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corpus-paul - Re: Paul as apostate (was:Paul Not a Pharisee?)

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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Paul as apostate (was:Paul Not a Pharisee?)
  • Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 09:43:56 -0600



An information question. Could anyone raised in the Diaspora have been a
Pharisee?

Hi Graydon,
Good question. Short answer: I don't know.

Slightly longer:
Much of course depends upon the decisions made on a complex of questions that must be first settled to define Pharisees of Paul's time, not an easy task with the data available. This would have to include analysis of general levels of interaction with, or perhaps residence in the Diaspora. Some argue back from rabbinic evidence of authority in matters around the Diaspora that this is possible, but others disagree.

Paul is working as a messenger to the Diaspora, so this would have to be considered for application to Paul. Where does he orient himself from? Where does he call home? I would argue that in Gal. 1 it is Jerusalem, and also Rom. 1 and 15.

Your question seems to imply that Paul was raised in the Diaspora, but do we know that this was the case? Or if perhaps born and raised there, that he did not join this group upon his move to Jerusalem (residence within at some time before his mission to the nations is implied in his letters).

For Luke's portrait of Paul as persecutor to have been salient for him and his audience, it would seem that, when written, matters in Damascus were somehow considered within the ambit of Jerusalem authorities of Paul's time. But of course this begs the question, by trying to account for the dynamics of the Temple authorities as well as Pharisees of an earlier time, perhaps in view of the political dynamics of Luke's own time.

Concluding comment:
Whatever is concluded will have to contend with Paul's own statement in Phil. 3; not only for application to Paul, but for the general analysis of what is possible for describing Pharisees. I have suggested that his orientation as from Jerusalem and to the nations might account for this without assuming that Pharisees in general were to be found in the Diaspora. Could one be born or raised in the Diaspora and then move to Judea and become a Pharisee? I don't see why not, especially to the degree that Josephus has described it, if correct at all, as a philosophical type voluntary group.

Regards,
Mark Nanos
Kansas City





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