Paul's Yidishe ḳup

Paul’s Yidishe ḳep By the end of the Nineteenth-Century, European Jew-hatred had existed for millennia, still it took a new even greater immediacy. Not surprisingly, New Testament scholars in this period1 and through the first decades of the Twentieth Century attempted to remove Jewish influences from Paul and his theology. Paul lost his Jewishness and became a Hellenist. The extremities that European Jew-hatred reached in the 1930’s and 1940’s lead to a reassessment of Judaism in Western society in general and within New Testament studies. Paul would again become Jewish. In 1948, W.D. Davies publishes Paul and Rabbinic Judaism and portrays Paul2 as a Jewish rabbi who has accepted Jesus as Messiah. Paul is not just Jewish, but he is a rabbi. Since the evidence for the influence of Hellenism and mystery cults in Pauline thought was always weak, Davies renders démodé generations of previous3 New Testament scholarship. The mission to reintroduce Paul as Jewish reaches its triumphal climax in E.P. Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977). Sanders’ task is to remove from New Testament Studies the erroneous4 historical and theological portrayal5 of Judaism during the lives of Jesus and Paul, the Judaism from which Paul was breaking. Sanders proves that the most common portrayal of Judaism found within New Testament scholarship for the century preceding his book6 had been a 1 Although Paul is completely Jewish in Albert Schweitzer’s The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (1931), it is through the backdoor of an apocalyptic mysticism. 2 Davies’ project has much greater importance than those strictly within Pauline Studies. His emphasis on the Jewishness of Paul also is applicable to Jesus and early Christianity more widely. I have no doubt that his scholarship influenced American Culture in the second half of Twentieth Century. 3 Davies is a great historian, however his primary blindness as a New Testament scholar is his dismissal of Schweitzer. Davies fears describing Paul too closely with magic. Davies is a man of his time, Schweitzer is far ahead of his. 4 Mircea Eliades manages to save anti-Semitism within Religious Studies. Sanders is by far the greater of the two historians, but unfortunately, Religious Studies Departments believe otherwise and are more likely to teach Eliades’ work as representative of Judaism. 5 Works righteousness. I owe Sanders a great debt for educating me on this subject as ‘works righteousness’ is a form of Judaism about which I was completely unfamiliar. Sanders achieves a great deal in Paul and Palestinian Judaism. His most noted accomplishment is his definition of the pattern of religious thought of Palestinian Rabbinic Judaism in the first century as covenantal nomism. Although this paper is more closely focused on the historic Paul and is not attempting to define the Judaism he experienced, the discussion of Paul’s participationist theology will define Judaism as foremost a family. 6 complete misconception. Like Davies, Sanders interprets Paul as completely Jewish, so it might seem initially surprising to learn that Sanders will conclude that Paul’s type of religion “is basically different from anything known from Palestinian Judaism.”7 This paper will agree with Sanders on this point. With Paul and Pauline Studies returned safely to the context of Judaism, the task remains to rescue the historical Paul. I begin this task within the Duke NT School and resisting it. Although Davies and Sanders correctly redirect Pauline studies back into first century Judaism, did they correctly depict Paul? Do they correctly understand what motivates Paul and animates Pauline thought? I will give Paul’s letters a slow read emphasizing the anomalous, the inconsistencies, and the small seeming errors.8 My task is to brush Acts and Paul’s letters “against the grain” to tease out the history that their authors did not intend for us to know9. “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel10 , educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today.” Acts 22.3 7 Sanders E.P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 552 Fortress Press (1977). 8 Rashi’s methods and Morelli’s eye. I hope to correctly apply the methods discussed by Carlo Ginzburg in his chapter Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, pgs. 96-124 Johns Hopkins Press (1989). 