 5% chance that the topic of LS comes up (from Peter or Paul)

Upshot: >50% chance that LS came up

Simulation 2

Let’s assume:

– 15 days visit

– each day for 13 days there is one point at which there is just a measly 5% chance that the topic of LS comes up (from Peter or Paul)

– on other two days (weekly communal meal) there is a 25% chance the topic comes up

Upshot: >70% chance that LS came up

Simulation 3

Let’s assume:

– 15 days visit

– each day there are three points (breaks for meals) at which there is just a measly 5% chance that the topic of LS comes up (from Peter or Paul)

Upshot: >90% chance that LS came up

Simulation 4

Let’s assume:

– 15 days visit

– each day for 13 days there are three points (breaks for meals) at which there is just a measly 5% chance that the topic of LS comes up (from Peter or Paul)

– on other two days (weekly communal meal) there is a 50% chance the topic comes up

Upshot: >95% chance that LS came up

While I *clearly* do not think it’s 90%+ likely the LS tradition was discussed by Paul and Peter at the 15 days visit, I personally have a hard time seeing that there’s not at least a 5% daily baseline probability that the topic of LS would come up. I’m not predicating my intuition of the likelihood on the fun-with-numbers exercise above, I just use it to illustrate that pretty meager assumptions about the probabilities can yield a better-than-even shot.

Basically, wrt scenario C, I’m arguing that the scenario is possible, but unlikely given the Paul who comes through in his epistles.

Now scenario D:

If Paul didn’t know a LS, and Peter didn’t bring it up, would Paul have taken a LS tradition in uncritically if he had learned it from someone else later? Something this important, and Peter didn’t bring it up? Given the Paul we know, this seems very unlikely he’d have believed it or shared it with the (Petrine influenced) Corinthian community.

Further, would the Corinthian community, who had direct or indirect access to Petrine traditions, have taken it in uncritically if they had not heard it from Peter (directly or indirectly) but only from Paul? If we iterate this sub-scenario, either the ensuing debate was already worked through/out in Corinth prior to 1 Cor, or else the letter of 1 Cor would likely have read differently than it does on the LS (guys, remember that thing I told you was true, despite those “of Peter” questioning it…).

It is technically possible that he might have confirmed it with some other reliable insider prior to Peter (who though? Peter is the first insider/apostle Paul says he met), but if we iterate the game (using the arguments and motivations above), Paul would likely still have wanted to address it later with Peter (15 days, Antioch, Pillars).

At this point, I’ll just pause and say it appears to me likely (50%+) that LS was discussed during the 15 days. Please poke holes in the above. Again, I agree it’s by no means necessary that it came up during the 15 days. It just seems (pretty) likely to me. That said, I’m very welcoming of being persuaded otherwise; and my intuitions and logic hatched in the semi-vacuum of ignorance of much of the scholarship often melts when you bring to bear your knowledge and insights.

Next, I’ll try to inch forward by assuming, notwithstanding the forgoing, that it’s not the case that it’s likely that it came up during the 15 days. I’ll turn the focus to Antioch.

Robert

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August 30, 2019 - 10:28 am

Robert

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August 30, 2019 - 10:53 am

Robert

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August 30, 2019 - 12:14 pm

Hngerhman

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August 31, 2019 - 9:51 am

Robert said

I don’t see any holes to poke (especially in your portrait of Paul), but it sounds like you’re getting ready to poke holes anyway. Just for the sake of covering all the bases, should I presume?

Yes, precisely – I don’t want to have come to a probability assessment without at least having tried to shoot it down. I want to make sure I’ve not just seduced myself with arguments that play to my own implicit biases.

That said, I have a very hard time, given the assumptions laid out previously, seeing how it would be ex-post unlikely that the 15 days occurred without the LS tradition coming. To not be overly quantitative, but to give some rough sense as to the likelihood assessment I’m coming to for Paul and Peter having touched on the LS during, I think it’s in the range of 50%<prob(LS discussed)<80% – that is, better than even odds, but well less than 90%. [Note: I’m putting forward this range because it is a modest pet peeve of mine when arguments rely on quasi-quantitative assessments of probabilities, but the interlocutor refuses to dimensionalize what “very probable” or “extremely likely” or “very unlikely” mean to them; one person’s set-point for positive probability evaluation might be another person’s unlikely range.]

