Who did Paul think he was? A study of Jewish-Christian identity

New Testament Studies

Volumn 45, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 174-193

  Dunn, James D G ^a  

^a DURHAM UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 61949374652     PISSN: 00286885     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S002868859800174X     Document Type: Article

References (124)

1. This paper was written for the seminar 'Paul among Diaspora Jews', which focused on the theme of Jewish and Christian identity at the Copenhagen meeting of the SNTS (1998). I am grateful to the members of the seminar for a very valuable discussion and for most helpful comments
2. On the likelihood of this reconstruction see M. Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul (London: SCM/Philadelphia: TPI, 1991)
3. on secular education of Jews in the diaspora see L. H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University, 1993) 57-9
4. I echo the consensus view regarding the pre-70 Pharisees; see e.g. The bibliography in my The Partings of the Ways between Christianity and Judaism (London: SCM/Philadelphia: TPI, 1991) 109-11. I apologize for citing so many of my own contributions in what follows, but it is the simplest way to indicate the tangential and overlapping research that has fed into the present paper
5. The nearest exception is K.-W. Niebuhr, Heidenapostel aus Israel: Die jüdische Identität des Paulus nach ihrer Darstellung in seinen Briefen (WUNT 62; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1992)
6. Cf. e.g. M. Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The Origins and Development of New Testament Christology (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1991)
7. S. J. D. Cohen and E. S. Frerichs, eds, Diasporas in Antiquity (BJS 288; Atlanta: Scholars, 1993)
8. J. J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (New York: Crossroad, 1983)
9. M. Goodman, Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994)
10. E. P. Sanders et al., eds, Jewish and Christian Self-definition. Vol. 2: Aspects of Judaism in the Graeco-Roman Period (London: SCM, 1981)
11. L. H. Schiffman, Who was a Jew? Rabbinic and Halakhic Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Schism (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1985)
12. W. C. van Unnik, Das Selbstverständnis der jüdischen Diaspora in der hellenistischen-römischen Zeit (Leiden: Brill, 1993)
13. The great exception is J. M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora from Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE -117 CE) (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996)
14. cf. also D. Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of California, 1994)
15. The great exception here is A. F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale, 1990)
16. The subject is not addressed in T. Engberg-Pedersen, ed., Paul in his Hellenistic Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995)
17. The question is not asked, e.g. by the two most recent biographies of Paul: E. Lohse, Paulus: Eine Biographie (München: C. H. Beck, 1996)
18. and J. Murphy-O'Connor, Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996)
19. The treatment by J. Becker, Paulus: Der Apostel der Völker (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1989) 81-6 is fairly superficial, focusing primarily on Paul's sense of apostleship
20. Cf. e.g. J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs, eds, 'To See Ourselves as Others See Us': Christians, Jews, 'Others' in Late Antiquity (Chico: Scholars, 1985)
21. J. T. Sanders, Schismatics, Sectarians, Dissidents, Deviants: The First One Hundred Years of Jewish-Christian Relations (London: SCM, 1993)
22. S. G. Wilson, Related Strangers: Jews and Christians 70-170 CE (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995)
23. H. Maccoby's intemperate The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986) shows just how sensitive the issue still is
24. Even Barclay, Jews (particularly ch. 13) is more concerned with Paul's social identity than with his self-identity, although, of course, there is no clear line of distinction between these two. But see also his 'Paul among Diaspora Jews: Anomaly or Apostate?', JSNT 60 (1995) 89-120. The question, How was Paul regarded by others?, may have been more decisive for the outcome of Paul's mission in relation to the diaspora synagogues (Barclay, 'Paul among Diaspora Jews'); but the question of Paul's self-identity still retains theological significance for Christian self-understanding
25. See further e.g. my The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998) 331 n. 87
26. Details in my Romans (WBC 38; Dallas: Word, 1988) 31
27. This was one of the points raised at the Copenhagen seminar
28. Rom 1.1 (and other epistolary introductions)
29. Rom 1.5 ('we' form)
30. Rom 11.13; 15.15-20
31. 1 Cor 9.1-2; 15.9-10
32. Gal 1.12-16 (cf. 1.1)
33. cf. Becker, Paulus (above, n. 8)
34. See e.g. J. H. Schütz, Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority (SNTSMS 26; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1975)