9 Benjamin, Walter, Illuminations, p.257 Schocken Books 1955 first English translation 1968. The person referenced in this verse would seem to be the well-known Rabbinic sage from the first half of the first century who was the grandson of Hillel, the son of Simeon ben Hillel, and the father of Talmudic sages. See, Pirkei Avot, 1.16. Gamaliel and his son Abibo are both recognized as saints in the Roman and Eastern Orthodox churches which makes Gamaliel a very rare historical figure. Because he fails to give the topic any analysis, it appears that Davies accepts that the reference in Acts 22.3 is to the famous rabbi and that Paul was his student. Sanders doubts that Paul actually studied with Gamaliel. Sanders, E.P., Paul, p. 22 Fortress Press (2015). In a fairly recent commentary on Acts, Pervo writes that Gamaliel “was a historical figure about whom little is known” and states “the source of the name ‘Gamaliel’ is unknown”. Pervo, Richard, Acts: A Commentary, p. 146 Fortress (2009). Pervo further warns of confusion with the later rabbi, Gamaliel II, the grandson of our sage. Pervo fails to cite the known historical record of Gamaliel. There is remarkably little extant, contemporary, historical material from the first century. What does Pervo require to be well-known from the first century? Pervo seems to accept that Paul was a student of the mysterious Gamaliel as he writes, “Some might fault him [Paul] for boasting of his studies under Gamaliel when he had, in fact, so strongly repudiated his mentor’s advice [tolerance] about the members of the Jesus movement.” Acts: A Commentary, p. 563. See, Acts 5.33. 10 It is not surprising that Acts 22.311 is among the first NT citations in Davies’ Paul and Rabbinic Judaism. In this introduction to Paul’s apology in Jerusalem, Luke 12 has Paul claim that he has more than a through Jewish education, he has the very best. Regardless of whether Luke is here providing any relevant historical information at all, Paul’s claim is an excellent first point to begin my study of whether Davies and Sanders have described well what motivates Paul. Paul’s education and his erudition is critical to Davies, Sanders, and essentially the entire field of NT Studies because NT scholars begin with the presumption that Paul is mostly an intellectual figure. This is not at all drawn in opposition to Paul as a religious or even mystical figure. Religion is a mental activity. Davies, Sanders, and their colleagues presume that Paul is primarily motivated by ideas and advancing his ideas. For them, Paul is more like Plato than Alcibiades. The last metaphor resurrects a lingering doubt about the great “Hellenistic or Judaic” debate. Because Schweitzer, Davies, and Sanders are all correct that all traces of Greek philosophy in Paul are easily attributable to ideas current in the Jewish communities in which he lived, the entire matter of Paul’s Jewishness is not entailed in this doubt. The doubt is that the intellectual Paul appears so much like Plato and that Paul’s basic message is so Platonic. I will let Nietzsche make the case. In Twilight of the Idols in a short chapter entitled “How the ‘Real World’ at last Became a Myth” Nietzsche provides a high-spirited intellectual history in six stages of Plato’s erroneous belief that there exists the world of the form, the real world.13 Nietzsche’s stage one is “The real world, attainable to the wise, the pious, the virtuous man-he dwells in it, he is it. (Oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, simple, convincing. Transcription of the proposition ‘I, Plato, am the truth.’)” The disparity in treatment of Acts in the scholarship of Davies and Sanders is extreme. Davies accepts its accuracy unreservedly and cites to it as authoritative very frequently while Sanders dismisses it almost out of hand. Paul and Palestinian Judaism cites Acts twice. See, p. 432 for Sanders on Acts. Considering the scarcity of contemporary or near contemporary sources about Paul, Sanders’ dismissal is too drastic a response to the difficulties presented in correctly reading Acts. NT Studies has barely begun to correctly read Acts. Homeric Studies and Hebrew Bible Studies are closely related fields that have insights into the orality of texts that will assist in correctly reading Acts. 11 12 The use of Luke’s name as redactor of Acts is not meant historically. Similarly, when I refer to Barnabas, I am making very weak historical judgments. 13 For Plato, the real world is not the world that we inhabit every day, that world Plato calls the apparent world or the world of the senses. For Plato, people only have indirect contact with the real world. The real world contains knowledge, truth, existence. It is unchanging. Ideas (also translated as forms) exist in the real world. Stage two is “The real world, unattainable for the moment, but promised to the wise, the pious, the virtuous man (‘to the sinner who repents’). (Progress of the idea: it grows more refined, more enticing, more incomprehensible-it becomes a woman, it becomes Christian…)”14 Nietzsche15 has very perceptively synthesized Christianity, however the Christianity that Nietzsche describes is much more Paul’s message than Jesus’ message. The primary promise that Paul gives his followers is ‘Jesus is not here right now but will be right back and when he does return, you will be admitted to the real world’ 16. Although Schweitzer, Davies, and Sanders have banished