Session 1: Joint session with New Testament & Christian Theology
Panel review of Matthew V. Novenson, Paul and Judaism at the End of History (CUP, 2024)
Session 2: Paul within Judaism
Clay Mock, Independent Researcher, “Paul’s Religion within Judaism”
Does Paul say what he left “Judaism” for? Scholars have assumed Paul converted to the “religion” “Christianity,” yet others claim he left “Judaism” but is still within “Judaism.” While the former is highly questionable, the latter is terminologically confusing. I argue that Paul has language for what he turned to when leaving “Judaism.” He says so in 1 Corinthians 4:17: my ways in christ. This was the language of freelance “religious” expertise, a “religious” possibility for ethnicities like Judeans, Romans, or Greeks. By comparing his use of τὰς ὁδούς with examples from Hebrew, Greek, and Latin sources I demonstrate the cultural grammar of freelance “religious” expertise. Second, I compare 1 Cor 4:17 with Galatians 1:13-14. The similarities between ἀναστροφήν and τὰς ὁδούς imply that Paul did not change “religions.” Paul still freelanced as he turned from judaizing Judeans to pneumaticizing the nations. Paul’s “religion” never changed and there’s no evidence he left “Judaism,” a term that might better serve our purposes as an ethnic heuristic.
Michael Francis, Catholic University of America, Paul and Law within Philonic Judaism
“Within Judaism” readings of Paul successfully demonstrate the significance of the apostle’s gentile audience for appreciating the focus of his negative comments concerning Jewish law. An implicit question remains, however, for readings that do not adopt a Sonderweg position. To the degree that Jews are redeemed ultimately by Christ and spirit rather than Jewish law, how should Paul’s convictions be best understood “within Judaism”? On what grounds might other Jews consider the non-ultimacy of that which defines their identity? The paper explores the question by means of comparison with Philo of Alexandria, focusing on Philo’s perspective on (1) the role of law, Jewish or otherwise, (2) the character and comparative value of different forms of obedience and motivations for commendable conduct, and (3) the modulations of command and compliance appropriate to agents of different degrees of ethical standing. The paper will argue that Philo’s perspective on law as it pertains to the truly wise and virtuous is an important analogue to Paul’s assessment of Jewish law in relation to those redeemed by Christ and spirit.
Joel Willitts, North Park University, “Neither Circumcision nor Uncircumcision Counts for Anything” (Gal. 5:6): Paul’s Manifesto for the Necessity of Ethnic Differentiation between Jew and Gentile in the Ekklesia
In this paper, I will argue that Paul’s letter to the Galatians amounts to a manifesto for the theological necessity for Jewish and Gentile believers in the ekklesia. The paper will reexamine the letter from the standpoint of a Torah-observant first-century Jewish believer in Messiah who assumed Jewish believers in Messiah continued to pattern their lives by the Mosaic Torah. This more historically plausible perspective dynamically changes one’s understanding of Paul’s soteriology and ecclesiology. Far from erasing Jewish and Gentile ethnic identity, Paul argued for the theological necessity of both abiding ethnic identities. In Galatians, Paul teaches that the diminishment of one means the diminishment of the other; they are mutually interdependent in salvation and the reception of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Paul emphatically stated that the Galatian Gentiles should reject the notion of an ethnic transformation to Jewish ethnic identity by circumcision because to do so was to deny the truth of the Gospel. Seen from this angle, I will argue that the purpose of Paul’s ethical discourse in the latter part of the letter was to guide the conduct of ethnically Gentile Messiah believers who, unlike Jews, do not pattern life after the stipulations of the Mosaic Torah. Thus, so interdependent were the Jew and the Gentile in the Messiah’s ekklesia that their distinct ethnicities gave no advantage in the reception of righteousness (Gal 5:5-6). What is more, in the sharing of the common faith of Messiah, ethnic differentiation of Jew and Gentile should result in mutual self-giving in slavery to each other expressed through love (5:13-14).
