Paul, a New Covenant Jew

Rethinking Pauline Theology

Brant Pitre, Michael P. Barber, John A. Kincaid

• Editorial: Eerdmans
• Año: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781467457026
• Categoría: Theology & Religion
• Categoría: Biblical Studies

After the landmark work of E. P. Sanders, the task of rightly accounting for Paul's relationship to Judaism has dominated the last forty years of Pauline scholarship. Pitre, Barber, and Kincaid argue that Paul is best viewed as a new covenant Jew, a designation that allows the apostle to be fully Jewish, yet in a manner centered on the person and work of Jesus the Messiah. This new covenant Judaism provides the key that unlocks the door to many of the difficult aspects of Pauline theology.

Paul, a New Covenant Jew  is a rigorous, yet accessible overview of Pauline theology intended for ecumenical audiences. In particular, it aims to be the most useful and up to date text on Paul for Catholic Seminarians. The book engages the best recent scholarship on Paul from both Protestant and Catholic interpreters and serves as a launching point for ongoing Protestant-Catholic dialogue.

CHAPTER 1

What Kind of Jew Was Paul?

Paul was and remained a Jew.

—E. P. Sanders¹

Christianity rapidly became a new covenantal nomism.

—E. P. Sanders²

Over the course of the last century, New Testament scholars have come to a consensus about the historical fact that Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew, and that he cannot be properly understood apart from first-century Judaism.³ The same conclusion has been reached by scholars who study the apostle Paul. No serious exegete disputes the notion that Paul was profoundly formed by the Judaism of his day, the period in Jewish history typically referred to as the “Second Temple” era.⁴ Paul himself makes his Jewish heritage clear. For example, in Galatians, Paul writes, “We ourselves are Jews [Ioudaioi] by birth” (Gal 2:15). Yet when it comes to Paul’s relationship with Judaism after his transformation from persecutor of the church to apostle of Christ, things are not so simple. What kind of Jew was the apostle Paul? On this point, scholars are divided. As Douglas Campbell rightly notes, “Debate over Paul’s relationship with Judaism, and especially over his view of the law, has dominated discussion of the apostle for the last quarter century.”⁵

In this chapter, we will begin our study of Pauline theology by attempting to situate it within the context of first-century Judaism. As we will see, when it comes to the question of how best to describe Paul’s relationship to Judaism, contemporary scholarship can be broadly categorized according to three major approaches: (1) Paul the “former Jew”; (2) Paul the “eschatological Jew”; and (3) Paul the “torah-observant Jew.” To these we will propose a fourth option: (4) Paul the “new covenant Jew.” We will make the case that this category of “new covenant Jew” is the most helpful way to locate Paul within the wider and complex world of first-century Judaism.⁶ As we hope to show, exploring the question “What kind of Jew was Paul?” is extremely important for understanding his overall theology. How one thinks about the apostle’s relationship to Judaism will have a direct impact on how one answers other questions about his eschatology, Christology, soteriology, and so on.

A couple of caveats before we begin. First, this chapter is by no means a comprehensive account of contemporary Pauline scholarship. Nor should the various views discussed be read in terms of a chronological progression. Rather, what we offer here is a brief taxonomy of perspectives that will introduce the reader to a representative sampling of recent scholarly assessments of Paul and Judaism. It will also help us identify some of the fundamental difficulties involved in interpreting Paul’s overall theology. We must insist, though, that the different perspectives outlined here should not be seen as hermetically sealed categories.⁷ Even though some scholars may be listed as major representatives of one approach, aspects of their thought may cohere well or overlap with certain features of the other general outlooks mentioned.⁸ For this reason, the reader should keep in mind that the taxonomy is intended for heuristic purposes and should not be understood in an overly rigid fashion. With this in mind, we begin our overview with three different common approaches to explaining Paul’s relationship to Judaism. After this we will offer our own proposal, which will set the stage for our discussion of the apostle in the rest of this book.

