Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity by James D. Tabor
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Historians know virtually nothing about the two decades following the crucifixion of Jesus, when his followers regrouped...
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PAUL JESUS and an d
HOW HE APOSLE RANSFORMED CHRISIANIY
JAMES D. TABOR
Simon & Schuster New York London Toronto Sydney
New Delhi
To my esteemed teacher Jonathan Z. Smith who first first taught taught me to to make the familiar strange and the the strange famili familiar ar
INTRODUCTION
PAUL AND JESUS
Paul never met Jesus. Tis book is an exploration o the startling implications implica tions o those our words. Te chronological acts are undisputed. Jesus o Nazareth was crucifed during the reign o Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor or preect or preect o o Judea, in April, A.D. 30. As best we can determine it was not until seven years afer afer Jesus’ Jesus’ death, around A.D. 37, that Paul reported his initial apparition o “Christ,” whom he identifed with Jesus raised rom the dead. 1 When challenged or his credentials he asks his ollowers: “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” equating his visionary experience with that o those who had known Jesus ace-to-ace (1 Corinthians 9:1). What this means is that Paul’s claim to have “seen” Jesus, as well as the teachings he says he received directly rom Jesus, came a signifcant number o years afer afer Jesus’ Jesus’ lietime, and can be categorized as subjective visionary experiences (Galatians 1:12, 16; 2:2; 2 Corinthians 12:1–10). Tese “revelations” were not a onetime experience o “conversion,” but a phenomenon that continued over the course o Paul’s lie, involving verbal exchanges with Jesus as well as extraordinary revelations o a nature Paul was con vinced no other human in history had received. Pau Paull conesses that he does not comprehend the nature o these ecstatic spiritual experiences, whether they were “in the body, or out o the body,”
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but he believed that the voice he heard, the fgure he saw, and the messages he received, were encounters with the heavenly heavenly Christ Christ (2 Corinthians 12:2–3). It was a ull decade afer afer Jesus’ Jesus’ death that Paul frst met Peter in Jerusalem (he calls Peter Cephas, his Aramaic name) and had a brie audience with James the brother o Jesus and leader o the Jesus movement (Galatians 1:18–23). Paul subsequently operated independently o the original apostles, preaching and teaching what he calls his “Gospel,” in Asia Minor or another ten years beore making a return trip to Jerusalem around A.D. 50. It was only then, twenty years aer Jesus’ death, that he encountered James and Peter again in Jerusalem and met or the frst time the rest o the original apostles o Jesus (Galatians 2:1–9). Tis rather extraordinary chronological gap is a surprise to many. many. It is one o the key actors in understanding Paul and his message. What this chronology means is that we must imagine a “Christianity beore Paul,” which existed independently o his inuence or ideas or over twenty years, as well as a Christianity preached and developed by Paul, which developed independently o Jesus’ original apostles and ollowers and with minimal contact with anyone who had known Jesus. Many o the most important clues are hiding in plain sight. Tis is as true or a historian as it is or a detective, detect ive, and I have experienced this numerous times in the course o working on this book, bo ok, whether researching obscure texts in libraries, visiting the places connected to Paul, or just rereading Paul’s letters in my Greek New estament. So much depends on one’s assumptions as to what is seen or unseen, what is noted or simply overlooked. Tis book is about the historical fgure o Paul, but at the same time it uncovers a orm o Christianity beore Paul that has largely escaped our notice. Te dierences between b etween these two “Christianities” “Christianities” are considerable and we shall explore both in some detail in the ollowing chapters. chapt ers. When Paul is properly placed in this context, and within
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this world, a completely new and ascinating picture emerges. We are able to understand Paul in his own time and comprehend, or the frst time, the t he passions that drove him. Te obvious place to begin is with Paul himsel. His early letters are the frst Christian documents o any kind in existence, written in the decade o the 50s A.D., and they are frsthand accounts. Tey are our best witnesses to the true state o aairs between Paul and the original apostles chosen by Jesus. For Paul this separation and independence, both rom rom the “earthly” “earthly” Jesus, as he calls him, and the apostles, was a point o pride and authenticity. He boasts that he has not derived the message he preaches “rom men or through men,” reerring to James and the original apostles Jesus had directly chosen and instructed. instr ucted. Paul claimed that his access to Jesus has come through a revelation o the heavenly heavenly Christ Christ (Galatians 1:11–12). He insisted that his second trip to Jerusalem, around A.D. A.D. 50, was w as not a summons rom the leaders in Jerusalem, as i he were their inerior as some o his opponents had