Session 3: Reading Ephesians within Judaism
Daniel J. Atkins, Nazarene Theological College/University of Manchester. “Chosen in Messiah: Israel within God’s Messianic oikonomia in Ephesians”
Does Ephesians dissolve Israel’s election in favour of “the Church”? In this paper, I bring a key proposal of the Paul within Judaism Schule – that Paul’s undisputed letters are addressed specifically to gentiles – into conversation with the theme of a “hidden plan” in Ephesians. First, I read Ephesians 1:3-14 in light of a gentile audience, finding that the “we” of v.3-12 are Paul’s Jewish kin and the “you all” of v.13 are gentiles-in-Messiah. Second, with this reading in place, I interpret Ephesians’ claim in 1:4-6 that Jews, or Israel, are chosen in Messiah “before the foundation of the world” as an instance of STP Jewish apocalyptic. Third, I consider Israel’s distinction in Ephesians 1-3 in light of my reading of 1:4-6. I find that Israel’s primordial election in Messiah does not negate their distinction from gentiles-in-Messiah. Although Israel and the gentiles are united as “one new humanity” in the Messiah, Israel is the forerunner, locus, and servant of God’s messianic oikonomia. Finally, I consider what this interpretation means for a Christian theology of Israel.
Zachary McNeal, University of Edinburgh, “Gentiles and the Polity of Israel: The Jewish Politeia in Ephesians, Philo and Josephus”
Ephesians is usually regarded as a theological treatise of the late 1st century dealing with issues of an increasingly institutionalized church. Further, in spite of the roles that Gentiles and Israel play in the rhetoric of the letter, issues of Jew-Gentile relations are not regarded as central to its theological and ecclesiological “core.” In this paper, I will challenge this reading by comparing the views of Josephus’ Antiquitates judaicae, Philo’s De specialibus legibus and Ephesians on the politeia of Israel. I will argue that politeia is used similarly in all three of these roughly contemporaneous writers to describe the Jewish “way of life,” especially as represented by adherence to the Mosaic law. I will then demonstrate that the relationship of Gentiles to the politeia of Israel is the central concern of the letter, with the various sections serving to integrate Jew and Gentile ethically and theologically into a single politeia.
Daniel Thorpe, University of Aberdeen, “When Jews were Gentiles: Re-Reading τὰ ἔθνη ἐν σαρκί in Ephesians 2.11”
The scholarly consensus is that the implied audience of Ephesians is gentile (Barth, 1967; Lincoln 1990; Dahl, 2000; Yee, 2005; Thiessen, 2020; Jiménez, 2022) or at least primarily gentile (MacDonald, 2000; Darko, 2008; Cohick, 2020). Scholars note the use of “τὰ ἔθνη ἐν σαρκί, οἱ λεγόμενοι ἀκροβυστία” (2.11) as evidence to support the consensus. However, in this paper, I will propose that the terms “τὰ ἔθνη ἐν σαρκί, οἱ λεγόμενοι ἀκροβυστία” refer not to gentiles, but to apostatizing Jews (cf. Strelan, 1996) who had forsaken covenant by way of epispasm (1 Macc 1.15) and by abandoning eighth day circumcision (1 Macc 2.48). Since the descriptors in Eph 2.11 provide the primary evidence for a gentile audience, I wish to reconsider them. First, the use of ποτὲ in Eph 2.11 is not temporal, but suppositional, “you are presumably gentiles in the flesh”. Second, the use of ἐν σαρκί with τὰ ἔθνη indicates covenant language (cf. Sir 44.20; Jub 15.25–34), which in turn heightens intra-Jewish rhetoric. Third, the use of outgroup language “children of destruction” (Jub 15:26) and “sons of Belial” (Jub 15:33) or in Gal 2.14 where Paul tells Peter that he is ὑπάρχων ἐθνικῶς (“being as a Gentile”) suggests that it is not abnormal for Jews to polemicize circumcision and therefore, “other” apostatizing Jews who had abandoned covenant (cf. Soon, 2023). One implication of this reading is that the unification brought about by Messiah in Eph 2.14–15 is, in fact, intra-Jewish, therefore, traditional readings of Eph 2.14–15 are rendered invalid.