A Former Jew

The first major approach to the question of Paul’s Jewishness is one that many readers are probably familiar with: Paul as a “former” Jew. This approach tends to emphasize the discontinuity between the practices and beliefs of Paul the Christian apostle and the practices and beliefs of Saul the Jewish Pharisee. It can be associated to varying degrees with the work of scholars such as Rudolf Bultmann,⁹ Ernst Käsemann,¹⁰ Stephen Westerholm,¹¹ and Love Sechrest.¹² In order to clarify the basic contours of this perspective, it is helpful to focus on three aspects of Paul’s relationship with Judaism: (1) his “conversion”; (2) his relationship with the Jewish “law” or “torah”;¹³ and (3) his views on the salvation of Israel.

Paul as a Convert from Judaism to Christianity

First, according to the portrait of Paul as a “former Jew,” Paul is best seen as having experienced a conversion—a radical “turning” (Lat. conversio)—from the religion known as “Judaism” to the religion that would come to be known as “Christianity.” In support of this perspective, scholars of this persuasion point to several important texts in Paul’s letters in which he speaks of no longer being “under” the Jewish law and of his “earlier life in Judaism.” These writers interpret the latter expression as indicating that Judaism was part of his “past” and not his present identity:

To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. (1 Cor 9:20)

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. (Gal 1:13–14)

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. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. (Phil 3:4–9)

Paul’s declaration that he is not himself “under the law [hypo nomon]” (1 Cor 9:20) is especially important for the “former Jew” approach. The statement suggests that he does not consider himself subject to the torah of Moses. Although first-century Judaism was extremely diverse, a solid case can be made that one thing that virtually all Jews held in common was the belief that they were bound to obey the law of Moses as contained in the Pentateuch.¹⁴ It is hard to imagine any ordinary first-century Jew ever declaring, as Paul does, that he or she is not “under the law” (1 Cor 9:20). Notice also that Paul twice uses the language of “Judaism” (Ioudaismos) to refer to his earlier religious life (Gal 1:13, 14). This could be taken as implying that he no longer sees himself as living within Judaism. To be sure, Paul acknowledges and even boasts about the fact that he is “of the people of Israel [ek genous Israēl]” and “a Hebrew [Hebraios]” (Phil 3:5). Nevertheless, he appears to turn this immediately on its head by declaring that he has not only suffered the “loss of all things”—that is, what he had gained through righteousness under the torah—but counts them as “rubbish” (Phil 3:8). This translation dramatically softens the original (and quite crude) Greek word Paul uses, skybala, which literally means “crud” or “excrement.”¹⁵ One could hardly think of a more vivid way (and one could easily think of several less offensive ways) of describing a radical break with his earlier life.

Pointing to these and other such passages, various scholars do not hesitate to speak of Paul’s “conversion” from Judaism to Christianity.¹⁶ For example, the famous twentieth-century scholar Rudolf Bultmann describes Paul as having experienced a “conversion” that “brought” Paul “into the Hellenistic Church” and situated him “within Hellenistic Christianity.”¹⁷ Along similar lines, Ernst Käsemann places Paul’s Jewish identity in his past: “Paul is here [in Philippians 3:4–9] setting a boundary between himself and his own past—as the past of a devout Jew.”¹⁸ More recently, certain Protestant scholars have made similar comments. For example, Stephen Westerholm argues that Paul may correctly be described as “a Christian” who had “abandoned” his Jewish way of life.¹⁹ Likewise, Love Sechrest writes that Paul “does not see himself as a Jew in the first place” but believes instead that he and his fellow Christians “had become members of a new racial identity.”²⁰ Put differently, in the words of Rudolf Bultmann, Paul represented “a Torah-free Gentile Christianity.”²¹

Paul and the Torah—Justification by Faith versus Works-Righteousness

Second, scholars who depict Paul as a “former Jew” also tend to regard Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith apart from works of the law as a, if not the, central feature of his theology. According to this point of view, Paul’s doctrine of justification is directed against Jewish “legalism,” which saw the performance of the works commanded in the Jewish torah as a means of acquiring righteousness through one’s own efforts. As Ernst Käsemann once put it, “The apostle’s message of justification is a fighting doctrine, directed against Judaism.”²²

In support of this view, scholars cite, for example, Paul’s famous statements in Romans about justification by faith apart from works of the law:

For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. . . . For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. (Rom 3:28; 4:2–5)

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. I can testify that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. (Rom 10:1–4)

In these texts Paul articulates his doctrine that a person is “justified [dikaiousthai...