So, in order to illustrate what the scenarios might look like that make up the 20%-50% “it didn’t come up” balance of probability, I want to relax some of the assumptions – at least in outline.

Perhaps:

– Other things took precedence during the 15 days, even on the communal meal days. I’m already capturing this dynamic, implicitly, in my fun-with-numbers scenarios, because there I’m already saying it is a low daily probability, and even on the communal meal days it’s still 50% or less likely. This is more giving voice and shape to what the (1 – p) scenarios might look like.

– It came up but in such a cursory way that, had we been there, we’d have assessed Peter didn’t say much (or just yessed Paul) and Paul didn’t really probe. While I think one might argue this to be consistent with what we know about Peter from the literature, it certainly flies in the face of what we know about Paul, so…

– Paul self-aggrandized either (or both) what the 15 days was (rather than a interrogative tête-à-tête, maybe just a few less than personal light encounters) or his level of aggressiveness (maybe he was too awed to say or press much)

– The 15 days encounter was rather cursory, and Paul learned LS later, but from an insider (another of the reconstituted 12), and wasn’t too disturbed by Peter’s silence on the topic (because those moments weren’t very high impact in Paul’s mind in the first place)

– Paul learned LS earlier (pre-15 days), shared it in Corinth before confirming and continued to cite it in the absence of an outright disconfirmation – and we don’t have the other side of the Corinthian conversation to say they actually took it in (they could have objected to it and Paul didn’t adequately address the objection, or they may have in fact repudiated it and that’s why their community fell into disarray around table fellowship despite Paul’s citing of LS); further, if Paul is very prone to using his rhetorical “skill” we’ve discussed before (via what one might uncharitably argue is possibly bordering on deceptive epistle structure), he might be making his point about LS knowing full well some (or many) in Corinth don’t accept it

Again, I don’t find any of the above counters terribly compelling, but I want to acknowledge they are possible and (some) would fit with the data.

For the sake of argument, despite my probability assessment so far about the 15 days, in the next step of the argumentation I want to stipulate that the 15 days by itself isn’t decisive, and move to see if the Antioch incident can be of help to the probability case. I think it potentially can.

Hngerhman

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August 31, 2019 - 10:03 am

Robert said

That would be ** you do not have permission to see this link ** in this thread: “But even when he’s anxiously defending the divine source of his own apostleship (Gal 1,11), he also relates about how he went to Jerusalem to spend 15 days with Peter to ‘interrogate’ him, etymologically to learn the ‘history’ (ἱστορῆσαι, Gal 1,18). He also admits that later on he went up to Jerusalem to lay before the original apostles his own preaching to make sure he has not run in vain (Gal 2,1-2).”

Beyond a quotidian sense, there’s also lots of very interesting, more technical uses of this verb and its related nouns, eg, a judge soliciting court testimony, in writing history, in ‘scientific’ investigations.

Yes, that’s it! Fantastic – in terms of the content itself; that it’s yet another contribution you’ve made to the blog community; and, last and least, that my memory hadn’t failed me here.

I felt the argument I made about Paul’s character sketch was still ok if I had somehow misremembered, but that it would be all the better with this. I feel your analysis here makes the portrait of Paul as pushy-extracter-of-information all the more robust.

At the risk of me being too greedy, are there any other insights around the verb/noun-derivatives and their uses that you’d be willing to share, or further reading you’d recommend here?

Man I wish I had time to learn the Greek…

Robert

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August 31, 2019 - 10:06 am

Hngerhman

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August 31, 2019 - 10:38 am

Robert said

I’m…referring…generally to the struggles that any new sect would experience and more specifically in this context a Jewish sect that proclaimed a crucified messiah. That was taboo. Were they just seen as nuts by many? A divinely resurrected criminal, who has become some kind of divine angel seated at the right hand of God? Did that offend people? How many opposed them as virulently as Saul of Tarsus? Did they oppose temple practices, eg, of money changers, and temple authorities? Were they reaching out to public sinners and/or trying to demonstrate their strict observance of the law and separation from sinners? How could they take care of all their widows, divorcees, and orphans? Did they recognize the authority of the sunedrion or Agrippa or his son as King of the Jews? Did they see the growing agitation for war with Rome as an apocalyptic event that should be embraced? Was there another way to approach the gentiles? How much internal dissension was there about some of these questions? James and the Jerusalem churches had many challenges. It should not be a surprise that they ultimately did not survive intact.

