| PAUL IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN SCHOLARSHIP
When we move from the king's road of Lystra to the highways of the world, it is amazing to see how Western scholarship has altered Paul's portrait. The shifting conclusions of scholarship are not due to the discovery of radically new sources in our time. Rather, it is a question of the presuppositions of scholars. Nevertheless, the spectrum of varying assertions teaches us to see the whole sweep of Paul's person and teaching. A closer analysis also leads us to the foundations of our faith. The Protestant churches have traditionally emphasised Paul's teaching of justification by faith without works of the Law. This had the effect that all other premisses began to be called into question and even the genuineness of, for example, Paul's so-called pastoral epistles was queried. Ferdinand Christian Bauer (1792 - 1860) tried to press Paul into a uniform mould by accepting only his "polemical letters" to the Romans, Corinthians and Galatians. He was opposed in particular by the famous Professor J. Chr. K. von Hofmann (d. 1877) of the University of Erlangen and the more moderate conservative B. Weiss. They considered that Paul's "pastoral epistles" to Timothy and Titus were pastoral letters created by the spiritual situation in the churches and so doctrinal stances were not required. Early on it was indeed realized that the piety of the infant church of Jerusalem involved observance of the Law as in contemporary Judaism. They considered it strange that Paul did not demand that converted Gentiles be circumcised. Similarly, he did not oblige them to observe Moses' special precepts. In the 1880s more exhaustive acquaintance was made with ancient synagogue sources. In particular, F. Weber began to use them to create an even deeper gulf between Jewish and Christian thought. Thus Jewish thought was caricatured as something which does not correspond to reality. It heightened the tension between church and synagogue. A healthy turn in this discussion was later brought by certain Jewish scholars, such as C.G. Montefiore and H.-J. Schoeps. In 1926 Montefiore was elected president of the liberal Jewish world movement. He set forth his conception of Christianity and its sources in his expositions of the first three gospels. In addition, he wrote some studies on the relation between Paul and rabbinic literature.6 Montefiore said that Jesus' teaching "is more and something other than merely a collection of doctrinal statements thrown together. It is not only the sum of its parts, it is a whole, it is spirit. This spirit has the signs of genius." ... Although Judaism has statements reminiscent of Jesus' teaching, and if they were "combined in a book, not even then would one be able to achieve a substitute work of such great value: its uniformity, aroma, spirit and its whole genius would be gone."7 And he saw the very nucleus of the Gospel in three sayings of Jesus: 1. "The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45), 2. "I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance" (Lk. 5:32) and 3. "The Son of Man has come to seek and save what was lost" (Lk. 19:10). "In these words of saving and seeking love Jesus put his entire personality into the task." It is noteworthy that liberal scholarship usually denies the uniformity of Jesus' teaching and in particular the doctrine of the Atonement. In precisely these emphases the Jewish scholar sees the heart of Jesus' teaching. Going on to describe Paul, Montefiore wonders how a Jewish scholar could have created so original a doctrinal unity. A fashionable assertion, which is only partly true, was: "If Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God, his followers proclaimed him himself."8 Paul began to be viewed as the real creator of Christianity. In modern Hebrew there is a word-play which illustrates this assertion: "Jesus created a sect within Judaism (Heb. "kat"), but Paul turned it into a religion (Heb. "dat")." We should find an objective response to these assertions. Montefiore succeeded in proving to the scholars of his time that the caricatured picture of Judaism created by Weber and Protestant divines is thoroughly misleading. His source material was principally derived from 4th- and 5th-century rabbinic sources. From these he concluded that the Jew does not at all "earn" forgiveness by his good works. They believe that God is merciful to those who repent of their sins. It is not based on human performance. Paul evidently aimed his message mainly at Hellenistic Jews in the Dispersion, who had a more legalistic interpretation of faith. The Jewish scholar H.