the Greeks from Pauline Studies, the intellectual Pauline model leaves Paul as Jesus’ Plato.17 Paul interprets Jesus’ message for the world as Plato interprets Socrates. Both Plato and Paul promise to the wise, the few a chance to experience real truth, real existence just for Paul there is also the necessity to wait. Returning to my delayed judgment concerning how to characterize the quality of Paul’s education18 and to assess how well educated 19 is Paul for a Jewish boy of his day? This inquiry is hampered by the paucity of Jews contemporary to Paul that left a literary record. Philo and Josephus are unfair comparisons as both had resources and privileges far beyond Paul. Much better exemplars are the writers of Hebrews, the Letter of Barnabas, the Letter of James, the Letters of Peter, the gospel writers. The Letter of Barnabas very clearly evinces that Barnabas was very well schooled in First Century Judaism. Barnabas’ letter will frequently and well take the literary forms of his contemporary Jewish culture. For example, Barnabas 1.6 states, “there are three ordinances of the Lord; the hope of life, which is the beginning and end of our faith; and righteousness, which is the beginning and end of judgment; love shown in gladness and exultation, the testimony of Nietzsche, Friedrich, Twilight of the Idols, p. 40, trans. R.J. Hollingdale, Penguin Books (1988), first published 1889, translation copyrighted 1968. 14 15 Nietzsche was the son and grandson of Lutheran ministers. 16 I Thes 4.13-18, II Thes. 1.5-12, I Cor. 15.23. 17 Or St. Augustine’s Paul and not the historical Paul 18 Paul’s education and Paul’s Jewish education are synonyms. 19 The Jewish community is precocious in universal education. The tradition places the origins in Jerusalem of universal male education in the first century before the common era. See, Strack and Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, p.9 Fortress Press (1996). Although universal male Jewish education become available in Judea in the first century, the educational situation in Cilicia is uncertain. works of righteousness20.” Pirkei Avot is replete with essential, three-part lessons. Sometimes, like Barnabas, the three-part lesson is introduced with an assertion of the essential nature of the three things that will follow21, sometimes it is mentioned that the lesson is in three-parts22, or most frequently, three principles23 are simply stated. Barnabas employs the form of the three-part lesson rather skillfully. In chapters nine and ten of the Letter of Barnabas, Barnabas employs Jewish midrashic exegesis 24 to demonstrate that although it might appear that the Hebrew Bible requires from the Lord’s followers male circumcision and Kosher dietary laws25, the proper and more insightful reading of the text says no such thing. Barnabas provides allegorical meanings for the prohibitions of eating certain animals. For Barnabas, the prohibition against eating a pig is not intended to forbid eating a pig but rather associating with bad characters.26 Although Barnabas’ logic may seem stretched to the modern, non-Christian reader, his allegorical method and the form of his argument fits perfectly into midrashic argument. Allegorical Biblical exegesis was very well established and testified to in Barnabas’ time. Philo is famous for his allegorical Bible exegesis. Barnabas’s letter takes the form of midrash even more closely than Philo which takes the form of an essay. Paul’s letters do not evince examples of the form of Jewish literary creativity with the clarity and frequency as does Barnabas. Whether Paul could read the Bible in Hebrew is uncertain.27 Although that would not have been at all uncommon for devoted diaspora Greek speaking Jews in Paul’s time, it appears that Luke may have exaggerated the quality of Paul’s Jewish education. Although I will argue that Paul understood masterfully well the essential metaphor of Jewish belief28, Paul is a genius in action more so than in scholarly pursuits. A bias in NT scholarship is 20 Translation J.B. Lightfoot. 21 Pirkei Avot 1.2, 1.12, 1.18, 3.1, 4.13 22 Pirkei Avot 1.1, 2.10 23 Pirkei Avot 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.8, 1.10, 1.14, 1.15, 1.16, 1.17, 2.11, 2.12, 2.14, 3.4, 3.12, 3.15, 3.18, 4.2, 4.3, 4.12, 4.21 24 I would argue that Barnabas in ch. 10 has much in common with pesher midrash although chapter ten is not strictly pesher. 25 In a fascinating omission, Barnabas does not address the prohibition of mixing milk and meat. Perhaps, the Koshrut of his day did not require such observance. 26 Barnabas 10.3. 27 Sanders, E.P., Paul, pgs 27-28. 