This is just excellent – you’ve given me tons to chew on here. Thank you.

One question – is there a good work, or set of works, you’d recommend that does a decent job of setting the stage for reconstructing the initial Jerusalem community and then it’s evolution thereafter? Despite having snippets of the trajectory in my head, I just don’t have a great conceptualization of the arc the community took from earliest post-Easter days to James’s death to post-destruction.

I keep meaning to suck it up and read Bauer (and his analysis by early region), but I’m hoping against hope I’ll come across something updated before I have to do so…

Robert said

Their strong memories and belief in Jesus must have been what held them together in trying to address all of the challenges I mentioned above. But I don’t expect that all of their beliefs about Jesus were in agreement, especially as various types of old friends, extended family, and new converts joined the movement.

After you laying it out, and upon reflection, I completely agree with your point about variation within the community’s belief set.

That said, apologies if I seem obtuse here: but, without the core of believing that Jesus is the messiah and that somehow he is the key to entering the kingdom, what is there to make a unifying movement out of that is distinguishing from other apocalyptic movements? Is that what you mean by “belief in Jesus”? If so, then I grasp it. If that’s not what you mean, then what could motivate a community to come together in the first place is still eluding me.

Robert said

Paul only objected to the gentiles being enjoined to follow the ceremonial or specifically Jewish aspects of the law. He was a very firm believer in the moral precepts of the law, especially as encapsulated as the messianic law as taught by Jesus (and others, eg, Hillel). I understand his opposition to justification by ‘works of the law’ as reference to some very specific works of the law, similarly as ‘justification’ and some very specific ‘works of the law’ are discussed 4QMMT, a Qumran letter arguing for the sect’s interpretation of some very specific ceremonial purity laws pertaining especially to priests.

This is a much better articulation of what I was groping at than what I achieved. Thank you. Pro moral precepts, anti the ceremonial/ethnic-identifier commands (for gentiles).

One question I’ve been wrestling with: Paul’s opposition to the Judaizing / circumcision, is it that he’s against gentiles doing this per se (gentiles should not even attempt to convert to Judaism), or only against gentiles believing they must do this in order to gain Kingdom entrance. Both seem to fit the data.

Robert said

Speaking more generally with respect to the law, Paul definitely believes that ‘doers of the law will be justified’ (Rom 2,13), whether they are Jewish or gentiles (2,14-16).

Doing the law = justification. Do you see this as a looseness of Paul’s language around “law”? Circumcision would be “doing the law”, would it not?

Robert

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August 31, 2019 - 11:19 am

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August 31, 2019 - 11:51 am

Hngerhman

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August 31, 2019 - 12:04 pm

Robert said

…I think putting actual percentages upon the plausibility of one’s conjectures and reconstructions may imply greater quantitative precision and therefore an aura of scientific expertise that we very often cannot have in these types of historical issues.

I completely agree with your concern about false quantification. The point for me is not to generate spurious precision. It’s only meant to provide some grounding of what one means when one says “likely” or “very likely”. Not precisely, but within a very very blurry general vicinity.

If one makes an assertion that something is “likely” or “very likely”, one is implicitly making an approximate, subjective quantitative assessment.

If by “very likely” person A thinks that means something like >30%, because person A generally deals in things that are unlikely, and person B means something like >90%, because that person usually deals in things of high probability, persons A & B will talk right past each other.

I run into this in my line of work often, so perhaps it’s just emotional baggage issue on my part. Also, for practical purposes in same vocation, I often have to make provisional, subjective probability assessments for things that are inordinately hard (read: practically impossible) to quantify (either because the problem is too complex or a frequentist approach isn’t well-matched because one cannot run the experiment more than once). So, I’m probably more accustomed to viewing a subjective probability assessment number as inherently vague. That’s my set-point.

Let me make two promises for my part in this:

– if I make a numerical probability statement, I cross-my-heart will not mean it in any overly pseudo-scientific way, but only as a very rough marker of what I’m trying to convey (like the above discussion about LS); and

– I will not press for a numerical quantification of a probability assessment; with the caveat that I may, from time to time, ask for some sense of what a probability assessment means in the context in which it’s given, to ensure I’m in the same mental zipcode.

