Last updated Artist's depiction of Saint Paul Writing His Epistles, 16th century (Blaffer Foundation Collection, Houston, Texas). Most scholars think Paul actually dictated his letters to a secretary, such as Tertius named in Romans 16:22.
Paul the Apostle has been placed within Second Temple Judaism by recent scholarship since the 1970's. A main point of departure with older scholarship is the understanding of Second Temple Judaism, and the covenant with God and the role of works, as a means to either gain, or to keep the covenant.
Paul the Apostle, commonly known as Saint Paul and also known by his Jewish name Saul of Tarsus, was an apostle who taught the gospel of Christ to the first-century world. Paul is generally considered one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age and in the mid-30s to the mid-50s AD he founded several churches in Asia Minor and Europe. He took advantage of his status as both a Jew and a Roman citizen to minister to both Jewish and Roman audiences.
Second Temple Judaism is Judaism between the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, c. 515 BCE, and its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE. The development of the Hebrew Bible canon, the synagogue, Jewish apocalyptic expectations for the future, and the rise of Christianity, can all be traced to the Second Temple period.
The "New Perspective on Paul" represents a significant shift since the 1970s in the understanding of the writings of the Apostle Paul, due to E. P. Sanders' pioneering 1977 work Paul and Palestinian Judaism.
A central concern for Paul was the inclusion of Gentiles into God's New Covenant, and the role of faith and observances in the inclusion of Gentiles. Paul didn't deem circomcision necessary, as witnessed throughout his writings, but thought that God included Gentiles into His New Covenant through faith in Christ. This brought him into conflict with Jewish Christians, who requested strict observances by Gentile Christians. Eventually the less strict view prevailed, and led to the separation of this fraction of Christianity from Judaism.
In Paul's thinking, instead of humanity divided as "Israel and the nations" which is the classic understanding of Judaism, we have "Israel after the flesh" (i.e., the Jewish people), non-Jews whom he calls "the nations," (i.e., Gentiles) and a new people called "the church of God" made of all those whom he designates as "in Christ".
According to Krister Stendahl, the main concern of Paul's writings on Jesus' role, and salvation by faith, is not the individual conscience of human sinners, and their doubts about being chosen by God or not, but the problem of the inclusion of gentile (Greek) Torah observers into God's convenant.[2][3][4][web 1][note 1] Paul draws on several interpretative frames to solve this problem, but most inportantly, his own experience and understanding.[5] The kerygma from 1:Cor.15:3-5 refers to two mythologies: the greek myth of the noble dead, to which the Maccabean notion of martyrdom and dying for ones people is related; and the Jewish myth of the persecuted sage or righteous man, c.q. the "story of the child of wisdom."[6][7] The notion of 'dying for' refers to this martyrdom and persecution.[8][note 2] 'Dying for our sins' refers to the problem of gentile Torah-observers, who, despite their faithfulness, are not Jewish by birth, and are therefore 'sinners', excluded from God's convenant. [9] Jesus' death and resurrection solved this problem of the exclusion of the gentles from God's convenant, as indicated by Rom 3:21-26.[10]
Krister Stendahl was a Swedish theologian and New Testament scholar, and Church of Sweden Bishop of Stockholm. He also served as professor and professor emeritus at Harvard Divinity School.
Righteousness is defined as "the quality of being morally correct and justifiable." It can also be considered synonymous with "rightness". It is a concept that can be found in Indian religions and Abrahamic traditions as a theological concept. For example, from various perspectives in Hinduism, Christianity, and Judaism it is considered an attribute that implies that a person's actions are justified, and can have the connotation that the person has been "judged" or "reckoned" as leading a life that is pleasing to God.
The personification of wisdom, typically as a righteous woman, is a motif found in religious and philosophical texts, most notably in the Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish and Christian texts.
E. P. Sanders introduced a new perspective on Paul with his 1977 publication Paul and Palestinian Judaism.[11] According to Sanders, western theology has misunderstood the Judaic context of Paul's religious views. Law-keeping and good works were not means to enter the covenant (Legalism (theology)), but a sign of being in, and a means of keeping, the Covenant. Sanders called this pattern of religion "covenantal nomism." Sanders' perspective calls the traditional Protestant understanding of the doctrine of justification into serious question.