28 It is not conventional nomism although this also is present in first-century Judaism. to read Paul’s writings as if reading a New Testament scholar. NT scholarship has provided centuries of intellectual histories of Paul and not his history.29 Paul is motivated primarily by his profession, apostle to the Gentiles. Paul’s ideas are entirely directed to the furtherance of his business as apostle particularly in the retention of Gentile members of his congregation. The primary competition in Paul’s struggle to expand and retain his congregations are other Christian missionaries and apostles. Paul’s ideas are primarily motivated and directed at defeating his competition’s claims and interests. To recognize this, let us turn to the beginning of Paul’s career as an apostle, to Antioch. I begin very deliberately in Antioch and with Acts 13 and not on the Damascus Road or in Jerusalem. Acts contains two commissioning traditions for Paul. The first commissioning tradition for Paul is found in Acts 9.15-25. Luke prioritized this account. In Acts 9, Luke delegitimizes Paul’s independence as an apostle to the Gentiles. Paul is a blind man in Damascus when a disciple of the Jerusalem church30, Ananias, is sent by God to rescue him. Paul begins his career31 among the disciples of the Jerusalem church. Acts. 9.19. Luke prefers for Paul to be always under the authority of the Jerusalem church. Paul in Galatians rejects this explicitly. He wrote “But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia and afterwards I returned 32 to Damascus. Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit 29 For Julius Caesar, historical writing is focused on his actions and his intellectual history is rarely written. 30 Acts 9.13 31 Paul’s early career in Acts 9 models Moses’ early career in Egypt. They both quickly draw enemies who want to kill them. Exodus 2.14-15 32 The itinerary in Acts 13 and the itinerary in Galatians are not necessarily inconsistent. My proposed itinerary is that Paul comes down the road from Cilia into Antioch. He leaves Antioch with Barnabas as apostles. His exact order of travels between Arabia of the Nabateans and Damascus are not determinable from Galatians. Paul and Barnabas’ trip to Cyprus does not necessarily have to follow immediately his departure from Antioch. Acts 13.4. Both Paul and Luke have their independent reasons for preferring the reader to misunderstand Paul’s itinerary in the early years of his mission. Additionally, Paul is frequently ambiguous and self-referential in his letters. His letters can leave even the most careful reader with a misimpression. In Galatians, Paul is likely leaving much out of the story. A real historical reconstruction is not possible. Biblical history as is all ancient history is like assembling a jig-saw puzzle but a puzzle in which most and sometimes nearly all the pieces are missing. Lüdemann places the Antioch mission launching in 34 or 37 and after the alleged first Jerusalem meeting. Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days” Gal. 1.15-18 “Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.” Gal. 2.1 Luke’s disfavored Paul commissioning tradition is Acts 13. This narrative is consistent with Paul’s independence. In Acts 13, Barnabas, Lucius, Manaen, and Saul are in the church at Antioch worshiping and fasting and the Holy Spirit tells them “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Barnabas and Paul are then sent off into the world as agents of the Holy Spirit. Acts 13.4. In sum between Acts 13 and Galatians, we can see that Paul and Barnabas operated as apostles completely independently of Jerusalem and the original followers of Jesus for the first seventeen years of their mission to the Gentiles until a settlement is reached in a meeting in Jerusalem.33 The first letter 34, I Thessalonians, appears to have been written before Paul and his activities came to the consternation of the Church in Jerusalem. Notice that the two ideas for which Paul became famous, participationist theology and salvation by grace, do not appear in I Thessalonians. The core message of I Thessalonians is eschatological or more precisely a delayed eschatology after being partially realized35. Paul’s letter is strictly about the personal concerns of his followers in Thessalonica. As former pagans and now Pauline Christians, Paul’s congregants had real practical problems that this new Christian life entailed. Paul is addressing strictly these personal problems. Paul is concerned with keeping his followers from returning to paganism. Problems that are temporary during their period of waiting. Presumably, Jerusalem is leaving Paul alone. Paul’s hostility towards the Jews in Thessalonians concerns the unclear status of his new former pagan Christians. In Paul’s lifetime, most Christians are Jews. Paul’s converts are now devotees of the Jewish God, but Jews do not consider Paul’s converts to be Jewish. Likely, Jewish Thessalonians had made this clear at the synagogue door. This has both social and legal implications. Paul is creating a pool of individuals that do not fit into any accepted social designation in Roman first century society. If II Corinthians 6.14-7.1 is a fragment of alpha Corinthians, then our evidence continues to depict Paul as directed towards the problem of keeping his followers from not backsliding into their former paganism. His language here is again very eschatological. There is still no trace of issues with Jerusalem and his primary original ideas still are not evident. 