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  • From: Antonio Jerez <antonio.jerez AT privat.utfors.se>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Paul and the Jews 2
  • Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 19:15:59 +0200


Here is the conversation Richard Fellows and Antonio Jerez
had on 15 June :

Antonio wrote:
> >You are absolutely right that I believe that Paul was adamant that there
> >were not to be two categories of Christians - Gentiles and those of
> >Jewish decent. Interestingly enough another Paulinist is forcefully
> >trying to convey the same message in another NT writing; I'm thinking of
> >the
> >author of gospel of Mark (see the feeding miracles and specially 8:14-21).
> >I also think it is very clear in Paul's letters that he didn't
> >believe it was necessary any more for Jewish-Christians to stick to the
> >Mosaic Law in the Messianic Age (Rom. 10:4), but for practical reasons,
> >and because he met a lot of opposition inside the Church from the
> >conservative wing (mostly former Pharisees) he probably didn't press the
> >point that Jewish-Christians SHOULD stop practising the Law. His policy
> >was that if you wanted to keep the Law yourself it was OK, but he was
> >also adamant that Jewish-Christians had absolutely no right to try to
> >convince Gentile-Christians that they had to be Law-abiding to be
> >full members of the Church and God's Israel.
> >As for the question about the circumcision of Timothy I believe it is
> >another example of Paul adjusting to the circumstances as usual.
> >Personally he didn't believe that Timothy had to be circumcised to
> >be part of Israel, but since he didn't want to create unnecessary
> >problems for his mission he bowed to the pressure from the Jews
> >(and possibly from the conservative wing in the Church).

Richard replied:
> I'm sure you're right. I guess that Paul's Jewish Christian opponents would
> not have objects to the inclusion of uncircumcised Gentile Christians into
> the church if they had been given a different designation, equivalent to
> the God-fearers in mainstream Judaism.

Antonio replied:
We are in absolute agreement on this. Nobody, neither Jew or conservative
Jewish-Christian could possibly have objected if the Gentiles had been
tied to the Christian "synagogues" with a God-fearer status. The revolutionary
thing about Paul's message and what caused all the conflict was his claim
that they were children of Abraham and full citizens of Israel without
following
the Mosaic Law.



Antonio wrote:
> >It isn't strange at all that Luke does his best to portray Paul as
> >a Law-abiding Jewish-Christian in Acts.

Richard replied:
> But you have said that Paul WAS a Law-abiding Jewish-Christian, albeit only
> for pragmatic reasons.

Antonio replied:
Sorry if I didn't express my point clear enough. I'll try again. According
to my reading of the evidence Paul was NOT a Law-abiding Jew, if
by Law-abiding we mean a Jew who always follows Torah in whichever country
he may be for the moment or with whichever people he is in contact.
Paul was obviously not that kind of Jew since he tells it to us himself in
his letters. With Gentiles he could forget about all purity regulations, and
with Jews he stayed kosher for pragmatic reasons. This behaviour would
have been repulsive to almost any Jew in the first century. They would have
seen it as a breach of the Covenant and a clear sign that Paul was an
apostate. This chameleon-like behaviour of Paul is what Luke does his
best to hide from his readers in Acts. If we only had Acts we would hardly
be able to guess that the historical Paul believed (and sometimes preached)
that the Law had really come to an end for BOTH Gentile and Jew. We would
hardly be able to guess either that there were real grounds for complaint
from the traditional Jews who attack Paul throughout Acts.

Antonio wrote:
> > One of the main purposes
> >of writing Acts was precisely to show that "Christianity" was in full
> >continuity with the Israel of the OT. Luke does not want to portray the
> >Church as a breakaway movement from Judaism - on the contrary
> >his purpose is to show that the Church is the true heir to God's
> >promises through the OT prophets. In Luke's view it is the
> >Jews who have deserted God and his Messiah. A possible reason
> >why Luke would want to paint this picture of the Church is that he
> >wanted to assure Gentile Christians who might have been asking
> >questions about God's trustworthiness. Many probably asked why
> >God had rejected Israel in spite of the promises he had given to his
> >chosen people in the OT. Could you trust such a God? And in what
> >way can we former Gentiles claim to be the true Israel despite us
> >having given up things like circumcision and the Mosaic Law?
> >Another reason for Luke trying to show the Church in continuity with
> >Judaism might have been to persuade the Roman authorities that
> >"Christianity" was not a new religion but a continuation of the Judaism
> >of the OT. It does appear that many traditional Jews tried to persuade
> >the Romans that the Church was NOT Judaism and should not have
> >the special privileges that the Romans had granted the Jews as a
> >religio licta. Luke wants to counter those claims. And that is why he
> >starts Acts in Jerusalem and in the Temple...

