Paul, Apostle of Liberty

By Richard N. Longenecker

Paul’s teachings are vital to the Christian gospel, so the turbulent, long-running debate over how to interpret Paul’s message is crucially important. Richard Longenecker’s Paul, Apostle of Liberty has long stood — and still stands — as a significant, constructive, evangelical study of Paul’s theology, especially of the creative tension between law and liberty that runs throughout his thought.
 
When this book was originally published in 1964, Longenecker then presciently anticipated several subsequent debates, addressing many of the same questions that such scholars as E. P. Sanders and Richard Hays did years later. This second edition of Paul, Apostle of Liberty includes a substantial foreword by Douglas Campbell and a lengthy addendum by Longenecker discussing the major developments in Paul studies over the past fifty years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Nov 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781467443586

Richard N. Longenecker

Richard N. Longenecker is Ramsey Armitage Professor of New Testament, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto. He receivec the B.A. and M.A. degrees from Wheaton College and Wheaton Graduate School of Theology, respectively, and the Ph.D. from New College, University of Edinburgh. His principal publications include Paul, Apostle of Liberty (1964), The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity (1970), The Ministry and Message of Paul (1971), Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (1975), “The Acts of the Apostles” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (1981), and The New Testament Social Ethics for Today (1984).

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Paul

Apostle of Liberty

• •

second edition

Richard N. Longenecker

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.

© 1964, 2015 Richard N. Longenecker

First edition published 1964

Second edition published 2015 by

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 /

P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data

Longenecker, Richard N.

Paul, apostle of liberty / Richard N. Longenecker. — Second edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8028-4302-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)

eISBN 978-1-4674-4398-2 (ePub)

eISBN 978-1-4674-4358-6 (Kindle)

1. Paul, the Apostle, Saint. I. Title.

BS2506.3.L66 2015

225.9′2 — dc23

2015015053

www.eerdmans.com

To Fran

My Beloved

for

We Are Co-­Workers

in God’s Service

I Cor. 3:9

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

I. The Problem of Sources

Talmudic Literature

Noncanonical Literature

The Historical Accounts

The Pauline Corpus

Background

II. Hebrew of the Hebrews

The Biographical Claims

A Diaspora Home

Disputed Attitudes and Actions

Disputed Concepts and Expressions

Disputed Hermeneutics

III. The Piety of Hebraic Judaism

Externalism and Formalistic Piety

Inwardness and Prophetic Spirit

The Correlation of the Two Elements

The Religion of a Nomist

The Essential Tension of Judaism

IV. Saul and the Law

The Testimony of Romans 7

Blameless According to the Law

Kicking against the Goads

Zealously Persecuting

The Old Covenant in Retrospect

Teaching

V. Legality and Law

Romans 7 and Human Inability

The Ethical Ability Interpretation

The Law in the Old Covenant

VI. The End of Nomism

Formative Factors

Christ the End of the Law

Righteousness in the New Covenant

VII. Liberty in Christ

Background and Parallels

In Christ

The Indicative of Liberty

The Imperative of Liberty

VIII. The Exercise of Liberty

The Mind of Christ

The Law of Christ

The Correlation of the Two Factors

Apostolic and Ecclesiastical Authority

The Conditioning of Liberty

Practice

IX. Paul and the Jerusalem Church

The Judaizers

Paul and the Pillar Apostles

An Expression of Unity

X. All Things to All Men

In the Gentile Mission

To the Libertines

To the Ascetics

To the Strong

To the Ecstatics

XI. The Problem Practices of Acts

Jewish Vows and Customs

Continued Preaching to the Jew

Acceptance of the Jerusalem Decree

Claims in Defense

Conclusion

Appendix: Christianity in Jerusalem

Constituency

Essential Theology

Mission

Relations with the Nation

Addendum (2015)

Understanding Paul and His Letters during the

Past Twenty Centuries, with Particular Attention

to His Letter to the Christians at Rome

I. Understanding Paul and His Letters during the Patristic Period

II. Understanding Paul and His Letters

during the Reformation Period

III. Understanding Paul and His Letters

during the Modern Critical Period

IV. Some Further Significant Advances in the Study of Paul and

His Letters during the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

V. Further Observations and Comments on the Understanding of Paul and His Letters during the Past Centuries and Today

VI. A Short List of My Heroes of the Past

in Understanding Paul and His Letters

A Concluding Postscript

Bibliography

Index of Names and Subjects

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

Foreword

The republication of Richard Longenecker’s Paul, Apostle of Liberty is potentially a very important moment for modern Pauline studies. In order to appreciate just why this is the case, however, it will be necessary to revisit some of the most significant recent movements within the discipline — in particular, the impact of E. P. Sanders.¹

The world of Pauline studies was rocked by the publication in 1977 of Sanders’s magisterial Paul and Palestinian Judaism.² In that book, first and foremost, Sanders presented a description of the piety of late Second Temple Judaism in terms of what he called covenantal nomism — that is, religious conduct responding within a covenantal relationship with God. This pattern of religion as he called it — in other words, a soteriology — was exhaustively articulated in relation to the Qumran literature, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and the writings of the rabbis. But Sanders’s thesis was a simple one, namely, that throughout this material, largely without exception, the religious pattern of covenantal nomism that emerged from the sources was a humane and humble piety.

Jews were saved by God’s gracious covenantal election of Israel. God’s covenant called them into existence and sustained them through their many travails. But like all relationships, there were expectations of what the appropriate behavior should be in response. The Torah — rather unhappily often translated by Christians as law but better rendered within this pattern of religion as sacred instruction or some such — spelled these expectations out. So in response to God’s gracious, covenantal election, Jews lived their lives in accordance with the instructions given to them in the Torah and thus in much the same way that many Christians today try to live their lives in accordance with the instructions and dictates given to them by God in the Bible. This was the response of nomism to God’s gracious, electing cov­enant, hence the rubric covenantal nomism. Provided Jews continued to try to respond to God as they had been instructed, God stayed in relationship with them as had been promised.

