Who made early Christianity? : the Jewish lives of the Apostle Paul

165 Pages·2015·2.61 MB·English

by  Gager, John G.

Who Made Early Christianity?
American Lectures on the History of Religions
his volume is the eighteenth to be published in the series of American Lectures on the
History of Religions for which the American Council of Learned Societies, through its
TCommittee on the History of Religions, assumed responsibility in 1936, and for which
the American Academy of Religion assumed responsibility in 1995. Under the program the
Committee from time to time enlists the services of scholars to lecture in colleges,
universities, and seminaries on topics in need of expert elucidation. Subsequently, when
possible and appropriate, the Committee arranges for the publication of the lectures. Other
volumes in the series are Martin P. Nilsson, Greek Popular Religion (1940); Henri Frankfort,
Ancient Egyptian Religion (1948); Wing-tsit Chan, Religious Trends in Modern China (1953);
Joachim Wach, The Comparative Study of Religions, Christianity (1959); Robert Lawson
Slater, World Religions and World Community (1963); Joseph M. Kitagawa, Religion in
Japanese History (1966); Joseph L. Blau, Modern Varieties of Judaism (1966); Morton
Smith, Palestinian Parties and Politics That Shaped the Old Testament (1971); Philip H.
Ashby, Modern Trends in Hinduism (1974); Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and
Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (1978); Annemarie Schimmel, As Through a Veil: Mystical
Poetry in Islam (1982); Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual
Renunciation in Early Christianity (1988); W. H. McLeod, The Sikhs: History, Religion, and
Society (1989); Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western
Christianity, 200–1336 (1995); Wendy Doniger, The Implied Spider (1998); and Bruce B.
Lawrence, New Faiths, Old Fears: Muslims and Other Asian Immigrants in American
Religious Life (2002).
Who Made Early Christianity?
THE
JEWISH LIVES
OF THE
APOSTLE
PAUL
JOHN G. GAGER
Columbia University Press
New York
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Copyright © 2015 Columbia University Press All rights reserved E-ISBN 978-0-231-53937-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gager, John G.
Who made early Christianity? : the Jewish lives of the Apostle Paul / John G. Gager.
pages cm. — (American lectures on the history of religions ; 18) Includes bibliographical
references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-17404-6 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-231-53937-1 (e-book) 1. Paul, the
Apostle, Saint—Relations with Jews. 2. Identification (Religion) 3. Christianity and other religions
—Judaism. 4. Judaism—Relations—Christianity. 5. Christianity—Origin. I. Title.
BS2506.3.G34 2015
225.9′2—dc23
2014044886
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
1. WAS THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES THE FATHER OF CHRISTIAN ANTI-JUDAISM?
2. THE APOSTLE PAUL IN JEWISH EYES: HERETIC OR HERO?
3. LET’S MEET DOWNTOWN IN THE SYNAGOGUE: FOUR CASE STUDIES
4. TWO STORIES OF HOW EARLY CHRISTIANITY CAME TO BE
5. TURNING THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN: AN ANCIENT JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS
6. EPILOGUE
Notes
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
HESE chapters grew out of a series of lectures delivered in Atlanta,
Georgia, in April of 2013. Sponsored by the American Academy of
Religion (AAR), the lectures form part of the series, The American
T
Lectures in the History of Religions. My lectures were delivered at Agnes
Scott College, Georgia State University, Spelman College, Morehouse
College, and Emory University. My hosts for these lectures were Jack
Fitzmier, Executive Director of the AAR, and Lou Ruprecht of Georgia
State University. Without their friendship and constant support, these
lectures and chapters would not have happened. I am deeply grateful to
them. Their efforts went well beyond what was necessary. I must also
express my gratitude to the students from the various institutions who
attended my lectures and raised important questions in our discussions.
The work reflected in these chapters reaches back over many years
and is indebted to many friends and colleagues in the Department of
Religion at Princeton. Martha Himmelfarb and Leora Batnitzky have
shown encouragement at every stage of my work. Simi Chavel, Naphtali
