Robert said
I do think Matthew’s gospel contains more ‘Jewish Christian’ material than Mark’s gospel and in that sense it might more closely correspond to the beliefs of the early Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. Some of this early material was shared with Luke so there the comparison is less stark and different. John’s gospel does have some scholarly proponents who like to emphasize some of his Jewish bona fides, despite his obvious animosity toward ‘the Jews’, especially the Jewish authorities.
Completely with you here, thanks.
Wrt to John, do you think the birkat ha-minim predates or postdates the Johannine rift in the synagogues and the major gear shift in John relative to “his” animosity towards the Jews (and their authorities)? Don’t want to take us down a rabbit hole, just curious.
Robert said
I don’t think Paul is trying to ‘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’. I think Paul is trying to do the exact opposite, moving backwards to a time long before when God gave to the law to Moses on Sinai, back to the time of Abraham, when God first made promises to Abraham about the gentiles blessing themselves through him.
Agree – Paul is indeed not doing a forward motion, he’s going backward in time to ground his theology in the foundational aspects of Abrahamic faith. Be that as it may, the hitch therein is much like the hitch in enterprise of Cartesian skepticism. Once one dispenses with the extra baggage and distills everything down to its foundational essence (cogito ergo sum for Descartes, Abrahamic faith for Paul), one must still build back up the conceptual edifice to get from inside the head to the outside world. That’s what I’m struggling to discern. He’s not laying it out (despite the undeniable fact that he could do so if he were here with us), so I’m (poorly) trying to reconstruct it.
Robert said
Nor do I think that Paul saw doing the law as the way to gain admittance to the Kingdom. Certainly he thought that doers of the law (as opposed to hearers of the law) would be justified, but the faith and faithfulness of Abraham, the first Jew and through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed was faithful and justified long before the giving of the law to Moses.
Then it’s clear to me that either (a) I do not understand what he means by justification more generally, or (b) “doing the law” is superfluous, or redundant, or an additional route to justification.
Assuming it’s (a), if justification does not confer Kingdom entrance, then what does it do?
Assuming it’s (b), this is what I’m talking about in the immediately preceding section about the direction Paul is reasoning in. If one can be / is justified by Abrahamic faith, without doing The Law, then doing The Law is either superfluous or redundant or an additional route to justification. I’m going to assume it’s not superfluous (otherwise all the The Law talk is a red herring), but is either a redundant or an additional justificatory framework. If one does the law (the moral & messianic portions), then is one justified by (in extension) the fact that Law Doing captures the relevant features of Abrahamic faith? Then in that sense The Law is an instrumental way to access the Abrahamic faith – not a justificatory framework unto itself. Or, is The Law another framework such that there are two paths – Abrahamic faith and The Law? If so, what is its connection to Abrahamic faith – historical accident or shared features, or none?
And if one can be justified by Abrahamic faith, what are the contours of said faith that lead to justification? Abrahamic faith as it comes across in the text is more a relational stance to the deity than a set of beliefs or laws, because much of what God required of Abraham was rather idiosyncratic, not systematic or law-like. If justification via Abrahamic faith is “do what God says to do and you’re justified” I’m back to “what does God say to do?” If the answer to that is The Law, then what is Abrahamic faith?
I really really hope this isn’t exasperating for you, because it is a massive boon for me – threshing through the Pauline system with you is without question the best exercise in historical-consistent Pauline theological framework I’ve experienced, full stop.
Robert said
None of this denies that for Paul the Jews were certainly privileged to have received the law and the scriptures and to have been the people of God prior to the coming of the messiah, who opens up the faith of Abraham and the promises to Abraham regarding the gentiles to all nations. Nor does he ever say that the Jews should not continue to observe the whole law. He does not always do so in his eschatological apostleship to the nations, but there is a thought-experiment among scholars as to whether or not Paul, if he were not celibate and had a son, would have circumcised his son on the eighth day. Quite a few believe he most certainly would have, but not because this would assure him a first-class seat rather than economy, but just because Paul was a faithful Jew. But there’s no reason for gentiles to give up their status as gentiles. Indeed it is a great sign of God’s righteousness that he is saving the gentiles, all the families of the earth. He is even saving all Israel, not just the Jews in Judea, but even those Israelites who had become mixed with the gentiles from the downfall and deportation of the northern kingdom of Israel. All will be judged by God according to their deeds and sinners will not enter into the Kingdom of God, but surely this judgment is referring especially to the moral law and even the messianic law and not the ceremonial, priestly, or specifically the laws concerning specific Jewish identity markers.