But someone might ask, Did Jews sin within this relationship? at which point it might be asked further, What happened to the relationship as a result of this? Of course they sinned, and they were well aware of it, Sanders observed. But the gracious, electing God had provided numerous ways of repairing and restoring the covenantal relationship when it was damaged (except perhaps in drastic and obstinate cases) principally by way of the temple and its array of sacrifices, which was quite prominent in the Torah, but also through complementary practices like almsgiving, repentance, and even martyrdom. The arrangement anticipated sin full well and had numerous ways of dealing with it.

But someone might be concerned about a possible implication of this relational pattern: Does this somewhat cozy arrangement eliminate ethical seriousness and accountability? Do we not need a stronger account of some sort of judgment? Indeed, do not the Jewish Scriptures themselves contain, at least periodically, a rather stronger, harsher accountability than this? But Sanders was well aware of this concern, and observed that Jews still clearly expected to be judged by God in a final assessment. However, this judgment would take place within the broader framework of the covenant and so would be more like the stern accountability a parent demands from a child — perhaps from a teenager who has made a foolish mistake — than a courtroom drama in which punishment and exclusion are implacable.³ So there would still be plenty of accountability but it would not be framed punitively as much as parentally. (Some Jews might have expected a harsher, potentially punitive judgment scenario, but not all did.⁴)

This description of Judaism by Sanders in 1977 provided — as one of its leading early interpreters put it appositely — a new perspective on Judaism,⁵ and this nomenclature signals an important implication. By developing a new description of late Second Temple Judaism in terms of covenantal nomism Sanders was deliberately and systematically repudiating an old perspective on Judaism, namely, the rather different description of Jews at that time in terms of legalism — the description that dominated scholarship on Paul. This was a very different account of Jews in Paul’s day — a harsh, somewhat mercantile construct — that Sanders blamed particularly on the inaccurate and jaundiced research of Ferdinand Weber. Sanders opined that this slanted description had been produced more by the need to interpret Paul in Lutheran terms⁶ than by a careful and fair consideration of the Jewish sources. But Sanders did not leave things there, with an alternative account of late Second Temple Judaism in its own terms.⁷ He went on to offer a corresponding reevaluation of Paul in its light.

Sanders, in a brilliant move, reintroduced a reading of Paul heavily influenced by the arguments of Albert Schweitzer, whose account of Paul is a classic within the discipline (although more influential probably in English-­speaking than in German circles).⁸ Schweitzer emphasized the Jewishness of Paul, but firmly located the apostle’s theological center — the heart of Paul’s pattern of religion we might say — in being-­in-­Christ, which he interpreted in turn in terms of Jewish eschatology. Complementing this judgment, he marginalized Paul’s language of justification, famously calling this a subsidiary crater which has formed within the rim of the main crater of Paul’s thought (225). As he argued, how can a cluster of ideas be central when nothing important comes from it? Paul’s sacraments, eschatology, and ethics were all driven by being-­in-­Christ. And Sanders basically doubled down on this line of argument, adducing numerous further reasons for the marginalization of Paul’s justification material in an engagement that in my view is still one of the most powerful treatments of all the issues.⁹ But Sanders also went beyond Schweitzer’s reading by emphasizing Paul’s retrospective viewpoint concerning Judaism. Paul’s interpreters needed to appreciate that the apostle was reevaluating and redescribing Judaism from a very new vantage point — from life in Christ. The solution therefore preceded the problem.

Arguably, however, Sanders pressed this insight a little too far in an aphorism that became subsequently (in)famous: this is what Paul found wrong in Judaism: it is not Christianity (552, emphasis original). The disjunction apparent here was then further emphasized by his thesis that Paul evidenced an almost entirely new pattern of religion from covenantal nomism, in terms of a change of Lordships. It was these emphases that led the august W. D. Davies, originally Sanders’s doctoral supervisor,¹⁰ to accuse him of Marcionism in his account of Paul.¹¹ And we begin to see here, in this response by Davies, something of the conundrum that Sanders created for Pauline scholars.

Although he introduced a number of powerful new contentions into the world of Pauline interpretation, he did not necessarily provide students of Paul with a way of navigating forward in their understanding of the apostle’s gospel so as to avoid theological shipwreck. In particular, scholars did not now know what to do with Paul’s texts that seemed to speak of justification by faith over against a failing Jewish legalism rooted in works — the foundational texts in Paul for many Lutherans. These passages could not simply be ignored. Many students of Paul are taught that these are the most important things that he ever wrote! Moreover, students did not know how to relate Paul to Judaism. According to Sanders, the two patterns of religion in play here were irreducibly different. Was Paul just unfair then, or perhaps deeply confused?¹² Neither of these responses looked particularly palatable. And questions had been raised about what exactly the center of Paul’s thinking — of his gospel — was.

It is not surprising in the light of these difficulties then that Sanders’s work elicited a widespread negative reaction, and especially from more conservative circles, where the Lutheran reading of Paul is still widely endorsed. Subsequent generations of scholars devoted a great deal of time to picking Sanders’s positions apart — or at least, attempting to.¹³ And I think it is fair to say that the result of this long, determined resistance has been the gradual smothering of his contentions, although I suspect that this has resulted more from the sheer weight of scholarly numbers weighing in than from the provision of superior accounts of the actual evidence. (In part this might also be the result of the filtering of his work through the later old versus new perspective debate on Paul, which is simply not the best place to grasp Sander’s contentions — secondhand and from scholars who in certain key respects were opposed to him.) And all this resistance and not infrequent unhelpful restatement seems to have resulted in a situation today where Sanders is more known about than read, which is a very great shame.

