‘Paul within Judaism’ Research Paradigm in Foreign Religious Studies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu17.2024.214Abstract
This article analyzes the current state of research on Paul the Apostle and the reconstruction of and the reconstruction of certain plots in the history of early Christianity. In the midtwentieth century, almost all Pauline scholars saw Paul as a Jewish apostate who had realized the flaws of Judaism, especially the flaws inherent in Torah observance. Ever since Sanders’s pioneering work, the role of Second Temple Judaism became an important dimension of work on Paul’s letters. Even though Sanders’ reconstruction of ancient Second Temple Judaism was radical, his interpretation of Paul was not, even though the traditional anti-Jewish aspects were significantly downplayed. Based on Sanders ‘New perspective on Paul’ it involved many new insights, especially the idea that Paul did not repudiate the Torah as such, but only Jewish identity markers. The combination of Sanders’s reconstruction of ancient Judaism and the focus on Paul as the Apostle to Gentiles has led to a new research paradigm of ‘Paul within Judaism’. Paul was Torah observant and he had never broken with Judaism. Paul argued that Gentiles should not observe the Torah the way Jews did. Paul’s vision was to bring Gentiles into a covenantal relationship with the god of Israel, through Jesus, which indeed called for a significant change of behaviour but did not change their ethnic status. Paul’s critique of the Torah is explained by assuming that he addressed Gentiles members of the Jesus movement who probably wanted to observe all of the Torah.
Keywords:
Paul the Apostle, New Testament, biblical studies, Second Temple Judaism, Jesus movement, Paul within Judaism, New Perspective on Paul, Early Christianity
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References
Литература
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Eisenbaum, P. (2009), Paul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood Apostle, New York: Harper Collins Publishers.
Fredriksen, P. (2017), Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle, New Haven, London: Yale University Press.
Johnson Hodge, С. (2007), If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul, New York: Oxford University Press.
Gager, J. (2015), Who Made Early Christianity? The Jewish Lives of the Apostle Paul, New York: Columbia University Press.
Bird, М. (2016), An anomalous Jew: Paul among Jews, Greeks, and Romans, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Schliesser, B. (2021), Why Did Paul Skip Alexandria? Paul’s Missionary Strategy and the Rise of Christianity in Alexandria, New Testament Studies, no. 67, pp. 260–283.
Zetterholm, M. (2010), Jews, Christians, and Gentiles: Rethinking the Categorization within the Early Jesus Movement, in: Ehrensperger, K. and Tucker, J. (eds), Reading Paul in Context: Explorations in Identity Formation. In Honor of William S.Campbell, London: T&T Clark, pp. 242–254.
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Garroway, J. (2012), Paul’s Gentile-Jews: Neither Jew nor Gentile, but Both, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tatum, G. (2018), Did Paul Find Anything Wrong with Judaism?, Journal of the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting, no. 5, pp. 38–44.
Thiessen, M. (2022), A Worthy Cornelius and Divine Grace: Complicating John Barclay’s Paul and the Gift, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, no. 84, pp. 462–479.
Garroway, J. (2018), The Beginning of the Gospel Paul, Philippi, and the Origins of Christianity, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Fredriksen, P. (2022), “What Does It Mean to See Paul “within Judaism”?”, Journal of Biblical Literature, no. 2, pp. 359–380.
Zetterholm, M. (2003), The Formation of Christianity in Antioch, London: Routledge.
Martin, N (2020), Regression in Galatians Paul and the Gentile Response to Jewish Law, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Nanos, M. (1996), The Mystery of Romans, Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Bühner, R. (2023), Die paulinische Rede von der Selbstversklavung in 1Kor 9, 19 vor dem Hintergrund jüdischer Identität im Sklavenstan, New Testament Studies, no. 69, pp. 195–209.
Rudolph, D. (2011), Jew to the Jews: Jewish Contours of Pauline Flexibility in 1 Corinthians 9: 19–23, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Hedner Zetterholm, K. (2015), The question of assumptions: Torah observance in the first century, in: Nanos, M. and Zetterholm, M. (eds), Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, pp. 79–104.
Collman, R. (2021), Just A Flesh Wound?: Reassessing Paul’s Supposed Indifference Toward Circumcision and Foreskin in 1 Cor 7: 19, Gal 5: 6, and 6: 15, Journal of the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting, no. 8, pp. 30–52.
Croasmun, M. (2017), The Emergence of Sin: The Cosmic Tyrant in Romans, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Published
2024-10-10
How to Cite
Popkov, R. A. (2024). ‘Paul within Judaism’ Research Paradigm in Foreign Religious Studies. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies, 40(2), 341–352. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu17.2024.214
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Religious studies
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Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.
