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Category Archives: New Testament Scholarship


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Paul the Zealot?

Icon of Paul's 'Damascus Road' conversion.

Icon of Paul’s ‘Damascus Road’ conversion.

Josephus divided the Judaism of his day into four main philosophies: Pharisees, Zealots, Sadducees, and Essenes. In Ant. 18:23 he writes regarding the Zealots,

“But of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty; and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kind of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man Lord…”[1]

The Zealots were Pharisees who advocated violent resistance against anyone who would claim to be a Ruler or Lord who was not Israel’s God. Josephus is not fond of the Zealots. He blames them for many of the terrible things that came upon the Jews as resistance to Rome increased. He says in 18:4b-5 that Judas and those with him that they, “…became zealous to draw them to a revolt, who both said that this taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery, and exhorted the nation to assert their liberty: as if they could procure them happiness and security for what they possessed, and an assured enjoyment of a still greater good, which was that of the honor and glory they would thereby acquire for magnanimity.”[2] In other words, according to Judas, there motives were not pure, but they desired to be made famous by their actions. In 18:6-10 the Zealots are depicted as a riotous bunch whose, “…sedition at last increased so high, that the very temple of God was burnt down by their enemy’s fire.”[3]

Joan E. Taylor makes an intriguing observation in The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism about Paul. She writes,

“Interestingly, when the apostle Paul refers to his ‘former life in Judaism’ (Gal. 1:13-14), he professes to have been extremely zealous (ζηλωτὴς) for the traditions of his ancestors. In Phil. 3:5-6 he describes himself in terms of the Law as a Pharisee and in terms of zeal (ζῆλος) as a persecutor of the Church. In other words, his zeal manifested itself in action, in his case the action of persecuting those who claimed that the Messiah had already come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.”[4]

If the Zealots were Pharisees who advocated active, violent resistance to Rome, and if Paul was a Pharisee known for his violence against early disciples of Jesus, then it may follow that Paul was a Zealot. This provides for an interesting contrast with some of Paul’s fellow Pharisees. In Acts 5:34-39 we find Gamaliel, a Pharisee who was influential over his contemporaries as well as later generations (who is said to have been Paul’s teacher in Acts 22:3), addressing a Sanhedrin, warning against attacking the apostles. He is presented as saying,

“Men of Israel, take care what you propose to do with these men.

“For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a group of about four hundred men joined up with him. But he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.

“After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census and drew away some people after him; he too perished, and all those who followed him were scattered.

“So in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or action is of men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may even be found fighting against God.” [5]

Now, it is not impossible to validate the historicity of this speech, nor can we separate Gamliel’s words from his Lukan depiction, but we do see that he is remembered as a moderate, cautious Pharisee. This places him in contrast with Paul, a violent Pharisee. Whether Paul was of the “fourth philosophy” before his “Damascus Road” conversion, as it is called, I do not know, but he seems to fit the description.

[1] Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987).

[2] Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987).

[3] Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987).

[4] Joan E. Taylor, The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 237.

[5] New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update, Ac 5:35–39 (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995).

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Michael Bird on Romans 13:1-7

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Michael Bird

Michael Bird’s interpretation of Romans 13:1-7 in three points:

“First, we must remember that Paul’s terse remarks about submission to state authorities are saturated with God language with six references to Theos in the space of seven verses.  For Paul there is no authority except from God; the powers are appointed by God; those who resist his appointed political authorities oppose the authority of God; political authorities preserving social order with the sword are in effect the agent of God; the political authorities are even servants of God. This is not capitulation to political power but a fervent affirmation of divine authority over civil powers. Second, nothing in Romans 13:1-7 compromises Jesus’ lordship. However we read Romans 13:1-7, Jesus remains the one in whom the nations place their hopes. Third, we have read Romans 13 in light of Paul’s apocalyptic narrative about the overthrow of all authorities at the return of Jesus. Paul declares the ‘powers,’ be they political or spiritual, have been disarmed and are impotent before Jesus’ lordship (see Rom 8:38-39; 1 Cor 2:8; 15:25-26; Col 2:15).”

Michael Bird, “‘One Who Will Arise to Rule Over the Nations’: Paul’s Letter to the Romans and the Roman Empire” in Scot McKnight and Joseph B. Modica, Jesus is Lord, Caesar is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies, 159.

