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  • From: "Hyam Maccoby" <h.z.maccoby AT leeds.ac.uk>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Paul's persecution of the Church
  • Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 13:03:51 +0100


Dear Mark,

Many thanks for the courtesy of your response. I much appreciate the
trouble you have taken to comment in detail on my remarks. I think we
understand the main points at issue between us, but will probably have to
continue the debate in our published work. I am studying your comments, but
for the moment I would like to concentrate on one aspect which I think is
central.

I wrote:

>> Paul's denigration of circumcision involved a split with the Jerusalem
> > Church, which adhered to circumcision as valid both for Jews and for
> > Gentiles who wished to become full Jews.

You commented:
> This is a point about the Jerusalem churches for which I do not [see] the
> evidence, and so do not understand why Paul's view is any different from
> theirs.

I think I should explain my full position. I think that the Jerusalem
Church, led by James and Peter, had a very different view from that of Paul
about the significance of the crucifixion of Jesus. Whereas Paul saw the
crucifixion as a salvific event, James and Peter, as believing Jews, saw it
as the tragic death of a human liberator at the hands of a cruel occupying
power, and as having no effect on spiritual salvation, which was effected
only by adherence to the Torah. They believed that Jesus had been
resurrected by a miracle and would soon return to resume his mission of
liberation. The question for them, then, was the meaning of 'liberation' -
was this a matter affecting only Jews, or did it also affect the nations of
the world, for whom spiritual salvation was achieved not by adherence to the
covenant of Sinai, but by adherence to the covenant of God with Noah?
James decided at the Jerusalem Conference that the Messiah was a liberator
for the whole world, and that therefore Gentiles might be admitted as
members into the messianic movement, provided that they adhered to
monotheism and to their own covenant, thus remaining Gentiles while
regarding Jesus as the Messiah or liberator and as their King.
Paul, however, seeing the death of Jesus as a salvific event, for both
Gentiles and Jews, could not accept the validity of circumcision for any
Gentile members of the Jesus movement, for this meant turning away from one
mode of salvation to another. For Jews like James and Peter, on the other
hand, it was quite acceptable for a Gentile to leave the Noachic Covenant
and attach himself instead to the Sinaitic Covenant, for this was simply to
adopt a higher version of the same thing. The Jews were a priest-nation,
and conversion to Judaism simply meant the adoption of a priestly vocation.
Gentiles who remained within the Noahide Covenant were the laity, while Jews
or converts to Judaism were the priesthood; both priesthood and laity 'had
their share in the world to come'. There is just one more point to make
here: any Gentile who wanted to join the priest-nation would have to do so
before the Messiah's return, because after it, joining the Jewish
priest-nation would not be allowed (since conversion to full Judaism then
would be not be a self-sacrifice any more but very much to the convert's
advantage, and therefore suspect as to its sincerity - see the Talmud on
this). This is why James's emissaries were so busy: they were telling
Paul's Gentile converts, 'This is your last chance to elevate your status to
membership of the Jewish priest-nation.'
James and Peter felt that they were quite entitled to recruit some
proselytes from the Gentiles who had been converted by Paul, since this was
simply to raise their status. To Paul, however, such conversion was rank
treachery - the abandonment of the method of salvation provided by Jesus
through his death. There was thus a fundamental difference between Paul and
the Jerusalem Church on this issue that led inevitably to a split. This
difference, however, did not come out into the open at the Jerusalem
Conference, which was merely concerned with the question whether Gentiles
could be accepted as members of the Jesus movement - a question on which
James and Paul could agree.
I hope I have made my position clearer, but cannot hope to provide the
evidence for all the above assertions except at book-length.

With warmest regards,

Hyam







____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________


Dr.Hyam Maccoby
Research Professor
Centre for Jewish Studies
University of Leeds
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: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT comcast.net>
To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 4:33 PM
Subject: [corpus-paul] Re: Paul's persecution of the Church