obviously claimed. He says he went there “by revelation,” which is his way o saying Jesus told him to go. He reers to the three leaders o the Jerusalem church, James, Peter, and John, sarcastically as the “socalled pillars o the church” and “those o repute,” but adds “what they are means nothing to me” (Galatians 2:6, 9). Although he calls himsel the least and the last, he is keen to make the point that his own revelations directly rom the heavenly Christ are more signifcant than anything Jesus taught in his earthly lie, and thus supersede the experiences o the other apostles (1 Corinthians C orinthians 15:9–11; 2 Corinthians 5:16; 11:5). Te orce o this point has proound implications or our investigation o Paul and the gospel message he preached. He also boasts that he has “worked harder than any o them,” reerring to the other apostles who had known Jesus ace-to-ace (1 Corinthians 15:10). He reers to the period when people knew Jesus as “Jesus according to the esh,” and contrasts it with his own spiritual experiences, includ-
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ing the message he received rom the heavenly Christ, which he asserts is ar superior (2 Corinthians 5:16; Philippians 3:3). Most readers o the New estament have the impression that reerences to “the Gospel” are generally and evenly distributed throughout the various books. Aer all, Christians came to understand “the Gospel” as the singular message o Christianity—the Christianity—the Good News o salvation brought by Christ. In act there are seventy-two occurrences o the term ter m “the gospel” (to (to euangelion) euangelion) in the entire New estament, estament, but they are not proportionately distributed. Te letters o Paul account or sixty o the total, and Mark, who was heavily inuenced by Paul, contains eight.2 Paul reers to his message as “my Gospel,” Gospel,” and it is clear that t hat his usage is proprietary and exclusive (Romans 2:16; 16:25; Galatians 1:11–12). Rather than a generic term meaning “good news,” Paul uses the term in the sense o “My Announcement”—a Announcement”—a reerence to a very specifc message that he alone possessed.3 Te implications o this point are quite revolutionary: it means that the entire history o early Christianity, as commonly understood, has to be reconsidered. Te standard “Sunday “Sunday school” or catechetical view o Christian origins goes something like the ollowing: Jesus came to preach a new covenant gospel that superseded the Jewish understanding o God and his plan or the salvation o humankind. Jesus passed on the undamentals o this new message to his chosen twelve apostles, who came to understand its ull implications only aer his death. Paul, who at frst bitterly opposed the newly ormed Christian Church, arresting Christians to be delivered up or execution, became the “Tirteenth Apostle,” last but not least, chosen directly by Jesus Christ, who had ascended to heaven. Paul’s mission was to preach the gospel message o salvation to the nonJewish, or Gentile, world, while Peter Peter,, leader o the twelve apostles, led the mission to the Jews. Both Jew and Gentile were united in the one Christian Church, with one single unied gospel message. message. According to this mythology, despite a ew initial issues that had
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to be worked out, Peter and Paul worked in supportive harmony. Tey were together in lie and in death and they laid the oundations or a universal Christian aith that has continued through the centuries. Historians o early Christianity question such a harmonizing view linking Jesus, his frst apostles, and Pau Paul.l. It serves ser ves theological dogma more than historical truth. o deend such a portrait requires one to ignore, downplay, or deny altogether the sharp tensions and the radically irreconcilable dierences reected within our New estament documents, particularly in Paul’s own letters. “Christian origins,” as an academic feld o study, has been largely concerned with three issues: a quest or the historical Jesus; comparing him as he most likely was with what his frst ollowers might have made o him in the interest o their own emerging Christian aith; and, fnally, fnally, exploring the question o whether and to what degree Paul, who is a relative latecomer to the movement, operates in continuity or discontinuity with either the intentions o Jesus or those o his original apostles. Tere is also the related issue o whether Paul’s “Gospel” represents the establishment o a new religion, wholly separate and apart rom Judaism. It is generally agreed that Jesus, who lived and died as a Jew, as well as his earliest ollowers, nearly all o whom were Jewish, continued to consider themselves as Jews, even with their conviction that Jesus was the promised Messiah. o identiy someone as the Messiah was not uncommon in frst-century Jewish-Roman Palestine. Josephus, Josephus, the Jewish historian o that t hat period, names hal a dozen others, beore and aer Jesus, who made such a claim and gathered ollowers behind them.4 Like Jesus, they all, without exception, were executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities. What about Paul? Did he merely adapt his Jewish aith to his new aith in Christ or did he leave Judaism Judaism behind or what he saw as an entirely new revelation, given to him alone, that made the orah o Moses obsolete?