Bird goes on to explain that “Paul’s remarks about governing authorities in Romans 13:1-7 are relativized by his exhortation in Romans 13:11-14.” In those veres Paul reminds his audience “…that salvation is at least impending and will bring with it the dissolution and judgement of these very same authorities.” Paul’s words were designed to prevent the infantile Jesus movement from being perceived as seditious and dangerous. Christians did not affirm Roma aeterna (eternal Rome), but neither did Christians intend to overthrow any government themselves. Rome would be judged by Christ one day, so there was no reason to accept Rome’s claims of eternality or divine favor, but the Kingdom of God would be established by God in God’s time, so there was no need to attempt to overthrow Caesar to install Christ.


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Answering Caesar’s inflated claims

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Andy Crouch

Worth pondering:

“…to say ‘Jesus is Lord’ does not seem actually to entail saying ‘Caesar is not [Lord].’ Rather, it entails not saying ‘Caesar is Lord.’ This minute grammatical distinction, simply a matter of where the negation is placed, seems to me to explain so much about the New Testament witnesses. The affirmation ‘Jesus is Lord’ requires not so much a strident denunciation of earthly lords as a studied silence concerning their pretensions. The answer to Caesar’s inflated claims of significance is further proclamation of Jesus the Messiah’s real significance.”

- Andy Crouch, Forward to Scot McKnight and Joseph B. Modica, Jesus is Lord, Caesar is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies, 13


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Paul’s summarized Gospel?

ApostlePaul-Rubev

Paul’s Gospel: Is it limited to 1 Corinthians 15:1-8?

This week I read an essay on Paul’s Gospel that was an exegetical summary of 1 Corinthians 15:1-8. This seems strange to me. Does this section summarize Paul’s Gospel?

Now, if I were to ask Paul to summarize his Gospel he might say something like “the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah.” Unfortunately, I don’t have access to Paul, so his letters will do. Paul’s Gospel may present these events as the pinnacle or climax of Paul’s message, even a condensed summary, but a complete representation? What about Jesus’ teachings, his messianic identity, his miracles and exorcisms, his empowerment by the Spirit, his ascension, his present reign and priestly advocacy, and his appearing? Would Paul have thought these things to be secondary or peripheral? I doubt it.

When we read Paul’s letters we cannot forget that these letters are occasional. When he wrote to the Church in Thessaloniki he addressed eschatological concerns. When he wrote to the Church in Galatia he addressed the difference between Covenants Old and New, especially as this relates to the Spirit. When he wrote to Rome he summarized how the Gospel unites Jews and non-Jews under the reign of Christ. When he wrote to Corinth he had to correct some things, including the idea that although Jesus may have resurrected from the dead, there is no future resurrection.

Paul writes, “Now I make known to you, brethren, the Gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believe in vain.”  These words may sound like he is about to summarize the Gospel he preached, but that doesn’t seem to be what he does at all. Instead, Paul appears to remind them that he has preached the Gospel, it was received, and it is that which continues to save them, so now, let me remind you of those things that are of “first importance” or those things Paul presented to the Corinthians first of all (ἐν πρώτοις): Jesus died. Jesus was buried. Jesus resurrected.

Paul is saying that he began his proclamation with this message. This was his opening proclamation: Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, he was dead, even buried, but God has resurrected him from the dead. Everything follows from this, but that does not mean that everything else is unimportant.

It was not the chapter I read that alone made me revisit Paul’s words, but my recent post on evangelicalism (A Dialogue between a Catholic and an Evangelical: Why I am an E/evangelical) caused me to revisit the definition of “the Gospel,” since it seems “Evangelicals” might want to take seriously the content of the “Evangel” itself. Similarly, I’ve mentioned Paul many times on this blog and I realize that there remains an misperception among admirers and detractors of Paul that his Gospel was radically divorced from Jesus’. Now, if Paul’s Gospel is “justification by faith” or even the death, burial, and resurrection without the context of Jesus’ person and message then yes, there is a disconnect. I don’t think this is the case though. Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom and Jesus acted as the coming King of that Kingdom. Now, the Father’s plan included allowing the King to die, then vindicating the King by means of an apocalyptic, eschatological resurrection before the anticipated great resurrection, but that doesn’t mean Jesus’ Kingdom message doesn’t matter. Instead, Jesus’ Kingdom message was made unique by the means of God establishing his chosen King. Paul on the other side of the resurrection understood this. Therefore, Paul emphasized it, which is not surprising since the Evangelists do the same thing. All four of our earliest, preserved Gospels give more attention to Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection than to the rest of his story. We may not be able to explain how Jesus understood his death (though he appears to have anticipated it), or his resurrection, but we do know that after the resurrection Jesus’ earliest followers reinterpreted all of his words and deeds in light of God’s action on his behalf. If one affirms that the resurrection happened it makes sense to presume that Jesus himself would have come to fully understand his life, mission, and identity more fully than before he had overcome death (if you struggle with accepting that Jesus learned propositionally, then at least we should acknowledge experientially/existentially).

