This post contains only the question by an attendee at the lecture linked below. The questioner asks Paula to confirm her understanding of Paul’s position. Paula strongly supported her statement as a “very rich comment“ about what Paul was doing. In relation to the overall subject of the lecture, Paula does not support the position that Paul created Christianity. The young lady’s question points out the reason Paula believes that.
Young Lady in the Audience
“Hi, first of all, thank you for two really wonderful papers. I have a question, actually, maybe that connects the two, but I was really intrigued by the idea that Paul is a Judaizer, and what he’s requesting of those to whom he’s writing is to accept Jewish theology in some way, and Jewish ethics. And what he’s allowing them to dispense from are just a few very particular rituals and practices that he thinks, well, maybe not everyone has to do, even though Jews typically do those. And the ones that come to mind for me are the Sabbath, keeping kosher, circumcision, and purity. And those are all things that are explicitly, sort of rhetorically and practically, things that distinguish Jews from others, right? They’re the things, the Sabbath through time, interactions, and so maybe one way, and I think this is what you were getting at, but I wanted to ask if this is what you meant: was Paul actually Judaizing, but also wanted to dispense from the things that were designed to create difference, and that was what maybe wasn’t required of everyone, and Jews could continue doing those things, but the project itself was still a Jewish project with those things sort of mitigated.“
Paula Fredrikson
“This is a very rich comment. Does everybody understand? … I’m thinking of Isaiah, which provides the bony structure for the Epistle to the Romans, and at the end of time, when, as Paul says, the full number of the nations and all Israel is saved, and Isaiah, they’re all gonna come to Jerusalem, and [homorously] there’ll be parking for everybody. It’ll be America. That’s not just a pleasant abstraction. He’s talking about the 70 nations descended from Noah’s three sons, and he’s talking about all 12 tribes, both of which are an eschatological concept. We don’t have anything from Paul saying what Jews should do. We only have him yelling at ex-pagan pagans about what they should do, and the things he’s specifically telling them to do.I mean, not worshiping idols is a bizarrely Jewish thing. I mean, look at Menachem, don’t believe me, look at Menachem Stern’s, but I mean, it’s one of the things everybody comments, so it’s just because of the rhetoric in Galatians when Paul is yelling at Peter about being a Judaizer that determined the next 20 centuries of Christian historiography, missing the point that Paul himself is asking. There’s no reason why Gentiles should do all those Jewish things. They’re not becoming Jews, but they’re becoming, as one of my colleagues puts it, Jew-ish, right? Sort of a little bit like, they’re becoming eschatological Gentiles now, and that’s the “now, not yet”.”
Additional comment by Loren T. Stuckenbruck who spoke in the same conference here and below.
“Just a comment on the side. This is really important because you have identified what are really the issues with which Paul is concerned, and those who think that Paul is a founder of Christianity in a high Christological sense. I wouldn’t deny that he thinks a great deal about Jesus and so forth, but what is very, very interesting, and I think James Dunn, at one point, pointed this out as he was arguing with Larry Hurtado about high Christology, low Christology, and so forth, is that Paul’s Jewish opponents, let’s say, Jewish Christians and others who are opposed to him are not arguing with him about Christology. There’s very little indication of that, but are arguing with him about practice, what to do with Gentiles, and I think that’s actually quite interesting, and that dovetails nicely with the emphasis of your lecture.”
Source
Lecture Series — “Apocalypticism and the Recent Past in Second Temple Literature and the New Testament” at The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
