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Loading...What does Paul mean in his letter to the Galatians when he says that he did not receive his gospel from humans but direct from God through a revelation of Jesus? Does he mean that he was the one (through direct divine inspiration) who came up with the idea that it was the death and resurrection of Jesus, rather than, say, Jesus’ life and teachings, that brings salvation? And if so, doesn’t that mean that Paul himself would be the founder and creator of Christianity, since Christianity is not the religion of Jesus himself, but the religion about Jesus, rooted in faith in his death and resurrection?
It may seem like that’s the case, but it’s not. Not at all. In my previous post, I showed that the belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection were around before Paul and that Paul inherited this belief from Christians who were before him. But then what would Paul mean when he explicitly says in Galatians 1:11-12 “For I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me – that it is not a human affair; for I neither received it from a human nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ”?
That sure sounds like he is saying that his gospel message came straight from Jesus, not from humans, right? Yes, right, it does sound that way. But it’s important to know – and not just to assume – what Paul means by his “gospel” in this passage. He doesn’t mean what you might at first think he means.
Paul begins his letter to the Galatians with a…
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Thank you for this edifying post! I think I finally understand the context of Paul’s version of religion based upon Jesus. Hope your back continues to improve.
Much as I agree Jesus was a Jew, that he saw his mission as primarily to the Jews, that he did not intend to found a religion separate from Judaism, I think Paul’s revelation was correct (even though I may not necessarily believe it was Jesus’ actual voice he heard on the road to Damascus).
Here’s an interesting question, I have not seen asked (though some must have asked it). What did Paul know about Jesus and his teachings, by the time he had that revelation? You don’t typically set out to destroy some system of belief (like, for example, Marxism, or Scientology, or believing in UFO’s) without studying it, trying to understand where the people who adhere to it went wrong, why it’s taken hold. So Paul did that. He could not have read the gospels we have now, because they didn’t exist yet.
But there may have been early texts he could have read that are now lost. He would have talked to Christians, he would have heard the stories. And after he converted, he would have heard more.
And the story he would have heard was of a man who put a lot less emphasis on the letter of the Jewish law. Who ministered to people traditional Jews tended to view with disdain. Who told a story about a Samaritan who was the only true neighbor to a Jewish man lying half-dead on a roadside. About a Canaanite woman whose faith in Jesus’ ability to heal her child made him somehow feel humbled. If Paul didn’t hear those stories, he heard others like them. Because there would have been so many. Jesus didn’t tend to respect the traditional boundaries between Jew and Gentile, between ‘good’ people and sinners. He had a tendency to keep stepping over the lines his culture had drawn (which is ultimately what got him killed).
So I don’t always agree with Paul, but I do in this case. I think he saw who Jesus really was here. Somebody whose mission to herald the coming of the Kingdom of God had overpowered the religious beliefs he’d been raised with, lifted them to a different level. I think Jesus would have approved.
Yes indeed, it is a question that has long puzzled scholars, given the lack of evidence. In fact, scholars have long asked how may of Jesus’ teachings Paul knew much later — 20 years after his conversion when he was writing his letters. I deal with that particular issue in my book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction.
OK, so Paul didn’t found Christianity. Christianity preceded Paul. But, Paul *did* found *gentile* Christiaity. Is that what you believe, Bart?
Many thanks! 🙂
Not quite. I think gentiles could convert before that. The difference is whether to convert they had to adopt the practices of Judaism.
So, we could say that Paul founded the strand of Cristianity that survived: the strand which doesn’t require gentile converts to adopt the practices of Judaism?
No small thing, I’d say.
Many thanks, Bart! 🙂
Yup, I’d say so. And yup, pretty big.
Dr. Ehrman, it would seem to me that Paul would only get so riled up over a circumcision requirement if such a requirement had a deleterious effect on Christian conversion efforts, both past and future. That is, if both recent and future converts had no problem adopting the Law in its entirety — including circumcision, kashrut, sabbath observance, etc. — then I can’t imagine that Paul would be in such a tizzy. Chances are, however, that many if not most Gentiles would have serious reservations about having their foreskins cutoff, not to mention abstaining from pork and not doing work on Saturdays. And I think this is what’s setting Paul off in Galatians (cf. Gal. 1:6). He fears that the requirements of the Law will put off many worthy Gentiles, whom Paul needs to bring into the fold to lay the necessary groundwork for the Parousia. Paul feels that these other Judaizing Christians are essentially undoing all of his hard work, and, furthermore, sabotaging his future efforts as well (hence his harsh language in Gal. 1:8-9).
