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  • From: "Sakari H�kkinen" <sakari.hakkinen AT sci.fi>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Vs: Paul Not a Pharisee?
  • Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 00:54:42 +0200


Robert,

> Sakari Hakkinen wrote, "I am not at all convinced that
Paul was a Pharisee,
> for reasons I have written to the list some months (half a
> year?) ago." I would like to know his reasons but was
unable to find his
> posting in the archives.

I am sorry. The list was not C-Paul, but X-talk. And the
time was already one year ago. Poor me and my memory;).
I briefly quote what I send to that list 25.1.1999 and
29.1.1999:

X-talk 25.1.1999:
I have become extremely sceptical to a common view that Paul
was a Pharisee. If he was one, he was quite a unique one. At
first there is this spiritual resurrection which does not
fit well to Pharisees. Secondly it is odd that Paul is said
to have worked with the High Priest when persecuting
Jesus-believers (Paul never said this himself, it is only
reported in Acts 9,1). A Pharisee working with the High
Priest and persecuting Jesus-movement does not at all fit to
the picture I have got from Pharisean movement of that time.
Thirdly, the opponents of Paul, according to evidence, never
said he was a Pharisee - they rejected him as an apostate
what comes to Torah. Further, it would be quite an odd thing
to a trained Pharisee to cite and refer only to LXX and not
the Hebrew text - even when the Hebrew text obviously gives
a different wording than LXX. Hyam Maccoby, in his
Mythmaker, denies that Paul was a Pharisee at all. There you
can read more evidence. Maccoby goes even so far that he
denies Paul being a Jew!

Now there is this Phil 3,5 (cited above), where Paul argues:
"as to the law, a
Pharisee". This is the only passage he himself claims to be
a Pharisee. Why does he write: "as to the law" (KATA NOMON
PHARISAIOS)? Does that imply that he was not a real
Pharisee, but only comparable to Pharisees what comes to his
attitudes to Torah? (Cf. 1 Cor 9,20). The author of Acts
presents him as a former Pharisee, because that fit well to
his picture of Pharisees as the enemy of Jesus-movement. The
brief mention by Paul of his Pharisean-like attitude to
Torah was enough to consider him as a former Pharisee, who
converted to Christianity.

27.1.1999 my answer to Rene Salm:
Rene,
Thank you for your comments. I just want to point out that
"I have become extremely sceptical to a common view that
Paul was a Pharisee." - not claiming that he absolutely
could not have been one. I do not want to defend the
arguments of Maccoby, who claimed that Paul was originally a
Gentile. In his Mythmaker he just presents many arguments
against Paul's Pharisaism.

I consider Paul as a Jew living in Diaspora. I doubt if it
is ever possible to say something certain about his being
Pharisee or not. You said well that "the evidence I've seen
so far seems to be equivocal" - for me that means that one
can never count on much about his Pharisaism and use this as
an evidence to anything.

You said you're interested in "post-conversion doctrinal
stance". I suppose you argue something on the dramatic
change in his life when converted. This is also the picture
that Paul himself gives in his letters - everything in his
life has changed, he is a kind of a new person (Acts is
confirming the picture even more). I am not an expert on
this matter, but I am sceptical in this matter, too. q;-)

I do not have heavy scientific evidence, but my experience
tells me that those people who argue that all has changed in
their life when they converted tend to over-estimate that.
Especially such things that are considered sin or morally
rejected in their post-conversion state (but not necessarily
earlier), are described as something that governed their
earlier life, but do that no more, because these people
believe to be in morally higher level than earlier and
non-converted people still are. While they themselves argue
that they changed totally, there remains many things that
have not changed, like personality. Do you know what I mean?
For instance, when someone depending too much on alcohol
gets rid of alcohol he/she can claim having totally changed.
However, the dependancy is still there - from now on he/she
may be dependant on playing games or telling his/her story
again and again to the poor priest or something other. So,
something has changed, but not the whole life in the way one
claimed it. To Paul: I suggest that Paul's dramatical change
did not alter his basic attitudes to Jewish heritage, to Law
(if there ever was a change that has happened some other way
than in revelation), to Roman government, to Gentiles etc.
His conversion did not dramatically change his personality
either. He seems to be as zealous after the conversion as
before it.


All the best,

Sakari

Sakari Hakkinen, PhD
University of Helsinki
Department of Biblical Studies
sakari.hakkinen AT evl.fi
http://www.helsinki.fi/teol/hyel/henkilo/henkilo.html






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