Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

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

corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Corpus-Paul

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • 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: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 16:12:57 -0600


Dear Antonio,
Glad you stepped in; these are addressed to each other, but for the list to interact, which has actually been missed by those of us making the effort to communicate all along.

My impression is that Paul's views on Torah and
Halakhah would had put him at loggerheads with just about
any firstcentury Jewish sect we know about, including the
Pharisees - be they of Hillelite or Shamaite colours. Which
Jewish sect does Mark Nanos think would agree with Paul's
words in passages like Gal. 3:22-26 or Gal. 6:21-30, which
I interpret as Paul claiming that neither Jew nor Gentile is really
in need of the Mosaic Law in the messianic age. Or what about Paul's
words in 1 Kor. 9:21-21? Which Jewish sect would have agreed
with him about that posture and not claimed that those are the
words of an apostate?

Now first of all I do not see that you have made any argument about what these passages say or about what other Jewish groups besides the so far unaccounted for Pharisees say, vis-a-vis what you interpret them to say for Paul. Do you assume that if I read these passages, as though I had not already, I will see the obvious folly of my earlier arguments? Come on.

I do not mind working with general categories like Sanders' "common" Judaism or Judaisms, but the view should at least be expressed that you would like compared. As far as I am concerned Paul may be measured as an observant Jew according to fairly rigorous "common" "traditional" Jewish terms for his time in a Diaspora setting, and the rhetoric from which we work to construct him written to non-Jewish people. He says he was a Pharisee, after all, and blameless according to the Law (Phil. 3).

Please also define what you mean when you say "Mosaic Law in the messianic age." Seems to me that you imply what I would take as an oxymoron; why have a messianic age without Mosaic Law; is that not the character of the present evil age? I thought a messianic figure would save from the lawless Romans and Greeks. Please explain.

In Gal. 3:22-26 and the rest of the letter Paul is relating to non-Jewish people in a diaspora setting who are uncertain of how they are to understand themselves in the context of other "traditional" views, if you will, for how they do or do not fit in according to prevailing Jewish communal membership and reference group norms prior to incorporation by way of proselyte conversion. That is at least how I approach his rhetoric; you have not explained how you do, which would be necessary for any sustained conversation.

Do you know of some parallel Jewish text dealing with gentiles within its own subgroup by which to measure this "rhetoric." Anyway, I see nothing in what he says that runs counter to continued Jewish identity for himself as Law observant: how can you have neither Jew nor Greek if you have no Jew? What sense does the keeping of difference make, which Paul does in this argument, by inclusion of slave and free, and male and female categories, wherein the point is that while differences do remain, whether socially or biologically constructed, discrimination within this community nevertheless does not? Otherwise you would collapse a boundary that Paul leaves intact, but appeals to each side to respect the difference of identity and obligation across, because they are all bounded by their identity in Christ. I do not see what challenge you believe is implied by this passage.

I cannot find Gal. 6:21-30. Besides, what do you think the intended passage says, and the constructed Jewish group with which you would like me to compare it?

What about 1 Cor. 9:21-21 is problematic? I am afraid that I cannot be expected to supply your argument as well as refute it. I would love to answer your challenge, but I do not know just what it is.

And I have offered Sakari two specific challenges where Paul's argument implies that he is Torah-observant according to "common" Jewish terms; those need to be answered as well. For convenience I repeat them here:

Moreover, Paul as apostate runs against my reading of Paul or any other data of which I am aware. For example, as a circumcised person Paul could tell the Galatian gentiles considering circumcision that circumcised people are "indebted to keep/guard the whole Torah" (5:3). Seems to me a meaningless rhetorical point if his addressees know that he has the standing as circumcised that they desire, but without the obligation upon which he hangs his dissuasive point against them changing their state from gentiles to proselytes. How would you account for this kind of implication?

In a similar vein, Paul claims to have received disciplinary stripes from synagogue authorities (2 Cor. 11). This implies that these authorities saw his behavior (his non-circumcision inclusion of gentiles as full members as though proselytes; cf. Gal. 5:11) as wrong and dangerous, but nevertheless as reconcilable, not apostate. After all, Paul subordinated himself to their authority to punish him for this behavior. For such rights of discipline where exercised only within this voluntary (and minority) community--perhaps not always in Judea--at least in the Diaspora environments in which Paul worked. The world was Roman, not Jewish, and such treatment of a "former" Jewish person, especially if a Roman citizen, is difficult to square with Paul as apostate. It seems that Paul was still working within the confines of Jewish communal affairs, and his presence being accepted, albeit not without the expression of (extreme) dissatisfaction on some matters, by the authorities thereof.

Regards,
Mark Nanos
Kansas City





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page