35. B. R. Gaventa, 'Galatians 1 and 2: Autobiography as Paradigm', NovT 28 (1986) 309-26
36. J. D. G. Dunn, 'Paul: Apostate or Apostle of Israel?', ZNW 89 (1998) 256-71
37. Rom. 1.14 ('I am debtor both to Greeks and barbarians, both to wise and foolish') looks like another candidate for helping us define Paul's self-identity, as acknowledging an indebtedness to wider Greco-Roman culture. However, the sense is rather of Paul's obligation (by virtue of his apostolic calling) to take his gospel to Greeks and barbarians
38. See the discussion in my Theology of Paul, §15.2
39. Rom 3.3
40. Phil 6.1) - Χριστιανισ μό ς both modelled on and set in contrast to Ιcombining comma aboveουδαϊσμ ός
41. Insofar as I have shared in that reaction, what follows is a more careful statement of it; see e.g. my 'Paul's Conversion - A Light to Twentieth-Century Disputes', in Evangelium - Schriftauslegung - Kirche, FS P. Stuhlmacher (ed. J. Ådna et al.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997) 77-93
42. See further J. M. Scott, Paul and the Nations (WUNT 84; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1995) ch. 2
43. See particularly G. Harvey, The True Israel: Uses of the Names Jew, Hebrew and Israel in Ancient Jewish Literature and Early Christian Literature (AGAJU 35; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 43-61
44. Note also the effective contrast between 1 and 2 Maccabees in K. G. Kuhn, TDNT 3.363-4
45. 'Jerusalem was the religious focus for all Jews, wherever they lived' (M. Smallwood, The Jews Under Roman Rule from Pompey to Diocletian [Leiden: Brill, 1981] 124; see further 120-43)
46. Hence the use of εcombining comma abovéθνο ς for Israelites in exile, corresponding to the Greek usage of εcombining comma abovéθνος for a group of people who shared common descent, language or customs, even if they did not form a politically unified entity (Scott, Paul and the Nations, 68)
47. Esther 8.17 (LXX)
48. Theodotus in Eusebius, Praep. Evang. 9.22.5
49. Plutarch, Cicero 7.6.5
50. Josephus, War 2.454, 462-3
51. Ign. Magn. 10.3
52. cf. Josephus, Ant. 20.38-46
53. Suetonius, Domitian 12.2
54. Dio Cassius 67.14.1-3
55. See also S. J. D. Cohen, '"Those Who Say They are Jews and Are Not": How Do You Know a Jew in Antiquity When You See One?', in Cohen and Frerichs, Diasporas in Antiquity, 1-45 (here 31-5)
56. See e.g. The texts cited in M. Whittaker, Jews and Christians: Graeco-Roman Views (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1984) 85-91
57. Feldman, Jew and Gentile, particularly 298-300, 344-8
58. Barclay, Jews, 404
59. Cf. also the conclusion of Casey, on 'identity factors', that ethnicity outweighs all the rest (Jewish Prophet, especially 14)
60. and Schiffman's observation that 'Judaism is centred on the Jewish people, a group whose membership is fundamentally determined by heredity', and his argument that even heretics did not lose their 'Jewish status' (Who Was a Jew?, 38, 49, 61)
61. Cf. particularly Rev 2.9; 3.9
62. See further A. Fridrichsen, 'Der wahre Jude und sein Lob: Röm 2.28f.', Symbolae Arctoae 1 (1927) 39-19
63. Cf. Gal 2.14 and n. 30 above
64. C. K. Barrett, 1 Corinthians (London: A. & C. Black, 1968) 211
65. See also S. C. Barton, '"All Things to All People": Paul and the Law in the Light of 1 Corinthians 9.19-23', in Paul and the Mosaic Law (ed. J. D. G. Dunn; WUNT 89; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996) 271-85
66. 2 Macc 2.21 ('fought bravely on behalf of Judaism')
67. also 4 Mace. 4.26
68. See also S. J. D. Cohen, 'Ioudaios: "Judaean" and "Jew" in Susanna, First Maccabees, and Second Maccabees', in Geschichte - Tradition - Reflexion, Band I. Judentum, FS M. Hengel (ed. H. Cancik et al.; Tübingen: Mohr, 1996) 211-20 (here 219)
69. The language of 2 Mace 8.1 and Gal 1.13-14 ('within Judaism') is found also in a funerary inscription from Italy which praises a woman 'who lived a gracious life inside Judaism' - Judaism understood as 'a sort of fenced-off area in which Jewish lives are led' (Y. Amir, 'The Term Ioudaismos: A Study in Jewish-Hellenistic Self-Identification', Immanuel 14 [1982] 35-6, 39-40)
70. This 'particularism' inherent in 'Judaism' goes hand in hand with Jewish 'universalism'; see my 'Was Judaism Particularist or Universalist?', in Judaism in Late Antiquity Vol. 3: Where We Stand: Issues and Debates in Ancient Judaism Part III (ed. J. Neusner and A. J. Avery-Peck; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 57-73
71. See further my 'Judaism in the Land of Israel in the First Century', in Judaism in Late Antiquity Part 2: Historical Syntheses (ed. J. Neusner; Leiden: Brill, 1995) 229-61 (particularly 246-51)
72. cf. E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE - 66 CE (London: SCM, 1992)
73. Cf. e.g. The attitudes expressed from within Qumran in 1QS 1-2 and 4QMMT; see further my 'Jesus and Factionalism in Early Judaism', in Hillel and Jesus: Comparisons of Two Major Religious Leaders (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and L. J. Johns; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997) 156-75