> Dear Hyam,
> Thank you for responding. While I fear that a) this discussion could go on
> endlessly, and b) that we are unlikely to agree, based upon what each of
us
> has already argued, presumably aware of opposing views on each of these
> points and passages, I will respond below to the matters you generously
> raise in answering my question. I am sorry about the length, but I do hope
> that it permits my reply to be clear, and the exchange of some value.
>
> > Mark wrote:
> >> On what basis do you claim that circumcision was down-graded by
> >> Paul for Jewish adherents, or that this is the basis of the split with
the
> >> Jerusalem churches for Paul, or that there was such an eventual split
at
> > all
> >> (during this period) because of this or any other issue? This is a key
> > issue
> >> for the discussion.
> >
> And Hyam responded:
> > Paul refers to circumcision as a mutilation (KATATOME) (Phil. 3:2-3).
The
> > New English Bible understands the significance of Paul's substitution of
> > KATATOME for the usual PERITOME by its translation, 'Beware of those who
> > insist on mutilation - 'circumcision' I will not call it: we are the
> > circumcised, we whose worship is spiritual'. Paul is using a play on
words
> > to say that circumcision in the physical sense is only a mutilation. At
the
> > same time, he retains the word PERITOME for the 'spiritual circumcision'
> > achieved by Christian faith.
>
> There are several issues here, and the most important one is the context
of
> the language used.
>
> You note that this is a play on words; the question is then, what is the
> real view of Paul, in this case (based on my question to you), about the
> value Paul places on parents ensuring the continuation of circumcision for
> their Jewish infants, that is, on continued Jewish identity for Jewish
> families, including families of believers in Jesus, such as himself. Fair
> enough?
>
> Paul is a rhetorical guy, to say the least, and this language highly
> polemical. So the surface level can be misleading if taken to be a
statement
> of universal fact. Now I do not think that the play on
"spiritual"/"fleshly"
> means he cannot hold that both aspects have their place. So he can
elsewhere
> call the Torah spiritual in a positive sense in Romans 7, although it is
> obviously not only spiritual. It is not clear here that the "we" who "are
> the circumcision..." is not a reference to the kind of Jews Paul and his
> fellow-worker Jews consider themselves to be in contrast to some other
Jews.
> If so, it would undermine your argument. If not, then I can still see
> problems with the inferences you draw. Does seeking to establish the
> identity of the addressees as circumcised in the sense of the worshippers
of
> God in spirit mean that circumcision in the flesh is not still an honored
> aspect of identity, except in the case of his rivals when they seek to
make
> proselytes of Gentiles in Christ? In the next verses Paul appeals to this
> honored identity in the flesh to argue for his authority to hold the view
he
> holds, so this represents recognition of circumcision having its place.
But
> for Paul, that place is not to be put in play in opposition to the place
of
> Christ. That is a false dichotomy, in the view he expresses here.
>
> You note that the word PERITOME is retained by Paul for spiritual
> circumcision by Christian faith, but this is not so in other passages
(e.g.,
> v. 5; Gal. 2:7-8; Rom. 4:11-12, to name a few). But most important, it
seems
> to me that the emphasis here is on undermining the voice of those who
> "insist" on something that Paul does not believe in this case to be
> appropriate, not the something itself, in a universal sense. It is
> inappropriate for non-Jews within the Christ-believing coalition to become
> proselytes, Paul maintains, and thus those who "insist" upon this have the
> wrong motives, he asserts, thereby they undermine the real spiritual value
> of circumcision, which can thus be equated with physical mutilation, not
> conversion. In other words, he is arguing that it is not the addressees'
> interests but the interests of those he opposes that he accuses these
others
> of serving, and thus undermining their moral (spiritual) authority to
> circumcise in the flesh, since they miss the "real" meaning of
circumcision,
> which is not to serve self-purposes, but the purposes of God. Again, where
> you read anti-Jewish-identity rhetoric, I read intra/inter-Jewish rhetoric
> about the identity of non-Jews and the interests of different Jewish
groups
> in the identity of those non-Jews. To me, in Paul's rhetoric the given
value
> of circumcision is understood, for Jews, the issue turns around what is
> appropriate for non-Jewish members of this coalition, whose confidence in
> the claims to identity that Paul has promoted are being undermined by
those
> whose influence he thereby opposes.
>
> In other words, might not Paul be appealing to the fact that he too is
> circumcised, just like those he opposes in this rhetoric, but that he is
> also a servant of God's interests in a way that he denies to those who
wish
> to circumcise those among his addressees who are non-Jews? Is this not
> intra- or inter-Jewish rhetoric, appealing to higher ground? If so, then
it
> is not an equation of circumcision with mutilation per se, any more than
> Israel's prophets might be thought to equate sacrificing in the Temple
with
> idolatry per se. It has its honored place, but it is in the service of a
> higher ideal, which must not be forgotten, or else the action is subject
to
> this kind of prophetic critique.
>
> > Another important passage showing Paul's animus against circumcision is
> > Gal. 5:2-12. The last sentence of this is 'As for these agitators they
had
> > better go the whole way and make eunuchs of themselves!' This is an