-J. Schoeps also emphasized similar things. The election of Israel is based on God's sovereign grace. Good works defined by the Law are of significance only for children of the covenant. Hellenistic Judaism had separated the Torah, or the Law, from its original context. Jewish scholars repeat from time to time the half playful saying that the Torah was given only to those who ate manna in the wilderness. And only these manna-eaters are capable of relating the six hundred and thirteen commandments and prohibitions and their additional expositions, the "seyag ha-Torah", that is, "the fence or hedge of the Law" in its correct framework. Then the Law is observed "be-kavanah" or "deliberately", going into it deeply and with gratitude to God. The Apostle Paul's theology should not be approached in isolation from the teachings of Jesus. This truth was realized by the only Israeli Jesus scholar so far to have gained a world-wide reputation, Professor Joseph Klausner (1874 - 1958). When I met him in early spring 1955, he told of the origins of his books. First he wrote his Hebrew-language study, Israel's Messianic Idea. His other major work, entitled Jesus of Nazareth, took him fifteen years to write. He told me that he had made a careful study of all the church fathers and the first Christian writers and all that had been written over a period of one hundred and fifty years on the origins of the Christian church. Klausner's book on Jesus was finished in 1922. In 1929 disturbances broke out in Jerusalem. At the same time the material collected for the book on Paul was stolen from Professor Klausner's house in Talpiot. Of this he said, "Only he who has lost his child, the joy and hope of many years, can comprehend my pain." When in 1939 he finally finished his book From Jesus to Paul, he had dedicated to it a total of thirty-two years. It is worth mentioning that it contains approximately 2,300 references and even the Finnish Professor Antti F. Puukko is quoted nine times. The interest of Jews in the foundations of Christianity appears best in the comprehensiveness with which the subject is dealt with. In the 1930s in Nazi Germany Gösta Lindeskog wrote his doctoral thesis, entitled On Jesus Research in Modern Judaism.9 He said he had received the stimulus for this subject from the book Is Jesus a Historical Person? by the Chief Rabbi of Stockholm, Professor Gottlieb Klein.10 This little book has also been a decisive spur for my own love for Israel. It is illustrative that in Lindeskog's bibliography there are 381 Jewish and 119 Christian scholars, of whom several have published somewhere between five and twenty articles and books in the field. They touch upon rabbinic literature, the teachings of Jesus and issues relating to Paul's message. In Hebrew there is a saying, hamosif gorea, that is, "he who adds lessens" -- too much going into details lessens the clarity of the presentation. Therefore there is no sense in referring to all discussion relating to Paul. We cannot understand the Apostle Paul if we only know these specialist academic analyses of Judaism. The most important scholars are indeed the greatest experts in their fields. As a religion, Judaism does not, however, represent "pure doctrinism" or "orthodoxy". It aims rather at "practical" observance of the Law or "orthopraxy". Neither in Judaism can one speak of theology. Rather, it is always a question of the opinions of different rabbis, which are compared with each other. And their disputes over interpretation are as pointed as the attitude of Paul towards the Judaistic groups in the infant church. Scandinavian religious studies are based to a great extent on the work of Hugo Odeberg, a gifted scholar of Semitic languages, of David Hedegård, an expert on Jewish prayer literature, of the Jewish scholars Gottlieb Klein and Marcus Ehrenpreis, and of Hugo Valentin.11 Hugo Odeberg identified Rabbinic Judaism with Pharisaism. Weber had created a deepening gulf between Jewish and Christian thought. Thus the idea was impressed that normative Judaism was emphatically "casuistic", and that with its six hundred and thirteen commands and their interpretations it dictated in minute detail the life of the individual believer. In practice it is indeed often so. And for that very reason the rabbis disputed among themselves. Jesus and Paul too rebuked the distortions of their day. Many Talmud scholars emphasised mood ethics, that good works must be motivated from a good heart. In the anthology Pirqei Abot, or "Sayings of the Fathers", there is discussion about what is the best thing for a person to seek - a good eye, a good companion, a good neighbour or the ability to see "causal connections" (et ha-nolad). Rabbi Eleazar reply is: "A good heart!" On the other hand, it is said of the obligation to do good to one's neighbour that "God is merciful and remembers in his goodness all who know him and all who do not know him; in the same way you must remember one another." And "if your enemy is hungry, give him bread; if he is thirsty, give him water."12 The Pharisees avoided using the name of God and replaced it with either the word "place" or "heaven". The expressions 'the glory of heaven', 'the fear of heaven' and also 'the kingdom of heaven' always referred to God. So believers were urged: "Let all your actions be for the sake of heaven," or "it is not most important whether one does much or little, but that one directs one's thoughts to heaven," that is, to God. Also Pirqei Abot says, "Be not like servants who serve their rabbi in order to receive remuneration"; the rabbis interpret this as meaning God. It means that our work is always done "out of love for God" (the Hebrew equivalent is the word "place"). And Rabbi Ben Azzai says, "The reward for a commandment is the commandment itself, and the wages of sin is sin."13 Paul speaks in Romans 6:25 in similar terms: "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus." This mood ethics is emphasised