Paul: The Pagans' Apostle

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I came to this book after reading Paula Fredriksen's very excellent [[ASIN:B005LMEYOU Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism]]. In that book, I appreciated Fredriksen's ability to place Augustine in the context of his time and to dissect the thinking of Augustine in a nuanced way. Fredriksen is Jewish, and she clearly feels no obligation to interpret seminal Christian figures - Augustine in one case and St. Paul in this book - in a manner independent of Christian assumptions.

In this book, Fredriksen spends a great deal of time developing the Jewish historical substrate and how it related to the pagan world that surrounded it. Frederiksen discusses the ambiguous status of gods other than the Jewish Gods in the context of Jewish henotheism, which was the idea that other gods existed but Jewish allegiance was to the God of the Jews. Over time the God of the Jews became the God of the universe to whom all men would eventually accept. This injected the idea of the “eschatological gentile” - the gentiles who at the end of time would accept the God of the Jews.

The idea of eschatological gentiles is Frederiksen's key to understanding Paul. She explains that Paul's experience of gentiles turning to the God of the Jews convinced him that he was in the end-times and that these were the eschatological gentiles spoken of by the prophets, who had always proclaimed that gentiles would worship God as Gentiles, not as Jews. As such, conversion to Judaism - via circumcision - was contrary to the prophecies that Jews and Gentiles, qua gentiles, would come to God at the end of time.

With this in mind, Frederiksen explains that Paul's discussion in Romans was to and about gentiles, particularly about Gentiles who had converted to Judaism via circumcision. Paul's point was that circumcision did nothing for Gentiles and that becoming Jewish, and accepting the Jewish law, was worse than useless. On the other hand, since Romans was written to Gentiles - “Pagan ex-Pagans”, according to Frederiksen - it was not written to Jews and Paul did not mean to say that circumcision and Jewish laws would not be of use to Jews.

Frederiksen argues that the issue for Paul was not necessarily “Judaizing.” Gentile Christians “Judaized” fundamentally by adhering to the basic tenet of Judaism, which was to abandon their allegiance to pagan gods, even if they did not go further and accept circumcision or dietary laws. However, in Judaizing in this one way, Christianity undercut the social compact on which Jewish interaction with pagan culture was based. Pagans maintained peace with the supernatural by serving their gods just as Jews maintained peace with their God by serving Him. When Christians persuaded pagans to abandon their gods, this was seen by pagans as threatening. Since Christians were part of Judaism, the blowback would fall on Jews, which, according to Frederiksen, explains why Christians were persecuted by Jews, including Paul at one point, and by pagans. (Apparently, the “God-fearers” - Gentiles who associated with Jewish synagogues - were not required to abandon their ancestral gods.) Frederiksen observes:

“Even in the socially blurred case of the god-fearers, no pressure, evidently, was brought to bear upon sympathizing pagans to commit exclusively to the god of Israel. (Later Christian observers will chide Jews precisely on this point.38) Finally, what we call “conversion” was so anomalous in antiquity that ancients in Paul's period had no word for it; hence their conceptualizing such a transition as confederation to a foreign law, and as disloyalty to one's own ancestral ethē.39 And if “conversion” itself was an odd thought to think, then the idea of mass-marketing conversion through missions would have been that much odder.”

In this way, Frederiksen underscores how alien the world of Paul is to us.

Frederiksen's writing and analysis is tight and involved. This is not a light read, but it is intensely interesting. The chief take-away is that the Jewishness of Paul should never be underestimated. Paul cannot be comprehended if he is read as being opposed to Judaism. Frederiksen concludes:

“Paul's agonistic rhetoric, with its contrasting binaries of Law and gospel, works and grace; his resolute opposition to proselyte circumcision; his anger with apostolic challengers; his absolute certainty that he knew what was about to happen—once time slipped away and the later gentile churches settled into history, these features of his letters took on the pattern of polarized opposites: Law or gospel; works or grace; and, as Paul's later theological champions would characterize his position, Judaism or Christianity.
Paul would not have recognized his message in these rigid polarities. He conceived of his mission to pagans as entirely consistent with God's promises to his own people, Israel. And he was utterly convinced—pisteuō, he wholeheartedly “believed”—that he and his assemblies would live to see the realization of those promises. In his undisputed letters, he never wavered in this conviction. Should his own death anticipate Christ's victorious second coming, Paul averred, he would nevertheless retain his confidence that history's happy ending would come soon (cf. Phil 1.23–26).
If we can move aside the veils of later ecclesiastical tradition, if we can see past their images of Paul the ex-Jew and of Paul the anti-Jew, if we can imagine ourselves back into the full-hearted eschatological conviction of this movement's founding generation—which thought that it was history's final generation—it is this other Paul whom we will more clearly see. Paul the dynamic, original, passionately committed late Second Temple visionary. Paul the apostle of the final Davidic messiah. Paul the brilliant student of Jewish law. Paul the expert interpreter of his people's ancient scriptures. Paul the charismatic worker of mighty deeds. Paul the messenger of the Kingdom. Paul, the pagans' apostle.”

This is a book worth reading for anyone interested in Christian or Jewish history and theology.