Robert said

More importantly, I also agree with all of your reservations.

Sorry, just to clarify: Do you mean by this my reservations about two people potentially talking past one another about probabilities, or the exercise (in reservations) in which I tried to undertake to lean on the assumptions that lead me to think it’s likely that LS came up during the 15 days? Or both?

Robert

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August 31, 2019 - 12:15 pm

Hngerhman

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August 31, 2019 - 4:33 pm

Robert said

The most complete lexicon is still the classic Liddell, Scott, Jones, which is available on-line at Perseus. The various usages are clearly enumerated in English. It’s more difficult for a non-Greek speaker to make full use of the lexicon, but with patience, one can learn how to look up all the various examples on Perseus and there are usually older English translations. Here’s a start:

** you do not have permission to see this link **

** you do not have permission to see this link **

** you do not have permission to see this link **

This is NT intellectual crack. I should just go cancel my Netflix subscription, because I’m going to be swimming in this Perseus thing for a while…

Thank you. You’ve taught a man to fish today.

Hngerhman

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August 31, 2019 - 5:08 pm

Robert said

I can’t think of any. You’ll notice that most of what I provided were just questions. We can only guess at the various questions and pressures that the earliest Jerusalem churches faced.

Yes, but an informed concatenation of questions that will keep me busy for a while.

Robert said

Yes, that’s what I mean.

Perfect, thanks.

To close the loop, in my mind, that implies that Jesus-belief was a necessary condition for Kingdom entrance for those believers in this group (James included). Please tell me if you disagree.

Robert said

If I understand your distinction here, I’m pretty sure Paul would typically object to gentiles converting to Judaism, at least those gentiles he himself had converted. As we’ve seen, he may be critical of this practice in Rome, but he is not nearly as vitriolic about it there. ‘Luke’ would have us believe that Paul could make exceptions to this in special cases such as Timothy, who had a Jewish mother and Greek father and would be ministering among Jews (Acts 16,1-3).

Yep, that’s exactly the distinction I am after.

I agree on the face of it, that Paul seems against gentile conversion to Judaism (within his flock), per se. However, what throws me off is the why of it. How can (successful) conversion to Judaism undo justification? I would get it if what he meant was, conversion to Judaism itself is just fine, but if you think it is somehow necessary, then you (gentile) have missed the boat on what Jesus’s sacrifice meant (in the context of Deutero-Isaiah), and that undoes your justification position. The only way I can currently make this make sense is that he thought, generally, conversion to Judaism was impossible, and that somehow thinking one had undoes the justification position.

Robert said

‘Doers of the law’ is speaking of the law generally, and he immediately goes on to show how gentiles do indeed know the moral law and will be judged accordingly. Circumcision is merely ‘one very specific work of the law’, which identifies Jews as Jews, and with respect to ‘specific works of the law’, especially circumcision, Paul will go on to argue that God is not merely the God of the Jews (Rom 3,29-31):

Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

This is very helpful – so forgive me if I’m being too persnickety about language / definitions.

It is my understanding that (most? all?) Pharisees of the time would have used “The Law” to mean the entire set of dictums – moral, purity, ethnic identifier, etc. Circumcision would have been included as one of member of the set of all dictums.

So, if this is correct, it would seem a straightforward contradiction in terms to say that gentiles can be doers of The Law (as defined above) in a general sense if they are also forbidden from circumcision. Unless either (a) general means loose, or (b) Paul’s usage of The Law is not defined as the entire set of dictums (at least when being applied to gentiles), but rather reduces to the moral dictums.

I’m probably missing something, so would very much appreciate being set straight.

Hngerhman

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August 31, 2019 - 5:41 pm

Robert said

I was agreeing with your fine list of reasons for having some reservations about Paul and Cephas sepaking in detail about the Lord’s supper tradition during their first visit. But, of course, it is also very possible that people talk past each other.

Ah, gotcha. Yes, those are how I conceptualize what the minority portion of the probability distribution looks like. Some of them run afoul of the stipulated (but justified) assumptions we set out with (e.g., some call Paul’s relationship with veracity into question). All in, based on what we know of Paul, I’m still thinking it was more likely than not they discussed it during the 15 days, and possibly well more likely than not, but definitely not a slam dunk. If you see it differently, please do push back.