Ed Parish Sanders is an American New Testament scholar and a principal proponent of the "New Perspective on Paul". He is a major scholar in the scholarship on the historical Jesus and contributed to the view that Jesus was part of a renewal movement within Judaism. He has been Arts and Sciences Professor of Religion at Duke University, North Carolina, since 1990. He retired in 2005.
Legalism, in Christian theology, is the act of putting law above gospel by establishing requirements for salvation beyond repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and reducing the broad, inclusive and general precepts of the Bible to narrow and rigid moral codes. It is an over-emphasis on discipline of conduct, or legal ideas, usually implying an allegation of misguided rigour, pride, superficiality, the neglect of mercy, and ignorance of the grace of God or emphasizing the letter of law at the expense of the spirit. Legalism is alleged against any view that obedience to law, not faith in God's grace, is the pre-eminent principle of redemption. On the Biblical viewpoint that redemption is not earned by works, but that obedient faith is required to enter and remain in the redeemed state, see Covenantal nomism.
A biblical covenant is a religious covenant that is described in the Bible. All Abrahamic religions consider biblical covenants important.
Sanders' publications, such as Paul and Palestinian Judaism in 1977 and Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People in 1983, have since been taken up by Professor James Dunn, who coined the phrase "The New Perspective on Paul";[12] and N.T. Wright,[13] Anglican Bishop of Durham. Wright notes the apparent discrepancy between Romans and Galatians, the former being much more positive about the continuing covenantal relationship between God and his ancient people than the latter. Wright contends therefore that works are not insignificant.[Romans 2:13] According to Wright, Paul distinguishes between works which are signs of ethnic identity, and those which are a sign of obedience to Christ.
Within the last three decades, a number of theologians have put forward other "new perspectives" on Paul's doctrine of justification, and even more specifically on what he says about justification by faith. According to Simon Gathercole, "Justification by faith" means God accepts Gentiles in addition to Jews, since both believe in God. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith".[Romans 3:28–30] Faith is the central component of Paul's doctrine of justification — meaning that Gentiles don't need to become Israelites when they convert to Christianity, because God is not just the God of one nation, but Gentile and Jew alike.[14]
The Israelites were a confederation of Iron Age Semitic-speaking tribes of the ancient Near East, who inhabited a part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods. According to the religious narrative of the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites' origin is traced back to the Biblical patriarchs and matriarchs Abraham and his wife Sarah, through their son Isaac and his wife Rebecca, and their son Jacob who was later called Israel, whence they derive their name, with his wives Leah and Rachel and the handmaids Zilpa and Bilhah.
Ioudaios is an Ancient Greek ethnonym used in classical and biblical literature which commonly translates to "Jew" or "Judean".
The Julio-Claudian dynasty was the first Roman imperial dynasty, consisting of the first five emperors—Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero—or the family to which they belonged. They ruled the Roman Empire from its formation under Augustus in 27 BC until AD 68, when the last of the line, Nero, committed suicide. The name "Julio-Claudian dynasty" is a historiographical term derived from the two main branches of the imperial family: the gens Julia and gens Claudia.
The historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles, the principal historical source for the Apostolic Age, is of interest for biblical scholars and historians of Early Christianity as part of the debate over the historicity of the Bible.
Paul's background
Jewish background
Mediterranean Basin geography relevant to Paul's life in the first century, stretching from Jerusalem in the lower-right to Rome in the upper-left.
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Hellenistic Judaism was a movement which existed in the Jewish diaspora and the Holy Land that sought to establish a Hebraic-Jewish religious tradition within the culture and language of Hellenism. The major literary product of the contact of Judaism and Hellenistic culture is the Septuagint (begun in the 3rd century BC). Major authors are Philo of Alexandria (died c. 50 AD), Josephus (died c.100 AD), and some would claim also Paul.[15] The decline of Hellenistic Judaism in the 2nd century AD is obscure. It may be that it was marginalized by, absorbed into or became Early Christianity.
Recently, Talmudic scholarDaniel Boyarin has argued that Paul's theology of the spirit is more deeply rooted in Hellenistic Judaism than generally believed. In A Radical Jew, Boyarin argues that Paul the Apostle combined the life of Jesus with Greek philosophy to reinterpret the Hebrew Bible in terms of the Platonic opposition between the ideal (which is real) and the material (which is false).
Prior to his belief in Jesus as the Messiah of Israel, Paul was a Pharisee who "violently persecuted" the followers of Jesus. Says Paul:
You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.
