Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee

378 Pages·1990·5.91 MB·English

by  Alan F. Segal

PAUL THE
CONVERT
The Apostolate and
Apostasy of
Saul the Pharisee
Alan F. Segal
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
New Haven and London
CONTENTS
Introduction
xi
Paul the Jew
Chapter i. Paul and Luke 3
Chapter z. Paul's Ecstasy 34
Chapter 3. Conversion in Paul's Society 72
Paul the Convert
Chapter 4. The Consequences of Conversion: Paul's Exegesis 117
Chapter 5. Paul's New Conversion Community Among the Gentiles 150
Paul the Apostle
Chapter 6. Circumcision and the Noahide Laws 187
Chapter 7. Romans 7 and Jewish Dietary Laws 2x4
Chapter 8. The Salvation of Israel 254
Appendix. Paul's Conversion: Psychological Study 285
Abbreviations 301
Notes
307
Indexes
353
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Scholarship, like religion, is both a communal and a solitary
enterprise. Scholarship is normally thought of as private research, since
the scholar spends innumerable hours of quiet reading and thinking in
libraries. But there is also a social dimension to scholarship, when ideas are
debated in groups or manuscripts are lent to others for their comments.
The scholar relies on the work and opinions of so many colleagues in more
ways than can be adequately acknowledged in a personal note.
To write a book on Paul I needed a great deal of help of that kind. 1
further imposed on my colleagues in New Testament studies in many
ways, which I should and can acknowledge publicly. I should like to thank
David Balch, Nils Blatz, Thomas Boslooper, James Charlesworth, Adela
Yarbro Collins, Celia Deutsch, James Dunn, Jarl Fossum, Paula Fredrick-
sen, John Gager, Henry Green, Joan Hart, Holland Hendrix, Larry W.
Hurtado, Don Juel, Lou Martyn, Wayne Meeks, Elaine Pagels, Sally Pur-
vis, Gilles Quispel, Peter Richardson, Harold Remus, Robin Scroggs,
David Weiss-Halivni, and Steven Wilson. They agreed to read parts or all
of this manuscript, making comments on how to improve it. Many others,
not mentioned here, offered suggestions and guidance along the way. The
list is too long: I should not have imposed on so many. But all made
suggestions for which I am grateful. My need for so much help underlines
the difficulty in crossing the boundaries that separate scholars of early
Christianity and early rabbinic Judaism. The difficulties in alternating
between Semitic studies and Greek studies is but the beginning of the
problem. The methodology of New Testament scholarship constrains the
novice. These scholars helped me master it.
I should also like to thank Avent Beck, Ted Byfield, Alexandria Kauf-
ix
X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
man, Jonathan Lupkin, Allan Pantuck, Terry Todd, and Tommy Williams
for assisting me with editing, proofreading, and indexing.
Several parts of this book were published previously in slightly differ
ent forms. Short segments appeared in a different context in my book
Rebecca's Children. Parts of chapters i and 3 were published in volume 3
of Anti-Judaism and in SBL Seminar Papers of 1988. Chapter 2 was
published in the SBL Seminar Papers of 1986. Chapter 7 was published in
Studies in Religion in 1986 and republished in The Other Judaisms of Late
Antiquity. All are republished here with the permission of the publishers,
though some have been altered substantially.
New Testament quotations are from the Revised Standard Version
(RSV), unless otherwise noted.
INTRODUCTION
Jesus left no writing, thereby preventing any direct reconstruc
tion of his self-consciousness. We must suppose his intentions indirectly,
from the reports of his disciples, which were often filtered orally through a
generation or two of well-meaning and deeply committed reporters. By
contrast, Paul wrote directly to his contemporaries, so his thoughts and
motivations lie open to analysis. Like Luke (i:z) but earlier chronologi
cally, Paul admits to having never met Jesus in the flesh. He is our earliest
witness to the faith in Christ rather than to the life of Jesus. For that reason
alone, he has been the subject of innumerable books in Christian history.
Paul is also important for Jewish history. He is one of only two Pharisees to
have left us any personal writings (e.g., Phil. 3:$).1 As the only first-
century Jew to have left confessional reports of mystical experience (2 Cor.
12:1—io),2 Paul should be treated as a major source in the study of first-
century Judaism.
Yet Paul is hardly ever read seriously by Jewish historians, for he
angers Jews of today as much as he angered his contemporaries, both
Jewish and Christian. His experience of the postresurrection Christ in
visions, though never in the flesh, also made his apostolate suspect to his
fellow apostles.3 But Paul's meditations on the significance of the Christ
became the basis of Western understandings of Jesus' purpose, at least as
much as those of the disciples did.
