Corpus-Paul

[Patrick Nugent <nugenpa AT earlham.edu>]

I have been following the Pickett-Nanos discussion of Galatians with some
fascination.

I would like to pose a brief reading of Paul's Judaism and the question of
why some Jews would believe Paul an apostate.  This position is drawn from
insufficient reading, as I am in the situation of being a medieval
historian who teaches NT and tries to "keep up" but, obviously, can't.

Partly because, as always with Neusner, it evokes controversy, I have
occasionally used J. Neusner, "Children of the Flesh, Children of the
Promise" as a course text to help wrap students' minds around some Pauline
issues, and to propose a reading of Paul that's inaccurate enough for
students to pick up on its inaccuracies and therefore give them a little
authorial power in taking apart his argument based on their own reading of
the text.

Now, an important bit of argumentation Neusner makes use of is the notion
that "baptism" (he revels in using the Greek term) is a central ritual of
conversion to Judaism, and therefore (to some degree) a point of common
interest for Xns and Jews.

The first question is, do we know that in fact mikvah was part of
conversion to Judaism in the first century?  (I.e., is Neusner projecting
backwards?)

If the answer is yes, then here's a possible reading: the arguments in
which Paul was embroiled over "law" enabled him to argue a middling
position on conversion, but the question is not conversion to Christianity
(if we may use that anachronism), but conversion to Judaism.  Paul, I
suggest here (tentatively, of course), assumed with James etc. (if we can
grant Acts a little accuracy here) that the follower of Christ had to
convert to Judaism.  The question is, which of the rituals of conversion
and which hallmarks of Torah observance were required?  Paul's middling
position says "no" to circumcision,  and "yes" to mikvah, if I may; and he
waffles on dietary segregation.  An observant position ( if I may be
anachronistic again) would suggest that "yes" to all is necessary; an
assimilationist position would suggest "no" to all of these.  This
presupposes that baptism is important to the early Christians precisely
because it was important to first-century Jews -- as a ritual of
conversion.  (This reading adds a degree of power to the stories of JBap
drawing Jerusalem and all Judaea -- the heartland of "Palestinian" Judaism
-- out to the Jordan river for baptism: is he suggesting as a kind of
social critique that Jews aren't real Jews, and need baptism not as a
ritual of purification, but one of conversion?)

This argument about Paul begs for an example of the "assmiliationist"
position, for which I can provide only one partial one, but it's not bad:
the story of the temple priesthood in the days of the Maccabees abolishing
circumcision and hiding its marks.  This is not precisely an issue of
conversion, but one may infer that if those in the power-centers of Judaism
in the second century BCE abolish circumcision for natal Jews, they would
hardly ask circumcision for non-natal Jews.  Their program, if we can back
off from the Hasmonean court propaganda a little, suggests an
assimilationist or "universalist" kind of Judaism, against which the
Maccabees as 'traditionalists' rebelled.

Paul, then, appears as an apostate (as Nanos suggests) to the more
conservative stripe of Jews, but not necessarily to all, because he offers
a middling position on rituals of conversion and observance, though
abolishing circumcision does have a kind of edge to it that might irritate
the conservative.

How does that reading strike readers of the list, who know more about these
things than I?

__________________________________
Patrick J. Nugent
Department of Religion
Earlham College
Richmond, Indiana 47374 USA

(765) 983-1413
nugenpa AT earlham.edu
__________________________________