Paul as Apostle to Gentiles and Jews

I have just finished the first draft of an essay entitled, "Paul: Apostle to Gentiles and Jews". Find it here. I welcome any comments, corrections, and feedback!

Paul: Apostle to the Gentiles AND Jews?

Every now and then I turn to an issue that has continued to fascinate me, namely, Paul's missional work among Jews. Martin Hengel wrote: “It was never possible to draw a neat division between mission to the Gentiles and mission to the Jews in the church”.[1] I think this is entirely correct. Yes, Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, nations, Greeks, uncircumcised, those-without-law, and idol worshippers (1 Cor 9.21; Gal 2.7-9; Rom 11:13; 1 Thess 1:9, etc.). But he sure spent a lot of time in synagogues according to Acts and he mentions Jewish evangelism in 1 Cor 9:20 and Rom 10:14-14. Note also how Paul describes his apostolate as beginning from Jerusalem as far around as Illycrium (Rom. 15.19) - what Gentiles did he proclaim the gospel to in Jerusalem? If Paul was intent on heading to Spain, maybe he was influenced by Isa 66.19-20 which depicts Jews and Gentiles as journeying from there to Jerusalem in order to share in the new creation. Anyway, my part-time research project (beyond 1 Esdras at the moment) consists of looking at evidence for Paul as Apostle to the Jews among the nations.

[1] Martin Hengel, The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ, 154.

Gal. 3.13-14 and 4.5-6

I've noticed that in Galatians 3.13-14 Paul is addressing the salvation of Gentile Christians, but in 4.5-6 he's principally addressing the salvation of Jewish Christians. Gal. 3.13-14 is clearly about Gentiles, but 4.5-6 is probably about Jewish believers since it refers to "those under the law". Note the pattern:

Redemption (3.13) // Redemption (4.5)
blessing/Spirit (3.14) // sonship/Spirit (4.6)

Paul is drawing a parity between the futility of Gentiles going to the Law since Jewish Christians themselves have been redeemed while/from being under the Law. In both cases, the blessings of the Spirit and the full attainment of sonship does not come from the Law according to Paul.. Importantlyly, with you "you" of v. 7, Paul applies this Jewish situation to his Gentile readers. Even though they were not "under the Law" they can now be sons rather than slaves.

Pronouns in Ephesians

It is a strange week when two people, in two different continents, email you on consecutive days with the same question about the personal pronouns in Ephesians, but that is what happened to me recently.

On pronouns, I've always been interested in the "we" of Gal. 2.16: "we know that no one is justified on the basis of works of law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ". Who is the "we"? I think it refers to Jewish Christians which demonstrates that justification by faith was not a Pauline novum, but something that was transparently part of the faith of the early church (see R. Hays ABD 3.1131 and E.P. Sanders PPJ 519 for the same point).

In Ephesians (leaving authorship aside for a moment) there is a constant switch between first person and second person pronouns in chs. 1-2. My student and friend David Kirk writes to me and notes:

"Paul uses first person pronouns for 1:3-12; then second person for 1:13-18. He uses second person for 2:1-2, then first person for 2:3-10, then second person for 2:11-13. In Chapter 2, it is clear that to some degree the second person pronoun refers to Gentile believers. Does the first person pronoun then refer to Jews? If so, Paul's argument is that Gentiles have been incorporated into blessings which were first and foremost for the Jews, which seems a thoroughly Pauline thought, and is what Paul goes on to argue in 2:13ff. In it's favour is that 1:3-12 then makes a lot of sense, with God's choice being of Israel (a thought with strong roots in the OT), adoption as sons being a predestined eschatological goal for the Jews; the 'mystery of his will' in verse 9 then becomes the revelation by Law and prophets with a view to the summing up of all things in Christ. Also 2:1-3 makes sense, especially 'even as the rest'. If my speculations are correct, 2:1-2 refers to Gentiles, 2:3 refers to Jews."

I think the Kirkmeister is on the money and made a good observation. Hopefully he'll blog about this fairly soon himself. Update: David Kirk has posed on this here.