Meshel, and Azzan Yadin-Israel (Rutgers) demonstrated outstanding
patience and knowledge as we worked through various versions of the
Toledot Yeshu. Peter Schäfer, my distinguished colleague for many
years, served as both mentor and helpful critic. He shared generously
from his enormous knowledge of ancient Judaism. Michael Meerson has
proved to be a reliable resource at many points. Jeffrey Stout has been a
constant companion. Undergraduate students, reaching back to 1968 at
Princeton and elsewhere, have provided a constant source of inspiration.
This is also the place to recognize the work of my graduate students,
who have become my teachers in this prolonged project. In the world of
the academy, there can be no greater joy than seeing one’s students
flourish as distinguished scholars and teachers.
Two deceased scholars—Krister Stendahl and Lloyd Gaston—have
exercised an enormous impact on my understanding of the apostle Paul.
It is impossible to overstate what their work and friendship has meant to
me over many years. I must also recognize the work of two Jewish
scholars, neither of whom was known to me personally, whose work on
Paul deserves far more attention than it has received—Jacob Taubes and
Michael Wyschogrod.
I would be remiss not to acknowledge the support I have received
from various Israeli colleagues, to whom I am grateful—David Satran,
Guy Stroumsa, Israel Yuval, Hillel Newman, Maren Niehoff, Yair
Furstenberg, and Yaacov Deutsch.
I must also acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers of my
manuscript. They read it with great care and understanding. Their
criticisms and suggestions aimed at making this a better book, not a
different one. I can only hope that I have not disappointed them in
following their proposals.
Some of the material in these chapters has appeared in earlier
publications. Portions of chapter 1 appeared in my book Reinventing Paul
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Much of chapter 4 appeared
in my essay “The Rehabilitation of Paul in Jewish Tradition,” in “The One
Who Sews Bountifully”: Essays in Honor of Stanley K. Stowers, ed. C.
Hodge, S. Olyan, D. Ullicci, and E. Wasserman (Providence: Brown
University Press, 2013), 29–41. It is used here by permission. Portions of
chapter 5 have appeared in various earlier publications, as indicated in
the endnotes.
Finally, I dedicate this book to my beloved children—Kristin, Peter, and
Andrea. They make living and working worthwhile.
INTRODUCTION
The vanquished have given their laws to the victors.
—SENECA, ON SUPERSTITION
ENECA, the aristocratic Roman philosopher, penned these words
early in the first century CE. A variant of the saying was already in
Scirculation in Rome; it expressed Roman anxiety over the
pervasive Greek influence in every aspect of Roman life—art,
architecture, mythology, philosophy, and more. Rome had defeated
Greece on the battlefield but had been swamped by Greek culture at
home.1 Here Seneca deploys the saying to express his dismay at the
spread of Judaism among Romans, a fact well illustrated by numerous
Roman authors of the time. Jews had come to Rome as slaves in the first
century BCE, but were now attracting Romans in disconcerting numbers.
For us, the saying may serve as a useful reminder of Judaism’s social
and political status in the period that will concern us—from the fourth
century CE to the modern era. Two points are essential: first, by the end
of the first century CE, the vast majority of Jews lived in the Diaspora,
outside of what the Romans had renamed Syria Palaestina; and second,
from the time of Constantine (d. 337 CE), the first Christian emperor,
onward, Rome was increasingly a Christian empire—he embraced the
new faith around 312 CE and Theodosius I (d. 395 CE) adopted it as the
official religion of the empire. Before that time, Jews and Christians had
existed as religious minorities in the Mediterranean world, with Jews very
much advantaged by virtue of their great antiquity. The cultural space that
Christianity sought to occupy as it expanded beyond its Palestinian
birthplace was already occupied by an older, well-established, and legally
protected biblical faith. As shown in the following chapters, Jewish
synagogues and their communities were prominent features on the
cultural landscape of the Roman world and their demography included
Gentiles as well as Jews. Jews in the Diaspora continued to occupy that