even
> > more brutal expression of the idea of circumcision as mutilation. A
literal
> > translation would be: 'I wish that those who are unsettling you would
chop
> > themselves off!', i.e. would complete the mutilation by chopping off
their
> > whole genitals.
>
> Yes, this is brutal. It may even draw on an illusion to the castration of
> the Galli; cf. Elli Elliott's work. But it is offered sarcastically, I
> believe, and refers to the misapplication of the rite to those whose
> interests are not thereby served--according to Paul's gospel for
> non-Jews--by the unsettling policies of those who are undermining the
> non-Jewish addressees' understanding of themselves as righteous ones
unless
> they undertake this rite. Does this mean that Paul views circumcision of
> Jewish people as mutilation? It is not indicated here as far as I can see.
> Again, his rhetoric is based on his view of the moral high ground he seeks
> to uphold with respect to non-Jewish believers in Jesus as already members
> of the people of God, when their identity is in his view being subverted
by
> those who would claim otherwise.
>
> > It is hard to imagine that anyone who had any respect for
> > circumcision as a valid rite would talk about it in this way.
>
> I think this comment reveals much about how differently you and I read
Paul.
> I assume that I am reading situational rhetoric, just as I assume this
when
> reading the rabbis. If every statement is universalized, many become
> ridiculous, certainly not representative of the larger belief system and
> multifaceted commentary. Your judgement of Paul in this quotation does not
> hold if Paul's language is taken in intra/inter-Jewish rhetorical terms.
> Such rhetoric is not uncommon, compared to say, some of the Qumraners'
> expressions toward fellow Jews, not to mention non-Jews. This kind of
> "dissociating" (per Perelman) rhetoric is just what one might expect among
> groups which agree upon the value of that which is being criticized in the
> behavior of the other group.
>
> When I heard a Baptist say that being a Baptist does not matter, or even
> baptism, but faith in Jesus Christ, I did not take this to mean that he
did
> not value baptism or being a Baptist, but that no matter how highly he
> valued them, they paled in comparison to the highest value, to which
baptism
> and being a Baptist point. So I read Paul, when dissociating rhetoric is
> used about circumcision.
>
> > When Paul
> > says, in this passage, 'every man who receives circumcision is under
> > obligation to keep the entire law', this is not intended, as some argue,
as
> > a justification of circumcision for Jews. It means (as it has always
been
> > taken to mean by Christian commentators), 'If you become circumcised,
your
> > will be entering the abrogated covenant of law-observance, not the
Christian
> > one of union with Christ.'
>
> I do not agree with your assessment here; I find much to doubt in the
> traditional Christian view of this passage. This is written to non-Jews
who
> have believed in Christ and thus gained the desired identity, according to
> Paul's gospel. (The traditional Christian view reads this as though
written
> to everyman as a universal truth, not a contextualized statement, and the
> ideological payoff of that view is self-evident in the history of
dismissing
> the place of Jewish identity it has justified). To now seek to gain (by
> becoming proselytes) that which they have already (in Christ) is to
> undermine the claim to what they have in Christ: that they as non-Jews
> represent the people of God alongside Jews, as to be expected in the end
of
> the ages. For Paul, this would render Christ's death gratuitous (Gal.
2:21).
>
> Further, the implications of Paul writing such a statement should be
> considered. If he, a circumcised one, does not himself observe the whole
> Torah, on what basis does he make this statement? He maintains a double
> standard (that should be obvious to his addressees), and he has an
argument
> that is not likely to be convincing (for his addressees). Why would the
> addressees not dismiss it on both counts? Why not say to Paul, "We just
want
> what you have, Jewish identity beyond dispute, yet without obligation to
> observe the Torah, since we, like you, are Christ-believers?" It only
makes
> sense to rely on such rhetoric to win a point if they know him to be
> Torah-observant, I think, but as a fellow-sufferer for his confession of
> Christ, although not in precisely the same way as these Gentiles. Thus he
> appeals to them to undertake suffering, just as he has, looking to the
> suffering Christ (not for failure to observe Torah, but for non-conformity
> on this policy of identifying non-Jews as full-members apart from
proselyte
> conversion, which has direct bearing upon the present plight of the
> addressees as well as Paul; cf. 5:11).
>
> > Paul's only positive remark about circumcision is in Rom. 3:1, where he
> > writes: 'What is the value of circumcision? Much in every way!' Having
> > explained in the previous chapter that physical circumcision has no
> > importance, but only 'circumcision of the heart', Paul asserts that
there
> > is nevertheless great value in circumcision because 'the Jews were
entrusted
> > with the oracles of God'. This answer does not imply that there is any
> > continued value in circumcision, but simply that the Jews deserve some
> > residual honour for having transmitted the 'oracles', even though they
have
> > now been afflicted with 'blindness'. They will eventually be redeemed,
and
> > this is the 'value' of circumcision.
>
> I do not think that this is either the only positive remark (see citations
> noted above for PERITOME), or that it is as stingy an accolade as you
> propose. It is not clear that that it implies no continued value in
