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272 Pages·2011·3.76 MB·English

by  David Lincicum

ST. PAUL’S DEUTERONOMY:
THE END OF THE PENTATEUCH AND THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES
IN SECOND TEMPLE JEWISH CONTEXT

Thesis Submitted for the D.Phil. in Theology
Trinity Term 2009

By
David Lincicum
Keble College, University of Oxford
Approx. 97,500 Words Exclusive of Bibliography
For Julia

My dream thou brok’st not, but continued’st it
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Short Abstract

St. Paul’s Deuteronomy: The End of the Pentateuch and the Apostle to the Gentiles
in Second Temple Jewish Context

David Lincicum
Keble College, Oxford
Thesis Submitted for the D.Phil. in Theology
Trinity Term 2009

Amid the recent turn to Paul’s reading of Scripture, the role Deuteronomy plays in his letters
has generally been examined in individual citations without regard to the larger role
Deuteronomy plays in Paul’s letters, or with an exclusive focus on either the theological or the
ethical importance of Deuteronomy for Paul. In contrast, this study argues that Paul read
Deuteronomy with three interlocking construals (as ethical authority, as theological authority,
as an interpretation of Israel’s history), each equally basic. These construals can be combined to
achieve a sense of the shape of Paul’s Deuteronomy as a whole. In order to ascertain and
specify these construals, Paul’s engagement with Deuteronomy is examined as an instance of
Jewish engagement with the book. Part I, therefore, supplies the historical conditions of Paul’s
and other Jewish authors’ encounter with the scroll of Deuteronomy (Chap 2). On this basis,
Part II proceeds to survey the major Jewish interpreters of Deuteronomy from the 3rd c. BCE to
the 3rd c. CE (Chaps. 3-8). Because Paul is himself a Jewish author, this study foregoes the
traditional bi-partite thesis division into “background” and Paul, opting instead to see Paul as
one in a chain of Jews who turned to Deuteronomy to make sense of the present. These
chapters thus also provide a sustained analysis of Deuteronomy’s broader effective history in
Second Temple Jewish writings – and, in a few cases, beyond. In light of the range of
interpretations to which Deuteronomy was susceptible, the concluding chapter examines what
is distinctive about the shape of Paul’s Deuteronomy and what contribution this may make to
debates on Pauline theology and to the study of Second Temple Jewish biblical interpretation.

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Long Abstract

St. Paul’s Deuteronomy: The End of the Pentateuch and the Apostle to the Gentiles in
Second Temple Jewish Context

David Lincicum
Keble College, Oxford
Thesis Submitted for the D.Phil. in Theology
Trinity Term 2009

