Corpus-Paul

["Eric Zuesse" <cettel AT shoreham.net>]

Re: Hyam Maccoby's:

> This is totally wrong.  Exodus 12:48 refers to only one meal in the year,
> the Passover meal, in which uncircumcised men are forbidden to partake.
> Circumcised Jews may share meals with Gentiles at any other meal, provided
> that they do not eat any forbidden kind of food that may happen to be on
the
> table.  A good example of this is the case of Daniel, who shared meals
with
> Gentiles but confined himself to vegetarian food(Daniel 1).

But doesn't Exodus have vastly higher authority for Jews than Daniel, on
account of Exodus being Pentateuchal and Daniel not?

I may be wrong here, but my understanding, such as it is, is that the
evidence regarding the ways in which the followers of Jesus interpreted the
Torah is not so definitive that Hyam's categorical rejection will stand.

First of all, Exodus 12:48 presents, as I understand Judaism, nothing less
than a commandment from God Himself, that is, moreover, recorded in the
Torah, the very highest, most authoritative, source of all sources. The
"evidence" regarding just how strictly Jesus took the Torah is, so far as I
know, not so clear that it would be possible to assert with any certainty
what Jesus's interpretation would have been of Exodus 12:48. Nor do we know
what James or Peter would have inferred from Exodus 12:48.

Clearly, Exodus 12:48 does refer to Passover, but it also expresses a
concern about Jews dining with non-Jews, and if that were not a  concern
that were embodied in it, then it would not have been a stricture regarding
even the Passover meal itself.

The Passover meal was specified in this commandment, presumably, because
that meal is of special importance to Judaism and to Jews. We unfortunately
have no way of knowing how important to this sect of Judaism and to these
particular Jews the meal was that Peter was sharing with Paul's men in
Galatians 2:12. On the basis of my own analysis of the evidence, I infer
that, to this particular sect, this meal would have been extremely
significant, and moreover, significant to them as Jews, and not for any
non-Jewish reason; this meal related to how this sect was defining itself.
That's as religiously significant as you can get. But even if we had or have
no way of knowing how important this meal was to *those* Jews, we don't even
know whether this was the Passover meal itself.

It therefore seems to me that Hyam's categorical rejection of this detail of
my hypothetical reconstruction is not warranted.

I should therefore make clear, in this context, that this particular detail
of my reconstruction of the event is not a critically important one. What is
critically important is that Peter was caught by James's agents dining with
Paul's uncircumcised men, in contravention of James's instructions to Peter
to transmit to Paul the command to reject those men as members unless they
were to become circumcised--which they had not yet been; this meal took
place right after the conference in Jerusalem, and that's too soon for them
to have become circumcised. Consequently, Peter was caught here dining with
non-members of the sect, people whom James had declared to be not his
people.

My own hypothesis regarding Exodus 12:48 is that it does express a concern
that was probably relevant to Galatians 2:12; but it seems to me that
certainty on that score would be impossible either for or against that
hypothesis, because the details are lacking for such certainty, not only as
regards Galatians 2:12, but as regards Exodus 12:48.

I shall remove the reference to Exodus 12:48 from my book if you, Hyam, or
anyone else, provides evidence that it is, indeed, wrong. But it seems to me
that the sentiment imputed to God in Exodus 12:48 would probably have been
interpreted by Jesus's followers to be a prohibition against any ceremonial
or other religiously significant meal being shared by non-covenant
people--in other words, by non-Jews.

I would think that prior to the council in Jerusalem, this would not have
been such a big issue, but afterwards, when James finally came down against
Paul's practise of accepting non-circumcised men as members, Peter's dining
with those men would, it seems to me, have been seen by James's people as a
violation of Exodus 12:48. And I feel that this would especially have been
the case because that meal which Peter was sharing with these men must have
been viewed by all persons present as an especially significant meal. Maybe
it was not a Passover meal, but would you not say, Hyam, as a Jew, that this
was probably a very special, highly significant, meal?

I appreciate your input on this, and look forward to knowing further your
opinions on this matter.

> It must have been because he [Peter] realised that
> Paul was contravening the agreement reached at the Jerusalem Council and
> that it was time to make a final break with Paul.  I have argued this in
> full in THE MYTHMAKER.

You seem to be assuming that Peter was acting on only his own authority
during the event recounted in Galatians 2:11-21, but I interpret that
passage as Peter's having been simply the first of James's agents to have
arrived, the one whose responsibility it had been to be the first to break
the bad news to Paul, because Peter had been Paul's own predecessor and
mentor in the mission to the Gentiles.

I understand your seeing Peter as his own agent, and not as James's in this
matter, but I believe that your seeing things that way is unduly influenced
by the later writings, from Paul's followers who wrote the Gospels, writing
James out of Christian history and replacing him with Peter because Peter
was Paul's mentor and James was (especially after this event recounted in
Galatians 2:11-21) Paul's enemy.

> There is no reason whatever to think that James
> changed his mind about the conclusions reached at the Jerusalem Council,
but
> every reason to think that Paul did not abide by these conclusions.

My own book will argue to the contrary. In doing so, I construct my case in
the way that a legal/forensic investigator does, granting higher evidentiary
status to documents (such as Galatians) earlier and closer to the events
they describe and refer to, and lower evidentiary status to purely hearsay
accounts (such as the Gospels and Acts). This does not mean that I ignore
hearsay; I simply use it merely to confirm, and never to state, my
hypotheses. The reason a legal/forensic investigator applies that rule is so
as not to prejudice or contaminate his hypothetical explanation of events by
inferior "evidence"--which a judge might throw out, thereby blowing the
entire conviction.

Best,
Eric Zuesse
cettel AT shoreham.net