Setting aside the more controversial and unresolved parts of his work, the fact remains that Sanders brought a particularly important problem — if not simply a glaring error — to the attention of the scholarly world of Pauline analysis, which it ignores at its peril. The Lutheran reading of Paul builds its account of the gospel on a description of Judaism in terms of legalism or [attempted] justification through works of Law that Jews themselves cannot endorse or relate to. It works from an account of the problem to a corresponding solution, and the problem is law-­observant Judaism. However, as Sanders pointed out at some length, this description of Judaism — that is, the whole account of the problem — is false! So the basis of the Pauline gospel is, in these terms, a lie. Moreover, it is a lie about God’s chosen people as attested to by the entire Old Testament — a people sent in their millions by nominally Christian nation states in the twentieth century to slave camps and gas chambers. So it is an important falsehood, with massive real-­world consequences, in addition to its theological jeopardy. Yet this important insight has basically been submerged within the long resistance to Sanders’s work as a whole — at which point it is time to note the prescient reintroduction by Eerdmans of Richard Longenecker’s views into the situation through the republication of his important study, Paul, Apostle of Liberty.

This book was first published in 1964, so thirteen years before Sanders’s famous treatment, which appeared, as we noted earlier, in 1977. Moreover, Longenecker is a well-­known evangelical scholar, justly revered as much for his kindness as his erudition — although the latter, as I can personally attest, is considerable (as in fact is the former). In addition, Longenecker was influenced in his early days by Sanders’s mentor, W. D. Davies. And so what we find in Paul, Apostle of Liberty is an evangelical analysis of Paul responsive to all the Jewish questions that Sanders later responded to, but developed in a far more constructive way and many years in advance of Sanders’s key work. Indeed, to say that Longenecker’s Paul was ahead of its time is quite an understatement. Moreover, its republication now is a highly important strategic move.

Conservative scholars who have been trained to repudiate Sanders as an enemy of the Pauline gospel will learn from this book that the question he raised about Judaism is an important one, and, moreover, that it is an evangelical one. Indeed, it was raised by Longenecker considerably before Sanders, so in a very real sense Longenecker is the Sanders of the evangelical tradition — or he ought to be! If nothing else, then, the republication of his far-­sighted analysis should reopen the key question raised by Sanders about Judaism within a new, more constructive phase of discussion.

What does it mean for interpretation of Paul to locate him in a subtly nuanced and diverse Judaism that included a harsher side but also a kinder, gentler form — a reacting nomism in addition to an acting legalism, as Longenecker so astutely put matters? (Reacting nomism is a brilliant anticipation of Sanders’s covenantal nomism.) The implications of asking this question, as we have just seen, are considerable. But we should appreciate immediately that Longenecker was also more nuanced in his account of the nature of late Second Temple Judaism than Sanders would be. That is, Longenecker admits that there were high and low points in Judaism — flowers and weeds as he puts it — and thereby opens up analysis of this dimension to a more sensitive, diversified historical description, and one better positioned as a result to handle the interrogations of postmodernity with its suspicion of any totalizing metanarrative. Just in terms of sheer historical plausibility, his acceptance of diversity seems more realistic. However, in doing this he has not let go of the need to interpret Judaism in a less pejorative fashion.

But all of this is, in a sense, simply by way of backdrop. Longenecker does not of course leave things there. He goes on to model the comprehensive explanation of the apostle that any coherent response to this challenge must take — and here in my view he goes a significant step beyond Davies’s classic treatment as well (see Davies’s Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, first published in 1948¹⁴).

A reading of Paul’s gospel must be supplied that gives a coherent account of the apostle’s Torah-­free ethic and hence also of his emphases on flexibility and freedom; we still need to know, that is, why Paul’s gospel for pagans did not ask them to convert to Judaism and to comprehensive observance of the Torah when they joined the early church. And this is only credible by way of dependence on the notions of being-­in-­Christ and life in the Spirit, argues Longenecker. (He builds here on an interpretative tradition running back through C. F. D. Moule and J. S. Stewart to G. A. Deissmann, as he notes himself in his important interpretative essay appended to the end of this volume. Sanders, it will be recalled, drew the same emphasis in Paul from Schweitzer.)

Intriguingly, these emphases then open up an interpretative space for the importance of the faithfulness of Christ within Paul’s thinking. (Paul uses about half a dozen genitive constructions that are ambiguous in the Greek — see especially Rom 3:22, 26; Gal 2:16 [2x], 20; 3:22; Phil 3:9; Eph 3:12; 4:13. Scholars debate whether he is referring in these to faith in Christ or [the] faith of Christ.) Longenecker argues consistently that Christians live out of Christ — they have their being in him — even as Christ lives in them, making a participatory account of Christian faith seem rather more obvious in these than it might otherwise be. Christians receive their faith by participating in the preeminently faithful one, namely, Jesus himself — and it is worth noting that here too Longenecker anticipated a key later debate within Pauline scholarship by a considerable distance. (The debate was brought to wide prominence in English-­speaking scholarship by the publication of Richard Hays’s brilliant doctoral dissertation in 1983, hence nineteen years after the appearance of Paul, Apostle of Liberty.¹⁵)

But, complementing this positive account of Paul’s notion of salvation in essentially participatory terms, an appropriate explanation of sin in Paul must be supplied as well — sin that the gospel can deal with and that the Torah cannot. That is, some story concerning a problem must still be found, although preferably one that avoids demonizing Paul’s Jewish past. And, in particular, this means that Paul’s interpreters must work carefully through the infamously difficult Romans 7:7-25, which Longenecker proceeds to do. (Indeed, he is so concise and insightful here that I still consult his arguments regularly and prescribe them for my students.) This passage is not a biographical account of life prior to Christ, under the law, he argues, but speaks more to a universal human condition, in Adam, although it is especially clear that this is the case in retrospect. So Longenecker navigates here the narrow interpretative channel Pauline scholars must hazard between demonizing Judaism, on the one hand, and erasing any problematic dimensions in the human situation at all, on the other — something that would call the very legitimacy of Paul’s gospel into question.