After his conversion, Paul's attitude changed dramatically, becoming an 'apostle to the Gentiles', who envisioned a New Covenant in which both Jews and Gentiles would partake.
Pillars of the Church
Paul made explicit in Galatians 1:17 that he did not discuss with the "Pillars of the Church" after he had received his revelation to be an apostle,[Gal. 1:15–16] that he saw no one except Cephas (Peter) and James, when he was in Jerusalem three years after the revelation[Gal 1:18–24] and implies he did not explain his gospel to them until 14 years later[Gal 2:1–2] in a subsequent trip to Jerusalem.
Proselytizing among Jews
According to Acts, Paul began working along the traditional Jewish line of proselytizing in the various synagogues where the proselytes of the gate (a biblical term. For example, see Exodus 20:10) and the Jews met; and only because he failed to win the Jews to his views, encountering strong opposition and persecution from them, did he turn to the Gentile world after he had agreed at a convention with the apostles at Jerusalem to admit the Gentiles into the Church only as proselytes of the gate, that is, after their acceptance of the Noachian laws.[Acts 15:1–31][16] , yet no reference of Noachian Laws can be found in Acts 15-1-31.
In Galatians 1:17,18, Paul declares that, immediately after his conversion, he went away into Arabia, and again returned to Damascus. "Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas." In Acts, no mention is made of Paul's journey into Arabia; and the journey to Jerusalem is placed immediately after the notice of Paul's preaching in the synagogues. Hilgenfeld, Wendt, Weizäcker, Weiss, and others allege here a contradiction between the writer of the Acts and Paul.
R. Emden, in a remarkable apology for Christianity contained in his appendix to "Seder 'Olam"[17] gives it as his opinion that the original intention of Jesus, and especially of Paul, was to convert only the Gentiles to the seven moral laws of Noah and to let the Jews follow the Mosaic law — which explains the apparent contradictions in the New Testament regarding the laws of Moses and the Sabbath.
Several passages in Acts describe Paul's missions to Asia Minor and the encounters he had with Diaspora Jews and with local gentile populations. In Acts 13–15, the Jews from Antioch and Iconium go so far as to follow Paul to other cities and to incite the crowds there to violence against him. Paul had already been stoned and left for dead once.[Acts 14:19] In Philippi, a Roman colony, Roman magistrates beat and jailed Paul and his companions on behalf of the Gentiles.[Acts 16:19–40] Clearly at this point, Paul and his companions were still considered to be Jews by those in Philippi who raised protests against them, despite Paul's attempts to tailor his teachings to his audience.[1Cor.9:20–23] Later, in nearby Thessalonica, the Jews again incited the crowds and pitted the Christians against the Roman authority.[Acts 17:6–8]
Paul, who called himself "the apostle of the Gentiles",[18] criticised the practice of religious male circumcision, perhaps as an entrance into the New Covenant of Jesus. In the case of Timothy, whose mother was a Jew but whose father was a Greek, Paul personally circumcised him "because of the Jews".[Acts 16:1–3][19] Some believe that he appeared to praise its value in Romans 3:1–2, yet later in Romans 2 we see his point. In 1Corinthians9:20–23 he also disputes the value of circumcision.
Paul made his case to the Christians at Rome[Romans 2:25–29] that circumcision no longer meant the physical, but a spiritual practice. And in that sense, he wrote: "Is any man called being circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised" in 1Corinthians7:18—probably a reference to the practice of epispasm.[20] Paul was circumcised when he was "called." He added: "Is any called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised", and went on to argue that circumcision didn't matter: "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commands is what counts."[1Cor.7:19]
Later Paul more explicitly denounced the practice, rejecting and condemning those who promoted circumcision to Gentile converts. Paul warned that the advocates of circumcision were "false brothers".[Gal. 2:4] He accused Galatian converts who advocated circumcision of turning from the Spirit to the flesh: "Are you so foolish, that, whereas you began in the Spirit, you would now be made perfect by the flesh?"[Gal. 3:3] He accused advocates of circumcision of wanting to make a good showing in the flesh[Gal 6:12] and of glorying or boasting of the flesh.[Gal. 3:13] Some believe Paul wrote the entire Epistle to the Galatians attacking circumcision, saying in chapter five: "If ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing."