 


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Paul, the servant

Yesterday I read a few statements in Eckhard J. Schnabel’s chapter “Paul the Missionary” in R.L. Plummer and J.M. Terry’s Paul’s Missionary Methods: In His Time and Ours that I found to be worth sharing:

“As a servant [Paul] assists Jesus in what Jesus continues to do in the world (see Acts 1:1).” (p. 31)

“Paul obeys Jesus as a slave (Greek: doulos; Latin: servus) obeys his master. This does not mean that Paul is a reluctant missionary, anticipating the day when he can shed the shackles of this bondage. On the contrary, since his status as a slave is determined by the status of his master, he regards it as a privilege to speak for Jesus Christ, the exalted Lord: he expects that ‘by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted as always in my body’ (Phil 1:20 NRSV).” (p. 33)

“Since other missionaries, preachers, and teachers are also servants, there is no place for arrogance and striving for super prestige: missionary work is not about personal honor and status, but about getting work done at the behest of God.” (p. 34)

Paul’s self-image as a servant is challenging to me as a Christian. That first quote grabbed my attention: Jesus is the one working in the world through his Spirit. Paul as a servant can be seen following behind his master assisting his master’s work. If Paul envisioned himself this way, and if we can do the same, it may go a long way toward our interactions and support of one another. If we are all servants together, none masters, then we share in Christ’s work, not our own.


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Literary Parallels in Luke/Acts

As I was preparing for an upcoming exegetical paper in my hermeneutics class, I noticed an interesting pattern in our assigned text of Acts 8:26–40.  The story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch follows precisely the same formula as the episode in Luke 24 in which Jesus chats with a couple disciples on the road to Emmaus:

1) Both narratives occur on a road leading out from Jerusalem (Emmaus/Wilderness Road);
2) Both involve a perplexed reader (two disciples/Ethiopian eunuch);
3) Both feature a enlightened authority who helps the reader reinterpret the Jewish scriptures to explain the Messiahship of Jesus (Jesus/Philip);
4) Both narratives feature an epiphany (disciples’ eyes are opened/eunuch desires to be baptized);
5) Each of the episodes culminates in a sacramental demonstration (eucharist/baptism);
6) Finally, if this weren’t enough, both passages end with the mysterious disappearance of the enlightened authority figure.

I think the key to both examples is the re-interpreting of Jewish scripture to account for ideas that aren’t necessarily in the text. When Jesus chides the disciples on the road for not knowing that it was “necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory” (Luke 24:26), he fails to mention that in fact no such prophecy or interpretation of Jewish scripture in which the expected Messiah was supposed to suffer existed at the time. This interpretation requires a reorientation of the Jewish hermeneutical lens.[1]

Unfortunately, this realization is a bit too broad to include in my short exegetical paper which will be strictly limited to the Acts 8 text. But I was wondering if anyone has read anything else about this literary cycle, or noticed its appearance elsewhere in Luke/Acts? I would love to read more about it.

[1] See Andy Johnson, “Our God Reigns: The Body of the Risen Lord in Luke 24,” Word & World 22/2 (2002) 136.


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Interview: Douglas Estes on the questions of Jesus in the Gospel of John

44238Two weeks ago I posted a review of Douglas Estes’ (Lead Pastor of Trinity Church in Mesa, AZ, and adjunct professor at Phoenix Seminary) new monograph The Questions of Jesus in John: Logic, Rhetoric, and Persuasive Discourse (Leiden: Brill, 2013), which you can read here. As a friend, mentor, and former professor of mine I asked if he would be willing to do an interview about the book and he accepted. This isn’t the first time I have interviewed him. I did a two part interview titled “The Pastor-Scholar” wherein we discussed pastoring for those with an academic bent (read Pt. 1 and Pt. 2). This interview is about his new book and why he thought it was important enough to write. Enjoy!

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What is the thesis of The Questions of Jesus in John: Logic, Rhetoric, and Persuasive Discourse?