In addition to these explanations of central theological matters, however, Longenecker is well aware that plausible historical and biographical explanations must be supplied as well of Paul’s missionary work among the pagans, and, even more importantly, of his defense of his radical new ethic against criticisms from other Torah-­observant members of the early church located in its Jewish Christian wing. Paul’s puzzling adoptions of strict Jewish practices at various times in his ministry also need to be addressed (here especially as attested by the book of Acts, e.g., 16:3; 18:18; 21:23-26). So Longenecker realizes that any discussion of these questions must embrace complex biographical and historical dimensions, and in a way that takes full recognition of, and does not erase, Jewish Christianity — and in these realizations he was once more far ahead of his time.¹⁶

It is probably quite apparent by now that all of this is a tall order — a lot of balls are in the air that the Pauline scholar needs to juggle and not drop. But all these things Paul, Apostle of Liberty does. Longenecker models here then how a thoroughgoing and integrated reinterpretation of all these analytic loci in Paul is necessary in the light of a more nuanced appreciation of the nature of Judaism in Paul’s day — and that that appreciation is itself mandatory — and in doing so lays out just what those loci are and how they need to be related together. Hence it is, if nothing else, an analysis of truly impressive breadth and sophistication, while it is still more incredible to think of all the debates that this book anticipated by decades. But after navigating through all these issues, Longenecker also succeeds in offering his readers a nuanced and deeply constructive account of Paul’s gospel. So it is more and more apparent to me on reflection what a tour de force this sustained explanation of Paul’s thinking is, and hence my enthusiasm for its republication. It deserves to be much more widely known than it currently is.

Having said this, however, I nevertheless nurture the hope that the reappearance of Paul, Apostle of Liberty will achieve even more than a renewed appreciation for certain key questions and moves within Pauline scholarship as Longenecker articulates them here specifically. Those who are impressed by the sophistication of the analysis in Paul, Apostle of Liberty will hopefully also find themselves seeking out the other questions Longenecker engaged in detail elsewhere. That is, the republication of this book will hopefully create a gateway for a renewed appreciation of his scholarship more broadly.

Longenecker’s analysis of Jesus’ Jewish titles,¹⁷ following in the footsteps of Oscar Cullmann’s classic study,¹⁸ is a scholarly gem. He was an early and highly astute investigator of Paul’s intertextuality.¹⁹ He wrote a charming short commentary on the book of Acts that is still well worth consulting.²⁰ (It remains the origin of much of my own research on Acts.) He has also always been attuned to the importance of ethics for Paul, and especially to its liberational dimensions.²¹ His commentary on Galatians is a model of the south Galatian reading, and is deeply in touch with rhetorical, biographical, and Jewish dynamics.²² And he has always been a consummate exegete of Romans²³ — and I have by no means mentioned all his contributions in this brief enumeration.

In sum, Longenecker is an immensely sophisticated interpreter of rather more than Paul and the law, who deserves to be widely known and studied. So hopefully the republication of Paul, Apostle of Liberty will spur a broader process of engagement with, and thereby facilitate a renewed openness to, the important positions he espoused in general. In particular, however, the analysis of Paul, along with the proclamation of his liberating but nuanced gospel, must benefit primarily as a result of this republication, and especially as scholars learn to appreciate again that the apostle came from a pious religion, Judaism, while any gospel premised on the denial of that truth compromises itself as much as it denigrates others. Somewhat like a prophet of old, Longenecker saw this conundrum clearly many years ahead of most of his fellow scholars, and never stopped announcing and warning about the matter. So hopefully this republication presages the beginning of a new season when his warnings will truly be heard, and his most important answers more deeply appreciated.

Douglas A. Campbell

Professor of New Testament

The Divinity School, Duke University

Durham, North Carolina

1. It needs to be appreciated that the following is little more than a sketch of what I take to be one or two key movements in recent Pauline scholarship, and the importance of the republication of Paul, Apostle of Liberty in light of those movements. Longenecker himself provides a considerably more comprehensive survey of modern scholarship, along with a fairly detailed journey through previous scholarly phases, in his supplementary concluding essay here. However, it is important to position his own work in relation to that history, something he understandably refrains from doing himself.

2. Subtitled A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress).

3. These alternatives are most clearly articulated by George Lakoff, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (2nd ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002 [1996]). He also helpfully links these narratives to embodied metaphors.

4. Sanders concedes the presence of a harsher, more conditional attitude only in 4 Ezra. Nevertheless, I am emphasizing his recognition of issues of judgment and accountability here because his work is frequently presented as overlooking them.

5. See J. D. G. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, in Jesus, Paul, and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians (London: SPCK, 1990), 183-214. The expression was first used by him in the 1982 Manson Memorial Lectures.

6. NT scholars tend to characterize a particular set of texts and readings in this way in dependence on some seminal essays by Krister Stendahl — most especially The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West, Harvard Theological Review 56 (1963): 199-215. It is in many respects an unhappy designation because it is not especially fair to the full breadth and complexity of Luther’s thought, or to the same dimensions in many subsequent Lutherans. (See my attempt to articulate this complexity more fairly in chapter 8 of The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009], 247-83.) But this is the way scholars working on Paul tend to refer to matters, so I am using this terminology here.

7. It is only fair to note that Sanders did not stop describing late Second Temple Judaism in 1977. He wrote many further studies, the most important of which is his articulation of common Judaism in Judaism, Practice and Belief 63

bce

–66

ce

(London/Philadelphia: SCM/Trinity Press International, 1992).

8. The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (trans. W. Montgomery; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998 [1931]).