And it seems that Paul was actually on his own in this, because by his own admission (Gal. 2:1-10), the leaders of the Jerusalem church gave up on trying to persuade him otherwise. My impression is that Paul was probably an insufferable man, and that the leaders of the Jerusalem church merely acquiesced through attrition to his “gospel” of salvation for the Gentiles via faith alone (although it wasn’t technically solus fides, because Paul’s Gentile converts were still required to the follow the so-called Noahide Laws: no sexual impropriety, no idolatry, no murder, no eating an animal that is still alive or that was sacrificed to another god, etc.). The Jerusalem leaders simply gave up trying to force Gentiles to become Jews (cf. Gal. 2:3), probably because they didn’t much care about the Gentiles one way or the other anyhow and this whole issue wasn’t worth their time (as a Jew myself I know that Jews, for the most part, couldn’t care less what Gentiles do, say or think as long as it doesn’t involve us). So they let Paul have his little crusade. The irony, of course, is that Paul’s brand of Christianity won out in the end, and the Christianity of the Jerusalem Church is a footnote in history.
I’m not sure myself if his views were formed because of practical considerations (who will likely convert if they have to take to the knife?) or rather because of a real insight he had into the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection. I tend toward the latter. But I’m a text guy and you’re a social science guy. 🙂
Well, what we may see as a distinction between the practical and the insightful may not have been a true distinction to Paul. We should consider that Paul may have been operating subconsciously — that is, he was unaware of his self-motivation because he really, truly believed that he was saving souls.
For example, let’s say you were flagging down motorists to prevent them from driving into a tornado. Unless you’re a Vulcan I can’t imagine you would take the time to do a cost-benefit analysis of whether it was worth it for you to take time out of your busy day to stop those cars. You would simply do it out a very human, very biological drive to save those peoples’ lives. In other words, you don’t over think it. Your human nature takes over.
This is probably how Paul is thinking. Paul genuinely believes he’s saving souls. Moreover, he believes the more he saves, and the faster he saves them, the sooner the Messiah will return to bring about Judgment Day and the Kingdom of Heaven. So simply out of trial and error (or what I like to call working a theory out of practice) Paul probably had more success with his “insightful” realization that Gentiles would “come to Christ” without becoming Jews (i.e. adopt the Law). And Paul sees that he’s having a tremendous amount of success with this new insight, so he then assumes that if he’s being that successful, then he must be doing something right, and, more importantly, Paul’s revelation (via the Holy Spirit) must be true! This is called a feedback loop. You attempt something on a whim presuming that it’s effective, and when it turns out to be effective you take its effectiveness as evidence that it wasn’t a whim but a genuine insight or personal gift (e.g. a supernatural revelation or endowment). Paul’s conceit-ridden epistles are testament to how blessed Paul thought he was. (Incidentally, according to the DSM IV, Paul’s delusions of grandeur may be a symptom of a bipolar disorder. http://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/delusion-of-grandeur/)
Anyway, then imagine, all of a sudden, judaizing Christians come along and start undoing everything that Paul has done. It’s like as if you (miraculously?) hit on the best way of stopping as many motorists as you can from driving into the tornado, and as you’re in the middle of your successful plan, suddenly, someone else comes along and starts their own, less successful, flagging down operations across the street from you. How frustrated would you feel? I’m sure that would piss you off real good. That’s probably how Paul felt.
I’m with Bart on this one. I think for Paul, the resurrection was everything. To suggest circumcision was also required meant the ressurection was only part of the requirements for salvation, which reduces it’s importance, and that is what Paul got so upset about. I think Paul had worked everything out according to his own logic (whatever that was) and if the ressurection was only a partial requirement the whole thing falls apart.
“I know that Jews, for the most part, couldn’t care less what Gentiles do, say or think as long as it doesn’t involve us”?? In what society are you living such an alienated life? As a Jew in the U.S., I feel I have to care about what gentiles, especially bigoted gentiles, do. I care deeply that certain evangelicals and fundamentalists want to weaken or tear down the wall of separation between church and state and work to make it happen. I care that some Catholic priests have abused children. I care what the President’s policies are. So could you please clarify a bit what you mean?
I should have been more clear. I mean us Jews have a live and let live attitude when it comes to what other people believe. We’re not big on proselytizing. Nor are we big on getting all up in the business of other faiths.