His attitude towards circumcision varies between his outright hostility to what he calls "mutilation" in Philippians 3:2–3 to praise in Romans 3:1–2 and his willingness that Timothy be circumcised, recorded in Acts 16:1–3 However, such apparent discrepancies have led to a degree of skepticism about the reliability of Acts.[21]Baur, Schwanbeck, De Wette, Davidson, Mayerhoff, Schleiermacher, Bleek, Krenkel, and others have opposed the authenticity of the Acts. An objection is drawn from the discrepancy between Acts 9:19–28 and Gal. 1:17–19.
The division between those who followed Mosaic law and were circumcised and those who were not circumcised was highlighted in his Epistle to the Galatians:
On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles), and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
Paul was critical of "Judaizers" within the Church. This conflict between Paul and his opponents may have been the reason for the Council of Jerusalem.[Acts 15:1–35] Here James, Paul, and the other leaders of the Early Christian movement agreed that Gentile converts needed only to follow the "three exceptions",[Acts 15:20,29] (counted by some as four) laws that roughly coincide with Judaism's Seven Laws of Noah said to be established by God for all humankind.[Genesis 9:1–17] This Apostolic Decree, still observed by the Orthodox Church, is similar to that adopted by Rabbinic Judaism, which teaches that Gentiles need only follow the Noachide Laws to be assured of a place in the World to Come. See also Noahidism and Dual-covenant theology.
Paul seems to have refused "to be tied down to particular patterns of behavior and practice."[1Cor.9:20–23] He does not engage in a dispute with those Corinthians who apparently feel quite free to eat anything offered to idols, never appealing or even mentioning the Jerusalem council. He rather attempts to persuade them by appealing to the care they should have for other believers who might not feel so free.
Paul himself described several meetings with the apostles in Jerusalem, though it is difficult to reconcile any of them fully with the account in Acts (see also Paul the Apostle#Council of Jerusalem). Paul claims he "went up again to Jerusalem" (i.e., not the first time) with Barnabas and Titus "in response to a revelation", in order to "lay before them the gospel proclaimed among the Gentiles",[Gal. 2:2]them being according to Paul "those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders":[Gal. 2:6] James, Cephas and John. He describes this as a "private meeting" (not a public council) and notes that Titus, who was Greek, wasn't pressured to be circumcised.[Gal. 2:3] However, he refers to "false believers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might enslave us."[Gal. 2:4]
Paul claims the "pillars" of the Church[22] had no differences with him. On the contrary, they gave him the "right hand of fellowship", he bound for the mission to "the uncircumcised" and they to "the circumcised", requesting only that he remember the "poor". Whether this was the same meeting as that described in Acts is not universally agreed.
According to an article in the Jewish Encyclopedia, great as was the success of Barnabas and Paul in the heathen world, the authorities in Jerusalem insisted upon circumcision as the condition of admission of members into the church, until, on the initiative of Peter, and of James, the head of the Jerusalem church, it was agreed that acceptance of the Noachian Laws — namely, regarding avoidance of idolatry, fornication, and the eating of flesh cut from a living animal — should be demanded of the heathen desirous of entering the Church.[23]
Since F.C. Baur, scholars have found evidence of various strands of thought within Early Christianity. James D. G. Dunn proposes that Peter was a "bridge-man" between the opposing views of Paul and James the Just.
For Peter was probably in fact and effect the bridge-man (pontifex maximus!) who did more than any other to hold together the diversity of first-century Christianity. James the brother of Jesus and Paul, the two other most prominent leading figures in first-century Christianity, were too much identified with their respective "brands" of Christianity, at least in the eyes of Christians at the opposite ends of this particular spectrum. But Peter, as shown particularly by the Antioch episode in Gal 2, had both a care to hold firm to his Jewish heritage, which Paul lacked, and an openness to the demands of developing Christianity, which James lacked. John might have served as such a figure of the center holding together the extremes, but if the writings linked with his name are at all indicative of his own stance he was too much of an individualist to provide such a rallying point. Others could link the developing new religion more firmly to its founding events and to Jesus himself. But none of them, including the rest of the twelve, seem to have played any role of continuing significance for the whole sweep of Christianity—though James the brother of John might have proved an exception had he been spared." [Italics original]
—James D. G. Dunn. "The Canon Debate," McDonald & Sanders editors, 2002, chapter 32, p. 577
Rembrandt'sTwo old men disputing, 1628. This painting has been thought to depict Peter and Paul.