Robert said

With respect to speaking about likelihood and plausibility, one of my favorite ways in which some people, myself included, sometimes put a finger on the scale when they insist that their pet theory is ‘indeed very or even highly possible’. If it’s possible, it’s possible. I suppose one can limit the likelihood by speaking of something as remotely possible. But highly possible? If one wants to put forward an argument for probability, do that. Why does one think one possibility is more probable than other possibilities?

Ha, yes, possibility is a digital concept – it’s on or off, it doesn’t admit of degrees. One thing isn’t more possible than another – although one possibility can (and often will) be more probable than another (given base rates, initial conditions, headwinds/tailwinds, laws of nature, etc.). And one possibility can be more plausible than another, for many of the same reasons, plus the power of the persuasive but often misguided availability heuristic.

If I ever muddle possibility and probability, consider yourself as having complete license to call me on it. If I’m making a probability argument, I’ll do my best to own it as such.

Robert

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August 31, 2019 - 7:35 pm

Hngerhman

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September 1, 2019 - 6:15 am

Robert said

If Jesus taught something similar to Mt 25,31-46, or if any of the early believers in Jesus in Jerusalem thought he taught something like Mt 25,31-46, as Matthew certainly did, they would have been less fundamentalist about the importance of Jesus-belief as a necessary condition for entrance into the Kingdom of God. They would still attribute to Jesus the profound wisdom of this teaching, and still themselves be attached to Jesus as their rabbi, and they would therefore be open to all the righteous, including the righteous gentiles, entering the Kingdom of God in the last days.

Ah, got it – that is an interesting line I hadn’t fully given thought to. I see your point.

The one thing that still doesn’t quite sit right with me is: the reason that they (including James) are together in this collection of believers in the first place is that they believed Jesus came back from the dead. This marks him out as supernaturally special, more so than “just” a rabbi – he is the Messiah in their minds (and possibly the Son of Man of man as per Daniel).

Something about him is the key to the Kingdom – and your point, I think, is that it could be as pedestrian as his teachings about righteousness here, reinforced by the miracle of his resurrection (giving his teachings more authority). I just am struggling with, if someone thought Jesus was picked out special by God to revivify, that following his teachings alone would be viewed as sufficient. Some participation in him and God’s wonders through him, not just his teachings, would seem a more natural reaction or interpretation of this sized miracle (again, conditioned on one thought he, and no one else, resurrected; putting aside Matthew’s zombie episode…). Not sure if that’s clear, as it’s also a bit of tangle in my head at present.

A question springs to mind: is there reason to believe Matthew’s gospel is representative of the Jerusalem church, aside from the thrust that Judaic practice is still important? Apologies if that is a naive question, but it does cut a bit to the quick of the issue here.

Robert said

There’s a few possibilities here. Primarily, I think Paul probably thought that the eschatological, final significance of salvation through Christ is so great that to chase after older forms of ethnic attachment to being or becoming the formerly chosen people of God was to miss the great significance of what was happening now in the last days. It is also possible that Paul did not believe that it was truly possible for a gentile to become a Jew, to obey all of the law as it was mandated for those born Jews. For example, a gentile adult could no longer be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. Some scholars speculate along these lines. It’s possible Paul thought along these lines, but I’m not really convinced. More importantly, if the promise to Abraham regarding the gentiles was now being fulfilled, then why pretend that the gentiles being saved by the faith of Abraham are not truly gentiles. It is a great thing that the gentiles as gentiles are now being saved as God promised to Abraham and as Abraham himself first believed. Why should the gentiles not just accept these promises to Abraham and Abraham’s own faith, which God accepted as his righteousness, long before Moses even came upon the scene and received laws though intermediaries?