Surely though when paul says peter was not acting in line with the truth of the gospel he assumes that Peter also knows that you don’t need to be a jew to be justified? Isnt his point that the other apostles all know ‘this gospel’ but are acting contrary to it?
I don’t see that paul’s statement that he received the gospel straight from jesus means either a) he invented it or b)it was a nuanced message from the other apostles.
Surely he is simply saying … I got the gospel same as they did … from the horses mouth. I am not peter or James’ disciple. I am on their level – so do as I say!
Paul indicates that Peter and the others agreed with him earlier about his law-free gospel, so he saw Peter’s actioans as hypocritical. And yes, he’s certainly saying that he didn’t get these ideas from the others!
Paul maintains that there were those who came to the Galatians churches after Paul, teaching a different gospel, that one must be a Jew first before receiving salvation.
These people who were teaching a different gospel than Paul’s were, in fact, those from the Jerusalem church led by James and Peter and the others who were personally associated with Jesus directly. Paul never knew or even saw Jesus.
We read in Acts that Paul met with them twice and there was a compromise and that new converts who were gentiles did not need to practice Torah, did not need to be circumcized, and needed only to practice the watered down Noahic Law…yet, converts needed to be Jews of some sort. (Is that not a contradiction between the account in Acts and what Paul is preaching?)
I do not see where this was ever resolved. Then, after Paul’s death, and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70ce , the Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem was dispursed and Christianity, along the lines of Paul’s theology, developed and became dominant.
Does this not then indicate that the essential theology that the Church developed came from Paul and that, in effect, Paul “invented” Christianity as we have it today…a non Jewish religion? (This has nothing to do with the theology of the atonement, but is centered totally on whether one must become a Jew before becoming a Christian).
My second question has to do with the Revelation of this **directly** by Jesus..that is, visions.
Even though visions were considered common and accepted in Paul’s time, today we still have those who claim to have visions, and these visions are considered a mental dysfunction (psychotic?) based on contemporary psychology. Question: why then can we not consider Paul’s vision(s) to be caused by a state of mental dysfunction, perhaps from extreme guilt due to his viscous persecution of the early Christians?
I do think that Paul somehow developed an anti-Jewish bias and either intentionally or subconsciously tells the Galations that his gospel (not requiring conversion to Judaism) was given to him directly in a vision be the Risen Christ.
I am not convinced by his claim regarding visions but view his actions as an attempt to circumvent the core beliefs of the Jewish Christians and make Paul’s Christianity more palatable to the pagan Greco-Roman world.
I would say that Paul did come up with a different view of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, but I would not say that he came up with Chrsitianity as we know it today. Christianity as we know it today is WAY different from Christianity in Paul’s day.
I do agree with that. Nowdays much of Christianity is crazy!
I’d be interested to read a post from you laying out what, tin your view, these differences are. I think they are, to one extent or another, muddled together in some of our minds and interfering with having a clearer picture of what Jesus’ followers believed before his death and after his death, and what Paul was really saying.
So after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70C.E. there would be nowhere to offer the necessary sacrifice for circumcision, maybe that’s why Paul’s way beat out the James Gang and maybe it was the sacrifices themselves that accompanied the Jewish Rituals that where at the heart of Paul’s motivation to reject them. This also makes me wonder, did Paul offer a sacrifice when he circumcised Timothy?
Circumcision did not involve a sacrifice.
Here’s a question for some future reader’s bag:
When you became an atheist (or agnostic?) what did you do with your Sunday mornings? Did you miss attending church? Did you try to replace it with some other type of spiritual or contemplative activity?
I’ll add the question to the list!
Paul says that part of his “gospel” is that everyone will be “judged” through Christ. Paul writes that “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus (Romans 2:15).”
“Funny” thing is that, generally, Jews did not believe that a person had to be Jewish in order to be safe from God’s judgment. Gentiles were not necessarily lost to the darkness or to flames. Now Christians claim that the fair faith is universal and that anyone can be saved. But of course what they mean is anyone who changes what they believe and begins believing like Christians believe. For today’s fundamentalists–and in about 20 places in the New Testament, one has to believe Jesus Christ is the Savior or else. So, with all the to-do about there being more forgiveness in the New Covenant, it actually teaches a God who condemns those who might not be bad people at all but whose only “sin” is not believing something.
Hmm interesting and thanks for your take Dr. Ehrman. I had a teen study Bible back in my more conservative youth with lots of commentary. In it the book of Galatians had excerpts stating Paul was talking about Gnosticism and the threat it posed in the set of passages.