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Scholars are sharply divided on these complex questions, and the positions they take resist neat and easy categorization.5 Some see Paul as extending and universalizing the essential teachings o Jesus and his early ollowers, so that dierences are recognized but understood to be cultural and developmental. In this view Paul would be neither the apostle who betrayed the historical Jesus, nor the apostate who betrayed Judaism, but one who skillully ashioned a version o Jesus’ message or the wider non-Jewish world. Others recognize the sharp dichotomy between Jesus’ proclamation that the kingdom o God was soon to be established on earth and Paul’s message o a heavenly Christ, Chr ist, but nonetheless nonethe less they the y imagine a practical unctional harmony between Paul and the original apostles. In other words, Paul and the apostles agreed to disagree, recognizing that there was more that united them than divided them, particularly since Paul, in preaching to Gentiles, would have to tailor his message to ft the non-Jewish culture. I go much urther. Not Not only do I believe Paul should be seen se en as the “ounder” o the Christianity that we know today, rather than Jesus and his original apostles, but I argue he made a decisive bitter break with those t hose frst apostles, promoting and preaching views they ound to be utterly reprehensible. And conversely conversely,, I think t hink the evidence shows that James, the brother o Jesus and leader o the Jerusalem church, church, as well as Peter and the other apostles, held to a Jewish version o the Christian aith that aded away and was orgotten due to the total triumph o Paul’s version o Christianity. Paul’s own letters contain bitterly sarcastic language directed even against the Jerusalem apostles. He puts orth a starkly dierent understanding o the message o Jesus—including Jesus—including a complete break rom Judaism. Tis viewpoint changes our understanding o early Christianity. Christianity. But linking Peter and Paul in Christian tradition, history, and art is one o the bedrock oundations o the Christian Church in the past nineteen hundred years. How did this view come to prevail?
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Te answer seems as clear as it is surprising. Paul’s triumph is almost wholly a literary literary victory, victory, reinorced by an emerging theological orthodoxy backed by Roman political power aer the time o the emperor Constantine (A.D. 306–37). Tis consolidation was not achieved in Paul’s lietime but it emerged by the dominance o pro-Pauline writings writin gs within the New estament estament canon that became bec ame the standard o Christian orthodoxy. Even the order and arrangement o the New estament books reects the dominance o Paul’s perspectives. Gradually alternative visions and voices aded, particularly those belonging b elonging to James and the early Jerusalem church. “Judaism” became a heresy, an obsolete religion replaced by a new covenant. Heresy became not simply an alternative opinion but a crime. We We fnd the t he beginnings o this process in the letters o Paul and, surprisingly, even in the New estament gospels that most people assume have little to do with Pau Paul.l. Paul’s literary victory rested upon three pillars: 1) the gospel o Mark, our earliest narrative o the career and death o Jesus, is heavily Pauline Pauline in its theological content; 2) the two-volume work Luke-Acts vastly expanded Mark’s story to culminate with a fnal scene o Paul preaching preaching his gospel in Rome; and, 3) the t he six later letters written in Paul’s name, but aer Paul’s lietime oered a more domesticated Paul, Paul, which pleased the chur church ch and ensured the muting o his more radical message. (Tese six letters are Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Tessalonians, 1 and 2 imothy, and itus.) Te master narrative o Paul’s literary triumph was the book o Acts. Te author purposely hides his name and publishes his work anonymously—giving anonymously— giving us our frst signal that he wants us to think his work dates to an earlier time. He ends his story with Paul under house arrest in Rome. By not relating the story o Paul’s death, which he surely knew kne w, he leaves the impression impression that his book dates to the time o the emperor Nero, Nero, when Paul was executed. All this is a purposeul ploy. raditionally, the work was attributed to Luke, a companion o
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Paul as well as a purported eyewitness to some o its main events. Paul mentions mentions a certain cert ain Luke once in passing in a list o his ellow workers or assistants (Philemon 24). Presumably the same Luke, “the beloved physician,” is named two additional times in later letters attributed to Paul but not written by him (Colossians 4:14; 2 imothy 4:11). Te fnal editors o the New estament, in trying to support the tradition that Luke wrote both the gospel that bears his name and the book o Acts, likely added these reerences. Te writer o 2 imothy says that Luke was with Paul in prison and has Paul ask imothy to “get Mark” and also bring his “books, and especially the parchments.” Te author’s clear implication is that these purported gospel writers, Mark and Luke, were companions o Paul, eyewitnesses to many o the events in Acts, with access to documents they