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  • From: "Hyam Maccoby" <h.z.maccoby AT leeds.ac.uk>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Paul a Pharisee?
  • Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 17:28:20 +0100


Loren,

Many thanks for your remarks. In order to save Paul as a Pharisee (despite
his utter dissimilarity to the most representative Pharisee of his day,
Gamaliel) you now identify him not just with the Shammaite Pharisees, but
with an extremist group within the Shammaites, without offering any
explanation of how this ultra-Shammaite Paul came into alliance with the
Sadducee High Priest - an alliance that would have been refused even by the
most lenient of Hillelites. Here are a few more points:

1) The points of difference between the Hillelites and the Shammaites were
actually very small; for example, minor differences in the liturgy. As far
as Sabbath observance was concerned, there were no differences. Both
Hillelites and Shammaites agreed that faith-healing on the Sabbath was
permitted. So Hillelite/Shammaite conflict does not explain the alleged
desire of the Pharisees to kill Jesus for faith-healing on the Sabbath. A
much more simple explanation is that the alleged murderousness of the
Pharisees (whether Shammaite or Hillelite) is fictitious.. If the
Shammaites had really opposed Jesus to such an extent, they would not have
been brought round to supporting Jesus' chief disciple, Peter, at the
Sanhedrin trial. Indeed, Gamaliel himself would have been opposed to Peter
if this background really existed. If it is fictitious, however, Gamaliel
would have had no difficulty in getting Shammaite support, and did not need
any ingenious ploy (such as you hypothesise) to win them over. The simplest
explanation of Pharisee support for Peter is that conflict between Jesus and
the Pharisees (whether Hillelite or Shammaite) was fictitious, and was
introduced into the Gospels in order to transfer blame for Jesus'
crucifixion from the Romans to the Jews. Gamaliel's defence of Peter is one
of the incidents which failed to be censored, and survived to refute the
overall Gospel picture of hostile Pharisees.

2) Ironically, the most serious difference of opinion between Hillelites and
Shammaites was on the question of divorce, and on this question Jesus
actually took a Shammaite standpoint (see Matthew 5:31, where the
formulation of Jesus' view on divorce is identical with the Shammaite view
expressed in Mishnah Gittin 9:10). So Jesus really had more in common with
the Shammaites than with the Hillelites, which makes Paul's persecution of
the EC even more inexplicable on your theory that he was a Shammaite. The
only plausible theory is that when Paul persecuted the EC, in collaboration
with the Sadducee High Priest, he had left the Pharisee movement.

3) Though the Shammaites were, on the whole, less lenient than the
Hillelites, this is by no means an invariable rule. Of about 350 recorded
disagreements between Shammaites and Hillelites, there are about 50 cases of
the Shammaites being MORE lenient than the Hillelites. This shows the
danger of building theories based on a picture of the Shammaites as
extremists.

About the Temple, you now say that the messianic view I attribute to Jesus
(that he intended to build a new messianic Temple, not to abolish it) is
`certainly possible but not certain'. This is quite enough for my
purposes. It means that the confident assertion, so common nowadays, that
Jesus was a radical opponent of the Temple cult is on very uncertain ground.
I would add that even in his criticism of the conduct of the Temple, Jesus
shows deep reverence for the Temple as an institution. He quotes from
Isaiah, `My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations' (Mark
11:17). Jesus shows here that he regards the Temple as the holy House of
God. This is in accord with the reverence shown to the Temple by his
disciples of the EC. I have argued this more fully in my REVOLUTION IN
JUDAEA (now back in print).




With best wishes,


Hyam Maccoby


Research Professor
Centre for Jewish Studies
University of Leeds
LS2
Direct lines: tel. +44 (0)113 268 1972
fax +44 (0)113 268 0041
e-mail: h.z.maccoby AT leeds.ac.uk
>






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