I have a question on this? The Gospel of Thomas and the Didache both show Jesus as a prophet showing the way and no evidence of following the person rather than message in terms of belief in the resurrection. I was left under the impression that 1st century Christians as a result might have been more proto gnostic like as Christianity evolved. It would not make sense for different Christianities to only come later (no Dr. Ehrman I have not read your early Christianities book yet ?). My question is how universal was this more orthodox view in these early decades about faith regardless of Jewish law?
Gnosticism? Really? Seems odd to think that is what Galatians is about! (Apart from the fact that Gnosticism didn’t exist yet!!) Yes, Thomas is different – I’ll address that issue in a mailbag question soon. But I don’t think it is particualrly representative of the first century. And I don’t think the Didache has the same view of things as Thomas.
Another question….why do you think the Paul does not speak about the ethical teachings of Jesus or events o Jesus’ live, other than his death and resurrection? Is he avoiding the compassion centeredness of Jesus teaching in favor of a more other worldly theology or was he just not aware of any of that information?
I debate over whether he didn’t know more, didn’t think it was at all relevant, or didn’t see it as relevant to the particular situations he was addressing in his letters.
It has seemed to me that some of Jesus’ behavior and teachings (at least as was later in the written stories about him–i.e. the Gospels) would have perfectly suited some of Paul’s condemnations of certain behaviors in the churches he’d started.
So clarifying! Thank you!
Great post! Did Paul think that non-Gentile/Jewish Christians (like himself) should follow Jewish law, circumcision, Sabbath observance, kosher food, etc. Does what he say on this particular matter match with what James and Peter probably thought? Or did the gospel he received directly from god and not humans also include Jews not having to follow Jewish law.
We don’t know for sure, but I think the answer is yes — he for the most part remained a Jew. But not when doing so compromised his ability to spend time with gentiles.
Would most Jews of the day think that Paul was at best a wishy-washy Jew and at worst no longer a Jew due to him behaving as a gentile when he was with gentiles?
Maybe scandalously sinful, but still a Jew.
Judaism is one of those odd religions where even if you’re “excommunicated” you’re still a Jew. (cf. Spinoza)
Is this also related to 2 Corinthians 11: 4-5 where he mentions another Jesus/spirit/gospel and the super apostles? Is this an indication that others like Peter, James and so on are preaching against Paul?
The “Superapostles” are others, I think, not members of the Jerusalem church. They ahve a very different theology (based on the glories that are theirs already as those who have been raised with Christ)
If I may prof, and by no means do I mean to gainsay your understanding: in “Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity,” by James D. Tabor, the author maintains that the “Superapostles” appear to refer to the Jerusalem Church: James, Peter, and John.
I just finished reading the book, and, in my very lay and neophyte (mis)understanding of early Christianity, Dr Tabor does make a case for Paul transforming Christianity. The author also shows that a significant part of the New Testament is about Paul.
Methinks I have to read more about Paul to gather other perspectives.
How surprising do you think it is for a Jew of Paul’s time to come to the conclusion he did, about the salvation of gentiles? Was there any other Jew during this era who thought gentiles could be full members of God’s people without following the Jewish law?
There certainly was the possibility of worshiping the God of Israel without being circumcised. That is attested among a group of people that scholars call “God-fearers”
But the God-fearers were not considered Jews, correct?
Right!
Hi jrhislb
I think he went a step further than this, it wasn’t now a question of being a Jew i.e one of Gods people or Gentile but there was a whole new creation of believers. There was no benefit in adopting the practices of Judaism and in fact if you did you had missed the point and could not therefore fully experience salvation.
Teresa X
Not sure what you are responding to, Teresa. Are you just saying what you think Paul meant or stating what you believe? Same thing applies as I wrote in an earlier response to you: 1. that we need salvation is a belief, not a fact, and based not on what Genesis 2-3 says but on how it’s (wildly) interpreted and 2. Surely, a loving, forgiving God couldn’t care less what religious beliefs a person would consider who they are. It is absurd to me that a god or a human would condemn a person because he or she does not believe something. Leave that to ISIL.
Hi SBrudney,
I’m stating what Paul said.
Teresa x
If Paul was the first to say that salvation was available to Gentiles without becoming a Jew, then he made it up himself. Whether he had a vision/dream or whatever, the idea came from Paul’s head. Why do you think that a Jew such as Paul would become so adamant that Gentiles needed to be saved without being Jews? One reason is that the Gentiles weren’t going to become Jews. But why did Paul care? Did he have friends & family that were Gentiles that he wanted to make sure were saved?