33 in either CE 47 or 50. 34 I adopt E.P. Sanders’ chronology of Paul’s letters and his views on provenance. Paul, pgs. 149-151. 35 Schweitzer, Albert, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, trans. William Montgomery, p. 64, Henry Holt & Co. (1931). (Everywhere is apparent the tendency of the Pauline teaching to represent the Coming Redemption as having already begun to come into operation) By the time that Paul wrote I Corinthians, his status with Jerusalem had changed, and Paul now had new challenges to contend with in keeping his business in existence. Paul is now challenged primarily by the loss of membership in his organization to other Christian organizations. Peter36 has opened a competing Christian church/synagogue in Corinth. I Cor 1.12, I Cor. 3.22, I Cor. 6.1. Peter represents the Jerusalem church. The disruption entailed in the new situation has lead to lawsuits among Christians. I Cor. 6.1. No doubt that the Jerusalem church with its leadership consisting of the original followers of Jesus and Jesus’ brother, James, would have more legitimacy as a representative of Jesus than Paul. Peter’s church presents the very real possibility of putting Paul’s church out of business, stealing members from Paul who would instead pay Peter. Certainly, there were some ideological disputes between the Pauline and Peterian Christianity. These disputes primarily concern the role that Jewish ritual and cultural practices will have for the new Christians.37 Because Paul is certain that Jesus’ return is imminent, these types of problems are temporary and secondary. Paul knows Jerusalem’s real problem with him: money. Paul had been operating without sending money or enough money to the Jerusalem church. The Jerusalem leadership wanted to create a new reality on the ground. The Jerusalem church was no longer tolerant of Paul operating independently of themselves. “Now concerning the collection for the saints: you should follow the directions I gave to the churches of Galatia. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come. And when I arrive, I will send any whom you approve with letters to take your gift to Jerusalem.” I Cor. 16.1-3. Paul knows that he needs to begin kicking some money upstairs to the Jerusalem church. He will begin to start sending money to Jerusalem. The collection of this money will take time and effort. II Cor. 8.1-4, II Cor. 9.1. He will need a new relationship with the Jerusalem church, and Paul did not plan to approach Jerusalem empty-handed. In response to the challenge of this new competition, Paul creates his original theology beginning here in I Corinthians with his new idea of participationist theology. Until I Corinthians, Paul was primarily repeating the Christian message that won him. Some Jews for many centuries prior to and during Paul’s lifetime had been advocating an apocalyptical divine narrative. In apocalyptical Judaism, the God of Israel is very distant from the world, too busy. This period of God’s disenchantment with the world is about to end, and God will take a much more direct role 36 I read Paul as assuming that Apollos is Paul’s disciple. I Cor. 3.6. This gives a more coherent meaning to I Cor. 16.12. 37 This term will take an ironically new meaning with the conversos. in the world. The particulars of how this happens and what happens are varied in apocalyptical literature, however God will reward the good and punish the bad. Every Christian church and missionary as well as some Jews were selling this basic message. Paul now needed more. He reached deep into Judaism to find his solution. Participationist theology is born. “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.” 1 Cor. 12.12-14. “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” I Cor. 12.27. Paul reaches into the Western Semitic tribal origins of Judaism for his metaphor. Paul is creating a new family, a Christian family. Jews in their origins and in their identity understand themselves a family. “The social organization of West Semitic tribal groups was grounded in kinship. Kinship relations defined the rights and obligations, the duties, status, and privileges of tribal members...Kinship was conceived in terms of one blood flowing through the veins of the kinship group. If the blood of a kinsman was spilled, the blood of the kinship group, of each member, was spilled. Kindred were of one flesh, one bone.”38 The belief in early Judaism that all members of a family share the same body and blood is evinced in the Hebrew Bible. Laban says upon meeting his nephew Jacob, “Truly, my bone and my flesh are you39.” Gen. 29.14. Joseph’s brothers relent in their plan to kill Joseph when Judah argued, “our brother, our flesh is he.” Gen 37.27. When Abimelech is rallying his kinsmen in Shechem to his leadership, he says, “You should remember that your bone and your flesh am I.” Jud. 9.2. And most importantly, all the tribes of Israel said to David at Hebron, “Thus, your bone and your flesh are we.” II Sam. 5.1. Paul’s new Christian family like all real families in Paul’s society40 shared one body. But Paul did not redefine his new congregants, especially his formerly pagan ones, as just a new family, but Paul takes this a further step and describes his new Christian congregants as “the body of Christ.” I Cor. 12.27. 