in the abstruse interpretation of the Law in the Talmud, sometimes very beautifully: "To everyone who does not do his business for the sake of heaven may it be granted that he should do them for the sake of heaven" ... "and with a whole heart"..."I have been protected, and, however, I am as if I had not been protected, I am only like dust ... look, before you I am like a vessel full of shame and filth ... both are in the same position, he who does much and he who does little, when it is done before heaven ... and is even concerned with the foreigner in the market, so that he would be loved above and welcome below and in favour with all creatures." "The goal of wisdom is repentance and good works... and whoever does not do his good works for the sake of heaven, it would be better for him not to have been created."14 Odeberg directed main attention to the rabbis' teaching that man has free will. Paul, on the contrary, emphasised that man is corrupted by original sin. Therefore he is not capable in his own strength of doing what is acceptable to God. Only regeneration changes the human mind, so that one "is renewed in mind and spirit" and has "the mind of the Spirit" ... but then one must live one's life "with fear and trembling."15 This emphasis on free will generally accepted by the rabbis appears in Jewish prayer literature, the Talmud and the sayings of the Fathers. In this context there is reason to mention only some clearer statements: Pirqei Abot 3:16 cites the well-known words of Rabbi Aqiba: "Everything is predetermined; people have been given free will and God's goodness judges the world according to the preponderance of works (Heb. lefi rov ha-maáseh)."16 The rabbis say unambiguously that here it is a question of free will and that the main trend of people's deeds is taken into account at the final judgment. "Blessed are Israelites when they practise the Torah and good works and when their evil impulse is under their own control and not they under its control." "Blessed is the man who controls his evil impulse like a man and loves the Law" ..."Be not like slaves who serve their master for the sake of their allowance." "Who is a mighty man? He that subdues his evil impulse."17 The character of the Jewish conception of man, which comes up in Pauline scholarship, is perhaps best visible in the works of the historian Josephus. Josephus had himself experienced both a Pharisaic and an Essene period in his life. So as an expert he tackles the essential differences between the main religious parties of his time: "Now at this time there were three religious parties among the Jews, which held different opinions concerning human affairs; the first being that of the Pharisees, the second that of the Sadducees, and the third that of the Essenes. As for the Pharisees, they say that certain deeds are subject to Fate, but not all; other deeds are dependent upon Fate but not brought about by Fate. The sect of the Essenes, however, declares that Fate is mistress of all things, and that everything that happens is predetermined. But the Sadducees do away with Fate ... all things lie within our own power, so that we ourselves are responsible for our well-being, while we suffer misfortune through our own stupidity." Liberal theological scholarship claims that "the doctrine of predestination, that someone is predetermined to salvation or some one else to damnation, is a good example" of the "detaching" of New Testament thought patterns "entirely from their original contexts."18 Our quotations from statements made by the rabbis and Josephus the historian show, however, that the New Testament is occupied with precisely contemporary problems. Acts 2:23 says that Jesus was killed "by God's predetermined decision and foreknowledge." And Rom. 8:29 tells, in Paul's words, that God has "foreknown" us and "predestined us to be conformed to the likeness of his Son." Similarly, Eph. 1:4-5 emphasizes that God has "chosen us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless" and he has "predestined us to be adopted as his sons." 1 Tim. 2:4 adds that God "wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." Peter too agrees with the same conceptual world when he says in 2 Pet. 3:9 that God "does not want anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." This limited and positive doctrine of predestination of the Pharisaic movement arises "from its original context." Josephus also states that "the Pharisees had passed on to the people certain regulations of the tradition of the fathers which are not recorded in the Laws of Moses, for which reason they are rejected by the Sadducees, who hold that only those regulations should be considered valid which were written down in Scripture, and that those from the tradition of the fathers need not be observed." Nowadays a pious Jew finds it difficult to admit that the so-called "taryag" or six hundred and thirteen Law precepts contains commandments which were not given by Moses, although the rabbis concede from time to time that something is only from the fathers and not from Moses.19 Josephus himself was one of the Pharisees. And the reason may be, as he says in another context, that "the Pharisees simplify their standard of living, avoiding sumptuous fare. They follow the voice of reason and do what seems