My sense is that the revolutionary truth that he recognized would have been compromised if gentiles had to adopt Jewish ways,and he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his insight.
I know it is somewhat impossible for us to know how Paul’s thinking developed but what is your opinion on how a Jew such as Paul could develop an insight that was so lenient toward gentiles? My thought is he must have had friends and family that he was concerned about.
I’ll be getting to that soon!
And you also getting to how Paul persecuted the first Christians! 😉
What we got was a religion (in its most conservative manifestations) in which all non-Christians have to adopt the Christian belief to be saved.
Hi,
Why do you think Paul seems to be humbler in regards to his apostleship to the Gentiles in his letter to the Romans (Romans 1)? Obrigada!
I’d guess it’s because his own converts aren’t being threatened and he’s writing to a church he didn’t found and hasn’t visited.
This is helping me to understand a little better as to Paul’s role in the creation of Christianity – he put into motion the animus between the Christians and their religious antecedents, the Jews. Christians had the covenant of God right, the Jews did not. It is a rather remarkable divorce in that Christians make much of how Christ’s appearance and mission was built into the Jewish scriptures. The emphasis on the foreshadowing of Christ within the scriptural tradition of a religion that is not right with God is interesting to put it mildly.
Of course, no war is more bitter than a civil war as we witness today between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Other faith traditions can only shake their heads in horror and disbelief.
Just catching up. When people say Paul was the founder of the church, does it really matter much that there were, say, a few hundred people believing that the resurrection happened and that it was the key,to salvation?. Isn’t he really the super salesman who spread Christianity and, without whom, those hundreds might well have died off?
My sense is that others were converting people as well.
Hi Prof Ehrman
“When Paul indicates that a salvation came completely “apart from the works of the Law,” he is not saying that salvation comes apart from doing any good deeds — the way Martin Luther and most Protestants since his day have read Paul (until the last 50 years). ”
I think that Paul absolutely said that salvation comes without the need for any good works. The word need is the crucial part. Salvation is purely by grace which is why he was so opposed to the “other gospel” that had been preached to the Galatians. I think this is what Luther understood as well.
“As in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive” It all rests upon a finished work. We just get the benefit of it.
Teresa x
Well, Teresa, part of the problem is that there is no fall or introduction of death in the story of Adam and Eve. In what it literally says, either in Hebrew or English, the claims that that’s what it says simply find no support there. The ideas that there was a fall there and that came entered the human story there are read into the story. The other part is that, generally speaking, in Judaism there was no belief that a person had to become Jewish in order to have a relationship with God pleasing to Him. But now we get Christianity which requires that a person must believe certain things in order to be okay with God. I understand that being good would please a god; I cannot understand why believing something would. Conservative Christianity, at least, is much more of a restricted club than Judaism. Jews don’t go around saying, “You have to believe what we believe or you will be condemned.”
Hi SBrudney,
. . .but Paul believed that sin could be directly linked back to Adam and every person who has ever lived is a sinner by birth.
I think the point that Paul was making was that the law is incapable of making anybody perfect and that we can be in fellowship with God because he has done all the work for us . . .we are incapable of saving ourselves.
Teresa x
Thanks for responding. Yes, true: the Jew Paul believed that. The belief was not unknown in Judaism. It just never became normative or mainstream. There is no reference to it anywhere else in Hebrew Scriptures in which any connection is made with the origin of sin or death or evil. Jewishencyclopedia.com says, “The fall of man, as a theological concept, begins to appear only in the late Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, probably under Essenic (if not Judæo-Christian) influences. In II Esd. iii. 7 it is stated that when Adam was punished with death, his posterity also was included in the decree (the variants in the versions, Ethiopic, Armenian, Syriac, and Latin, all point to a Hebrew ) II Esd. iii. 21 has: “For on account of his evil will the first Adam fell into sin and guilt, and, like him, all that were born of him.” This view is again stated in ch. vii. 48: “O Adam, what hast thou done! When thou sinnest, thy fall did not come over thee alone, but upon us, as well, thy descendants” (comp. Ecclus. [Sirach] xxv. 24, “from woman was the beginning of sin; on her account must we all die”). Similarly, in the Apocalypse of Baruch (xvii. 3), Adam is blamed for the shortening of the years of his progeny. Yet it would be hasty to hold that in these books the doctrine is advanced with the rigidity of an established dogma. Even in II Esd. iii. 9 the thesis is suggested that the consequence of the Fall came to an end with the Flood, when a generation of pious men sprang from Noah, and that it was only their descendants who wantonly brought corruption again into the world.” I think you’re right about what he believed but, unless and until I learn otherwise, Paul’s views are only his opinions. The point of living according to the Torah and purifying oneself in mikvahs and making sacrificing was not to achieve perfection. It was doing what God said to do (so they believed). God himself said living by the commandments was do-able. He and Paul are clearly on different pages. Why on earth, I wonder, have people taken Paul’s word for it that non-Christian Jews–before and after Jesus–were not capable of attaining salvation? Seems like such a dismal view of humanity and of God. God was wrong: his children were not able to carry out the Torah? Is there any proof of that? And man was irretrievably spiritually impoverished and Jews were unable to do what God said to do? Proof? Paul makes claims.