9. See Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 431-556.

10. Davies was Sanders’s supervisor at Union Theological Seminary, although in relation to the Synoptic problem.

11. Preface to the Fourth Edition, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (4th ed.; London: SPCK, 1980 [1948]), xxix-­xxxviii, esp. xxxvi. That is, Davies was insinuating that Sanders’s account of Paul broke the relationship between early Christianity and preceding Judaism in an unacceptable way that was redolent ultimately of the famous so-­called heretic of the second century, Marcion, who attributed Judaism and its Scriptures (i.e., the Old Testament) to another God, and sought to found Christianity simply on a corpus of Pauline letters and the Gospel of Luke.

12. Sanders’s own further navigation of these questions was provided by Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983). However, his account here has not been as widely endorsed — or even as widely known — as his earlier statement of the problem in 1977.

13. One example of this resistance: Justification and Variegated Nomism. Vol. II: The Paradoxes of Paul (ed. D. A. Carson, P. T. O’Brien, and M. A. Seifrid; Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.181; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004).

14. London: SPCK. It is now in its fourth edition (1980).

15. Another work presciently republished by Eerdmans: see The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002 [1983]).

16. The phenomenon of Jewish Christianity is again interesting New Testament scholars. As a marker of both this increased interest and its date see Annette Yoshiko Reed, ‘Jewish Christianity’ after the ‘Parting of the Ways’: Approaches to Historiography and Self-­Definition in the Pseudo-­Clementines, in The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (ed. A. H. Becker and A. Y. Reed; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 188-231; and " ‘Jewish Christianity’ as Counter-­History? The Apostolic Past in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and the Pseudo-­Clementine Homilies," in Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-­Roman World (ed. G. Gardner and K. Osterloh; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 173-216.

17. The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity (London: SCM, 1970).

18. The Christology of the New Testament (trans. S. C. Guthrie and C. A. M. Hall; London: SCM, 1959 [1957]).

19. Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975). Richard Hays’s seminal treatment, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, appeared in 1989 (New Haven: Yale University Press).

20. The Acts of the Apostles, in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (ed. Frank E. Gaebelein; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), 207-573.

21. New Testament Social Ethics for Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984).

22. Galatians (Word Biblical Commentary 41; Dallas: Word, 1990).

23. Introducing Romans: Critical Issues in Paul’s Most Famous Letter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011); and The Epistle to the Romans (New International Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming).

Preface

This book highlights the creative tension that existed in Paul’s thinking and actions between legalism and liberty generally — and, in particular, between Jewish nomism and Christian freedom. Yet in a desire to provide a context for this feature of the apostle’s proclamation and practice, our study also investigates such historical questions as (1) how Paul’s preaching and actions related to the religion of Israel as set out in the Old Testament, (2) how his teachings and lifestyle related to the teachings and practices of the Judaism of his day, and (3) how what he proclaimed and what he did related to the convictions and lifestyle of many Jewish believers in Jesus who were his contemporaries. Yet of even greater importance for an understanding of Paul’s thought and actions as a Christian apostle is an appreciation of his quite personal themes of being in Christ and Christ by the Holy Spirit being in those who belong to Christ, which seem to dominate all of his thinking and to guide all of his actions. So in what follows I have repeatedly focused on these comparative matters and personal themes for a better understanding of Paul’s Christian thought and ministry.

In effect, what I present in this book has to do with the origin and nature of Paul’s Christianity vis-­à-­vis (1) the Old Testament Scriptures, (2) the teachings and practices of Judaism during Paul’s day, and (3) the convictions and lifestyle of most of the then contemporary Jewish believers in Jesus — always, as well, taking note of the personal focus of Paul’s teaching and the correlative emphases in his own Christian lifestyle and ministry. And it is my hope that such features of the apostle’s thought and ministry will serve as paradigms for the thinking, lives, and ministries of believers in Jesus today, both mine and those of everyone who claims to be a Christ-­follower.

When I completed the manuscript for the first (1964) edition of this book — and had before me various other challenges of teaching, preaching, and writing (as well as dabbling for financial reasons in a number of house renovations and living happily with my wife, growing family, and friends), I thought I was done with this particular book. So during the past years I have usually resisted the well-­intentioned encouragements by Michael Thomson, Acquisitions Editor at Eerdmans Publishing Company, to do a second edition of Paul, Apostle of Liberty. But when Michael told me (1) that Douglas Campbell had already prepared an appropriate foreword for a second edition (which material he also told me I would not be allowed to see until my revisions were in hand and I was in the process of correcting the page proofs, though he assured me that I would be pleased with Douglas’s foreword), and (2) that I would be permitted by Eerdmans to attach my own rather lengthy Addendum on some such topic as Understanding Paul and His Letters during the Past Twenty Christian Centuries, I consented. Thus I have been happy to prepare this second edition, with the Addendum and with a few necessary corrections to the original material, under the guidance of the very able editors at Eerdmans, especially Michael Thomson and John Simpson.

In a very real sense, the first and second editions of this book — some fifty years apart — function for me as bookends for most of my other writings on Paul. Yet there still remains my rather large commentary on Romans, which is presently in the editorial process at Eerdmans and is slated for release at some time in the near future. And I still have some hopes (at age 85) of writing some things more, which hopefully will be of some significance for God’s people — though I realize that much depends on God’s continued gifts of health, wit, and energy. And I further recognize that, as Paul has aptly said in his great love poem of 1 Corinthians 13, For now we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes [in our eternal experience with God after our resurrection], what is in part will disappear. . . . Now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part; then I will know fully, even as I am fully known (vv. 9-10, 12). And with such a promised fullness of knowledge on the part of all of God’s people in the future, I expect to be told by many of God’s good people that I have been quite wrong in what I had earlier taught, preached, and written about the apostle Paul. But then I expect that I will be so changed as to be able to accept happily such a stinging rebuke — though, at present, I desire to continue teaching, preaching, and even writing on some matters of eternal significance as I see them in Holy Scripture, and particularly as I see them in Paul’s letters.