got rom rom Paul. Paul. Scholars have usually dated Luke-Acts to the 90s A.D., but a number o scholars have convincingly argued, more recently, or a date well into the second century A.D.6 Te unabashed hero o the book o Acts is Paul, so much so that the work might be more properly named “Te Acts o Paul,” with a ew preliminary remarks about the rest o the apostles. Peter and the others show up in the early chapters, but seldom again. Te author’s main intention is to gloriy Paul as the apostle who brings the Christian message to Rome. Paul’s enemies in Acts are the Jews, not the Romans or other non-Jews that he encounters. Acts is a remarkably pro-Roman book, and the author’s implied context reects a period many years aer the destruction o the city o Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, with the crushing o Jewish national and messianic hopes and the scattering o the t he original Jerusalem chur church ch (Luke 19:41–44; 21:23–24). Tis is not to say the book o Acts lacks historical value. For one thing it is all we have. It covers the critical period rom the death o Jesus to Paul’s journey to Rome (A.D. 30–60). As such, despite the author’s strongly pro-Paul bias, it can serve as a source
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or a critical reconstruction o those missing “lost decades” o early Christianity. In act it reveals much more than the author perhaps intended, once we actor in what we know rom Paul’s letters as well as some o our newly discovered other sources. Te author apparently has access to some materials that go back to the days in the Jerusalem church, when James the brother o Jesus led the movement, movemen t, even as he tries to mute inuence o James. James. Te cracks o his presentation show through since we have the other side o the story rom rom Paul, Paul, and even a bit rom James. Unortunately, Acts is seldom read critically. It is usually taken at ace value and the t he portrait o Paul presented therein has become be come the dominant narrative. I people know anything about Paul, what they know is more than likely drawn rom hearing about or reading the book o Acts. Imagine the implications. Our primary source or the story o the origins o the t he Christian Church was written by an anonymo anonymous us devotee o Paul decades removed rom the events he purports to narrate. Some scholars have have even called the book o Acts the great “cover-up” and as we will see, this language might be considered relatively relative ly mild.7 Is it possible that this anonymous author has become, unwittingly, one o the most inuential writers o the past two thousand years? Has he shaped our view o Jesus and early Christianity in ways that don’t conorm to the historical acts? As we will see, the author o Luke-Acts knew precisely what he obscuring o the original version o was doing, and his deliberate obscuring o “Christianity beore Paul” is one o our great cultural losses. So long as the portrait o Paul in Acts prevails, it obscures or us the Christianity o Jesus and his earliest e arliest ollowers. Ironically, one need only go to Paul’s own letters to recover a more authentic and reliable account o his relationship with James, Peter, and the Jerusalem church—what church—what came to be called “Jewish Christianity” by later generations. Paul’s seven earliest letters—11 Tessalonians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, ters—
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Philippians, and Philemon, read careully, tell the entire story, no holds barred. Most scholars consider these seven to be authentic and relatively ree rom later interpolations.8 Tey occupy just fy pages in a typical printed English New estament totaling 275 pages, but implications o what they say are ar-reaching. In this book I try to take Paul very much at his word. When he is allowed to speak or himsel, without any predetermined assumptions about the essential unity o early Christianity, the results are clear and unambiguous, but also quite shocking and provocative. It is also rom these authentic letters o Paul that we can most reliably begin to reconstruct the bare biographical outlines o Paul’s lie. Paul calls himsel a Hebrew or Israelite, stating that he was born a Jew and circumcised on the eighth day, o the Jewish tribe o Benjamin (Philippians 3:5; 2 Corinthians 11:22). He was once a member o the sect o the Pharisees. He states that he ad vanced in Judaism beyond many o his contemporaries, contemporaries, being extremely zealous or the traditions o his Jewish aith (Philippians 3:5; Galatians 1:14). He zealously persecuted the Jesus movement (Galatians 1:13; Philippians 3:6; 1 Corinthians 15:9). Sometime around A.D. 37 Paul had a visionary experience he describes as “seeing” Jesus and received rom him his gospel message as well as his call to be an apostle to the non-Jewish world (1 Corinthians 9:2; Galatians 1:11–2:2). Paul was unmarried, at least during his career as an apostle (1 Corinthians 7:8, 15; 9:5; Philippians 3:8).9 He worked as a manual laborer to support himsel on his travels (1 Corinthians 4:12; 9:6, 12, 15; 1 Tessalonians 2:9). Te book o Acts supplies many more biographical details, some o which might be historically reliable while others have been questioned by critical scholars. I address these issues in the appendix, “Te Quest or the Historical Paul.” In terms o method I have chosen to begin with what Paul says about himsel, so that we get Paul, frst and oremost, in his own words. r