So if Galatians 1:11-12 is Paul referring only to gentiles being able to be Christians without having to obey the Jewish law, then doesn’t it still signal a very new type of Christianity from Peter’s? It seems to be taking on characteristics of mystery cults, namely cosmopolitanism… Paul is not only opening the doors for gentiles, but also women! Another characteristic is levels of spiritual knowledge (mysteries), and Paul clearly states in 1 Corinthians ( which I have just reread because of this thread ) that the Corinthians are as babies, and are not ready for solid food, or the next level of knowledge… But yet he hits them with the creed in 15:3-4-5, which may then be seen as a basic entry level creed geared toward those not ready for the higher teachings, and probably allegorical as to hide the true message from those not worthy.
On an unrelated note, I was struck by the attention that Paul gives to sending money to Jerusalem! It seems that even at this early stage, money was of paramount importance… Was Paul working for the church in Jerusalem? Or was he freelancing? In any case, it’s funny how this hasn’t changed a bit in 2000 years!
I think women were prominent in the faith before Paul. But yes, Paul’s version of the Gospel is indeed much more cosmopolitan. The Jersuaelm collection: I’ll add that one to the mailbag, as it’s an important issue for Paul.
You have me so busy reading, that I’ve no time to post! Having recently completed Misquoting Jesus, I join your wife in saying that it’s certainly a favorite! A treasure, to be sure.
Regarding Paul and his “revelations”, “visions”, that gave rise to so much of what he believed and preached, would you agree that though he did not “invent” or “start” Christianity, he ultimately determined what “Christianity”, particularly as we know it, would be?
He certainly brought about a change in Xty, though I don’t think his form of Xty is like it is practiced today.
Then doesn’t this mean that Paul is still the founder of Christianity as we know it today, since he made it open to gentiles? Does it also mean that the disciples weren’t accepting of gentiles unless they became followers of the Jewish law? If so, Paul may still be seen to be the founder of the faith as it is.
To the extent that one doesn’t have to be a Jew to be a Christian, yes. But I’d say his version of Xty is very different from what you find today.
If it’s true that he was the first to expound this theology (that Jesus’ death and Resurrection were for all, Jews and Gentiles), then I’d call that pretty foundational to the Christianity that thrived and survived since.
In that sense, Paul would be “the founder”.
Just a random thought, but I wonder if there might have been an element of practicality in Paul’s position. “Believe in Jesus” seems like an easier sell than “Get circumcised and believe in Jesus.”
You are by far and away the most productive person I have ever known. How in the world are you able to put out all of this really interesting stuff day after day after day … ?
Maybe you can clarify what has changed the last “50 years.” Are you saying that Paul taught the theology of being free of the Jewish laws about circumcision and diet rules and that Martin Luther interpreted this as meaning that doing good deeds does not matter and only faith matters and then over the last 50 years people reinterpreted it all back to being free from Jewish laws rather than being free from the need to do good deeds?
Yup, in a nutshell, that’s it!
Well well another mythicist trope comes a cropper, the claim being that Paul knows only the revelations of the visionary Jesus.
Prof Ehrman, an unrelated question. Do you know of any contemporary critical scholars who seriously question the Pauline authorship of the letter to Philemon? I cam across an offhand allusion to such in my reading but with no details.
thanks
No, offhand I don’t!
Paul says, as does the Nicene Creed, that Jesus died and rose on the third day following “in accordance with the scriptures”. To which “scriptures” is Paul referring, and are those the same ones being referenced in the Nicene Creed?
I wish we knew! It is often thought that it is such texts as Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22:1. But we really don’t know.