38 Frank Cross, From Epic to Canon, p. 3 John Hopkins U. Press, 1998. See also, DeVaux, Roland, Ancient Israel, p. 5, 10-12. Eerdmans Publishing 1997 originally published in English 1961. 39 All 40 translations of the Hebrew Bible are mine. I believe that this belief was more common than just among Jews and made sense to Paul’s pagan followers. Paul has reached deep into Judaism for this metaphor as well. “In the religious sphere, the intimate relationship with the family god, the “God of the Fathers,” was expressed in the only language available to members of a tribal society. Their god was the Divine Kinsman…The Divine Kinsman, it is assumed, fulfills the mutual obligations and receives the privileges of kinship. He leads in battle, redeems from slavery, loves his family, shares the land of his heritage, provides and protects 41.” From ancient times, Hebraic culture has understood its God to be a member of the family. did as well. To share a body with Christ meant to be kinsman with Christ. Kinship implied mutual obligations, love, and protection. Specifically for Paul, Jesus will provide and protect his Christian kinsmen when he returns. Paul has provided his pagan converts with a new family deity. He has strengthened his message to maintain the loyalty of his congregants against Peter’s challenge. Paul42 Paul’s next letter is Galatians. Much has happened between I Corinthians and Galatians. Paul is seventeen years into his mission and has been operating outside the discipline of the Jerusalem church. Gal 2.4. Peter has started a church in Corinth possibly with the assistance of Apollos to compete with Paul. Gal. 3.22. The mission to the Gentiles whether lead by Peter or Paul had its opponents in the Jerusalem church. Gal. 2.12. Paul and Peter meet in Antioch to attempt a settlement. Gal 2.11. Paul insulted Peter (Gal. 2.14), and no doubt, Peter walked out with some unsaintly words exchanged. In CE 47, Paul comes to Jerusalem to attempt a resolution. At the conference, the Jerusalem church recognizes Paul as the lead apostle to the Gentiles. Gal. 2.7-9. Peter is made lead apostle to the Jews. Gal. 2.7. Likely, the Jerusalem church understood the settlement to entail Paul’s acceptance of discipline or clientship to James or the pillars of the church. Gal. 2.9. Paul denies this (Gal 1.1) and maintains his equality to the Jerusalem apostles as “they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.” Gal. 2.10. Certainly, the Jerusalem conference ended with the recognition of Paul’s mission to Gentiles by the Jerusalem church because Paul paid them money. Perhaps, “Remembering the poor” is Paul’s reference to the payment that he made at the time of the settlement and not a promise to make a future payment to Jerusalem. For Paul, the Jerusalem conference agreed that Paul and Peter had divided the Christian mission into two, a Gentle mission lead by Paul and a Jewish mission lead by Peter. Paul received the recognition that his mission had always lacked and his business seemed secure. That is why, the news from Galatia struck Paul very hard. Gal. 1.6, 3.1, and 6.11. 41 From Epic to Canon, p. 6-7. 42 This is not meant to mean that Paul viewed Jesus as co-equal to God the Father. Peter had sent missionaries to Galatia to instruct Paul’s former pagan now Christian congregants that to be a Christian requires adherence to Jewish ritual practice including circumcision. Gal. 1.7 and 2.11. Paul construes this as Peter’s treachery. If Paul’s former pagan congregants accept circumcision and other Jewish ritual practices, then they will become Jews. Peter leads the mission to the circumcised, and Paul will lose these congregants to Peter. Paul’s business is again threatened by Peter. In response to this new challenge from Peter, Paul conceives43 justification or righteousness by faith. Gal 2.15 and 3.6-9. The construct of justification by faith is original to Paul. Paul original message in I Thessalonians is that Christians will have Jesus’ protection in the great final eschatological judgment. “For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him.” 1 Thess 5.9. Paul needs to expand on this basic message. Paul’s message must warn his congregants that Christ’s sponsorship will not come to pagans who become Jews. Gal 2.16, 3.14, 5.1, 5.6, 6.12-15. Paul will not permit Peter to siphon away his business. Paul wrote Galatians hurriedly44 and in anger. 