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  • From: Philip HANSON <hansonp AT mac.com>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] The defection of Corinthian God-fearers to Paul
  • Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 18:00:02 -0700

Here is an interesting passage from Jacob Taubes’ lectures held  at FEST in Heidelberg, 1987 [published as The Political Theology of Paul]. He argues that  the formality of the introduction in Letter to the Romans as compared with the same in Galatians relates directly to Paul's apostolic legitimacy. Taubes cites Paul’s work with “God-fearers” as one reason the Jewish Christians of Rome might be suspicious of Paul’s credentials. 

“From a Jewish point of view these sebomenoi were regarded as being in Noah’s covenant, as righteous ones, hasidei ummot ha-olam, the pious of the nations of the world, but not part of the holy people, the people of the Covenant. After all, they weren’t circumcised. So they didn’t belong to the Covenant. Because the Covenant begins with Abraham. And with Abraham begin circumcision, the seed, and so on. Paul’s trick was to come and say, You are children of Abraham! Because it says of Abraham [Gen. 15:6: ‘And he believed the Lord, and He reckoned it to him as righteousness’] ve-he’emin b’adonai, and he believed in God, va-yahshebeha lo, and it was reckoned to him tsedaqah, righteousness. A very difficult sentence. But whatever it means, Paul asks: When was it said, before or after the circumcision? Before the circumcision! In other words: Whoever believes has the equivalent of circumcision, meaning: works.

My thesis is that the Gentiles whom Paul made into Christians were originally recruited from these sebomenoi and that only later did other Gentiles join. At least there’s one philological reference to keep in mind: in Iranian (which I don’t know, but Professor Pines told me this) both the sebomenoi and the Christians are designated as ‘Tarsa.’”


Philip J. Hanson
University of La Verne
American Baptist Theological Center


  • Re: [Corpus-Paul] The defection of Corinthian God-fearers to Paul, Philip HANSON, 08/27/2006

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