The “salvation” of all nations was always part of the Jewish ethic. The Jews were not only chosen BY God, they chose God as well — that’s why it was a covenant — a contract. The Jews were to be a nation of priests, a holy nation, tasked (in part) to bringing non-Jews into the covenant. The nations (gentiles) were not required to accept all the rules that the Jews had (theoretically) accepted; they were to agree to the so-called code of Noah. But then, you knew that. Right?
Will you be saying anything more about Paul and his view of the law? He seems a bit schizophrenic in his view of whether it is good or bad. Also do you think Romans 7 is about a non believing jew, a christian or an other??
Yup! I think in Romans 7 he is explaining why the law is a problem for anyone: it gives demands but not the power to meet them. That can only come some other way.
Hi Dr. Ehrman. You’ve stated in several comments that you think Christianity would look vastly different than Christianity in Paul’s day. Could you explain? I find this incredibly interesting!
Sure — go into your local Catholic church, or Baptist church, or any other church. Notice what happens. Then read 1 Corinthians 12!
Ok gotcha. I am familiar having attended most denominations. Just read 1 Corinthians 12. I suppose a Pentecostal church would be closest to Paul’s recognition?
But think about the differences: church building, pews, hymnals, bulletins, set order of worship, pastor, choir, organ, etc. etc. etc.
Another great post!
Dear Bart, Do you think that incident of council at Jerusalem in Acts 15 where Paul and the apostles agree with each other on not to make gentiles follow the laws of Moses is not historical?I think acts of apostles is not historically reliable, however I do not know if Acts 15 goes back to historical Paul.. what do you think?
As you might already know, there is something called Noahide Laws in Judaism now days. These laws are based on genesis 9, where
God says to the all nations not to eat a live animal, do not commit murder. I do not know if the idea of these laws go back to times of Paul, however, in acts 15 verse 19 it seems like Paul is talking about these laws, actually I think he says that gentiles should abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood . What do you think of these verses? If Paul thought, like you said, salvation only comes from belief in death and resurrection of Jesus not following the laws, he must have thought that not eating a live animal or food, or any other things wouldn’t bring salvation, and also salvation does not come from keeping these Noahide laws right?( I think noahide laws are not “Jewish Laws” however these are still Torah based). If that’s the case why does Paul say these things? Paul did not want gentiles to become Jewish, and I think that was the main difference between his opponents. However, gentiles “could” be made righteous without becoming Jewish already in the first place by keeping noahide laws.
I think it is the same conference that Paul refers to in Galatians 2, and that Luke has altered the proceedings a bit….
Did Luke actually follow Jesus? Or was he one of Paul’s exclusively.
The tradition is that he followed only Paul. But I don’t think he knew him myself.
Bart, I know this is off the subject, but what can you tell me about the Center for Theological Inquiry at Princeton? NASA has recently awarded them a million dollar grant to study what effect would the discovery of life forms on other worlds have on the major religions. The principle investigator is Lucas Mix, an Episcopal Priest who has a PhD in evolutionary biology from Harard.
Ah, good for them. It was established while I was in Princeton, working at the seminary. It was designed to be a kind of think-tank, scholars’ institute for experts working on the relationship of science and theology. Sounds like they are succeeding!
I see Paul so differently, a genius, and loving to be in the center. I also think he knew what he was doing or he would have had no reason to return to James , shave his head ( and admittance to the sin he committed ) and get Baptized by James. He had not been Baptized prior to his meeting James , and proclaimed he did not need to , so if you join them you can destroy them from within. I do however believe in Revelations no matter how others categorize that phenomenon , for if you see a future event and it comes true, and it happens repeatedly then there must be some truth and not illness.
But “seeing” future events has no necessary connection to a god giving a gift or revelation. It happens in other religious traditions besides Christianity. Maybe it’s just some strange time-warp, parallel universe type thing and particular people who are sensitive to them.
Bart, do you believe that the accounts of the apostles thinking they were seeing a spirit or phantasmal apparition in Luke and John is an apologetic development to verify that the resurrection of Jesus was not a spiritual one, but a physical one (with all the excessive touching in the texts, it seems that is what it’s for)?
Do you think it is a historical possibility that the apostles, if they had hallucinations of Jesus, originally thought his resurrected body was solely a phantom or spiritual body?
1. Yes 2. I doubt it. They were apocalpyticists!
Another reason to think Paul would have been well informed about Jesus apart from scripture and revelation is that Paul had two relatives who were apostles of note in the Jesus movement prior to his conversiobn: “Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.”
