the apostle paul in the jewish imagination

TheApostle Paul in the Jewish Imagination is apioneeringmultidisciplinary examinationof Jewish perspectives on Paul of Tarsus. Here, the views of individual Jewish theolo-gians, religious leaders, and biblical scholars of the past 150 years, together with artistic,literary, philosophical, and psychoanalytical approaches, are set alongside popular cul-tural attitudes. Few Jews, historically speaking, have engaged with the first-centuryApostle to the Gentiles. The modern period has witnessed a burgeoning interest inthis topic, however, with treatments reflecting profound concerns about the natureof Jewish authenticity and the developing intercourse between Jews and Christians.In exploring these issues, Jewish commentators have presented Paul in a number ofapparently contradictory ways. Among other things, he is both a bridge and a barrierto interfaith harmony; both the founder of Christianity and a convert to it; both ananti-Jewish apostate and a fellow traveller on the path to Jewish self-understanding; andboth the chief architect of the religious foundations of Western thought and their des-troyer.The Apostle Paul in the Jewish Imagination represents an important contributionto Jewish cultural studies and to the study of JewishChristian relations.

Daniel R. Langton is Senior Lecturer in Modern JewishChristian Relations at theUniversity of Manchester. He is the author of Claude Montefiore: His Life and Thought(2002), a biography of the founder of Anglo-Liberal Judaism.

The Apostle Paul in the Jewish Imagination

A Study in Modern JewishChristian Relations

DANIEL R. LANGTONUniversity of Manchester

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Daniel R. Langton 2010

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First published 2010

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data

Langton, Daniel R.The Apostle Paul in the Jewish imagination : a study in modern

Jewish-Christian relations / Daniel R. Langton.p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.Summary: Daniel R. Langton explores a wide variety of Jewish

attitudes toward the Apostle Paul in the context of modern Jewishthought, paying particular attention to the role of Jewish identity

and ideology Provided by publisher.isbn 978-0-521-51740-9 (hardback)

1. Paul, the Apostle, Saint Jewish interpretations. 2. Bible. N.T. Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish. 3. Bible. N.T. Epistles of Paul Criticism, interpretation, etc. 4. Paul, the Apostle, Saint Relationswith Jews. 5. Paul, the Apostle, Saint Influence. 6. Jews Identity.7. Jews Civilization. 8. Christianity and other religions Judaism.

9. Judaism Relations Christianity. I. Title.bs2506.3.l37 2010

225.92dc22 2009042400

isbn 978-0-521-51740-9 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence oraccuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to inthis publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is,

or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Acknowledgments page vii

Introduction 1

part i. the apostle paul and popular jewishcultural identity

1 Paul in the Popular Jewish Imagination 23

part ii. the apostle paul and jewish identity: new testamentstudies and theological approaches

2 Constructions of Paul and Interfaith Relations: Building Barriers orBridges between Judaism and Christianity 57

3 Constructions of Paul in Intra-Jewish Debate: Establishing JewishAuthenticity 97

4 Constructions of Paul as a Dialogical Partner: TransformativeApproaches to Jewish Self-Understanding 154

part iii. the apostle paul and jewish interestin the judeo-christian tradition: artistic

and literary approaches 175

5 An Oratorio by Felix Mendelssohn, a Painting by Ludwig Meidner,and a Play by Franz Werfel 178

6 The Novels of Shalom Asch and Samuel Sandmel 210

part iv. the apostle paul and jewish critiquesof the place of religion in society: philosophical

and psychoanalytical approaches 231

7 The Philosophical Writings of Baruch Spinoza, Lev Shestov, and JacobTaubes 234

v

vi CONTENTS

8 The Psychoanalytical Writings of Sigmund Freud and Hanns Sachs 263

Conclusion 279

Appendix: The Story of Abbu Gulish in The Book of Tales 287

Bibliography 289

Scripture and Other Ancient Writings Index 303

General Index 305

Acknowledgments

This work springs naturally enough from my earlier research on Claude Monte-fiore, the biblical scholar and founder of Anglo-Liberal Judaism. Prominent amonghis lifelong interests had been the life and thought of the Apostle to the Gentilesand, in seeking to contextualize this particular interest, I was led to discover asurprising variety of colourful and imaginative readings of Paul by other Jewishthinkers. I thank my friend and doctoral supervisor Tony Kushner for having ori-ginally suggested Montefiore as a subject for study, and thus for having started meoff along this path. Just as important has been the research culture I have enjoyedat the Centre for Jewish Studies and in the department of Religions and Theologyat the University of Manchester, and I am delighted to have the opportunity tothank my colleagues for their support, encouragement, and friendship over thelast few years, particularly Philip Alexander, Bernard Jackson, and Bill Williams.