Despite the agreement presumably achieved at the Council of Jerusalem as understood by Paul, Paul recounts how he later publicly confronted Peter, also called the "Incident at Antioch" over Peter's reluctance to share a meal with Gentile Christians in Antioch.[25]
Writing later of the incident, Paul recounts: "I opposed [Peter] to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong". Paul reports that he told Peter: "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?"[Gal. 2:11–14] Paul also mentions that even Barnabas (his travelling companion and fellow apostle until that time) sided with Peter.[26]
The final outcome of the incident remains uncertain. The Catholic Encyclopedia states: "St. Paul's account of the incident leaves no doubt that St. Peter saw the justice of the rebuke."[27] In contrast, L. Michael White's From Jesus to Christianity states: "The blowup with Peter was a total failure of political bravado, and Paul soon left Antioch as persona non grata, never again to return."[28]
For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have been constantly filling up the measure of their sins; but God's wrath has overtaken them at last.
James P. Carroll, historian and former Catholic priest, cautions that this and similar statements in the Gospels of Matthew and John are properly viewed as "evidence not of Jew hatred but of sectarian conflicts among Jews" in the early years of the Christian church. [29]
Paul's theology of the gospel contributed to the separation of the messianic sect of Christians from Judaism, a development contrary to Paul's own intent. He wrote that faith in Christ was alone decisive in salvation for Jews and Gentiles alike, making the schism between the followers of Christ and mainstream Jews inevitable and permanent. Without Paul's campaign against the legalists who opposed him, Christianity may have remained a dissenting sect within Judaism,[30] for example see Noahidism.
Pauline Christianity is a term used to refer to a branch of Early Christianity associated with the beliefs and doctrines espoused by Paul the Apostle through his writings. The term is generally considered a pejorative by some who believe it carries the implication that Christianity as it is known is a corruption of the original teachings of Jesus, as in the doctrine of the Great Apostasy.
Paul discontinuous with Jesus
Canadian religious historian, Barrie Wilson has proposed a different paradigm for understanding the relationship of Paul to Jesus, the Jesus Movement led by Jesus' brother James and Judaism. In How Jesus Became Christian,[31] Wilson suggests that Paul's religion differed from that of Jesus in terms of origins, teachings and practices. Paul's was a new religion. His Christ Movement became linked to Jesus, James' Jesus Movement and Judaism in general through the creative historical fiction of the Book of Acts. In Wilson's view, Paul's non-Torah religion supplanted that of Jesus and took the movement well outside the Jewish orbit, focusing not so much on a Jewish Messiah or the teachings of the historical Jesus but on the worship of a dying-and-rising savior, God-human figure.
Jewish views
Jewish historical reconstructions
Jewish interest in Paul is a recent phenomenon. Before the so-called Jewish reclamation of Jesus (as a Jew) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, he had hardly featured in the popular Jewish imagination and little had been written about him by the religious leaders and scholars. Arguably, he is absent from the Talmud and rabbinical literature, although he makes an appearance in some variants of the medieval polemic Toledot Yeshu (as a spy for the rabbis).[32] But with Jesus no longer regarded as the paradigm of gentile Christianity, Paul's position became more important in Jewish historical reconstructions of their religion's relationship with Christianity. He has featured as the key to building barriers (e.g. Heinrich Graetz and Martin Buber) or bridges (e.g. Isaac Mayer Wise and Claude G. Montefiore) in interfaith relations,[33] as part of an intra-Jewish debate about what constitutes Jewish authenticity (e.g. Joseph Klausner and Hans Joachim Schoeps),[34] and, on occasion, as a dialogical partner (e.g. Richard L. Rubenstein and Daniel Boyarin).[35] He features in an oratorio (by Felix Mendelssohn), a painting (by Ludwig Meidner) and a play (by Franz Werfel),[36] and there have been several novels about Paul (by Shalom Asch and Samuel Sandmel).[37] Jewish philosophers (including Baruch Spinoza, Leo Shestov, and Jacob Taubes)[38] and Jewish psychoanalysts (including Sigmund Freud and Hanns Sachs)[39] have engaged with the apostle as one of the most influential figures in Western thought. Scholarly surveys of Jewish interest in Paul include those by Hagner (1980),[40] Meissner (1996),[41] and Langton (2010, 2011).[42][43][44]
Messianic Jewish views
Messianics understand that Paul the Apostle (who is often referred to as Sha’ul, his Hebrew name) remained a Jewish Pharisee even as a believer until his death. This is based on Acts 23:6, detailing events after Paul's acceptance of Jesus as Messiah. "But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men [and] brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question."