— Romans 16:7 KJV
Dr Ehrman,
What do you believe Paul means with his words found in Galatians 2:2?
Is he looking for a private confirmation from the other Apostles regarding his practices with the Gentiles and circumcision so that he knows less his mission is in vain?
Is this phase used elsewhere besides here and Philippians?
https://biblia.com/bible/nasb95/galatians/2/2
Thank you!
Kevin
I”m not sure which phrase you mean. It would be easier if you would quote it for me? And yes, he wanted to talk to the leaders to make sure they were on board with his mission and would support it.
If I get the gist of this post, Paul was arguing most specifically against the Law concerning Jewish customs, rituals and Identify status and not against the moral/justice content of the Law as the basis for salvation in Galatians. Right/wrong?
What about Ephesians where grace through faith alone, not works is specifically repeated as the basis of salvation? Even though more likely Deutero-Pauline, Ephesians would have been written at least by a close follower/comrade of Paul.
Many think Paul is a huge worry in regard to his social distance from the source, Jesus. Paul is always talking/creating abstract Philosophy about Jesus, while Jesus talks in simple moral parables about the way to the kingdom. Paul is always having “encounters/yarns” with the risen Christ where the Jerusalem apostles lived and walked with Jesus. When the author of James is responding to Paul’s philosophy of faith alone with the argument that faith without works is dead, the Jewish identity eligibility seems not to be on the radar. Was Paul’s very early revelation about the Eucharist more theology creation and always distant from the Didache’s thanksgiving and remembrance meal? Paul wrote, others couldn’t.
I don’t think I’d put it that way. Paul did not think morality was the *basis* of salvation. Salvation came only through the death and resurrection of Jesus. BUT once one became a believer and was baptzied, they would have the Spirit of God within them that would enable them to lead the moral life God chose.
As I continue to slog through a “Messianic Jewish” fundamentalist series on the New Testament, the question of circumcision has been a source of amusement several times over. The preacher stretches himself into impossible knots to “prove” that Paul never actually preached that his converts could eat unclean foods or cease observance of the Sabbath, and that all such modern teachings are corruptions by the Catholic church, but the admonition concerning circumcision is so plain as to be uncontestable, so he has to come up with reasons why THAT no longer applies, but all of the other uniquely Jewish idiosyncrasies of the Torah do.
As always, I appreciate your crystal clear analysis and historical context. Your blog is keeping me sane as I attempt to thread the needle to reconnect with my fundamentalist father.
Dr. Ehrman,
I understand (and agree with!) your argument that Paul very probably did receive traditions from other humans about Jesus that influenced his Gospel. However, why should we interpret Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 as if *he is saying* that he received the Gospel he describes from other humans? That is by no means explicit in 1 Corinthians 15 and he *explicitly* denies just such a thing in Galatians 1 with similar wording. Sure, maybe he used a rabbinic construction that would have been familiar to his Jewish readers. That doesn’t seem to me to require that Paul meant to communicate that he received what he was describing from the apostles before him; I mean, Jesus was considered to be a rabbi, no? Sure, his description is highly stylized; it was likely a form that Christians would recognize. However, this doesn’t seem to me to require that Paul couldn’t have claimed he received it in just that form directly from Jesus; I mean, other elements of Paul’s teaching were similar to what the other apostles were saying but he still claimed it came directly from Jesus.
I thnk it’s very important to distinguish the topics he is addressing in 1 Corinthains 15 and Galatians 1. In 1 Cor he is poiting out that the gospel he preached that JEsus died and was raised was widely held — it’s not just his invention. He received it from others, he passed it along to the Corinthians, they all agreed on it, it was based on testimoney of Cephas, the twelve, James, the 500 etc. He is setting out there the basic idea that *everyone* in the Christian community subscribed to SO THAT he could then draw an important conclusoin from that some of the Corinthians are failing to grasp: the resurrection of the dead is a BODILY event and therefore future, not past. In Galatians it’s a completly different situation. THERE he is arguing against a group who has accused him of perverting the teachings of others, by saying that followrs of Jesus don’t have to be Jews. In that case he doesn’t appeal to what everyone said before him, because no one was saying it before him. He got *that* (that *part* of his Gospel) straight from Jesus. So I see the passages are very different. In one he wants to stress a point that everyone agrees with him on; in the other a point that he himself got straight from jesus himself. Both forms of argument are important for the differetn contexts.