Abbreviations

Books and Journals

ACCS Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture

Ap. and Ps. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed. R. H. Charles

B.A. Biblical Archaeologist

B.A.S.O.R — S.S. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research — Supplementary Studies

BBR Bulletin for Biblical Research

BZ Biblische Zeitschrift

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

E.G.T. The Expositors’ Greek Testament

E.Q. The Evangelical Quarterly

E.T. The Expository Times

H.D.A.C. Hastings’ Dictionary of Apostolic Church

H.D.B. Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible

H.D.C.G. Hastings’ Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels

H.J. The Hibbert Journal

H.N.T. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament

H.T.R. Harvard Theological Review

I.C.C. International Critical Commentary

Int Interpretation

J.B.L. Journal of Biblical Literature

J.E. The Jewish Encyclopedia

J.J.S. The Journal of Jewish Studies

J.Q.R. Jewish Quarterly Review

J.T.S. Journal of Theological Studies

Jud Judaica

LEC Library of Early Christianity

M.N.T.C. Moffatt New Testament Commentary

NTAbh Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen

N.T.S. New Testament Studies

R.B. Revue Biblique

SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series

S.J.T. Scottish Journal of Theology

ST Studia Theologica

Str.-­Bil. Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck

TSK Theologische Studien und Kritiken

TU Texte und Untersuchungen

WBC Word Biblical Commentary

W.U.N.T Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

WW Word and World

ZKG Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte

Z.N.W. Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

Z.T.K. Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

Talmud

General

b. Babylonian Talmud

j. Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud

Mish. Mishnah

R. Rabbi or Rabbah

Tos. Tosephta

Tractates

Aboth Pirke Aboth

Ab. Zar. Abodah Zarah

Bab. Bath. Baba Bathra

Bab. Mez. Baba Mezia

Ber. Berakoth

Dem. Demai

Eduy. Eduyoth

Hag. Hagigah

Kel. Kelim

Keth. Kethuboth

Mak. Makkoth

Meg. Megillah

Men. Menahoth

Nid. Niddah

Pes. Pesahim

Qid. Qiddushin

Sanh. Sanhedrin

Shab. Shabbath

Shebu. Shebuot

Sheqa. Sheqalim

Sot. Sotah

Suk. Sukkah

Teb. Tebul Yom

Yeb. Yebamoth

Yom. Yoma

Philo

De Abr. De Abrahamo

De Cherub. De Cherubim

De Congr. De Congressu Eruditionis Gratia

De Decal. De Decalogo

De Ebriet. De Ebrietate

De Exsecrat. De Exsecrationibus

De Fuga De Fuga et Inventione

De Gigant. De Gigantibus

De Jos. De Josepho

De Migrat. Abr. De Migratione Abrahami

De Mutat. Nom. De Mutatione Nominum

De Post. Cain. De Posteritate Caini

De Sacrif. Ab. et Cain. De Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini

De Somn. De Somniis

De Spec. Leg. De Specialibus Legibus

De Virt. De Virtutibus

De Vita Mos. De Vita Mosis

Leg. ad Gai. Legatio ad Gaium

Leg. All. Legum Allegoria

Quis Rer. Div. Heres Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres sit

Quod Det. Pot. Insid. Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiari Soleat

Quod Deus Immut. Quod Deus sit Immutabilis

Dead Sea Scrolls

1QH Psalms of Thanksgiving (hodayot)

1QHab. Habakkuk Commentary

1QM War Scroll (milḥamah)

1QS Manual of Discipline (serek hay-­yoḥad)

1QSa A Formula of Blessing

CDC Cairo Damascus Document (6QD and 4QDb of Qumran)

References are given according to column and line. CDC references are also given according to chapter and verse in parentheses, as in Ap. and Ps.

Josephus

Antiq. Antiquities of the Jews

Contra Apion Contra Apion

Life Vita Josephus

War The Jewish War

Note

: Texts used in this study are Kittel and Nestle, unless otherwise indicated. Undesignated translations of nonbiblical material are those of H. Danby, The Mishnah; the Soncino edition of The Babylonian Talmud, ed. I. Epstein; F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, Philo (The Loeb Classical Library); Wm. Whiston, The Works of Flavius Josephus; The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed. R. H. Charles; and T. H. Gaster, The Scriptures of the Dead Sea Sect.

Introduction

The apostle Paul has never ceased to excite the interest of both scholar and layman. From a purely biographical perspective, he is a favorite in that there were probably exceedingly few people of the Imperial age of Rome whom we can study so exactly as we can Paul through his letters.¹ For the historian interested in the origin of the Christian religion, the teaching and work of the Apostle is secondary only to that of his Lord. In a very real sense the maxim is true: Explain the origin of the religion of Paul, and you have solved the problem of the origin of Christianity.² In the field of comparative religions, he stands at the crossroads of Hebraicism and Hellenism — yet lifts his eyes above and beyond. Theologically, his influence upon Christendom is unparalleled. Heretics and saints — Marcion, Augustine, Luther, Baur, and Barth, to name only a prominent and assorted few — have claimed theological impetus from him. There is, as many still discover today, a divinely inspired timelessness about his message which grips men and leads them on to their Lord.

As a result of this interest, a great body of literature has arisen about the name of Paul. So diligently and thoroughly has he been investigated that most consider the literary and personal profile of the Apostle to be unmistakably set in bold relief. And yet there have always been claims that scholarship has grossly misinterpreted even the main outlines of his teaching and life.³

The present study stems from a conviction that, while previous scholarly efforts have resulted in a generally faithful reproduction of the Pauline profile, there still remain areas of ambiguity which need clarification. It is therefore the purpose of this work to investigate a matter which can truly be said to be distinctively Pauline: the legality-­liberty dialectic of the Apostle. And in three areas of this subject it has appeared needful to sharpen our understanding of Paul: (1) in his pre-­Christian days under the legal system of Judaism; (2) in his Christian teaching regarding legality and liberty; and (3) in his personal practice of liberty as an apostle of Christ.

