Loading...In my book on Christian ethics I’ll naturally be dealing with the views of Paul, which are more complicated that one might suspect. One of the things I’ll try to be showing is that his teachings on Christian “love” in some places seems to stand at odds with his teachings on salvation. I’ve drafted up this bit of the discussion, but it will take two posts to lay it out. Here’s the first.
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Paul didn’t teach universal salvation. The gentiles he was seeking weren’t all gentiles, but a group of gentiles within the overall population of gentiles. They were people Paul believed were non-Jewish descendants of the tribes of Israel who had been dispersed among the nations, called GK ethnos (mistranslated as gentiles, which comes from a Latin word gentilis and doesn’t belong in the bible) because they had stopped being Torah observant and had stopped practicing circumcision.
Non-Israelites were never under the law and its curse. They weren’t in danger of an end of the age judgement. There was nothing for them to be saved from. Christ’s new covenant was with Judah and Israel (Heb 8:8) and throughout the entire NT, there is a metanarrative of restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel. The NT is about the gathering and restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel (some of them called Ethnos), not Jews and all non-Jews. Once you understand who the gospel was for and who Paul’s gentile audience was, then it becomes clear that Jesus followers did NOT believe all people universally could be “made right with God”, because the story wasn’t about them.
Good grief man. Your presentism is so blatant. Paul also did NOT teach that anyone had to join Israel to be saved. That’s absurd to even consider. Salvation for the disciples meant [Jews] being rescued from sin (violation of the law), the curse of the law (which only Jews and who Paul believed were their Israelite brethren had and were under), their enemies, their perverse generation and the wrath of God. What did a 1st century non-Israelite need salvation from? Nothing. They weren’t part of the New Testament redemptive narrative.
Jews were under the law, which is why Jesus and James required them to remain under it. Ethnos that Paul believed were non-Jewish descendants of the tribes of Israel who were dispersed among the nations weren’t under the law. Paul discouraged them from returning to its useless rituals so as to prevent them from returning to being under its curse. Non-Israelites aren’t part of his discussion and weren’t his intended audiences.
Rom: 11,11 Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.
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But here, Paul uses Israel and Gentiles in the same line of thought. As though Gentiles are not lost Jewish Israelites, but two categories of types of nations. The God of Israel is the God of all nations. The Jewish are the ‘apple of his eye’ through whom salvation comes to all as a part of Israel by faith in the Jesus Christ Messiah.
The metanarrative throughout the entire New Testament is about the gathering and restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel. The “they” who stumbled was Jews, also referred to as ‘Israel’ in that context. The gentiles that salvation came to were non-Jewish descendants of the northern tribes, Ephraim, called GK ethnos because they had stopped being Torah observant and had stopped practicing circumcision.
The context of Romans 11 pertains to those who would be grafted in. They were non-Jewish people who Paul believed were descendants of the tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel / Ephraim who were dispersed among the nations during the last days of the age of the old covenant religious system and temple community. Paul is speaking of three groups in Romans 11.
1) Jews who believed (natural branches) like Paul and the other disciples.
2) Unbelieving Jews (natural broken off branches) like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and priests.
3) Believing scattered Israelites (gentiles/wild Olive tree).
Salvation was not meant for or needed by all universally, but rather, by all Israel. An Israelite was a physical descendant of Jacob. Nobody changes their DNA to become someone else. Non-Israelites didn’t become Israelites. And the story ended in AD70 anyway.
Acts 17 Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.
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I don’t think everyone would agree.
Blood is a covenant term for those under the law that required blood sacrifices. Boundaries of their habitation correspond to the boundaries of the promised land. Ordained times corresponds to the schedule of feast days. In Acts 17:26, Paul is quoting from an old testament passage, Deut 32:8-9, verses that pertain to Israel. Only Israelites would have recognized and appreciated its significance.
In Athens, Paul was preaching to all, but his target audience were descendants of those apostate Jews who had been forced to convert to paganism under Antiochus and were living in Athens. It makes no sense for Paul’s intended audience to be non-Israelites, people who weren’t under the old covenant and who wouldn’t stand to gain from being in Christ’s new covenant.
Looking forward to part 2!
1. Was the idea that gentiles could be saved through the death and resurrection of Jesus Paul’s original idea or do you think he inherited from other believers before him?
2, It seems that most Jews did not associate with gentiles normally. What was Paul’s draw to the gentiles?
Did Paul have a relationship with some gentiles to cause them to be his focus?
3. Since gentile men did not want to be circumcised or give up eating pork, shellfish, etc,
could it be said due to Paul’s desire to include gentiles, he therefore had to alter the rules so that gentiles could join the movement without having to convert to Judaism?