Agree that Paul doesn’t say Jews shouldn’t follow The Whole Law – only that he just goes and does it in practice (for a higher purpose yes, but does it nonetheless). So by implication it must mean that there are non-essential requirements that are severable (the ceremonial, priestly and Jewish identity ones, per your point) and in some real sense not important.
Also agree that there is not a great reason (other than perhaps Priority / TSA Precheck access to the Kingdom) for gentiles to not remain gentiles under Paul’s theological system – only that not really a great reason to do so and his outright prohibition to do so aren’t the same thing. If one could be a justified gentile who through conversion became a Jew, who was a doer of The Whole Law, why does the attempt to do this disrupt the justification position?
Is it the act of a gentile trying to become a Jew one that is spiting / not having the faithfulness in God’s Abrahamic promise to redeem the nations? [Did I just have a lightbulb moment here? If so, it might unlock my misunderstandings above]
Robert said
If Paul ever gave much thought to how gentiles and Jews were being saved prior to the death of the messiah, I don’t think we have a record of it. There is a mention of some who were being baptized on behalf of the dead (1 Cor 15,29). Perhaps there was some sense of corporate identity and of families being saved together with their ancestors. Hard to say. Paul does not condemn this idea or practice, but nor does he explain it.
Agreed that we don’t have record of it. It just seems to me that, if his belief and justification system is decipherable and self-consistent, it should be derivable from the system itself with a little elbow grease.
The baptism on behalf of the dead somehow completely got past me – thanks for pointing that out.
Robert said
I don’t Paul would have ever thought of himself as having down-converted from being a justified Jew to being a justified gentile. I even suspect he would have been greatly insulted by the idea, both from his sense of pride in his Jewish identity and his defense of gentile status in the messianic Kingdom of God. He certainly does seem to have rejected much of his earlier zealous Phariseeism, whatever exactly that was, but he remained a Jew, a Benjaminite, and an Israelite, ‘though perhaps in a much different sense, a messianic sense, which he considered of life-changing importance. When he was out and about saving gentiles, far away from any observant Jewish enclaves, it was not practical for him to observe kashrut, but this was a practical matter, and he presumably considered it of relative unimportance compared with his call and mission to save gentiles from the coming day of wrath. I don’t know if he was aware of Jesus’ or other rabbinic teachings about dispensing from the observance of some specifically Jewish laws in order to observe more important values (eg, saving the life of an animal who had fallen into a pit on the Sabbath), but I think this would probably be how he saw these priorities. And when he was among Jewish enclaves, he did continue to live as a Jew.
I in no way intend to insult Paul – I’m only seeking to apply his own distinctions. Maybe I should say laterally convert – to not insult his sense for the status of gentiles in the Kingdom (although, if Jews enter first, then gentiles, there’s at least an ordinal inferiority he himself admits for gentiles, if not a cardinal one). And maybe I shouldn’t say he was a gentile. But he explicitly says he is not living under The Law (the self same one that, as he lays it out in the same passage, confers a certain type of Jewish identity, at least the type of Jewishness that those he converted to the Jesus movement who lived under The Law saw themselves as; e.g., he was not in the same cabin as James was).
Thought experiment: if Paul was in Lutetia amongst gentiles and living à la gentile when he met an untimely death, he would not be entering the ultimate judgment phase as someone Under The Law. By the lights of his own system, would he be admitted into the Kingdom at effectively the same time as James in first class, or behind? If behind, then he is being admitted as a gentile (or a business class Israelite). If simultaneously, then of what importance being Under The Law for Kingdom admittance order?
Robert said
From his first letter to the analytic philosophers residing in Corinth (9,19-23 10,31-33):
For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings. … So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, so that they may be saved.