Messianics cite the cutting off of Paul’s hair at Cenchrea because of a vow he had taken (Acts 18:18), references in passing to his observing the Jewish holidays (Acts 18:21; Acts 20:6; Acts 20:16) and his consistent good standing with his Rabbinic master Gamaliel[citation needed], to show that he was wholly in continued observance of the laws and traditions of Judaism. Saint Paul according to Acts 21:17–29 and Acts 24:17–18 is recorded as observing Jewish laws of purification in the Temple in Jersusalem.
They maintain that Paul never set out to polarize the gospel between faith and righteous works, but that one is necessary to maintain the other.
↑ Dunn quotes Stendahl: "Cf Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles, passim-e.g "... a doctrine of faith was hammered out by Paul for the very specific and limited pupose of defending the rights of Gentile converts to be full and genuine heirs to the promise of God to Israel"(p.2)"[3]
Stephen Westerholm: "For Paul, the question that “justification by faith” was intended to answer was, “On what terms can Gentiles gain entrance to the people of God?” Bent on denying any suggestion that Gentiles must become Jews and keep the Jewish law, he answered, “By faith—and not by works of the (Jewish) law.”"[web 1] Westerholm refers to: Krister Stendahl, The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West, Harvard Theological Review 56 (1963), 199–215; reprinted in Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 78–96.
Westerholm quotes Sanders: "Sanders noted that “the salvation of the Gentiles is essential to Paul’s preaching; and with it falls the law; for, as Paul says simply, Gentiles cannot live by the law (Gal. 2.14)” (496). On a similar note, Sanders suggested that the only Jewish “boasting” to which Paul objected was that which exulted over the divine privileges granted to Israel and failed to acknowledge that God, in Christ, had opened the door of salvation to Gentiles."
↑ According to the Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), "The Mishnah says that sins are expiated (1) by sacrifice, (2) by repentance at death or on Yom Kippur, (3) in the case of the lighter transgressions of the positive or negative precepts, by repentance at any time [...] The graver sins, according to Rabbi, are apostasy, heretical interpretation of the Torah, and non-circumcision (Yoma 86a). The atonement for sins between a man and his neighbor is an ample apology (Yoma 85b)."[web 2]
The Jewish Virual Library writes: "Another important concept [of sacrifices] is the element of substitution. The idea is that the thing being offered is a substitute for the person making the offering, and the things that are done to the offering are things that should have been done to the person offering. The offering is in some sense "punished" in place of the offerer. It is interesting to note that whenever the subject of Karbanot is addressed in the Torah, the name of G-d used is the four-letter name indicating G-d's mercy."[web 3]
The Jewish Encyclopedia further writes: "Most efficacious seemed to be the atoning power of suffering experienced by the righteous during the Exile. This is the idea underlying the description of the suffering servant of God in Isa. liii. 4, 12, Hebr. [...] of greater atoning power than all the Temple sacrifices was the suffering of the elect ones who were to be servants and witnesses of the Lord (Isa. xlii. 1-4, xlix. 1-7, l. 6). This idea of the atoning power of the suffering and death of the righteous finds expression also in IV Macc. vi. 27, xvii. 21-23; M. Ḳ. 28a; Pesiḳ. xxvii. 174b; Lev. R. xx.; and formed the basis of Paul's doctrine of the atoning blood of Christ (Rom. iii. 25)."[web 4]
Related Research Articles
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Messianic Judaism is a modern syncretic religious movement that combines Christianity—most importantly, the belief that Jesus is the Messiah—with elements of Judaism and Jewish tradition. It emerged in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Judaizers are Christians who teach it is necessary to adopt Jewish customs and practices, especially those found in the Law of Moses, to be saved. The term is derived from the Koine Greek word Ἰουδαΐζειν (Ioudaizein), used once in the Greek New Testament, when Paul publicly challenges Peter for compelling Gentile converts to Early Christianity to "judaize". This episode is known as the incident at Antioch.
Dual-covenant or two-covenant theology is a school of thought in Christianity regarding the relevance of the Hebrew Bible, which Christians call the Old Testament.