…Why should you be any less persnickety than Paul himself? But be careful of not being even more persnickety than even Paul himself was. The Pharisees of the Paul’s time and later would have not only considered the entire written law, but also the oral Torah, literally the dicta in addition to the scripta, and especially the dicta, to be the Law. But they would also be able to distinguish, however, between the positive commandments and the more authoritative negative commandments, between the law mandated only for for priests, the law mandated only for the Jews, and the law mandated for all humanity, etc. But Paul is going further back in the tradition, to the time of Abraham, long before Moses was a randy thought in the mind of whomever his father may have been. From Paul’s Abrahamic perspective, the later law of Moses in all of its complexity was a later and temporary accommodation. Much of it was certainly and eternally applicable to the gentiles, but that which was specifically for the Jews was specifically for the Jews, and even circumcision which was applicable to Abraham was not of primary importance for Abraham’s faithfulness and righteousness, which predated even his circumcision. It’s a rather complicated argumentation that Paul follows in his letter to the Galatians, but the bottom line is probably more easily and less polemically perceptible in his more diplomatic letter to the Romans. In the latter letter, it is sufficient for Paul to say that salvation is for the Jew first and then for the Gentiles. Not sure if I’ve explained this all that well, but it’s not just my fault, you can also blame Paul.

Super helpful, thanks.

Ok, so in Paul’s terminological usage, “The Law” is not the expansive Pharisaic term, but a much more delimited term, along the lines of pre-circumcision Abrahamic faith.

First, the confusion arises from a (novel?) usage of “The Law”.

Second, in what does Paul think the pre-circumcision Abrahamic faith consists? Forgive me, but it’s not immediately clear to me that there’s enough meat on the bones of the pre-circumcision Abrahamic faith to (a) build a coherent “law”-centric religion around, nor (b) how this would qualify in any sense/meaning of the word “law”, when (to my untrained eyes), the faith of Abraham was just doing idiosyncratic things God extemporaneously said, not a “law”-like system. When Paul asserts all this is part of the fulfillment of law but that he’s not under the law, it’s hard for me to see that he’s not just mixing terms, either being slipshod or for provocative effect.

And it is only just a bit ironic, in this Pauline anti-circumcision for gentiles vein, that circumcision was one of the first exercises of the Abrahamic faith – and the suggested implication of the text is that, I think, without it he (Abraham) would likely have lost the fight and also wouldn’t have been later granted Isaac.

And then, if gentile conversion to Judaism is possible in Paul’s eyes, then Paul’s prohibition thereof is still a bit strange to me. If his point is that in the Kingdom there is no distinction/hierarchy (only the order of entry is Jew then gentile, but flat afterwards), then there should be no effect on one’s justification position if one moves from one classification to the other (symmetrically), when both classes are equally justified by faith/deeds(/law?). If one is a justified Jew, who then moves to become not under the law, he still has access (e.g., Paul). If one is a justified gentile, but then decides to convert to Judaism, why does he thereby lose access – if both classes are equally acceptable to God in the end? If one can move from justified Jew to justified gentile, why is the reverse not acceptable? If the classes are mutually exclusive, then this would be clearer (but for it to work one would need to create a third class, failed ‘tweener). If they are permeable (especially symmetrically permeable), then it’s not clear to me what the problem is. Does this concern I’m expressing make sense?

Again, sorry if I’m being dense. I greatly appreciate the help unpacking Paul’s complicated and somewhat opaque system…

Robert

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September 1, 2019 - 7:36 am

Hngerhman

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September 1, 2019 - 9:28 am

Robert said

As much as I’d like to, I’m not really saying that following Jesus’ teachings alone would have been the key component of being part of the church, especially in Jerusalem, as opposed to believing that God raised him from the dead. I’m sure the latter belief and claim is much more responsible for the growth and survival of the churches in Jerusalem and elsewhere. It was also the claim that would have been considered the most controversial among the opponents of the sect. I’m merely saying that if this particular teaching of Jesus (Mt 25) was authentic, and if it was known in Jerusalem, then those who paid attention to this teaching of Jesus should not have insisted upon belief in Jesus as the criterion for entrance into the Kingdom of God. In the parable, those who are saved because of their righteous behavior did not even know who Jesus or the Son of Man was. The righteous behavior of these gentiles would not even be related to belief in Jesus, either as a crucified messiah resurrected from the dead or even as a Jewish rabbi with profound teachings.

Understood. A relative of the “Religion of Jesus vs. Religion about Jesus” dichotomy – in my words of what I think you’re saying, they probably piled into the Jesus movement for the resurrected Christ (and belief in him), but had they listened to what Jesus was actually saying while alive in the sarx (here stipulating Matthew 25 as historical), “be a good person” would sufficient to get you a ticket to the Kingdom (with or without belief in Jesus’s messianic / justificatory sacrificial role).