Richard replied:
> But I'm still puzzled why you think Luke overplayed Paul's Jewishness.
> Sorry, perhaps I should phrase that differently: what evidence is there
> that Luke overplayed Paul's Jewishness? Do you think that, in Acts, Paul's
> loyalty to the law is doctrinal rather than merely pragmatic? If so, why?
> Which passages are important here?

Antonio replied:
Again, Luke overplayed Paul's Jewishness in the sense that he didn't
want to mention that the real Paul had called the validity of the Law
for both Jew and Gentile into question and had even lived contrary
to the law from time to time.
I have sometimes heard exegetes claim that Luke doesn't mention
Paul's real attitude toward the Law because Luke hadn't read Paul's
letters or had never met the apostle in person. I don't think that is
the reason at all why Luke is mostly silent about the matter. Personally
I believe that Luke knew most of Paul's letters and he may very well
have travelled himself with the apostle. But for some of the reasons
I gave earlier Luke chose to give us a very whitewashed picture of
Paul.

--------

And lastly our conversation on 16 June:

Antonio wrote:
> >Sorry if I didn't express my point clear enough. I'll try again. According
> >to my reading of the evidence Paul was NOT a Law-abiding Jew, if
> >by Law-abiding we mean a Jew who always follows Torah in whichever country
> >he may be for the moment or with whichever people he is in contact.
> >Paul was obviously not that kind of Jew since he tells it to us himself in
> >his letters. With Gentiles he could forget about all purity regulations,
> >and
> >with Jews he stayed kosher for pragmatic reasons. This behaviour would
> >have been repulsive to almost any Jew in the first century.

Richard replied:
> I'm not sure to what extent Paul followed the Law in Gentile company. A
> total chameleon policy would have been futile, for the Jews would
> inevitably have found out. What would Paul have said if he had been put on
> the spot by Jewish opponents asking him whether he followed the basic
> requirements of the Torah in Gentile company? Paul's attitude, we agree,
> was pragmatic. I can't see that it would have been pragmatic to live a
> double life and risk being found out. I prefer to think of Paul making
> desperately difficult compromises.

Antonio replied:
I agree with you. I do not believe that Paul was always disregarding the
Law whenever he was mingling with gentiles. But I'm sure he had a
much more lax attitude to purity matters on some occasions than he
would have had in the company of Jews or Jewish-Christians.

Antonio wrote:
> >They would have
> >seen it as a breach of the Covenant and a clear sign that Paul was an
> >apostate. This chameleon-like behaviour of Paul is what Luke does his
> >best to hide from his readers in Acts. If we only had Acts we would hardly
> >be able to guess that the historical Paul believed (and sometimes preached)
> >that the Law had really come to an end for BOTH Gentile and Jew. We would
> >hardly be able to guess either that there were real grounds for complaint
> >from the traditional Jews who attack Paul throughout Acts.

Richard replied:
> I find it difficult to determine whether Luke conciously gave a distorted
> picture of Paul's relationship to the Law, or whether he simply did not
> feel that the issue was important enough to go into. Perhaps, like
> Eutychus, he found some of Paul's ideas one big yawn. Would the issue have
> been important to Theophilus?

Antonio replied:
No, I do not think Luke found Paul's heterodox ideas about the Law
"one big yawn". He knew about them, but since Luke had no wish
to portray either Paul or any of the other leaders in the early Church
as Law-breakers he left this information out.

Richard wrote:
> I have been told that there will be a session on the question of Luke
> knowing the letters at the 1999 international meeting of the SBL,
> organised by some scholars from Finland.
>
> Do you have a view on Walker's theory that Luke based Acts 16:1-3 on Gal
> 2:1-5? I dismissed the idea when I first read it, but it does seem to be a
> possibility if Luke know Gal. I think we should revisit Walker's theory in
> combination with the Titus-Timothy hypothesis. His problem, it seems to
> me, was demonstrating why Luke would want to transfer the story from Titus
> to Timothy. With the TT hypothesis the explanation for Luke's use of
> Timothy instead of Titus in Acts 16:1-3 (and elsewhere) is that he was
> following his usual practice of prefering the cognomen to the praenomen (or
> actual name to nickname). I think Walker is correct to point out that
> there are verbal parallels between the two passages.

Antonio replied:
The session in Finland sounds interesting. And I haven't read Walker's
article on the matter. He may very well be right. I'll see if I can take a
look at the article. Where was it published?










  • Re: Paul and the Jews 2, Antonio Jerez, 06/16/1999

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