Compared to Paul’s engagement with Isaiah, relatively little scholarly energy has been
devoted to the apostle’s concern for the book of Deuteronomy which, though not as prominent
as Isaiah or Psalms in his letters, still betrays its importance for Paul with over a dozen clear
instances of textual engagement. Those who have undertaken investigations of Paul’s reading
of Deuteronomy have by and large bifurcated his approach by focusing either on his ethical
appropriation of chapters 1-26 or his theological appeal to chapters 27-34 in formation of his
“view of the Law.” Drawing on both the recovery of Paul’s Jewishness and on advances in
understanding Paul’s engagement with Scripture over the past thirty years, this study considers
all of the major instances of Paul’s recourse to Deuteronomy, and sets his interpretative
framework squarely within the context of Second Temple Judaism. This study argues that Paul
read Deuteronomy with three interlocking construals (as ethical authority, as theological
authority, as an interpretation of Israel’s history), each equally basic. These construals can be
combined to achieve a sense of the shape of Paul’s Deuteronomy as a whole.
An introductory chapter first sets forth the need for this study, then describes the
method and approach of the thesis; while indebted to proponents of “intertextual” exegesis, I
suggest some weaknesses of this approach and propose that such methods be supplemented and
clarified by greater attention to the historical situation of Paul and other early interpreters, the
attention to exemplary or representative reading strategies found in the work of David Kelsey
and Francis Watson, and a sustained focus on Deuteronomy’s broader effective history.
In order to ascertain and specify the ways in which Paul construed Deuteronomy, his
engagement with it is examined as an instance of Jewish interpretation of the book. The second
chapter (Part I: “The Liturgical Deuteronomy in the Second Temple Period”) therefore,
supplies the historical conditions of Paul’s and other Jewish authors’ encounter with the scroll
of Deuteronomy. While this context is broadly important to the other authors in Part II as well,
particular attention is paid to the effect this context had on Paul’s encounter with Deuteronomy.
In contradistinction to the intertextual approaches mentioned above on the one hand, and
approaches that see Paul relying on a collection of pre-formulated testimonia on the other,
Paul’s encounter with Deuteronomy makes most sense when placed within this liturgical and
educational world of late Second Temple Judaism – a context that suggests Paul would have
known a Septuagintal translation of Deuteronomy as a whole, perhaps even committing it to
memory. To posit a liturgical and ‘scholastic’ Sitz im Leben in the context of a number of less
formal encounters for Paul’s reading, hearing, and perhaps recitation and memorization of
Deuteronomy lends plausibility to the claim that Paul was aware of and concerned for broader
portions of Deuteronomy and that Deuteronomy’s influence on Paul’s thought can be seen in
subtler as well as more overt ways.
On this basis, Part II proceeds to survey the major Jewish interpreters of Deuteronomy
from roughly the 3rd c. BCE to the 3rd c. CE (Chaps. 3-8). Because Paul is himself a Jewish
author, this study foregoes the traditional bi-partite thesis division into “background” and Paul,
opting instead to see Paul as one in a chain of Jews who turned to Deuteronomy to make sense
of the present. These chapters thus also provide a sustained analysis of Deuteronomy’s broader
effective history in Second Temple Jewish writings – and, in a few cases, beyond. These
chapters survey then, in turn, the writings from Qumran (Chap. 3), selected Apocrypha and
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Pseudepigrapha (Chap. 4), Philo (Chap. 5), the apostle Paul (Chap. 6), Josephus (Chap. 7) and
some later trajectories of Jewish interpretation as seen in the Sifre and the Targums to
Deuteronomy (Chap. 8). Naturally the nature of the thesis’s focus on Paul ensures that the
chapter devoted to him is somewhat more substantial than the others, but one of the primary
goals of this part of the thesis is to examine the appeals to Deuteronomy by these various
authors on their own grounds, and not simpliciter as background to Paul. This, I suggest, helps
us to form a deeper sensitivity to the similarities and differences between Paul and these
authors and also goes some way toward describing the “pressure” exercised by Deuteronomy in
the period. In this light, the more detailed investigation of Paul’s recourse to Deuteronomy
discloses and confirms the three distinctive construals of the book mentioned above.
Finally, Part III (Chap. 9) summarizes the conclusions reached in the thesis, focusing
on both the similarities which Paul shares with other Jewish contemporaries, and on the
distinctiveness of Paul’s own engagement with Deuteronomy. I argue that Paul’s three
construals of Deuteronomy may be held together by recognizing that Paul read Deuteronomy
backwards in at least two senses. First, and perhaps most clearly, Paul reads Deuteronomy
retrospectively from the standpoint of an apostle of Christ to the nations. The apocalyptic
elements in Paul’s thought and experience have disrupted a straightforward nomistic appeal to
Deuteronomy, and so while Paul can share a Deuteronomic diagnosis of Israel’s history (even
in fact further redefining this notion), he does not show evidence of the Deuteronomic
prognosis of so many contemporaries because in Christ the solution to the plight has already
been disclosed. In this sense, to ask whether Paul argues from plight to solution or from
solution to plight is something of a false dichotomy: plight and solution clarify one another
reciprocally. Put in other words, Scripture and gospel are mutually interpretive. What is more,
because for Paul faith in the Christ constitutes the people of God, the renewed Israel,
Deuteronomy cannot have its entrance-keeping function any longer – and, in fact, Paul suggests
that this is the Torah’s true intention all along. The re-visioning of Deuteronomy’s word of
Torah now discloses Christ as the law’s goal.
But there is a second sense in which Paul reads Deuteronomy backwards: he presents
the scroll to his fledgling churches through the lens of its final chapters first, and only then does
he come to its ethical chapters. This is less a statement of epistolary presentation than it is of
conceptual presentation. Because Paul is convinced that Deuteronomy ultimately speaks to the
people of God composed of Jew and Gentile who are welcomed by the one God on the basis of
faith in Jesus Christ, he believes that the circumcision of their hearts by the Spirit now enables
them to fulfill the law – not as an entrance requirement but as an epistemological guide to what
is holy, just and good, though filtered through the apocalyptic disclosure and irruption of the
cross and resurrection of Christ. In this sense, the ecclesiological reading of Deuteronomy is
grounded in the Christological and pneumatological reading.
This thesis, then, is poised to make a number of modest contributions to Pauline and
Second Temple Jewish studies. It provides a reading for Deuteronomy in Paul similar to those
recently presented for Isaiah by Ross Wagner and Florian Wilk. Paul read Deuteronomy as a
complex whole, and he has engaged with the text by way of representative readings in such a
manner that we are able to discern, if still only partially, the outlines of his basic approach.
What is more, by placing his engagement with Deuteronomy firmly in its Second Temple
Jewish context, this study hopes to displace some of the ahistorical tendencies that have
plagued studies of Paul’s encounter with Scripture, and to suggest a more viable Sitz im Leben
than has hitherto been adduced. By considering Paul as engaged in a polyphonic conversation
with Scripture and his contemporaries, this study hopes to show that the apostle to the gentiles
emerges as a Jewish reader of the Torah – idiosyncratic, to be sure, in light of his profound
Christian transformation, but Jewish nonetheless. This aspect should be considered one more
contribution to our recovery of Paul the Jew. Finally, this thesis provides a more substantial
report of the effective history of Deuteronomy in the Second Temple period than has hitherto
been produced.
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In short, this thesis places Paul firmly in his Second Temple Jewish context as one
Jewish interpreter of Deuteronomy among others. In this light, not only does Paul emerge as a
more comprehensible Jew, but he is also restored to the history of Jewish engagement with
Israel’s Torah.
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Preface

