Corpus-Paul

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

Dear Mike,

> From: Mike Myers

> Liz wrote:
>

>

>
> One can contemplate a (big) aspect of the law, the Levitical cultus,
> from very different points of view, of course. I can easily imagine
> modern spectators who look back at the ancient world (just
> post-Exile, say) and observe that the Levitical cultus was valid for
> those people at that time. It makes lots of sense for an Iron Age
> civilization to wrap up in one sacralized literary cloth its need
> for meat, ritual, atonement(s), a priesthood, a holy place etc.
>
> This is one species of "valid". I don't know what label to give it.
> Maybe a "secular historicist" view. One could hold this view and be
> an atheist, skeptic, agnostic, cynic whatever. But I think it's also
> possible to hold the above position or something like it and 1)
> believe in the God of Israel, 2) believe that this God reveals
> himself via history, among other modes, 3) believe that in some
> sense, this law was given to the children of Israel, 4) that it was
> meant by this God for this people for a finite stretch of historical
> time, or had his "blessing" as it were, 5) believe it had served its
> purpose, 6), live in 1CE, 7) be a Jew (at least for awhile, until
> definitions got rigid). Seems to me that Paul was such a Jew, at a
> historical crossroad for this people. The author of Hebrews would
> seem to be another such Jew. I think we can safely extrapolate the
> existence of many similarly minded Jews from mid-1CE to its end.
> This is after all a highly fertile set of concepts.

Paul was indeed such a Jew. You must notice however that his audience did
not consist of such Jews. His audience was composed of Gentiles. He was the
apostle to the Gentiles. Among Jews he received the 39 lashes 5 times. If
you can believe Acts, Paul attempted to preach at various synagogues around
the world, but the ones who accepted him at these synagogues were Gentiles.
You would have to show me evidence that there were Jews besides Paul who
believed as he did.

>So it's not
> surprising that we have evidence for lots of religious ferment at
> this time in Judaea, Galilee and the diaspora.
There was a great deal of religious ferment at this time among Jewish
groups. Except for Paul, none of these groups believed the law was moot.
The Gospels portray various Jewish groups arguing over the minutia of the
law. You see the Qumran community arguing with ...(whom?) over points of
law.  The ferment was real, but it was not over whether the law was valid,
whether the temple was appropriate.  Jesus disputes with Pharisees, etc, but
he disputes within the context of the law itself.  After the destruction of
the temple, groups divide over the necessity of rebuilding it, how much one
should risk one's life to rebuild it.  Also, in point of fact, how much one
should risk one's life to study Torah, to circumcise one's sons. These were
not academic issues, these were life and death issues.

> You wrote:
>
> "My understanding is that the Christian says that for the Christian
> the law is no longer in force."
>
> But wouldn't the historian, also, say, "From 70 CE on, the law by
> definition cannot be culturally 'in force', for Jews or Jewish
> 'Christians', because there is no temple. God or no God. This people
> whose elite constructed a theological culture centered on the Temple
> cultus faced a genuine problem." One might say this objectively,
> purely as an historian, or cultural anthropologist. The Temple's
> non-existence is historical fact. Its centrality to Torah-based
> Judaism is another fact. So there is a dilemma. How is one to be
> righteoused?

I'm not sure I'm following you here. Are you asking how Jews responded to
the destruction of the temple?  Most wanted to rebuild it. The Bar Kochba
revolt was about this.  Later on, when Christianity became the religion of
the empire, Christians agitated the Roman emperors to prevent its
rebuilding.  It was important for Christian theology that it not be rebuilt.
Still, you are right, that the synagogue was already flourishing prior to
the temple's destruction.  Most Jews lived in the diaspora, and aside from
sending their half-shekel yearly, they did not interract with the temple.
The temple's demise was probably not felt personnaly by most Jews.  The
priesthood, who would have missed the temple the most, was killed off
defending it.

You ask how one is to be righteoused without the temple.  I have tried to
stress in other posts on this list that being righteous was not paramount,
it is really not a Jewish issue.  The Jew had a place in the world to come,
in God's covenant, regardless of the degree of his righteousness. In any
case, the temple was not necessary to be righteous.  The Jew who desired to
be righteous obeyed the law to the best of his ability. Jews living in the
diaspora who desired to be righteous did not worry about temple sacrifice. A
woman did not hasten to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem every time she had a
baby. The purpose of the temple sacrifice was not to be righteous anyway, it
was to atone for the altar. With the temple destroyed, the issue of
sacrifice is moot, there is no altar to atone for.  The issue of being
righteous was not moot however. Thus we see Jews still concerned about
following the law. As I explained, even the 'am ha'aretx followed torah
laws, they just didn't follow the rabbinic laws.

>
> The dilemma gave rise to two principal (clear) historical
> trajectories, evidently: Paul and Yavneh. Are you with me so far?
Not really.  I don't really understand what you're getting at.
Moreover, I don't know if Yavneh is an historical reality.
I don't agree that these are the only two possibilities either.

Liz
>
> Mike
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Michael D. A. Myers
> University of California, Irvine
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> <mmyers AT helium.biomol.uci.edu>
> 05/27/1999
> 16:20:57
Lisbeth S. Fried
Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
New York University
51 Washington Sq. S.
New York, NY 10012
lqf9256 AT is3.nyu.edu
lizfried AT umich.edu