Paul's letters are hardly easy to read now, for they are full of ambigu
ities, complexities, and attacks on half-forgotten adversaries. Yet they
reveal the thought and sensibility of one of the most influential persons in
the West, as well as glimpses of a continually fascinating personal religious
quest. Paul is familiar with Greek rhetoric, as well as Hellenistic Jewish
xi
XÜ INTRODUCTION
attitudes, Jewish mysticism and apocalypticism, and incipient rabbinism.
Scholars now consider these different realms of thought, concentrating
their life's work on one or another. Had Paul not evinced them all, few
scholars would have thought them to be compatible. Further, these realms
of thought are almost impenetrable to modern readers. Without knowing
about first-century Judaism, modern readers—even those committed by
faith to reading him—are bound to misconstrue Paul's writing. To make
matters worse, Paul sometimes outlines different opinions on the same
subject without bothering to explain how, why, or if he has changed his
mind.
Because Paul's letters are ancient, they challenge modern sensibilities.
Paul also challenges any modern sensibility because he is personally rele
vant to modern faith and to the contemporary predicament of Judaism
and Christianity. His thoughts are fiercely personal in a way that still
influences people. Behind these letters to his churches are the ruminations
of a man who occasionally reveals an intensely personal religious conver
sion, similar to those reported today. He builds a picture of the relation
between his previous life in Pharisaism and his present one in the new
Christian sect; that picture has become the basis of Christian understand
ings of Judaism. In the process, however, Paul's personal and unique
perspective has become obscured. As a result, popular Christian notions of
Judaism are badly mistaken.
Paul's letters record the thinking of a Pharisee who has converted to a
new, apocalyptic, mystical, and—to many of his contemporaries—sus
piciously heretical form of Judaism. Even after his conversion, his thinking
changes with new events. Though his conversion experience carries him
from one variety of Judaism to another, his education in Christianity
comes from a gentile community, and his active mission furthers that new
enterprise. Although Paul evidently missionized Jews and spent time with
Jewish Christians, his writing mostly represents the issues of the gentile
Christian community. Paul is a trained Pharisee who became the apostle to
the gentiles. His Judaism is Pharisaic and his Christianity is mainly the
product of his experience on his gentile mission. I find this combination as
novel and explosive as did the ancient world.
Paul's writings are neither systematic nor simple. His writings give
evidence of each stage of his life, from Pharisee to fiery young passionate
believer, angered by the lack of acceptance his colleagues have shown him,
to mature apostle, who gave way on his personal opinions so that the
church could progress unhindered. He both challenges and attempts to
reconcile his converts to the Jewish Christian community. His letters must
be read in the context of his biography, wherever it can be established, and
in the context of Jewish life of his day.
Although we have considerable writings from Paul, his biography is
incompletely known.4 To add to this problem, we know little about Juda
ism or Christianity in the first century; what we do know is refracted
through our personal commitments and biases. Paul's letters, though
widely read, thus turn out to be among the most difficult and complicated
writings in Western literature.
In order fully to appreciate Paul's letters, they need to be read in light of
religious experience everywhere, with knowledge of both the atmosphere
in which he lived and a modern understanding of human religious behav
ior. Thus, I will rely on contemporary observations of religious behavior,
especially religious conversion.
Paul's letters have been discussed thoroughly by scholars more familiar
with them than I am. What, then, could even a concerned Jewish scholar
add to the discussion? In this book I write about Paul's Judaism, his
Pharisaic education and training before he became a Christian, insofar as
this is possible. But I concentrate on the Jewish context of his religious
struggle following his conversion. Most scholars assume that once Paul
had converted, his writings became irrelevant to Judaism. This is simply
not so: Paul wrote to a brand-new Christian community that was still
largely Jewish, giving us the only witness to a world of everyday
Hellenistic Judaism now vanished. I try to show how these struggles with
the Judaism and Jewish Christians of his day informed his Christian com
mitment. I do not, therefore, systematically portray Paul, but I outline the
beginnings of a systematic reappraisal of his work. If I offer what might
seem to be an unsystematic, incomplete, and necessarily unfinished read
ing of Paul, I gain confidence from the fact that Paul's own work is also
unsystematic, incomplete, and unfinished.
I am not merely reappraising a first-century heresy. Many of Paul's
observations about Christianity mirror contemporary issues within the
Jewish community. But I do not engage in a romantic appreciation of
Paul's or Jesus' early Jewish life, supposedly available to every Jew natu
rally through participation in Judaism and impossible for Christians to
appreciate.5 Yet knowing Jewish texts and sensibilities occasionally al
lows an appreciation for Paul's predicaments and opinions, even if I dis
agree with Paul's decisions.