This thesis marks the culmination of a long process – a process that would have been
impossible without the help of a number of people.
Without the patient and persistent guidance, challenging questions, and whole-hearted
investment of my supervisor, Professor Markus Bockmuehl, the thesis would have been much
poorer. His influence is evident throughout the work in ways ranging from the subtle to the
profound. In addition, I benefited from the suggestions of those who read and commented on
significant sections of the thesis, including Professor Richard Bauckham, and Drs. John
Muddiman and Mark Edwards. My two examiners, Professors William Horbury and Martin
Goodman, posed helpful questions for further reflection. A number of colleagues at the
Universities of St. Andrews, Oxford and Tübingen, where research for this thesis was carried
out, deserve mention for thought-provoking conversations and friendship: Martin Bauspieß,
Patrick Egan, Chris Hays, Drew Lewis, Kenneth Liljeström, R. J. Matava, Tim Stone, and Seth
Tarrer.
Ideas from some portions of the thesis were aired at various scholarly meetings and
conferences, to whose participants I owe thanks for challenging and illuminationg responses.
Portions of Chapter 2 were presented to the 2008 “Annual Seminar on the Old Testament in the
New” chaired by Professor Steve Moyise at St. Deiniol’s Library. Some portions of Chapters 3
and 8 were presented as “Paul and the Temple Scroll: Reflections on Their Shared Engagement
with Deuteronomy” to the Oxford New Testament Graduate Seminar, 24 January 2008 and to
the “Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity” Unit at the 2008 SBL meeting in Boston. An
early version of portions of Chapter 8 was presented in January 2009 as “The Shape of Paul’s
Deuteronomy” to the German-English New Testament Colloquium at the University of
Tübingen in conjunction with the Institut zur Erforschung des Urchristentums. For such
opportunities I am grateful to organizers and participants alike.
This thesis was enabled by generous financial help from a number of organizations and
individuals. Grants from the Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust, the Grinfield Bequest, the
Faculty of Theology in Oxford, and an Overseas Research Student Award from the University
of Oxford relieved financial anxieties and allowed me to focus on my research. A generous
Scatcherd European scholarship facilitated a research stay in Tübingen for most of the 2008-
2009 academic year, where I also incurred debts to Professor Hermann Lichtenberger and Dr.
Scott Caulley for their hospitality and collegial discussion. In addition, I have been fortunate
enough to have had significant support in one form or another from numerous friends and
family members: Beth and Leon Smart, Christine and Jack Piers, Clem and Mary Lincicum,
Steve and Becky Lincicum, Judy Lincicum, Amy Stephens, Brandon Lincicum, Matt and Katie
Lincicum, Paul and Laura Piers, Matt Piers, Brent and Lindsay Gosnell, David and Andreea
Hoover, Brandon and Denise Walsh, Carmen and Eli Foster, Devin and Larissa Vaughn, Holly
and Shawn Duncan, Rick and Rebecca Prenshaw, Walt and Mercy Avra. Each name conceals a
debt of gratitude which will not soon be forgotten.
Finally, my most significant debt is cheerfully acknowledged: Julia has borne with a
distracted husband in a spirit of patient sacrifice during these nomadic years, and it is only right
that my longstanding gratitude and admiration should here be publicly expressed.
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Table of Contents