Ha. Had they been analytic philosophers, or had he been, it would have read more like:
For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law I became as one under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law (though I myself am not under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law [and am thus living à la gentile, and am in this sense not living as a Jew in the same way these Jewish converts are doing]) so that I might win those under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law. To those outside the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law I became as one outside the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law (though I am not free from God’s [moral] law but am under Christ’s [moral and messianic] law) so that I might win those outside the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law.
But that would be a case study in the tedious. Clearer, but tedious…
Robert said
Hngerhman said
I in no way intend to insult Paul – I’m only seeking to apply his own distinctions. Maybe I should say laterally convert – to not insult his sense for the status of gentiles in the Kingdom (although, if Jews enter first, then gentiles, there’s at least an ordinal inferiority he himself admits for gentiles, if not a cardinal one). And maybe I shouldn’t say he was a gentile. But he explicitly says he is not living under The Law (the self same one that, as he lays it out in the same passage, confers a certain type of Jewish identity, at least the type of Jewishness that those he converted to the Jesus movement who lived under The Law saw themselves as; e.g., he was not in the same cabin as James was).
Thought experiment: if Paul was in Lutetia amongst gentiles and living à la gentile when he met an untimely death, he would not be entering the ultimate judgment phase as someone Under The Law. By the lights of his own system, would he be admitted into the Kingdom at effectively the same time as James in first class, or behind? If behind, then he is being admitted as a gentile (or a business class Israelite). If simultaneously, then of what importance being Under The Law for Kingdom admittance order?
Again, I don’t think Paul saw being under the full law, including the Jewish markers of identity, as a first-class ticket into the Kingdom. In this respect, the priority of the Jew first would merely be a matter of speaking of salvation history.
Hngerhman said
Ha. Had they been analytic philosophers, or had he been, it would have read more like:For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law I became as one under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law (though I myself am not under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law [and am thus [r: at other times] living à la gentile, and am in this sense not living as a Jew in the same way these Jewish converts are doing]) so that I might win those under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law. To those outside the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law I became as one outside the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law (though I am not free from God’s [moral] law but am under Christ’s [moral and messianic] law) so that I might win those outside the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law.
But that would be a case study in the tedious. Clearer, but tedious…
Yes, clearer and definitely tedious, but I think that’s more or less what Paul meant.
Can this be the reason for so much discrepancy?
“Paul is extremely difficult to understand. Our efforts suffer from standing at so many removes from him, both temporal and cultural.” (From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of New Testament Images of Jesus, Paula Fredericksen, p. 160)
“His highly idiosyncratic ways to thinking and expressing himself already make the problem of understanding him a daunting one. And his blend of Jewish thought with Greek expression—a forcible bringing together of two alien cultures—merely serve to make it more daunting still. In consequence, it has always been possible to take widely differing views of what he intended to say.” (St. Paul, Michael Grant, p. 8)
Robert said
Again, I don’t think Paul saw being under the full law, including the Jewish markers of identity, as a first-class ticket into the Kingdom. In this respect, the priority of the Jew first would merely be a matter of speaking of salvation history.
This is is a distinction that hadn’t occurred to me. As you see it, what does the ordering of salvation history entail?
Robert said
Hngerhman said
Ha. Had they been analytic philosophers, or had he been, it would have read more like:For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law I became as one under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law (though I myself am not under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law [and am thus [r: at other times] living à la gentile, and am in this sense not living as a Jew in the same way these Jewish converts are doing]) so that I might win those under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law. To those outside the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law I became as one outside the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law (though I am not free from God’s [moral] law but am under Christ’s [moral and messianic] law) so that I might win those outside the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law.
But that would be a case study in the tedious. Clearer, but tedious…
Yes, clearer and definitely tedious, but I think that’s more or less what Paul meant.
One question here: your emendation above (bolded: at other times), do you mean by it that he’s living under the ethnic portions of the law sometimes and not doing so at other times, or do you instead mean to negate the continuous connotation embedded within (the English syntax of) “am” in “though I myself am not under the [Jewish identity and ceremonial/purity portions of the Mosaic] law”? I just want to make sure I’m extra clear on the work you are intending “at other times” to do in the passage, to not miss an insight.