Perhaps the most obvious difficulty relating to the historical profile of the Apostle is that concerning his actions as represented in the Book of Acts. Did the apostle of Liberty really continue in such Jewish practices as those ascribed to him, e.g., taking upon himself Jewish vows, keeping up the Jewish customs, worshiping in the Temple, claiming Pharisaic privileges, and accepting guidance from the elder apostles in Jerusalem? And if so, how can this be explained? Were these practices performed hypocritically or with tongue in cheek; are they evidences of inconsistency and vacillation; or is there an inner consistency of faith and life in the Apostle which we have failed to notice and which, when understood, can aid us in the ordering of our Christian lives?

But enroute to a consideration of the problem practices of Acts, many questions must be clarified. What did his all things to all men maxim mean for his Gentile mission and pastoral ministry? What attitudes did he have toward the Jerusalem apostles, the Jerusalem Church, and the Jewish nation, and how cordial were his relations with each? What did he teach regarding legality, nomism, and liberty? As a young rabbi, where did he stand in respect to the Judaism of his day? What was the spirituality of that Judaism like? How satisfying was his preconversion religious experience? What tensions did he feel in his early life? These are matters which must be clarified if we are to view the profile of Paul without distortion.

1. A. Deissmann, Paul, trans. W. E. Wilson (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1926), p. 25; also published as a Harper Torchbook, p. 19.

2. J. Gresham Machen, The Origin of Paul’s Religion (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1921), pp. 4-5. Cf. F. C. Baur, Paul, His Life and Works, trans. E. Zeller (London: Williams & Norgate, 1875), Vol. I, pp. 3-4.

3. The recent work of H. J. Schoeps begins on this premise: The apostle Paul is a truly great figure. His greatness is shown in the very fact that he has found no congenial interpreter and probably never will. From Marcion to Karl Barth, from Augustine to Luther, Schweitzer or Bultmann, he has ever been misunderstood or partially understood, one aspect of his work being thrown into relief while others have been misunderstood and neglected (Paul, trans. H. Knight [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961], p. 13).

I

The Problem of Sources

In the study of Paul’s background, teaching, and practice, it is necessary first of all to delineate the sources of primary significance. Two areas must be identified: (1) the writings that truly represent the Pharisaism of Paul’s day, and (2) the extent of the genuinely Pauline literature.

Talmudic Literature

Talmudic literature has been variously evaluated.¹ Older Gentile scholars, such as W. Bousset and A. Schweitzer, have insisted that it was not representative of predestruction Pharisaism at all.² Many modern writers have agreed, arguing that the Judaism of R. Johanan b. Zakkai, or of R. Akiba, or later yet of Judah the Patriarch, was sufficiently different from that of before the first destruction to be called a new religion.³ An element within liberal Judaism, too, has its doubts that the rabbinic Judaism of the first century can be adequately described from the Talmudic sources.⁴ On the other hand, most Jewish and some Gentile scholars maintain that we can form a picture of predestruction Judaism from the rabbinical writings in our possession.⁵ Thus the monumental work of George F. Moore is based on the premise that the task of Johanan ben Zakkai and his fellows was one of conservation, not of reformation.⁶ Moore insists that since the writings give no hint of a new departure or a new religion, we must accept them as possessing a basic continuity with that earlier time — though undoubtedly there has been a shifting emphasis within this fundamental solidarity through four or five centuries of thought and persecution. But though there has been a development within the Talmud, there is, he maintains, no indication that the development was on new lines or on different principles from that which preceded it.⁷

Objections against this latter position fall into four categories: (1) the late date of the Talmudic materials, (2) the influence of Christianity upon the records, (3) the impact of the first and second destructions on Judaism, and (4) the possibility that later medieval Judaism again altered the original literature with an eye to religious and political opposition in that day.⁸

The argument from lateness of date is, in itself, not convincing; especially when we consider that such a treatise as Pirke Aboth probably had its origin in the days of the first-­century rabbi, Johanan b. Zakkai. It is true that, as the codifications and formulations become more and more removed from the predestruction period, the argument would seem to become more telling. And yet we are dealing with a religious attitude which took great pride in the preservation of tradition. While changes through forgetfulness and differing circumstances would occur, this desire to preserve the traditional — barring other considerations — minimizes the temporal element.

The factors of religious opposition and political disaster, however, cannot be accounted as equally negligible. Though Moore has maintained that neither the Nazarenes in Palestine, . . . nor Gentile Christianity made any mark on Judaism,⁹ it is hard to believe that this was the case. The very rise of a postcanonical body of opposing religious expression, i.e., the Christian New Testament, was probably a major factor in the original desire of the Tannaitic rabbis to bring together their traditions so as also to have authoritative postcanonical documents from their point of view.¹⁰ Furthermore, the success of this new religious position, claiming as it did to be truly representing the Old Testament and the religion of Israel, undoubtedly forced Judaism to look within itself and solidify what it believed to be its positions of strength.¹¹ Certainly the unity of God and the importance of the Torah were emphasized as they never were before. At this time the Shema was invested with the importance of a confession of faith, the ʾeḥad given special prominence.¹² And from this time arise the many explanations of the plural names, pronouns, and adjectives used in connection with the Divine Being in the Old Testament.¹³ Likewise, the extreme glorification of the written Law¹⁴ and the attribution of divine inspiration to the oral¹⁵ seem to be reactions to the national losses and Christian opposition. As Akiba’s rejection of the LXX and his encouragement of Aquila to produce a new Greek translation were clearly in opposition to what he felt to be the misuse of the LXX by the Christians,¹⁶ so other attitudes and doctrines in the Talmud appear to bear this same stamp. The explicit Tannaitic rejection of the miraculous as evidence,¹⁷ the Talmudic suspicion of mysticism,¹⁸ the suppression of eschatological study, and the purging of apocalyptic speculation,¹⁹ to mention only a few, seem to fall within this category. In our growing knowledge of diversity within early Judaism, we are led more and more to the conviction that Palestinian Pharisaism had within it more tendencies and variations than are readily seen in its later literature.