Dedication ....................................................................................................................... i
Short Abstract .................................................................................................................. ii
Long Abstract ................................................................................................................. iii
Preface ............................................................................................................................ vi
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ vii
Abbreviations .................................................................................................................. x

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1
1.1. Inferring an Icon: Paul, Scripture and the Jews .......................................... 1
1.2. Paul and Deuteronomy ................................................................................ 3
1.3. Locating the Present Study’s Approach ...................................................... 9
1.3.1. The Search for Holistic Construal .............................................. 10
1.3.2. On Intertextuality and Effective History ...................................... 11
1.3.3. A Polyphonic Conversation ........................................................ 13
1.3.4. Is It Legitimate to Isolate Deuteronomy? .................................... 14
1.3.5. Some Matters of Definition ......................................................... 15
1.4. The Plan of the Present Study ..................................................................... 17

Part I
2. The Liturgical Deuteronomy in the Second Temple Period ........................................ 21
2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 21
2.2. Encountering Deuteronomy in the Second Temple Period:
The Material Realia ..................................................................................... 22
2.3. The Synagogue and the Reading of the Law
in the Second Temple Period ...................................................................... 29
2.3.1. The Synagogue in the Second Temple Period .............................. 29
2.3.2. The Public Reading of the Law ..................................................... 31
2.3.3. Lectionary Cycles and Lectio Continua:
Did They Exist in the First Century? ............................................ 34
Excursus: Deuteronomy’s Place in the Library ..................................... 40
2.4. Anamnetic Performance: Tefillin, Mezuzot and Excerpted Texts ............... 42
2.5. The Recitation of the Shema‘ (Qiriath Shema‘) .......................................... 50
2.6. Paul and the Liturgical Deuteronomy .......................................................... 52
2.6.1 Paul’s Background and Education ............................................... 52
2.6.2 Paul and the Greek Liturgy of the Synagogue ............................. 56
2.7. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 59

Part II
Introduction to Part II ...................................................................................................... 64

3. Deuteronomy at Qumran ............................................................................................ 67
3.1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 67
3.2. The Role of Deuteronomy in Major Compositions .................................... 68
3.2.1. Deuteronomy as Stipulating Entrance to the Covenant:
1QS 1:16-3:12 ............................................................................. 69
3.2.2. Deuteronomy as Actualized Legal Authority:
The Temple Scroll and the Damascus Document ....................... 72
3.2.3. Deuteronomy as a Judgment on History:
4QMMT and Pseudo-Moses ...................................................... 81
3.3. Deuteronomy in Biblical and Rewritten Bible Manuscripts ...................... 84
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3.4. Excerpted Texts, Tefillin and Mezuzot ....................................................... 86
3.5. Conclusion: Deuteronomy at Qumran ........................................................ 89