1. I suspect it’s his invention, and he suggests so. God revealed it to *him*. 2. God’s plan was to save the entire world. 3. I don’t think it was Paul altering rules but realizing that the rules would not put someone in a right standing with God.
Thank you for the response.
Regarding 1. We know that Christ did not really appear to Paul and give him his gospel. So if it is his invention, does that mean you believe he made it up?
2. I guess my thought was that most other Jews of the day did not seem to believe that it was God’s plan to save the entire world unless they converted to Judaism, correct?
3. By telling the gentiles that they did not have to convert to Judaism, wasn’t Paul changing the thought process of the Jews?
1. I wouldn’t say we *know* that, since many people think otherwise. But I don’t think Jesus appeared to Paul. If I’m right, though, that doesn’t make Paul a liar or fabricationist. My sense is that he really did think Jesus appeared to him. He doesn’t say how — in a dream? was it a mistaken identity? from someone standing in the distance? a visionary experience? No telling. But I don’t think Paul was intentionally just makin’ stuff up, and I can’t think of any evidence to suggest he was.
2. That’s right
3. Yes, he understood himself as seeing / understanding things that others did not understand.
“God’s plan was to save the entire world.”
Condemn the whole world?
As those Jews or its system was corrupt!
That is why Jesus supposedly said: Go ye forth & preach to all the nations!
This is all very good content, you are an inspiration.
I had a question, can a quote a modest amount of member-only posts in my youtube channel? While giving attribution, of course. Thanks
As long as you acknowlege the source fully.
I’m curious, Bart, do you think these Jews visiting the Galatians were proto-Matthew Judaizers? And do you think there’s evidence that the Gospel of Matthew was an attempt to refute Pauline theology that gentiles did not have to become Jews first? I think you’ve mentioned before that if we got Paul and Matthew in a room, they would vehemently disagree with each other on this matter.
I’d say it’s hard/impossible to say. The problem is that the concern of these Judaizers appears to be what we would call “cultic” (gotta circumcize; probably keep Sabbath, kosher,so on) Matthew never says anything about those kinds of laws, only what we today would call “ethical” laws (adultry, murder, bearing false witness, etc.) So they aren’t talking explicitly about the same thing. On the other hand, Matthew’s insistence that Jesus’ followers keep the law really is hard to read without thinking that he’s opposing Paul.
But didn’t Peter used to eat with gentiles in Antioch and only drew away from them for fear of the circumcision group? Paul says Peter lived like a gentile and not a Jew.
Surely Peter was following his own understanding of the new faith and not Paul’s?
Yes, it appears that Peter was eating with gentiles and then stopped.
Mmm, I have had the understanding that Jesus disciples and immediate followers Interpreted Jesus execution as a bloody sacrifice by God, at least in some part, because of its timing around the sacrificial celebration of Passover… a belief or theology that began right away rather than original to Paul at least three years later?
Yup, that may have helped.
Hi Bart
Do you think Galatians 2 is describing the Jerusalem concil and do you thinkcit really happened?
I don’t think that Acts 15 can be used to understand what Paul says in Galatians 2, no. But I think he certainly did meet with the apostles in Jerusalem.
Hi bart
In galatians 2 Titus and barbaras met jews from jerusalem. Do yoy think thwy also heard the 500 witnesses story and what do you think why is that tradision not in the gospels?
No way to know.
One possibility, should there be no easy explanation for apparent contradictions, could be that Paul was inconsistent in his thinking and changed his mind from time to time.
When we discuss “salvation” it is important to define our terms. What salvation meant to a first century Jew and what it means to Christians today are two vastly different things. Also, there is the issue of a God-fearer or righteous Gentile. As identified in Acts 15 righteous gentiles are not to be required to meet all of the requirements of Torah upon Jews – and this came from Yacov (James) in Jerusalem. And, a few chapters later, Paul is undergoing Jewish purification ritual.
Bart: some questions not entirely elated to this post:
1. How far into your study of biblical Greek did you have to get so that you could identify the different levels of style (literate, not so educated) of the different writers? Was it primarily a matter of the vocabulary that they used?
2. Is the difference between biblical Greek and modern Greek roughly the same as the difference between Shakespearean English and modern English? In any case, how do you know how to pronounce a language that was spoken 2000 years ago?
1. To do that well takes years and a deep knowledge of how Greek works (how does an author use circumstantial participles; does he have a penchant for articular infinities; how many levels of embeddedness does he typically tolerate, etc).
2. It’s far more different. And experts vary on ancient pronunciations, but everyone agrees it was different. The techniques of figuring out what words / letters sounded like are interesting: experts look on plays on words that require similar sounds; kinds of scribal changes that make sense if words sounded alike; how animal noises that we still hear to day are expressed in an ancient language; and other htings.