Jews eating with Gentiles

When it comes to Jews eating with Gentiles, what were the options, and what attitudes did Jews have towards Gentile food and Gentile dining company? This is an important question for Jews living in cities of the Diaspora where kosher food was not always plentiful and they had to interact with Gentiles in order to get anywhere in the social order. Here's an overview:

Rejection of Gentile oil as impure: Josephus, Life 74; War 2.591; Ant. 12.120.
Rejection of Gentile wine: Dan. 1.8; Add. Esth. 4.17.
Bringing one’s own food and wine to a meal: Jdth. 12.1-4, 19.
Eating only vegetables: Dan. 1.8-15; Josephus, Life 14; Rom. 14.1-2.
Dispensing with prayers and libations at joint meals: Ep. Arist. 184-85.
Sitting at separate tables: Jos. and Asen. 7.1.
Not eating with Gentiles at all: Acts 10.28; 11.3; Tacitus, Hist. 5.5.

Josephus' Adiabene story and Acts 15

Anyone wanting to get a grip on the diverse beliefs within Judaism about conversion and adherence to Judaism by Gentiles (did Gentiles have to be circumcized in order to becom Jews?) have to read Josephus' account in Antiquities 20 on the conversion of the house of Adiabene. This provides an excellent background to the kind of disputes you find in Acts 15 and Galatians. A good discussion of the debate and comparison of Luke and Josephus can be found in Google Books at. Is Paul versus the Proselytizers in Galatia another version of Ananias vs. Eleazar in Adiabene?

Daniel R. Schwartz, ‘God, Gentiles, Jewish Law: On Acts 15 and Josephus’ Adiabene Narrative.’ In Jewish Identity in the Greco-Roman World. Edited by J. Frey, D. R. Schwartz, and S. Gripentrog. AJEC 71, Leiden: Brill, 2007., pages 263-281.

Robert Jewett on Rom. 2.13-16

In several places I have advocated the Gentile Christian reading of Rom. 2.13-16. I was glad then to read Bob Jewett's comments on this section:

"The Most likely of these views from a rhetorical point of view is that Paul is here describing the status of converted Gentiles. Having assented that wrath is already evident among unconverted Gentiles (1:18-31) and that Jews are not exempt from God's impartial judgment (2:1-13), the audience consisting mainly of converted Gentiles would assume that their current situation is described in these verses which provide a preliminary form of Paul's strategy of touting Gentile conversion in order to provoke Jewish conversion through jealousy (11:11-14). The alleged contradiction between these verses and chap. 3 is removed if one takes the latter as claiming that all unconverted Gentiles and Jews have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that salvation is by grace alone for Jews as well as Gentiles.

The gar ('for') of v. 14 indicates an argumentative connection with the foregoing thesis concerning the impartial judgment of God in v. 11. It is significant that Paul refers here to the ethne ('Gentiles') without the article implying that some but not all Gentiles are in view. The expression ta me nomon echonta ('those that do not have the law') refers to the absence of the Jewish Torah within the cultural tradition of Gentiles, whereby the word phusis should be taken as qualifying their identity rather than behavior. It refers to Gentiles whose birthright lacked exposure to the Torah. Yet they do the 'deeds of the law,' a claim that in the experience of the Roman audience could only have referred to converted Gentiles" (pp. 213-14).

Jim Hamilton Reviews Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission

Jim Hamilton offers a review of my book Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission. I agree with him too that discussions of authenticity are dull and boring! There is only so much of Rudolf Bultmann's History of the Synoptic Tradition you can read in one sitting without dying of boredom and frustration.

Gerd Theissen on continuity between Jesus and early Christianity

Phil Harland reports on Gerd Theissen's paper at the international SBL held in Vienna which was on continuity between Jesus and the early church. Harland summarizes Theissen's view as:

Theissen pointed to evidence which he interpreted as Jesus’ universalizing tendencies, Jesus’ tendencies to include non-Judeans. These “liberal” (as Theissen calls them) ideas of Jesus are reflected in Jesus’ eschatological views (e.g. Mt 8:11-12), according to Theissen. In other words, Jesus opted for the inclusion, rather than annihilation, of the nations / gentiles (those from East and West, in Theissen’s interpretation) option within Judaism of the time. This reflects continuity with those Jews who likewise imagined the end-time inclusion of the Gentiles, as well as some continuity with Paul’s subsequent focus on including gentiles in God’s end-time community, according to Theissen.