The basic thesis of the book is to better understand why the Fourth Evangelist selects the questions of Jesus he does, and what those questions mean for the reader. Rather than take a theological or literary approach, I used linguistics and rhetoric as my primary method. Along the writing path, I found myself being constantly challenged by Jesus’ questions as I did the linguistic work. I’m always skeptical when scholars claim to find a pattern in a text (unless it’s poetic), but I did begin to notice how the questions of Jesus make a subtle and related rhetorical push throughout the gospel. By the end of my writing the book, the unwritten thesis is that the Fourth Gospel contains a number of rhetorical hooks, of which the asking of questions is one. This partly explains why it is one of the (if not the) most read text ever written.

Why did you write the book? Why do we need to give more attention to the questions of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel?

I wrote the book because I felt the issue of questions (and really, non-statements or non-propositions) is largely unexplored in NT studies. I also felt that many works that deal with questions in the biblical text are feel-good and short on any rigor. I felt it was interesting; and I really wanted my next book as a scholar to be something of an unofficial Habilitationsschrift for me (original, serious research monograph). As far as paying more attention to questions in John, the primary reason we need to do that is that John uses them. If we avoid parts of the narrative, such as question-asking, we will not understand the narrative as well as we could. To put it differently: The way in which many, many people approach the gospel is to see what they can dig out of it (truth, meaning, historical facts, or the lack thereof). In this I find skeptical scholars are actually very similar to faithful churchgoers: they’re all gleaners, gleaning the text for information. I’m not sure John was written to be gleaned in this way!

Did this study change how you understand the Fourth Gospel as a whole? If so, what would you say is the before-and-after impact?

Yes, in a subtle but meaningful way. Before writing the book, I felt I had a basic grasp on John—his modus operandi, so to speak. But with John there are always little riddles that scholars have noted for many years now. Some of those are not always obvious, as they are hidden behind the ‘simple language’ of John. Writing the book certainly changed my view on its rhetorical impact, and design. As I believe you mentioned in your review, an after-impact was that I am now definitely leaning much more to the view that John was more written for outsiders (though such a rigid, binary insider vs outsider view I find too coarse), based on John’s linguistic features especially with his non-declarative expressions like questions.

In the first and final chapters you allude to possible studies that may follow what you have done in this book. You said that there is far more research to be done in the area of questions, especially as questions relate to ancient narrative. If you could list a handful of topics you’d be excited to see some potential scholar engage (e.g., as a graduate thesis or doctoral dissertation) what would those be?

I would love to see someone tackle the way Paul uses questions (or non-declaratives) in order to build up his arguments. That’s a book waiting to be written. I also think there is much more linguistic work that can be done on the NT text—linguistics is somewhat a new field, and its (meaningful) impact on the study of the NT has been minimal. I also think that there are also many studies that could be written on the various forms of question-asking and argumentation in OT books. When I wrote the QJJ, the OT folks were far ahead of NT folks in the study of argumentation (my opinion), but they don’t appear to make much use of linguistics in this particular area (as far I can see). Someone could easily go back and do research on the way interrogatives were used in Hebrew, from a linguistic perspective. One thing I noticed in writing QJJ is that some languages (such as Latin) have more robust resources for handling non-declaratives than our Greek resources do.

In 2008 you wrote The Temporal Mechanics of the Fourth Gospel: A Theory of Hermeneutical Relativity in the Gospel of John that was published by Brill as well. What connection might we find between these two books? Another way of asking this question: Did your first book prepare you for this subsequent study?

Based on the titles, it may seem there is no connection; and in fact, it didn’t seem like it until near the end of writing the QJJ that I realized the connection myself. Temporal Mechanics did prepare me for the study as it gave me a lot of practice in identifying unstated assumptions, and then thinking outside the box without leaving the ranch. So the primary connection is looking at old problems in new ways. I would say that is one thing that is probably consistent in my writing.   

Do you plan to write on the Fourth Gospel again? If so, would you be willing to provide a preview? If not, where do you plan on focusing your writing in the near future?

Yes! Unfortunately, since I’m still working out details with publisher(s), I can’t really give much of a preview now (sorry). I can say that I am busy at work. I can also say that my next book out will be a totally different direction, it’s called Better Habits, Better Life: How to Coach Yourself to Life Change, co-written with Matthew Reed and will be published by Cascade Books in 2014. It’s a practical-theological consideration of the nature of personal transformation and change in the spiritual life. Writing this is an enjoyable diversion, but soon back to John!