Robert said

I don’t think we should associate the gospel of Matthew especially with Jerusalem.

Ok. Just that its similarities to what we know about the Jerusalem community’s beliefs from other sources make for a useful conceptualization / analog, then?

Robert said

Paul speaks of the law in many senses, as the whole law, and of specific works of the law, eg, circumcision, of the law as a teacher or pedagogue who makes us aware of sin and which ultimately leads us to the messiah, and also of a messianic law, ie, the law of the messiah.

So, said differently, if Paul had turned his epistles in as an essay laying out his system for a current analytic philosophy class, the professor would have red-inked to death his “the law” terminology as muddled – and some modest defining of terms and distinctions would clear it up.

I don’t say this pejoratively about Paul per se, only to draw out that the tangle I (and apparently centuries of theologians, historians and scholars) encounter in his writings are a result of (a) a mixing of terms on his part, or (b) lack of lexical flexibility on my part, or (c) some admixture of the two.

Eons of exceedingly high IQ folks (myself obviously excluded) flat out missing Paul’s point(s) is evidence that there’s at least some proportion of (a) in the recipe.

Robert said

But when he speaks of the faith of Abraham, he is not speaking of the law, but of Abraham’s faith/faithfulness and the promises made to him regarding the gentiles, long before the law was given to Moses, and even before Abraham was instructed to circumcise himself and other males in his house.

Ok, right – so how does one move from the amorphous Abrahamic faith/promises to the correct definition of The Law such that doing said The Law is sufficient for both Jews and gentiles to be admitted to the Kingdom, and such that Jews have a privileged entrance order, but not preferred status in hierarchy post admittance. What confers the priority to the Jews first, that doesn’t thereby preclude the gentiles second? Said differently, which The Law in Paul’s system is the operable one for Kingdom admittance – whether for Jews and gentiles – that also precludes gentiles who try to convert to Judaism from qualifying? Is it the moral law as core admittance criterion, with the ethnic identifier dictums the ones that get you to the front of the line? If so, why does an attempt to convert from economy class seats to first class seats blow you out of the plane altogether?

Another way to ask it is, in Paul’s system, what would be the applicable and operable justificatory “The Law” immediately prior to Jesus’s crucifixion, for Jews and for gentiles (if different)? And then what is the delta in this definition immediately post-crucifixion? There should be some delta (for both classes, but at least for gentiles) – so what is it?

I realize the persnicketyness and analytic bludgeonry of my questioning, but this is the kind of detailed-oriented and picayune parsing of concepts that Paul required of others (that misguided circumcision party from James and the gentiles who fell under their spell, that hypocritical turn from Peter, those prematurely Kingdom-entry claiming and intentionally sexually deviant Corinthians, etc.). I’m just asking him to help me understand what he’s saying at the points where the rubber meets the road. Your help here is invaluable.

Robert said

I’m not sure what you’re referring to when speaking of a justified Jew becoming a justified gentile.

Me either, ha, so let me try to work it through.

Let’s take James as a paradigmatic example of a justified Jew. He follows the right dictums for him (whatever falls out of the above discussion…) in The Law, and he has the right belief in Jesus (whatever that is, stipulate for the moment).

Now let’s say one of Paul’s Corinthian converts is a paradigmatic example of a justified gentile. He/she follows the right dictums for gentiles (whatever falls out of the above discussion…) in The Law, and has the right belief in Jesus (whatever that is, stipulate for the moment).

Is it possible for a James to down-convert to being a justified gentile (religio-ethnically)? Paul’s own example would seem to indicate the answer is yes.

At the time of his Jesus-acceptance, Paul presumably had the choice to continue on as a (justified) Jew, in the vein of James, living “under The Law” (again, stipulating whatever version is correct from above). Paul himself says he was no longer living “under The Law”, in the presumably applicable Jewish identity sense. It is possible that this was a one-time, instantaneous fork in the road decision point, but I find it much more plausible that there was more of a process for Paul to move initially from believer who started out under The Law (religio-ethnic identity) to believer not under The Law (religio-ethnic identity). So, if Paul could down-convert without losing his justification position, then presumably a James could (theoretically). That’s what I’m trying to get across. Does this make sense?

Robert

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