However much I may disagree with Paul, my reading accedes to the
authenticity of Paul's conversion experience. Religious conflicts of two
xiv INTRODUCTION
thousand years ago should not prevent scholars from appreciating genuine
religious sentiments, even though they may contradict their own. Paul's
religious insights were surely valid ones for him. Religion must take many
forms to speak to the different needs of human society. Although Paul met
opposition from many Jews of his own day, because they believed Jesus to
be neither messiah nor God, his greatest battles were fought against other
Christians, especially Jewish Christians. Further, there is little evidence in
Paul's letters that he thought of himself as leaving Judaism, though he was
aware that his opinions could be construed as transgression. Rather, Paul
considered himself as part of a new Jewish sect and hoped to convince both
fellow Christians and Jews of his vision of redemption. When Paul per
ceived the widening gap between Judaism and Christianity, it caused him
much pain.
History after Paul has judged Christianity to be different from Juda
ism. That fact seems undeniable today, but it was hardly evident in the first
century. Paul would have objected strenuously against any distinction
between his faith and his Judaism, for he continuously preached unity in
Christ between Jews and Christians. Yet Paul's inclusion of both gentiles
and Jews equally in his community was ironically one great step separating
Judaism from Christianity. Paul's Jewish past and the terms of his conver
sion are the keys to understanding why he advocated inclusion in Chris
tianity. Knowing where he came from and where he was determined to
go—what his conversion meant to him—furthers our appreciation of
Paul's achievements.
JEWISH HISTORY IN PAUL'S WRITINGS
A Jewish scholar can make a further contribution to the study
of Paul: he or she can clarify Jewish history from Paul's writings. Many
fundamental rabbinic traditions can no longer be assumed to date from
the time of Jesus, though they purport to be even more ancient.6 Although
rabbinic Judaism claims the Pharisees as forebears, the differences be
tween the rabbis and the Pharisees are great. The Pharisaic movement was
but one among a variety of sects in the first century, and rabbinic Judaism
matured with the publication of the Mishnah around 2Z0 C.E. The Phar
isaic traditions described in the Mishnah are of uncertain date. Preserved
in oral form, the Pharisaic traditions may have originated in the first two
centuries or much earlier, as is often claimed. As in any oral literature,
these traditions may have been altered in transmission, especially by rab
binic editors in the late second century. Rabbinic documents transform the
Introduction xv
Pharisees' first-century position of shared power into one of comfortable
community leadership in the second, third, and fourth centuries.
Rabbinic literature may naturally and unconsciously distort Jewish
traditions in the first century, making Paul's contemporary writings an
important supplement to rabbinic witness. This is not a matter of concern
to scholars alone. A new historical understanding of the development of
rabbinic tradition threatens contemporary Jewish assumptions about the
divinely inspired continuity of the Jewish legal system. Ironically, the New
Testament gives us evidence of Jewish thought and practice in the first
century, helping to establish the authenticity of some mishnaic reports.
And Paul is almost certainly the only New Testament writer to represent
Pharisaic Judaism, though he gives us the view of someone who left it
unconditionally.
There is another unanticipated consequence of our new critical per
spective on early rabbinism. New understanding of the development of
rabbinic tradition has also cast into serious doubt two centuries of Chris
tian scholarship, which too blithely used the Mishnah and Talmud as the
main source for understanding the Jewish opposition to Jesus. The con
verse methodology actually seems more reliable. Study of the New Testa
ment, undeniably a first-century source, has proven to be quite useful for
validating mishnaic recollections of first-century Jewish life, but such com
parisons are in their infancy. The New Testament is also better evidence
for Hellenistic Judaism than is the Mishnah for first-century rabbinism.
The famous handbook of Jewish background to the New Testament by
Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zu Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Mid-
rasch,7 lists important midrashic and mishnaic traditions for each New
Testament passage. In spite of the handbook's sometimes unappreciated
erudition, its methodology is entirely suspect. Rather, a commentary to
the Mishnah should be written, using the New Testament as marginalia
that demonstrates antiquity.
Paul clearly gives us important information about first-century Phar
isaism and Hellenistic Judaism in general, information that even today has
been too easily discounted by an antagonistic Jewish world. Scholars of
Jewish studies frequently disparage Paul's writings, as if to say "Nothing
serious can be concluded about Judaism from such a person." This is a
pretext for ignoring writing with disturbing evaluations of Judaism. It is a
pity that few Jewish writers have attempted to understand Paul. Because of
the polemical context that forms the basis of Paul's letters, Christianity has
been sadly bereft of all but the most daring of Jewish scholars' observa
tions of Paul. Contemporary Jewish scholars, who might be able to read