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  • From: "Hyam Maccoby" <h.z.maccoby AT leeds.ac.uk>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Paul a Pharisee?
  • Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 18:59:27 +0100


Loren,

Thank you for your comments. You suggest that Paul could have been a
Shammaite Pharisee, and that is why he did not share Gamaliel's tolerant
attitude to the EC. But remember the grounds put forward by Gamaliel for
tolerance of the EC (Acts 5). He saw Peter as the follower of a messianic
movement comparable with other messianic movements, eg. those of Theudas and
Judas of Galilee. Gamaliel did not even mention any question of whether
Jesus had challenged any tenet of Judaism; he simply took it for granted
that Jesus, like Theudas and Judas, had made a bid for Messiahship (i.e. a
political bid to to oust the Romans). Given the grounds on which Gamaliel
urged leniency to Peter, these grounds would have been supported even more
strongly by Shammaites than by Hillelites. I would point out also, that
without the support of the Shammaites, Gamaliel would not have been able to
secure a majority of the Sanhedrin against the High Priest. A divided
Pharisee party would never have outnumbered the Sadducee supporters of the
High Priest. So it must be concluded that Paul, in opposing both Jesus and
Peter, was acting against every shade of Pharisee opinion. So whether or
not Jesus was a reformer of Judaism simply did not come into the question of
whether Peter should be condemned, and the relative leniency of the
Hillelites is irrelevant.
You say that while you agree with me on some points concerning the
adherence of the EC to normative Judaism, you definitely disagree about
their attitude to the Temple. I argue that the EC was not only supportive
of the Temple Cult , but enthusiastic about it. The evidence for this is
ample. `With one mind they kept up their daily attendance at the Temple'
(Acts 2::46). James their leader insisted on Paul showing loyalty to the
Temple by going through an act of purification in the Temple (Acts 21:24).
James, indeed, as testified by Hegesippus (Eusebius Hist. II.23) was famous
for his devotion to the Temple rites and was `constantly in the Temple'.
How is this to be reconciled with the reports that Jesus threatened to
destroy the Temple? My explanation is simple: Jesus said he would destroy
the Temple and then rebuild it. This was expected of any Messianic
claimant. All Jews expected that a new Temple would arise in the messianic
era (the Temple Scroll is a description of the messianic Temple, and earlier
it had been described by Ezekiel). Jesus' daring aim of replacing Herod's
Temple by a far better one would arouse hope in the Jewish people, not
indignation. Only the High Priest and his entourage would be angry, for
they were hand-in-glove with the Romans, on whom they depended for their
power and wealth. When the revolt against Rome took place, the first thing
the rebels did was to eject the High Priest and instal another one. Jesus
had no objection to the Temple as such. Pending messianic events, it had
holiness for him (he told the leper he cured to offer the requisite
sacrifice in the Temple, Mark 1:44). But if his messianic dream came true,
he would replace it. Meanwhile, too, he could attempt to reform any abuses
that he observed in it. This can be paralleled in the history of the
Pharisee movement, which often came into conflict with the High Priest over
his conduct of the Temple. Jesus was in good Pharisee tradition when he
sought to cleanse the Temple of financial abuses. The Dead Sea Scroll
movement were so disgusted with the conduct of the Temple that they withdrew
altogether from participation in it: but they revered the institution
itself even more than the Pharisees.

Hyam Maccoby




Hyam Maccoby
Research Professor
Centre for Jewish Studies
University of Leeds
LS2
Direct lines: tel. +44 (0)113 268 1972
fax +44 (0)113 268 0041
e-mail: h.z.maccoby AT leeds.ac.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: "Loren Rosson" <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>
To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 5:30 PM
Subject: [corpus-paul] Paul a Pharisee?


>political campaign against the EC.
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 Priest's

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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