45 When Paul wrote Philippians, he had nothing but time.46 In Philippians, Paul works his two original ideas, participationist theology and justification by faith, into a unified and more sharply defined ideology. “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 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 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 3.7-9. “For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ…their end is destruction…But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.” Phil 3.18,19, 20-21. In Philippians, Paul has taken the offensive as regards Peter’s threat to Paul’s mission. Paul is rejecting the efficacy of Jewish ritual practice and Jewish status in general for God’s approval at the eschaton. Paul argues that the sole method of obtaining God’s approval at the eschaton 43 Although Paul may have engendered hostility from Jews (Acts 21.28), the hostility from Jews had been present from the beginning of his mission. Justification by faith is a reply to a challenge from within the Christian community. The Jews didn’t put his business at risk. The conversion of a Jew only benefited Peter after the Jerusalem conference. 44 Gal 6.11 45 Gal 1.6 and Gal 3.1 46 Paul wrote this letter in jail. Phil 1.14 (justification) is by faith that Jesus has been resurrected to vouch for his kinsmen, those with whom Jesus shares a body. Paul is turning the tables on Peter. Peter will not get you into heaven. When Paul wrote Romans, he was planning to return again to Jerusalem, and then to travel to Rome and then to Spain. Rom 15.24-25. Paul again has money for Jerusalem, and now, he is armed with a fully formed ideological platform to contest Peter and his other opponents. “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through the same faith.” Rom 3.28-30. The participationist theology in Romans has evolved since Philippians. The previous concepts are still present (Rom 12.4-5), but now Paul wants to deemphasis the “body of Christ” and emphasize the spiritual nature of Christ (Rom 8). Paul’s rhetoric against Peter’s advocates as those who have “confidence in the flesh” (Phil 3.3-4) and have their minds “set on earthly things” (Phil 3.19. also, Rom 7.5) leads to Paul avoiding language that would associate Christ and Paul’s followers with the flesh and the earthly realm47. Although Paul is avoiding the suggestion that Jesus has a body or flesh in which to participate, the family metaphor is still very much intact. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified;” Rom 8.29-30. The examination of the development of Pauline thought in his letters in light of the challenges that Paul confronted to the business model of his ministry from Peter and the Jerusalem church accounts for the content of his original theology and its evolution. This insight is not intended to reduce the majesty of Paul’s accomplishments. Paul was a genius at action not the intellectual figure or religious holy man depicted in New Testament scholarship. Perhaps, nothing demonstrates this as well as the sole authentic Pauline letter not yet discussed, Philemon. Like Philippians, Paul wrote Philemon in jail. The purpose of Philemon is completely personal. Paul has befriended Onesimus48, a runaway slave, in jail. He writes Onesimus’ master, Philemon, to ask for Onesimus’ freedom. Philemon 1.9, 14, 16, 18. This letter would have been for Onesimus evidence of his manumission. Onesimus and his descendants would have saved it to prove that Onesimus was a freedman 49 and not a slave. 47 This is not dualism. It is a practical rhetorical concern. 48 Onesimus will not be the last man to find Jesus in the county jail. I have personally received hundreds of letters from inmates, and the Letter to Philemon reads to me as completely authentic. 49 Still a very low social status in Roman society but better than a slave. When Onesimus later became the bishop of Ephesus,50 he returned the favor to Paul for Paul’s kindness to him. Onesimus collected Paul’s letters and published them.51 The entirety of Paul’s historical narrative is so unforeseeable. 52 Paul’s victory was achieved not by his ideas but in his good deed. Davies and Sanders and even Schweitzer fundamentally misunderstand what motivates Paul’s theology. Paul is foremost a man of deeds 53 in spite of what he may preach. 50 Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 51Sanders, Paul, at 156. 52 Carl Reiner interviewing the Two Thousand Year Old Man: “Did you know that it was going to be Jesus?” Mel Brooks as the Two Thousand Year Old Man: “What are you kidding me? If I had known that it would be Jesus, I would have made him a partner in the store!” 53 He may have sinned, but he is still a Jew.