I've argued similarly in my Ph.D dissertation and looked at the issue of continuity and discontinuity more specifically in a EABS paper to be published by WUNT and edited by Tom Holmen.

Phil Harland also has some good comments on the anti-imperial Paul which is quickly becoming scholarly orthodoxy. While I think that Paul's gospel has clear theopolitical outcomes (to use Michael Gorman's term), I still think that much written about the anti-imperial Paul is indebted to anti-Bush or anti-American rhetoric which is then read into Paul.

Paul as Apostle among the Gentiles

Sometime ago on the Corpus-Paulinum discussion board there was a thread about Bruce Malina and John Pilch's book Social Science Commentary on the Letters of Paul which argues that Paul was not apostle to the Gentiles but to Greek Israelites. I confess that I find it difficult to imagine Paul as anything other than deeply interested in evangelizing Gentiles and protecting the integrity of these Gentile believers as they interacted with Jewish Christians. However, I think Malina and Pilch might actually be onto something.

First, if we define ethne geographically or politically, then Paul could be the apostle among the Gentiles and not just to Gentiles. In fact, this is exactly what Paul says in Rom. 1.5, 'Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.' Viewed this way, Paul is the Apostle to the those who live among the Gentile nations and that could include Jews.

Second, Paul regards the gospel as 'first for the Jew, then for the Gentile' (Rom. 1.16). This might represent a historical or geographical description of how the gospel has spread from Palestine to Rome, it might signify a salvation-historical perspective of how the gospel is now open for Gentiles as well as Jews, or it could represent Paul's own strategy of starting with the Jewish populace in a given city and then moving onto God-fearers and proselytes. At the same time, Paul could actively engage 'pure' pagans through his tent making business. I submit that this comports with the picture of Paul as it occurs in Acts.

Third, in Rom. 10.14-15 Paul arguably justifies a continuing program of Jewish evangelism, 'How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"'. In the midst of Romans 9-11 Paul shows his continuing interest in a Jewish mission.

Fourth, we might add that the term Hellenistes ('Greek') is a slippery one when it comes to the question of whether or not Grecian Jews or Gentile Greeks are meant. The reference to the 'Greeks' in Jn. 7.35, 12.20, Acts 6.1, 9.29, and 11.20 are all disputed. Of course in some cases it is clear that Jews and Greeks are being distinguished (e.g. 1 Corinthians 1). But the question is does Jew mean 'Judean' and does Greek mean 'cultured pagan'? And when and how often are diaspora Jews considered part of the 'Greek' world?

Fifth, it was precisely because Paul was operative in the Jewish sphere that he experienced persecution from his fellow Jews who attempted to prevent his evangelism of Gentiles (1 Thess. 2.15-16) and why he was given the 39 lashes, a standard synagogue punishment, several times (2 Cor. 11.24).

Authors who have taken a similar line include Rick Strelan, Rodney Stark, and of course Bruce Malina/John Pilch.

Q and the Gentiles

I am slowly and spasmodically reading through James Crossley's book Why Christianity Happened? (you must read the one review of this book on the Amazon.com link at the bottom of the page!) and I find myself agreeing with parts and groaning at other parts of his volume.

On Q and the Gentiles (something I have thought and written about), it will take more than a footnote to H. Schurmann to convince me that Mt. 10.5-6b is part of Q and I think a better case can be made that Mt. 8.11-12/Lk. 13.28-29 does refer to Gentiles than what Crossley admits. But I do think, in general, that Crossley is correct in following Chris Tuckett about Q and a Gentile mission. Most of the mentions of Gentiles in Q are rhetorical and seem to be aimed at calling Israel to repentance (e.g. Mt. 12.41-42/Lk. 11.31-32). I surmize that Q knows of a Gentile mission, has no problem with it, but is fundamentally concerned with the renewal of Israel. A perspective that probably reflects a Judean or Galilean or Syrian provenance for the use of Q.