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Based on Paul’s authentic letters I have isolated six major elements in Paul’s Christianity that shape the central contours o his thought—and thought— and thus my presentation in this book. b ook. Beore B eore considerconsidering each in detail it will be helpul to get an overview: 1. A New Spirit Spiritual ual Body . For Paul the belie that Jesus had been raised rom the dead was a primary and essential component o the Christian aith. He states emphatically: “i Christ has not been be en raised, then our preaching is in vain and your aith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). His entire understanding o salvation hinged on what he understood to be a singular cosmic event, namely Jesus’ resurrection rom the dead. Paul’s understanding o the resurrection o Jesus, however, is not what is commonly understood today. It had nothing to do with the resuscitatio resuscitation n o a corpse. Paul must have assumed that Jesus was peaceully laid to rest in a tomb in Jerusalem according to the Jewish burial customs o the time. He even knows k nows some tradition about that burial, though he oers no details de tails (1 Corinthians 15:4). Paul understood Jesus’ resurrection as the transormation—or transormation—or metamorphosis,, o a esh-and-blood human to use his words—the words—the metamorphosis being into what he calls a “lie-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45). Such a change involved “putting o” the body like clothing, but not being le “naked,” as in Greek thought, but “putting on” a new spiritual body with the old one le behind (2 Corinthians 5:1–5). So transormed, Jesus was, according to Paul, the frst “Adam” o a new genus o Spirit-beings in the universe called “Children o God,” o which many others were to ollow. What is oen overlooked is that Paul is our earliest witness, chronologically speaking, to claim to have “seen” Jesus aer his death. And his is the only only frst-person frst-person claim we have. All the rest are late and secondhand. His letters were written decades earlier
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than Mark, the frst written gospel. Tis means that Paul’s view o Jesus’ resurrection has proound implications or how we read the later gospel accounts—rom accounts—rom the empty tomb to the “sightings” o Jesus reported in Matthew, Luke, and John. Most people read the New estament “backwards,” chronologically speaking, beginning with the gospels and then moving on to Paul, but Paul actually comes decades earlier and oers critical insight into what the earliest resurrection aith entailed. Once reexamined, the entire history o what happened “aer the cross” is transormed and a new understanding emerges o what James, Peter, and the rest o the original apostles experienced and believed. 2. A Cosmic Fa Family mily and a Hea Heavenly venly Ki Kingdom ngdom.. According to Paull this new Pau ne w genus o Spirit-beings o which Jesus was the “frstborn” is part o an expanded cosmic amily (Romans 8:29). Paul believed that Jesus was born o a woman as a esh-and-blood human being, descended rom the royal lineage o King David, so he could qualiy as an “earthly” Messiah in Jewish thinking. But or Paul such physical Davidic lineage was nothing in comparison to the glorifcation o Jesus as the frstborn Son o God. G od. Paul describes it thus: “Te gospel concerning his Son, who was descended rom David according to the esh but appointed appointed Son o God G od in power according to the Spirit o Spirit o holiness through the resurrection o the dead” (Romans 1:4). What this means is that God, as Creator, has inaugurated a process through which he is reproducing reproducing himsel— himsel—literally literally bringing to birth a “God-Family.” Jesus, now transormed into the heavenly glorifed Christ/Messiah, is the frstborn brother o an expanded group o divine ospring. Tose who “belong to Christ” or are spiritually “in Christ,” to use Paul’s avorite expressions, have become impregnated by the Holy Spirit and like tiny spiritual embryos are growing and develop-
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ing into the image o Christ until the time comes or their transormative “birth” rom esh and blood to lie-giving Spirits. As Paul says, “He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” Paul compares this union o “spirits” to that o a man and a woman when “the two shall become one esh” (1 Corinthians 6:17). Te destiny o this cosmic heavenly amily is to rule over the entire universe. Everything is to be put under their control, including things visible and invisible. At the center o the message o Jesus was the proclamation that the kingdom o God had drawn near. Tis kingdom, spoken o by the Hebrew Prophets, was envisioned as an era o peace and justice on earth or all humankind, inaugurated by a Messiah or descendant o the royal lineage o King David ruling over the nations o the world (Jeremiah 33:15; Isaiah 9:6–7). Jesus described it in clear and simple terms in the prayer he taught his disciples: “Let your Kingdom come, let your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven” (Matthew 6:10). In anticipation o that reign Jesus had chosen the twelve apostles, whom he promised would rule over the regathered twelve tribes o Israel when the kingdom k ingdom ully arrived (Matthew 19:28–29; Luke 22:30). In Paul’s view the kingdom o God would have nothing to do with the righteous reign o a human Messiah on earth, and the status o the welve welve or any other believers was to be determined only by Christ at the judgment. Paul understood the kingdom as a “cosmic takeover” o the entire universe by the newly born heavenly amily—the amily— the many glorifed children o God with Christ, as frstborn, at their head. Paul taught that when Christ returned in the clouds o heaven, this new race o Spirit-beings would experience its heavenly transormation, receiving the same inheritance, and thus the same level o power and glory, that Jesus had been given (Romans 8:17; Philippians 3:20–21). 