good. They think that they must honestly aim in practice at rational solutions ... Though they postulate that everything is brought about by Fate, still they do not deprive people of the freedom to act as they see best."20 On this basis it is good to acquaint onself with the most recent stage in Pauline scholarship. While Western scholarship has created mainly a stereotyped and caricatured picture of the Judaism of Jesus' time, with a few rare exceptions, a change in this situation was finally brought about by the liberal scholar E.P. Sanders with his books Paul and Palestinian Judaism and Paul, the Law and the Jewish People. In his opinion, the old-fashioned view leads one astray because it assumes that the rabbis represented systematic theology. Principally, the rabbis' opinions were determined by the fact that they felt themselves to be children of the covenant, whose entire behaviour is bound to the traditional regulations of the Fathers. These norms were to be observed out of gratitude to God. According to Sanders, normative rabbinic sources do not say that forgiveness is earned by good works. God has mercy on those who repent. On the other hand, the believer trusted in the Temple cult, the Day of Atonement or sometimes even in the sufferings or death of his pious rabbi. Also they can act as a means of atonement. Sanders attempts to create a method which would make possible comparison between religions. It would consist of individual elements which can be compared, for instance, with Paul's comparable motivation. The approach opened up by Sanders promotes research into the background of Judaism. On the basis of this method, Jewish-born Paul could not be required to provide only "Pauline" thought in line with a fixed stereotype -- which is what is often demanded in liberal circles. What is disturbing in most of Sanders' writings and in those of members of his school is the fact that Paul's logic is regarded as "capricious" and "inconsistent" or "fluctuating". Or then he is seen as taking an "entirely negative" attitude towards the Torah. It is from Sanders' starting-point that it would be justified to understand Paul's occasionally "unsystematic" thought. Similarly, a more careful knowledge of sources would help to appreciate Paul's midrashic style. A scholar of Sanders' persuasion might complain that Paul "lacks even the division of the Law into written and oral" Torah. However, Ephesians 2:14-15, for example, presupposes that Christ "broke down the dividing wall" (Gr. mesotoikhon) and "he made ineffective (Gr. katargesas or make powerless or annul) the law of commandments with its regulations" -- this presupposes a knowledge of both written and oral Law and the "fence of the Law", Heb. seyag ha-Torah. Paul did not thus need to speak the language of academic theology, for he addressed his words to "those who know the Law" (Rom. 7:1). Jewish interpretation of the Torah is the Jewish people's internal affair and in practice only "manna-eaters" understand its value and significance. Professor David Flusser of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has complained that religious discussion between Christians and Jews takes place mostly between liberal Jews and liberal Christians and on their terms; and neither of these appreciate nor often even know the foundations of their own faith. It would be better if such dialogue was carried out between believing Jews and Christians. Dr. Pinchas Lapide, a Jew, states in one context that Paul's letters form a third of the New Testament. And, as it were in passing, he pronounces an apt aphorism: "Jesus was not a theologian because he was a Jew." Jesus gave biblical answers to the questions of his time. This is what Paul did, too, in serving the churches. But "Paul's faith placed him in a post-Messianic situation."21 This is what the situation is always like when we wish to get to know Paul as a man and as a teacher. One must not project ideas in Jewish literature directly onto Paul and then complain that he acts and thinks differently from other Jewish scholars. All of Paul's stances were adopted in the light of the fact that the Messiah had already come. And now it was a question of how the Messiah's role was to be applied to biblical and Jewish thought. In my two previous books on the Messiah22 I chose as an appropriate research method a "topical" perspective based on rabbinic literature. In them I have described the difference between Jewish and Greek thought and the styles of midrashic literature. The problem is always that one needs to perceive the Semitic style of the Bible, bearing in mind its special Jewish nature. Aristotle created the so-called "topic" (Gr. topos or place) according to which in rhetoric, ethics and e.g. in dealing with legal problems an attempt was made to find the "leading points" of matters. Later this method was developed by the Italian philosopher Giovanni Battista Vico. The humanities and so theology, too, have their own laws. The scholar
should find the "place" or "topos" of each thing in the consciousness
of man. If this conformity to law was noticed more often, we would
listen more closely to what each matter is about and not do violence to
the "intention" and message of the persons under study.
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