> circumcision for Jewish people, including Christ-believers. He does say
that
> the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable in that same letter (11:29),
> and he has defined these not only in 3:1-2, but also in 9:3-5, which is
> arguably the other end of the inclusio of chapters 9--11. Again, I do not
> think he writes that physical circumcision has no value in universal
terms,
> as you take him to, but that its value is relative, and he is engaged in
> making a rhetorical point in which that value is relativized to the higher
> goal it should signify, a heart turned God-ward, which is what he claims
for
> his non-Jewish addressees on equal terms with those who are circumcised
and
> turned God-ward.
>
> >> Paul was prepared to show some
> > tolerance to Jewish Christians who adhered to circumcision and other
Jewish
> > rites out of inertia, but raged against any Gentile God-fearers who
showed
> > any desire to become full Jews by circumcision, and regarded them as
> > rejecting the new covenant of Christ.
>
> This I do not know about either. I see him adhering to circumcision (as
just
> discussed), expecting it of Jewish believers in Christ (1 Cor. 7:17-20;
Gal.
> 5:3), and respecting the mission to the circumcision of his fellow
apostles
> (Gal. 2:7-8).
>
> > If Paul had retained any respect for
> > circumcision, he would not have objected, in the violent way he did, to
the
> > conversion of Gentile 'God-fearers' to full Judaism (Gal. 3).
>
> This explanation is not the only one available, and, in my view, is a
choice
> that runs against the evidence. Many Jewish people and groups might object
> to conversion of Gentiles to proselyte standing at any given time, for any
> number of reasons. I take Paul's reason to be explained as seeking to
avoid
> the collapsing of the claim that in Christ the nations as well as Israel
are
> reconciled to the One God of all humankind, whereas converting
> representatives of the nations turning to Christ to proselyte standing
would
> undermine this claim (Gal. 3; Rom. 3:28-31). If so, then it can be argued
> that it is Paul's respect for Jewish identity and expectations that are at
> work in this strategy.
>
> > As for your question, 'What makes me think that there was a split
> > between Paul and the Jerusalem Church', I see this as the most
plausible
> > interpretation of the quarrel between Paul and Peter recorded in
Galatians.
>
> I am working presently on the Jerusalem Meeting and Antioch Incident
> recorded in Galatians, and have published a little on this already. I do
not
> see a split suggested, but an agreement, and an example of its compromise,
> which was not allowed to pass without putting it in its place. Paul's
> narrative here seems to me to underscore his claim to full agreement with
> the Jerusalem leaders, even if they both arrived at their similar
> understanding of these things relatively independently, and even if it is
> with some stumbling along the way when faced with the social consequences
of
> this policy (just as the Galatians are tempted to seek to escape social
> consequences). But the rhetorical purpose of the inclusion of this
narrative
> for the Galatians is to ensure that they understand that this is the
policy
> of this coalition, and it must not be compromised in order to escape
social
> marginalization.
>
> > I see the Book of Acts as largely concerned with covering up the split,
and
> > representing Peter as slowly coming round to the position of Paul.
>
> But Acts seems to present Peter way out in front of Paul on this. Peter's
> experiences precede Paul's, and at the meeting, are of more importance for
> the decision of James and the rest not to circumcise (proselytize) Gentile
> members of this coalition. Although I do not think the Gal. 2 refers to
the
> same meeting, it does suggest the same kind of agreement on this matter. I
> do not doubt that Acts shows agreement more than disagreement, but I do
not
> see that it represents or covers up the split you propose.
>
> > Indeed,
> > if my account of Paul's dismissal of circumcision is correct, then such
a
> > split was inevitable. For my full argument see THE MYTHMAKER and PAUL
AND
> > HELLENISM.
>
> I am familiar with your work, although it has been a while since I read
> these two books. I hope that we might center on just a few things in
> dialogue here, if you are willing.
>
> Two issues have arisen of interest to me at least: 1) whether Paul
abandoned
> circumcision (and thus Jewish identity for himself and other
> Christ-believing Jews); 2) whether the Jerusalem apostles held to views
> different from Paul's on the circumcision of Jews and Gentiles, so that
> their relationship can be represented as oppositional, as in a split.
>
> Are there other passages or arguments you would like to raise to support
> your view on these points?
>
> I doubt we will convince each other, since we are already disposed to read
> the evidence differently, and have been reading it differently for some
> time, but I like to think I am open to learning and reconsideration in
view
> of a good argument. Why not? Two (Jewish) people disagree about Paul; so
> what else is new? Actually, I think our biggest disagreement is
> methodological, and has to do with what we believe that this language
> represents in rhetorical terms. Our second probably arises from our very
> different working dispositions/hunches as we read Paul, and our different
> perceptions of the payoff for reading him one way rather than another, and
> thus what we are most willing to believe that his language means.
>
> Warmly,
> Mark
> --
> Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
> 313 NE Landings Dr.
> Lee's Summit, MO 64064
> USA
> nanosmd AT comcast.net
>
>
>
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