3:20–21) . Tis instantaneous “mass apotheosis”” would mark the end o the theosis t he old age that began with Adam,
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and the beginning o a new creation inaugurated by Christ as a new or second Adam (Romans 8:21). Tis great event, the most signifcant in human history, would signal the arrival o the kingdom o God o which nothing esh and blood could be a part (1 Corinthians 15:50). Te group o divinized, glorifed Spirit-beings would then participate corporately, corporately, with Christ, in the judgment o the world, even ruling r uling over the angels (1 Corinthians C orinthians 6:2–3). Mystical Un Union ion with with Christ . Paul completely transormed 3. A Mystical the practice and understanding o baptism and the Eucharist to his Greek-speaking Gentile converts. Although rituals o water purifcation were common in Judaism, including the ceremonies o immersion practiced by John the Baptizer and Jesus as a sign o repentance, Paul’s adaptation o baptism moved beyond ceremonial signifcation. Baptism brought about a mystical union with what Paul called the “spiritual body” o Christ, and was the act through which one received the impregnating Holy Spirit. Sacred meals involving the blessings o bread and wine were also common in Judaism, and were thus part o the communal meals o the early ollowers o Jesus. Within apocalyptic groups, such as the Jesus movement and the sect that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, such sacred meals were considered anticipatory o the messianic age to come. When the Messiah arrived, his ollowers expected to gather around his table in ellowship, with Abraham, Moses, and the Prophets joining them. Paul’s innovation, that one was thereby eating and drinking the body and blood o Christ in the orm o bread and wine at the Eucharist or Holy Communion, has no parallels in any Jewish sources o the period. Tree o our New estament gospels record Jesus’ Last Supper, in which he tells his disciples over bread and wine: “Tis is my body,” and “Tis is my blood,” and in the gospel o John, Jesus speaks o “eating my
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esh” and “drinking my blood.” Tese writers based their accounts o Jesus’ Jesus’ fnal meal on Paul, directly quoting what he had written in his letters almost word or word (Mark 14:22–25; Matthew 26:26– 29; Luke 22:15–20; John 6:52–56; 1 Corinthians C orinthians 11:23–26). Tis is one o the strongest indications that the New estament gospels are essentially Pauline Pauline documents, with underlying elements o the earlier Jesus tradition. As a Jew living in a Jewish culture, Jesus would have considered considered this sort o language about eating esh and drinking blood, even taken symbolically, symbolically, as utterly reprehensible, reprehensible, akin to magic or ritual cannibalism. Despite what Paul asserts, it is extremely improbable improbable that Jesus ever said these words. Tey are Paul’s own interpretation o the meaning and signifcance o the Eucharist ceremony that he claims he received rom received rom the heavenly heavenly Christ Christ by by a revelation. For Paul eating bread and drinking wine was no simple memorial meal, but it was quite literally a “participation” in the spiritual body o the glorifed heavenly Christ. Tis meal connected those who eat and drink through the Spirit with the embryonic nurturing lie they needed as developing de veloping ospring ospring o God (1 Corinthians 10:16). In contrast, as we will see, there is solid evidence that the Christians beore Paul, and outside o his inuence, celebrated a Eucharist Eucha rist with an entirely dierent dierent understanding o the wine and the bread, one that reects a practice much closer to what Jesus inaugurated at his Last Supper with his disciples. Fortunately, there are ragmented traces o this earlier view embedded in our New estament gospels. 4. Already Already but Not Yet Yet . Paul operated with a strongly apocalyptic perspective that inuenced all he said or did. He was quite sure that he and his ollowers would live to see the return o Christ rom heaven. Lie in the world would go on, but not or long. Everything was soon to be transormed. At the same time there was a sense in which everything con-