4. Deuteronomy in Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha ...................................................... 92
4.1. Introduction: A Deuteronomic Pattern? ..................................................... 92
4.2. Jubilees ....................................................................................................... 93
4.3. Second Maccabees ...................................................................................... 94
4.4. Pseudo-Philo ............................................................................................... 95
4.5. Tobit ............................................................................................................ 97
4.6. Baruch ......................................................................................................... 100
4.7. Testament of Moses .................................................................................... 101
4.8. Conclusion: Deuteronomy in Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha .................. 104

5. Deuteronomy in the Works of Philo of Alexandria .................................................. 107
5.1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 107
5.2. How Philo Refers to Deuteronomy ........................................................... 108
5.3. Deuteronomy in the Exposition of the Laws of Moses ............................. 111
5.3.1. The Last Acts of Moses ............................................................. 112
5.3.2. Re-ordering and Commending the Law .................................... 114
5.3.3. Blessing, Curse, and the Hope of Restoration .......................... 117
5.4. Deuteronomy in the Allegorical Commentary on Genesis ....................... 120
5.5. Conclusion: Deuteronomy in the Works of Philo ..................................... 124

6. Deuteronomy in Paul’s Letters ................................................................................. 126
6.1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 126
6.2. How Paul Refers to Deuteronomy ............................................................ 126
6.3. Deuteronomy as Ethical Authority ........................................................... 132
6.3.1. The Decalogue .......................................................................... 133
6.3.2. Purge the Evil From Your Midst .............................................. 138
6.3.3. Muzzling the Ox ....................................................................... 141
6.3.4. The Testimony of Two or Three Witnesses ............................. 144
6.3.5. Vengeance Is Mine ................................................................... 146
6.3.6. Conclusion: Deuteronomy as Ethical Authority ....................... 148
6.4. Deuteronomy as Theological Authority .................................................... 149
6.4.1. The Shema‘ ................................................................................ 149
6.4.2. Theological Axioms .................................................................. 152
6.4.3. Conclusion: Deuteronomy as Theological Authority ............... 154
6.5. Deuteronomy as the Lens of Israel’s History ............................................ 154
6.5.1. Blessing and Curse .................................................................... 154
6.5.2. True Circumcision and the Covenant ........................................ 159
6.5.3. The Nearness of the Word ......................................................... 167
6.5.4. Sin, Restoration, and the Gentiles ............................................. 171
6.5.5. Conclusion: Deuteronomy as the Lens of Israel’s History ....... 180
6.6. Conclusion: The Shape of Paul’s Deuteronomy ........................................ 181

7. Deuteronomy in the Works of Josephus ..................................................................... 184
7.1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 184
7.2. Deuteronomy as Constitution, Law, and Biography .................................. 184
7.2.1. The πολιτεία of Israel ............................................................... 187
7.2.2. The Laws .................................................................................... 190
7.2.3. Last Acts and Words of Moses ................................................... 192
7.3. A Deuteronomic View of History ............................................................... 196
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7.4. Conclusion: Deuteronomy in the Works of Josephus ................................. 198

8. Later Trajectories of Interpretation: Sifre and Targums .............................................. 200
8.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 200
8.2. Mishnaizing Scripture: Sifre to Deuteronomy ............................................. 201
8.3. Deuteronomy as Rebuke and Prophetic Poetry: Targums ........................... 204
8.4. Conclusion: Later Trajectories of Interpretation ......................................... 208

Part III
9. Conclusion: Paul’s Deuteronomy ................................................................................ 210
9.1. Paul’s Deuteronomy and Others’ ................................................................ 210
9.2. Paul’s Deuteronomy and Deuteronomy’s Paul ........................................... 215
9.3. Revisiting the Icon ....................................................................................... 218

Appendix: Biblical Passages in Tefillin, Mezuzot, and Excerpted Texts ......................... 220

Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 224
1. Primary Sources ............................................................................................. 224
2. Grammars, Concordances, Lexica and Reference Works .............................. 228
3. Secondary Sources .......................................................................................... 228

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