As to the fourth objection, it certainly is possible that medieval Judaism again altered some words and phrases in its literature. But a sweeping revision of the material at that time seems unlikely.

What then can be used from the Talmudic literature in an attempt to understand the Pharisaism of Paul’s day? It would seem from the sweeping indictments above that we have little reason to trust any of it. Yet there are portions of that literature which can be used by the historian and are beyond the realm of reasonable doubt — portions and passages from which, it is true, a detailed picture is impossible, but from which a general impression can be obtained. These are the passages which seem to come from an early time and appear to be above reasonable suspicion of having been written in reaction to Judaism’s political and religious misfortunes. The following four categories of such portions are here proposed,²⁰ and upon them this study will to a large extent base its conclusions regarding the theology of pre­destruction Palestinian Pharisaism:

1. Practices and rules deemed by Johanan b. Zakkai and his followers to be very ancient, or, as Moore says, to be customs the origin of which was lost in antiquity.²¹ Quite often these are introduced by such a phrase as Our rabbis taught, or It has been taught, though in each case the context must be noted as well.

2. Actions and teachings of certain named persons who lived before the first destruction, or who personally had their roots in that earlier period.²² The chief authority of this class is the tractate Pirke Aboth, with its Haggadic teachings attributed to specific teachers. Of principal importance in the Aboth are chapter 1, dealing with the teachers up to

a.d

70, and chapter 2, treating mainly Johanan b. Zakkai, whose roots were firmly planted in the predestruction period, and his disciples. And while for a knowledge of the ideals of rabbinical ethics and piety, no other easily accessible source is equal to the Abot,²³ there are other passages of this type scattered throughout the Gemaras, Midrashim, and Tosephta.

3. Passages and portions which have no reason to be a reaction to either religious opponents or political trials, and which do not seem to have been influenced by a particular local situation or passing fancy, but have parallels elsewhere in the literature. Here it is that the subjective element of interpretation enters most. Yet here are passages which must not be overlooked.

4. Ancient liturgies, confessions, and prayers: the Shema, the Shemoneh Esreh (the Eighteen Benedictions or Prayers), and the broad outlines of the 613 Commandments. It is true that the Benedictions were revised by Gamaliel II, but probably only revised. Except for the confessional insertion, there is no reason to doubt their predestruction quality. The antiquity and importance of the Shema as a recognized confession are attested by its inclusion on the Nash Papyrus and on a phylactery from the Wadi Murabbaat finds.²⁴ And in regard to the 613 Commandments, we can at least accept the broad outlines therein presented.

Noncanonical Literature

The question concerning the importance of the apocryphal and so-­called pseudepigraphical writings in the study of Pharisaism in particular, and first-­century Judaism in general, has not ceased to interest and confound investigators of every type and ability. And with the information from Qumran continuing to pour forth, such interest has been greatly revived. Definite conclusions are impossible, especially in view of the importance of the finds from the Qumran libraries for this area of study and the great amount of material from the caves that has yet to be evaluated.²⁵ Tentative opinions, however, must be expressed.

Certain extreme views need not detain us here: as, for example, that all noncanonical writings except Sirach were wholly unknown to real Pharisaism,²⁶ or, on the other hand, that they were probably more representative of early Pharisaism than is the Talmud.²⁷ Nor should we view all of these writings as representative of one type of thought or piety. The solution is not to be found in so simple a statement as that they are Pharisaic, or not Pharisaic.

With the exception of Sirach, G. F. Moore classes all of the apocryphal books as outside the schools and not intrinsically of immense importance in the study of first-­century Pharisaism.²⁸ Yet it does not follow that the apocryphal works neither reflect nor have influenced early Pharisaism, even though it be true that they originated outside the schools of official Judaism. Akiba, at the beginning of the second century

a.d.

, protested strongly against the canonicity of certain of the Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus, for instance; yet he had no objection to the private reading of the Apocrypha, as is evident from the fact that he himself makes frequent use of Ecclesiasticus.²⁹ That an early second-­century rabbi felt compelled to express himself against official acceptance of the Apocrypha indicates that at least until his time the apocryphal writings had some influence within Palestine. So too, in view of his own practice of reading in private the Apocrypha, his assertion that the reading of external books — i.e., those outside the canon — invalidates one for a share in the world to come³⁰ must be viewed as denouncing only the reading of such books as if they possessed the authority of Scripture and/or the reading of them aloud in public study and liturgical recitation.³¹ In all likelihood, the Pharisaic attitude was similar to that of Qumran: i.e., a giving of great care and attention to the Scriptures and the traditional interpretations within the group while taking a lesser interest, though still definitely an interest, in those works classed as outside the canon.³²

It seems wisest, therefore, to acknowledge the Apocrypha’s inferiority to both canonical Scripture³³ and oral tradition, but also to insist that as popular devotional literature it had some influence upon Pharisaism generally and perhaps partially reflects the thought of some individual Pharisees. On the whole, there is the same stress upon and delight in the Law in the Apocryphal books as in the Talmudic literature.³⁴ It has every appearance of being commendable to a Pharisee’s interest and in some cases expressive of a Pharisaic mind. Thus, our study will use much of the Apocrypha as a secondary source in understanding Pharisaism: the pseudohistorical treatise I Esdras, the wisdom of Sirach, the popular tales of Tobit and Judith, and the histories of I and II Maccabees as influencing first-­century