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tinued as it was. As Paul tried to work out the practical ethical and social implications o these ideas, he pressed hard against the realities o time and history. Paul states emphatically that the “appointed time has grown very short,” and he advised his ollowers not to marry, begin a new business, or worry i they were slaves, since everything in the world was about to be turned upside down and all social relations were terminal. Right up until the end o his lie he expected to live to see the great event—what event—what he called ia)— the “Arrival” (Greek parous (Greek parousia )—the the visible appearance o the heavenly Christ in the clouds o heaven to usher in the events o the fnal Judgmen Judgment. t. He tried to inspire his ollowers to live as i the i the new spiritual transormation transormation had already arrived, all the time knowing that its ull realization was not yet . Te tensions o lie in the world, with its inarguable realities o sex and marriage, birth and death, and ethnic and social identities, were dicult to negotiate as i they the y no longer were operative. It was one thing to say that in Christ all such demarcations had passed, but it was quite another to try to live one’s lie in a world that remained the same. 5. Under the orah o Christ . As a Jew Paul decisively turned his back on the orah revelation given to Moses on Mount Sinai, with all o its laws, customs, and traditions. In other words, Paul abandoned his Judaism. He would have never put it that way, though, since what he advocated he called a new and true Judaism, making the frst version obsolete. He maintained that the orah had now been replaced and superseded by the new n ew orah orah o Christ (Galatians 3:23–26). He never denied that the one God o Israel, who had sent Jesus and glorifed him as Son o God, had once spoken through Moses and the Prophets. What he insisted upon was that alongside the one God o Israel was an exalted
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heavenly Lord Jesus, to whom the whole cosmos would be in obeisance. He also believed that the new revelations he was receiving as the Tirteenth Tir teenth Apostle made anything that had gone beore pale by contrast (2 Corinthians 3:7–9). For Paul there was no comparison between what the orah o Moses promised the nation o Israel— Israel—physical physical blessings o prosperity, well-being, and peace—and peace—and the incomparable spiritual glory now promised to those destined to be part o the new cosmic heavenly amily o glorifed children o God. Tis process o cosmic birthing constituted a new spiritual “Israel,” a new covenant, and a new orah, replacing the old. What Paul proposed as a replacement o the orah o Moses he called the orah o Christ. It was not a legal code, written in stone or on parchment, but a maniestation o the Christ-Spirit in those who had been united with Jesus through baptism, both Jews and non-Jews. It It was this agency o the Spirit that defned the new Israel and enabled the select group to have both the motivation and the power to struggle against “the esh.” In contrast, the Law o Moses was powerless to actually deliver anyo anyone ne rom the power o sin that had its root in the esh, since all it could do is defne what was good. Paul put his own “lie in the Spirit” orward as the model or his ollowers to imitate and was oen disappointed in their seeming inability to “walk in the Spirit,” since they ailed to exhibit even the minimum standards o righteous behavior. Apostles. Paul understood his own role 6. Te Battle o the Apostles. as an apostle, “last but not least,” as he put it, as the essential and pivotal element in God’s cosmic plan to bring about the salvation o the world through Christ. Tough he expressed grie over his ormer lie as an opponent and persecutor o the Jesus movement, stressing that he was
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unworthy even to be an apostle, he nonetheless believed that his call to be an apostle was a singular and extraordinary event (1 Corinthians 15:9–10). Unlike the other apostles, who had been chosen by Jesus at the beginning o his preaching in Galilee, Paul believed that he had been set apart and called beore he was even born— born—while still in his mother’s womb (Galatians 1:15). Given this perspective one might conclude that rather than being last, Paul was chosen beore all the others. His “conversion,” then, would just be a matter o God determining the time was right to reveal Paul as an apostle. As Paul puts it: God chose to “re veal his Son to me me”” (Galatians 1:16). Tis places him in a rather extraordinary position with reerence to the original apostles, since he understood that his singular position as the “Tirteenth Apostle” was to take the message about Christ to the non-Jewish world. Tis special mission, he believed, was essential or him to complete beore the end o the age could arrive. Just as Christ was sent to his own people, the Jewish nation, to confrm the promises given to the patriarchs, Paul, as a kind o “second Christ,” was commissioned to go to the entire world (Romans 15:8–9). He believed that his specifc role as an “apostle “apostle to the Gentiles” had been prophesied by Isaiah and that he, as a Suering Servant, along with Christ, would also pour out his blood as an oering, and thus “fll up what is lacking in Christ’s suering” (Philippians 2:17; Colossians 1:24; Isaiah 49:1– 6). Here Paul clearly believes that his own suering, added to that o Jesus, was needed to ulfll God’ God’ss universal plan. Paul’s relationship with the original apostles was sporadic and minimal. He is emphatic about this point, swearing with an oath to his ollowers that the gospel message he received directly rom Christ came as a heavenly revelation and was not in any way de-
