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  • From: Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>
  • To: corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Paul a Pharisee?
  • Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 09:30:21 -0700 (PDT)


Hyam Maccoby wrote:

>The Early Church was not regarded as a threat to
>Pharisee Judaism...This is shown very plainly by
>Gamaliel's defence of Peter (Acts 5)... The
>conclusion is that when Paul was
>persecuting the EC, this was not because he
>was at the time a zealous Pharisee (as he claimed
>later). By this time (as I argue in THE
>MYTHMAKER) he had ceased to be a Pharisee
>and had become a supporter of the High PriestÂ’s
>political campaign against the EC.

Hyam,

[Forgive the delay in reponse. With last week's
events, C-P wasn't exactly on my list of priorities.]

If we can put any credence in Paul's own testimony --
something that has admittedly been impossible for you
-- and if we can do some reading between the lines
with Luke, then the conclusion presses that Paul was a
Shammaite Pharisee rather than a Hillelite like
Gamaliel. Acts 22:3 appears to be Lukan
one-upsmanship, saying, in effect, that, "A Christian
like Paul knew all there was to know about 'Rabbinic
Judaism' and found it wanting." If Paul had really
studied under Gamaliel, I find it hard to believe that
he wouldn't have mentioned him in places like Philip
3:4b-6, Gal 1:13-14, and Rom 11:1.

In "The Mythmaker" (pp 54-55) you briefly address this
theory:

>>>According to this theory, Gamaliel belonged to the
lenient Hillelite wing of the Pharisees, while Paul
represented the more fanatical and rigorous Shammaite
wing. [The theory is advocated by scholars like
Townsend, Haaker, Hubner, Wright] ... This, however,
explains nothing... There is no point of disagreement
between the Hillelites and Shammaites that could make
them adopt such different standpoints towards the
early followers of Jesus... If anything, the
Shammaites would have had MORE sympathy with the early
followers of Jesus than the Hillelites, for the
Shammaites were inclined to take a more activist line
against the Roman occupation than the Hillelites.<<<

Your position, of course, is predicated on the view
that the followers of Jesus were "orthodox Jews in
their whole way of life, including the practice of
circumcision and the observance of dietary laws, the
sabbath and festivals, and of the temple cult" (ibid).
I agree with you completely on the point of
circumcision, partly on the point of dietary laws and
holy days, and not at all on the point of the temple
cult. Needless to say, these points of controversy can
hardly be dealt with adequately in a single thread.

The view that Jesus and his followers were completely
orthodox is as bewildering as that everything reported
in the gospels can be taken at face value. One thing
I've become fairly confident about in questing for
Paul and Jesus is that historical reality is laced
with shades of gray. For instance, it is arguable
(even probable) that Mk 7:19 is historically bogus --
for if Jesus proncounced "all foods clean" then we can
hardly make sense of later church controversies. But
that doesn't warrant scrapping Mk 7 altogether. It may
be that Jesus disputed handwashing but not dietary
laws (in which case 7:1-13 would be more historical
than 7:14-23). Or perhaps he was taking issue with the
way handwashing and food regulations were being
conflated in a new sectarian way (as suggested by
Jesper Svartvik, whom I need to read more of). Maybe
he disputed some dietary laws, but not most. But to
see him as wholly orthodox on this point strains
credulity, leaving us with some variant of that
two-dimensional reconstruction of "Jesus-the-good-Jew,
Paul-the-bad-Hellenist".

I don't believe we can escape the pervasive gospel
testimony, however exaggerated, that Jesus and his
followers were "rule-breakers". The Shammaites would
have had less (not more) sympathy with the Jesus
movement than the Hillelites, on grounds that they
were revolutionaries in the wrong way and thus
self-defeating -- worse than being revolutionaries at
all.

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com

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