And yes indeed, this level of (attempted) precision is very, very tedious – both to do and to read. Apropos of FPG’s post immediately above, had someone forced Paul to hone (somewhat artificially, from his perspective) the terminology and concepts, there’d be far less poetical harmonics in his prose, but also less confusion (sometimes bloody) across the history of Christianity. Not at all a criticism of Paul – a criticism of history and context. That said, to my eye, I think Paula Fredricksen (cited by FRP) has a pretty good grasp on Paul (I agree wholeheartedly with your rec of Pagan’s Apostle elsewhere).
Robert said
There are indeed Pauline scholars who throw up their hands like Bernie Sanders and just declare, “OK, Paul is [constantly?] contradicting himself.” While others constantly plumb new depths of an excruciating morass of minutiae in doctrinal distinctions Paul would never have dreamed of.
The biggest nightmare precluding an understanding of the depth of Paul’s thought has finally been shed by most in abandoning the Lutheran-Catholic conspiracy of anti-Semitism, sometimes manifest as Luther’s anti-Catholicism, but this has not solved all of the problems.
I don’t think Paul is as consistent as an analytic philosopher, but much of the apparent inconsistency regarding Abraham and Moses can be solved merely that Paul is using loose, midrashic reasoning when speaking of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar in letters to the Romans and the Galatians. But there is still some slippage when he speaks variously of the whole law, specific works of the law, the law of God, and the messianic law.
Agree on all counts. Paul is positive (but not dispositive) on the law and traditional Judaism, full stop. And while Paul isn’t as consistent as modern analytic philosophers, if one understands how to tag his various turns of phrase and terms, and if he is consistent (and even if he’s not), it’s theoretically possible to reconstruct a system that is self-consistent and approximates what he means. The devil’s in the details, obviously, but if one carefully and rigorously parses his language, one should be able construct a consistent system that works within itself – and if one is also careful to track both Paul and his first century Jewish/Roman/Greek context, this system can be brought asymptotically closer and closer to what Paul meant/thought. Theoretically.
Robert said
Some of the earliest proponents of the Paul within Judaism school indeed understood Paul as having a Sonderweg (special way) theology, whereby Jews or Jewish Christians would be saved in a different manner than gentile Christians. This clearly does not fit very well with many of Paul’s statements, but there are reasons why some scholars went down this special (church lady) way.
I think Paul’s biggest objection to a gentile who was saved through Christ converting to a pre-messianic form of Judaism, is that it would seem to Paul that he would be denying the importance of the messianic event, the law of Christ, and, not inconsequentially, Paul’s own role in bringing faith in Christ to these gentiles in the communities he has founded. It is indeed partly ignoring the importance of God’s promises to Abraham and Abraham’s own faithfulness prior to the law, but much more so it is discounting the importance of what has happened most recently with the coming of the messiah.
This is very insightful – it brings into sharper focus what Paul was objecting to.
I have numerous times wanted to type that he has a conflict of interest (both status-wise as well as economically) if his communities were to convert from gentile Christianity to Jewish Christian, but have avoiding doing so (a) to put his motive aside and distinguish it from his rationale, (b) to not impugn his theology as self-serving, and (c) to work through the objection to Judaizing on its merits. I don’t think he was nefarious, but obviously he was human. As are we all.
Your point resonates well, about a gentile attempting to convert to Judaism being guilty of not appropriately taking into account the importance of the recent messianic events. At first I thought this concern might also extend to Jews who thought keeping the ethnic portions of the law mattered, because it too would seem to downplay the importance of the atoning sacrifice and the justificatory power of Jesus’s crucifixion. But then I recalled that, in Romans, Paul says that the current “remnant” (Jesus believers) of Jews is effectively justified, and that the “all Israel” redemption (a) will come as a fulfillment of the promise to the patriarchs, and (b) it is a mystery (to Paul) as to how it will come to pass. Paul hadn’t worked this portion out, seemingly, he just had (Abrahamic) faith that it would occur. Which also seemingly connects it all back to the point around God’s promises to Abraham – faith in God’s promises (to his descendants as well as to the nations), without understanding the how.
Robert said
One should not exaggerate the early and universal authority of the rabbis at Jamnia for the practice of all synagogues at that time or think that they only had Christians in mind as minim.