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rived rom consulting with, or receiving authority rom, the original Jerusalem apostles (Galatians 1:16–18). Paul spoke o the Jerusalem leadership sarcastically, reerring to James, Peter, and John as the “so-ca so-called lled pillars, pil lars,”” and “those reputed to be b e somebody, someb ody,” but adds, “what they are means nothing to me” (Galatians 2:6, 9). At the same time he insisted that they gave him the right hand o ellowship and wished him well in his mission. It is possible that the leaders in Jerusalem had initially reached some sort o “live and let live” working agreement with Paul. His work, which was almost exclusively with non-Jews, would not interere with their own preaching to Jews. Sometime in the mid to late 50s A.D., Paul made a clear and decisive break with the Jerusalem establishment. In one o his last writings, an embedded ragment o a letter now ound in 2 Corinthians, he declares “I am not the least le ast inerior to these superapostles,” and ends up calling them “alse apostles, deceitul workmen, disguising themselves as apostles o Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:5, 13). He had also become terribly bitter against his ellow Jewish Christians who maintained their Jewish aith: “Look out or the dogs, look out or the evil-workers, look out or those who mutilate the esh,” sarcastically reerring to the practice o circumcision (Philippians 3:2). radition has it that Paul ended up in prison in Rome alone, with ew supporters (2 imothy imothy 4:16). Most scholars have interpreted this bitterly denunciatory language as directed against a group o unnamed Jewish opponents, not the Jerusalem apostles. I think this is mistaken. Te radical nature o the break that took place between Paul and the original apostles is so threatening to our most basic assumptions about Christian origins that it is easy to think t hink that it just can can’t ’t be true, but the evidence is there. Unortunately, outside o Paul’s letters there is little in the New estament estament to document it urther urther.. Aer all, the entire New estament canon is largely a post-Paul and pro-Paul production. But Paul Paul himsel provides his side o the story and that t hat
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is more than enough to reconstruct what happened. Fortunately a ew additional sources outside the New estament writings have survived that support what we can construct as the other side o the story stor y. We We will discuss dis cuss these thes e in the fnal chapter. Tey provide us with solid evidence o just how bitter and sharp the break between the Jerusalem apostles and Paul became. I some o the elements o this brie overview o my analysis o Paul seem strange and unamiliar to readers, that should be no surprise. Paul proved too radical, too apocalyptic, and too controversial even or the emerging Church in the second through the ourth centuries. He was domesticated, frst by the author o Acts, as I have noted, but subsequently by letters written in his name, purporting to be rom his hand, that are ound in the New estament. Paul was appropriated as a hero, a courageous cou rageous preacher preach er,, and a martyr, who was responsible or taking the gospel beyond be yond the Jewish world, but the radical content o his message, and his view o his unique calling and mission, were lost to subsequent generations o Christians. What Paul most expected to happen never came about and his grand vision o the imminent transormation o the world, and his pivotal role therein, utterly ailed. Te Paul who was appropriated over the centuries was a theological Paul, particularly as understood by Augustine and Luther. Paul was removed rom his historical context and recast in terms o the great doctrines o Christianity, namely, predestination, justifcation by grace through aith, reconciliation, redemption, sanctifcation, and eternal lie. Te ethical teachings o Paul also had a practical and enduring legacy, rom his incomparable celebration o the primacy o love in 1 Corinthians 13, to his views o women, sexuality and marriage, divorce, and other social issues. Te thirteen letters attributed to Paul in the New estament make up nearly one-quarter o the New estament estament and they are the t he primary documents that have shaped the course o Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Protestant Christianity.10
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Jesus will always be the center o Christianity, but the “Jesus” who most inuenced history was the “Jesus Christ” Christ” o Paul, not the historical fgure o Jesus. Tere is a double irony here. Paul became the most inuential defning fgure or later Christianity, even beyond the historical Jesus, but he is also a man waiting to be discovered, even aer nearly two thousand years. Paul transormed Jesus himsel, with his message o a messianic kingdom o justice and peace on earth, to the symbol o a religion o otherworldly salvation in a heavenly world. Recovering the authentic Paul, as he was in his own time, and rom his own words, is my task in this book. All o us, whether Christian or not, whether wittingly or unwittingly, are heirs o Paul, since the parameters o Christ and his heavenly kingdom created by Paul were what shaped Christian civilization.
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