Bart – The Messiah was the “anointed” one of Israel, usually meaning the king. After Solomon, was this idea present in both Judah and Israel before the northern kingdom was conquered? Did it continue as a hope in both places after the return? I have the impression that the importance of the messiah and the coming of a new messiah was mainly a concern of Judah/Judea, but I’m not sure if that is correct.
The term itself doesn’t get used much, but it continued to occur in reference to the great king God had chosen to do his will — as in Isaiah 45:1 in reference to the *Persian* king Cyrus!
Bart,
I respectfully disagree with your 8/5 posting above where you wrote, “I don’t think Jesus appeared to Paul.” Please re-read Paul’s account in Acts 26:4-21, and then read Dr. Raymond Moody’s little 1975 book, Life after Life, where he reports what he had learned about Near Death Experiences from talking with folks that had the same experience that Paul had. This book is a report of his research into the phenomenon of dying, and while doing this began hearing from a subset of the folks he interviewed accounts that were roughly similar to Paul’s account. In the book he summarizes the similarities and differences in these accounts and in those he learned from other doctors. Paul’s account suggests he was struck by a weak bolt of lightning that produced serious flesh burns, stopped his heart for a brief period, and made him unconscious. Those who were with him managed to revive him and transported him on to Damascus, where he made a slow recovery from his physical wounds.
There has been considerable additional research since 1975 where thousands of accounts are documented. An afterlife for everyone’s spiritual “true-self” definitely does begin.
Bill Steigelmann
Yes, I have read Acts 26 (!) and Moody’s book, very carefully. Along with lots of other books on NDE. Paul does not report Jesus as having had a NDE but a “resurrection” to be exalted to the heavenly realm. I do not thing Acts 26 reflects Paul’s own views, however. As you know there are two other accounts in Acts (chs. 9 and 22) and the three have intriguing discrepancies between them. And none of them lines up directly with what Paul himself says in his letters (e.g., Galatians 1)
Bart, you wrote “Paul expressed his disgust at the idea by becoming a violent opponent of the faith, at least locally, wherever he happened to be.”. Although it is understandable that Paul would intellectually disagree with the idea of a crucified messiah, why would he be violently opposed to it? Personally, I don’t believe in the existence of flying saucers, but I would never go out start killing and imprisoning people who do believe in them. I see no reason to be violent over it. Why would Paul have been violent about it?
Unlike you and flying saucers, Paul was completely committed heart and soul to his religious traditions and practices, and any offence against them was more than he could stand. I’ve known people in my life who have gotten into fights over theological views that most people wouldn’t give a toss aobut….
But why would disagreements be so more than he can stand that he would become physically violent over it? That needs to be answered in order to understand Paul. Also, how could the New Testament claim that Paul persecuted Christians be true? If Paul decided to start persecuting various Christian groups, he would have been outnumbered by dozens to hundreds in each place he went. Christians could easily have captured him, and they would have had no reason to fear him. So, the claim that Paul persecuted them, and Christians feared him doesn’t seem to be historically plausible. Suppose I wanted to violently persecute people who believe in flying saucers. Would the UFO groups nationwide (e.g. MUFON and all of its affiliates) be terrified of me? Obviously not. It is not plausible that I could create such a persecution. So, another question: Do you think that there was a persecution of Christians by Paul and, if so, how could he have done such a persecution since he would have been vastly outnumbered? And do scholars think the book of Acts is reliable or unreliable about Paul’s alleged persecution and why? Thanks in advance for your answers.
Many people get violent about religion. Paul apparently did persecute Christians, but that could mean something so simple as verbally abusig a few of them or taking one of them out in the back alley behind the synagogue and beating them up. No, Acts is not particularly reliable in its details.
It’s one thing to have strong feelings on something but it’s quite another to engage in physical violence. Today, people recognize that engaging in physical violence over religion is terrorism (e.g. suicide bombers). But we still don’t know why Paul would be physically violently. Certainly, Paul disagreed with other religions, for example the worship of Zeus. Why wouldn’t Paul engage in physical violence against Romans who worshipped Zeus?
So, you’re basically agreeing with me that the book of Acts is simply wrong when it claims that “At that time a GREAT persecution arose against the Church which was at Jerusalem; and they were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church entering EVERY house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison” (Acts 8:1-3). Are you agreeing with me that all of 8:1-3 cannot be historical because Paul could not have achieved that? I don’t think there is any way I could enter every house and drag every member of MUFON away to prison.
Do you think that 8:1-3 is non-historical and if not then why not? Thanks.
There is all sorts of religious violence today that is not terrorism. But yes, I think Acts has to be eriously exaggerating the situation.