Completely understand and agree here – and while I’m very interested to dive deeply here, I already promised us that I’d not drag us down a rabbit hole. The intent behind my question doesn’t fully presume the prior theory, but rather more is focused on trying to roughly see (via soliciting your thoughts) if there’s an overlap in timing of the two phenomena. Which you then go on to answer…
Robert said
There are some indications that some of the ‘benedictions’ date to a time prior to the destruction of the Temple, including perhaps a ‘benediction’ of the Sadducees as minim for their lack of belief in the resurrection from the dead. Thus the ‘expulsion from the synagogue’ mentioned in John’s gospel may have been more localized, but it coukd still have had some relation to currents under consideration at Jamnia.
Got it – not dispositive, an open possibility/question. Timing may permit coincidence, but correlation is not causation. Which you also then go on to address…
Robert said
Such conflicts are already apparent in the letters of Paul and in the gospel of Mark.
Yes – agreed. Is there compelling work / further reading that compares/contrasts these conflicts as such (meaning compares the similarity and difference of the incidents as narrated) that you’d recommend, so that I keep to my rabbit hole promise?
Robert said
Recall from ** you do not have permission to see this link ** (thanks again) that J Louis Martyn’s unpublished thesis was written before he learned of the birkat ha-minim from WD Davies.
Yep, and I caught it then, but the broader implications of that fact are coming into better context by your help.
Sure thing – glad I could contribute a tiny droplet of helpful material.
Robert said
Adele Reinhartz has also criticized Martin’s interpretation for not paying enough attention to Johannine passages that may portray a less exclusively negative interaction between members of the Johannine community and their Jewish neighbors.
As an interesting aside, Reinhartz has ** you do not have permission to see this link ** ‘broken up with the beloved disciple’ and abandoned the view that John may have been written for Jewish Christians who have been expelled from (a) synagogue(s), and thinks that it might have been written for yet to be converted gentiles.
Thank you for pointing me in this/her direction and turning me on to her work. Didn’t know of her until now.
Robert said
I’m less sure of this. Just as the last supper tradition may have already been known in Damascus prior to Paul’s conversion, it might have been known even earlier in Antioch (the capital city of Roman Syria, less than 20 miles away from Damascus) prior to Paul ever visiting there. Regardless of when the practice might have been introduced in either community, it seems rather unlikely that Paul would have been the one to introduce it to either of these established communities. Would he have discussed the tradition or practice when visiting Antioch? That is surely possible, but I see no reason to consider it especially likely.
Robert said
Would Paul have brought it up with around the time of or even during his confrontation with Cephas? I don’t know. It seems to me the issues around the confrontation would have been magnified in intensity if they related specifically to the (liturgical?) practice of the Lord’s supper. Thus, I kind of think Paul might have mentioned this as part of the public confrontation and controversy. Might it have come up in a less contentious context, prior to the confrontation. Sure, it’s possible. Not particularly likely in my opinion.
Robert said
Perhaps initially, but perhaps because of the abuses in Corinth, Paul seems to suggest separation of the special (liturgical) last supper from a communal meal, at least in Corinth where it was reported that there were abuses by the well off:
Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it. Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine. When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you! (1 Cor 11,17-22)
Robert saidWe can stipulate for the sake of discussion that Paul and Cephas discussed the last supper tradition again at Antioch. Where do you want to go with this?
Robert saidI think that’s a very good insight. At some point the church at large divorced the last supper from a larger communal meal setting and made it into a purely liturgical ceremony. Whether Paul himself really intended to start this process because of abuses or not, I don’t know, but at least the later church would probably have used this text of Paul to do so. The idea that Paul would use the last supper tradition to correct all communal meal settings seems to correspond well to his larger tendency to use the cross of Christ as a corrective for just about everything.
Robert saidIf Paul had already discussed the last supper tradition in Jerusalem with Cephas, who had been there, he would not feel a need to gain more information about the tradition from those who had not been there.
Robert saidIf he had not even bothered to discuss it with Cephas when he was with him for 15 days in Jerusalem, would he have done so at Antioch?
Robert saidThe topic came up in his first letter to the Corinthians only because of reported abuses.
Robert saidBut I’m not arguing against the possibility or likelihood that he had such discussions at Antioch; it’s entirely possible. We just don’t know one way or the other.
Robert saidI’d much rather play than officiate.
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