74. Feldman, Jew and Gentile, 45-51; cf. The explanatory note in Mark 7.3
75. In what follows see also Niebuhr, Heidenapostel, particularly 21-35
76. I follow the usual derivation of 'Pharisees' as meaning originally 'separated ones'; see e.g. my Partings of the Ways, 106. The clear parallel occurrences of the cognate verb in 4QMMT C7 ('separated ourselves from the rest of the people') and Gal 2.12 (Cephas 'separated himself' from the gentile believers) reflect a similar attitude
77. Both Josephus and Luke testify that the Pharisees were marked out by their αcombining comma aboveκρίβει α, that is, their concern to keep the law with scrupulous accuracy and exactness (Josephus, War 1.108-9; 2.162
78. Life 191
79. Ant. 20.200-1
80. Acts 22.3; 26.5)
81. Acts 11.29 notwithstanding; Χριστιαν οί is a latinism (Christiani) and probably denotes what appeared to the Roman overlords in Syria as a faction/party of Jews (like the Herodiani = adherents of Herod/members of the Herod party, or the Pompeiani = adherents of Pompey/members of the Pompey party). Worth recalling again here is Josephus's indication that in the 60s there were significant numbers of 'Judaizers' (see above at n. 30) in every Syrian city (War 2.462-3)
82. J. Reynolds and R. Tannenbaum, Jews and Godfearers at Aphrodisias [Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 1987] 48-66
83. I. Levinskaya, The Book of Acts in its Diaspora Setting [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996] chs. 4-7)
84. and by Jewish readiness to recognize 'righteous Gentiles' (see now T. L. Donaldson, 'Proselytes or "Righteous Gentiles"? The Status of Gentiles in Eschatological Pilgrimage Patterns of Thought', JSP 7 [1990] 3-27)
85. Harvey, True Israel, 146
86. see also e.g. Kuhn, TDNT 3.367-9
87. J. Wanke, EDNT 1.369
88. Hengel, Pre-Christian Paul, 25
89. M. Bockmuehl, Philippians (BNTC; London: A. & C. Black, 1997) 196
90. The alternative suggestion, that it simply denotes Jew in contrast to gentile (as by G. D. Fee, Philippians [NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995] 307
91. cf. N. P. Lemche, ABD 3.95) hardly gives sufficient weight to the full phrase ('Hebrew of the Hebrews') or its place in the list of Phil 3.4-7. The point is not much weakened when it is primarily language usage that is in view
92. Often referred to is the observation of J. B. Lightfoot that the list is 'arranged in ascending scale' (Philippians [London: Macmillan, 1868] 146)
93. Kuhn, TDNT 3.359-65
94. see also P. Tomson, 'The Names Israel and Jew in Ancient Judaism and in the New Testament', Bijdragen 47 (1986) 120-40, 266-89
95. Harvey, True Israel, objects to such 'insider' language, but recognizes that 'Israel' is the name for the people chosen by God, even when many of its people fall short. His real objection is to the idea that 'Israel' was limited as a title to a perceived 'pure or true Israel' - which is not the point of the 'insider' terminology
96. Matt 27.11/Mark 15.2/Luke 23.3
97. Matt 27.29/Mark 15.18
98. Matt 27.37/Mark 15.26/Luke 23.38
99. Luke 23.37
100. Tomson, 'Names', 280
101. S. Zeitlin, The Jews: Race, Nation or Religion? (Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1936) 31-2
102. It probably needs to be repeated that the theme of these three chapters is Israel, not 'the church and Israel', as is so often assumed (see e.g. those cited in my Theology of Paul, 507 n. 41)
103. See also Niebuhr, Heidenapostel, 167-75
104. again my 'Paul: Apostate or Apostle of Israel?' (above, n. 17)
105. On other notable identity markers it is not possible to give a clear answer. Did Paul observe the sabbath? We have to note his two-way openness, in opposite directions(!), implied in Rom 14.5 and 1 Cor 9.20. Did Paul pay the Temple tax? The answer is caught up in the ambivalence of the collection (Rom 15.26-7) and of Paul's attitude to Jerusalem (Gal 4.25-6)
106. See further, e.g., my 'What was the Issue between Paul and "Those of the Circumcision"?', in Paulus und das antike Judentum (ed. M. Hengel and U. Heckel; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1991) 295-313
107. See my '"Neither Circumcision nor Uncircumcision, but . . ." (Gal 5.2-12; 6.12-16
108. Note the language of 1 Cor 6.11
109. Phil 4.8
110. not to mention 2 Cor 7.1
111. 2 Cor 12.21
112. Gal 5.19
113. Col 3.5
114. 1 Thess 2.3; 4.7)
115. See e.g. The data in my Romans, 61-6
116. Idolatry: Rom 1.18-25
117. 1 Cor 5.10-11; 6.9; 10.7, 14
118. Gal 5.20
119. Col. 3.5
120. 1 Thess 1.9
121. 1 Cor 5.1; 6.13, 18; 7.2
122. 1 Thess 4.3
123. Note the thesis of P. J. Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakha in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles (Assen: Van Gorcum/Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), that what Paul was doing in 1 Cor 8-10 was offering 'hellenistic halakhah' on gentile food (ch. 5)
124. Cohen observes that Augustine knew Christians who still called themselves Iudaei, and that Augustine himself wanted Christians to be called Israel, but not Iudaei ('Those Who Say They Are Jews and Are Not', 2)