Messianic Jewish theology is the study of God and Scripture from the perspective of Messianic Judaism, a religious movement that fuses elements of Judaism and Christianity and claims to be a legitimate form of Judaism.
The Mosaic covenant or Law of Moses – which Christians generally call the "Old Covenant" – has played an important role in the origins of Christianity and has occasioned serious dispute and controversy since the beginnings of Christianity: note for example Jesus' teaching of the Law during his Sermon on the Mount and the circumcision controversy in early Christianity.
The history of early Christianity covers the Apostolic Age and the Ante-Nicene Period (c.100-325), to the First Council of Nicaea in 325.
God-fearers or God-worshipers were a numerous class of gentile sympathizers to Hellenistic Judaism that existed in the Greco-Roman world, which observed certain Jewish religious rites and traditions without becoming full converts to Judaism. The concept has precedents in the proselytes of the Hebrew Bible.
The incident at Antioch was an Apostolic Age dispute between the apostles Paul and Peter which occurred in the city of Antioch around the middle of the first century. The primary source for the incident is Paul's Epistle to the Galatians 2:11–2:14. Since Ferdinand Christian Baur, scholars have found evidence of conflict among the leaders of Early Christianity; for example James D. G. Dunn proposes that Peter was a "bridge-man" between the opposing views of Paul and James the brother of Jesus. The final outcome of the incident remains uncertain, resulting in several Christian views of the Old Covenant to this day.
The relationship between Saint Peter and Judaism is thought to have been fairly positive.
Christianity in the 1st century deals with the formative years of the Early Christian community. The earliest followers of Jesus were composed principally from apocalyptic Jewish sects during the late Second Temple period of the 1st century. They were Jewish Christians, who strictly adhered to the Jewish law. Jerusalem had an early Christian community, which was led by James the Just, Peter, and John.
1 2 McGarvey on Acts 16: "Yet we see him in the case before us, circumcising Timothy with his own hand, and this 'on account of certain Jews who were in those quarters.'"
↑ "making themselves foreskins"; I Macc. i. 15; Josephus, "Ant." xii. 5, § 1; Assumptio Mosis, viii.; I Cor. vii. 18;, Tosef.; Talmud tractes Shabbat xv. 9; Yevamot 72a, b; Yerushalmi Peah i. 16b; Yevamot viii. 9a; ; Catholic Encyclopedia: Circumcision: "To this epispastic operation performed on the athletes to conceal the marks of circumcision St. Paul alludes, me epispastho [1Cor.7:18]."
↑ Catholic Encyclopedia: St. James the Less: "Then we lose sight of James till St. Paul, three years after his conversion (A.D. 37), went up to Jerusalem. ... On the same occasion, the "pillars" of the Church, James, Peter, and John "gave to me (Paul) and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision".[Gal. 2:9]
↑ Catholic Encyclopedia: Judaizers: "On their arrival Peter, who up to this had eaten with the Gentiles, "withdrew and separated himself, fearing them who were of the circumcision," and by his example drew with him not only the other Jews, but even Barnabas, Paul's fellow-labourer."
↑ Carroll, James (2001). Constantine's Sword: The Church and The Jews (First Mariner Books edition 2002 ed.). Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin. p.85. ISBN0-395-77927-8.
↑ Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. p. 331
↑ Barrie Wilson. How Jesus Became Christian. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008.
↑ Langton, Daniel (2011). Westerholm, Stephen, ed. Jewish Readings of Paul in Blackwell Companion to Paul. Blackwell. pp.55–72.
↑ Langton, Daniel (2011). Levine, Amy-Jill, ed. Paul in Jewish Thought in The Jewish Annotated New Testament. Oxford University Press. pp.585–87.
Sources
Printed sources
Dunn, James D.G. (1982), The New Perspective on Paul. Manson Memprial Lecture, 4 november 1982
Finlan, Stephen (2004), The Background and Content of Paul's Cultic Atonement Metaphors, Society of Biblical Literature
Karkkainen, Veli-Matti (2016), Christology. A Global Introduction, BakerAcademic
Mack, Burton L. (1997) [1995], Wie schreven het Nieuwe Testament werkelijk? Feiten, mythen en motieven. (Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth), Uitgeverij Ankh-Hermes bv
Stendahl, Krister (1963), [www.scotthahn.com/s/01Stendahl.pdf "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West"] Check |url= value (help)(PDF), The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Jul., 1963), pp. 199-215
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