One of the pleasures of writing a book is stumbling across individuals whoactually appear interested in what one is doing. In this regard I would particularlylike to mention Alan Segal and Mark Nanos, whose stimulating correspondencehas been of enormous benefit to me. I would like to thank the following mostwarmly for their suggestions or help in one way or another: Glenda Abramson,Rocco Bernasconi, Marc Caplan, John Davies, Dave Franks, Michael Hoelzl, BrianHorowitz,Daniel Lasker,DavidLaw,HyamMaccoby,ZivaMaisels, StefanMeissner,Peter Oakes, Alex Samely, Reuven Silverman, Renate Smithius, and Tim Stanley.Special thanks go to my brother Michael for proofreading, and to Mirjam Belzand Noam Livne for their help with translation. I have been greatly assisted bythe generosity of Kevin Proffitt and the staff of the American Jewish Archives,Cincinnati; Gregory Morris and the staff of St Deiniols Library, Harwarden; thestaff of the Parkes Library at the University of Southampton; and the staff at theRobert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, Los Angeles.

I gratefully acknowledge the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)research leave scheme, which made possible a sabbatical in which I was able towrite up most of this work. Much of the material was published previously inslightly different forms and has benefitted greatly from the comments offered bythe anonymous peer reviewers for Journal of Jewish Identities, Journal for ModernJewish Studies, Journal of Religion and Society, Journal for the Study of the NewTestament, Melilah, Mishkan, Modern Judaism, and Studies in ChristianJewish

vii

viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Relations. The anonymous readers for Cambridge University Press also made agood many useful suggestions for which I am also very grateful.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the kind permission of Hauswedell &Nolte,Hamburg, to reproduce a rare example of a representation of the Apostle Paulby a Jewish artist, and one which is a focus for discussion in Chapter 5: Paulus-predigt [Pauls Sermon] (1919) by Ludwig Meidner, watercolour, 68 49 cm,Buller Collection, Duisberg.

I dedicate this study to the most important women in my life: my mother, mywife, and my daughter.

Introduction

Few Jews, historically speaking, have engaged with the first-century Apostle tothe Gentiles. The modern period has witnessed a burgeoning interest, how-ever, with treatments reflecting profound concerns about the nature of Jewishauthenticity and the developing intercourse between Jews and Christians. Inexploring these issues, Jewish commentators have presented Paul in a numberof apparently contradictory ways. He is both a bridge and a barrier to interfaithharmony; both the founder of Christianity and a convert to it; both an anti-Jewish apostate and a fellow traveller on the path to Jewish self-understanding;and both the chief architect of the Judeo-Christian foundations of Westernthought and their destroyer. The goal of the present volume is to outline andexplain these aspects of the Jewish debate about Paul, as represented in theworks of individual Jewish theologians, religious leaders, biblical scholars, artists,musicians, playwrights, novelists, philosophers, and psychoanalysts of the last150 years.

We will begin with an account of the popular Jewish view of Paul, which isoften understood to be derived from a premodern tradition of hostility towardsthe apostle and which regards him as the damnable inventor of Christianity andthe ultimate cause of centuries of Jewish suffering.1 Here it will be argued thatclaims for an ancient origin of this hostility have been exaggerated and that thereal roots of modern popular Jewish antipathy lie in the apostles association withmuch more recent sociocultural developments (Chapter one). At the heart of thestudy is an examination of the way in which Jewish religious leaders, theologians,and New Testament scholars have treated Paul, and in particular their focus onhis background, his attitude towards the Law, the question of his originality, andhis relationship to the Jewish Jesus. This will involve consideration of the apostlesplace in the context of interfaith dialogue,where he is usedboth to encourage and toset the limits of understanding between Jews and Christians (Chapter two).2 It will

1 The brief survey of premodern contributors in Chapter one includes al-Mukammis, Kirkisani,Hadassi, Ibn Kammuna, Profiat Duran, and Isaac Troki, along with the notorious Toledot Yeshu(Story of Jesus).

2 Chapter two includes Heinrich Graetz, Elijah Benamozegh, Kaufmann Kohler, Martin Buber, LeoBaeck, Abba Hillel Silver, HyamMaccoby, Isaac Mayer Wise, Joseph Krauskopf, Claude Montefiore,Pinchas Lapide, and Mark Nanos.

1

2 THE APOSTLE PAUL IN THE JEWISH IMAGINATION

entail investigation of the disagreements between different Jewish constituenciesin the post-Enlightenment world, and the way in which the Apostle to the Gentileshas been caught up in ideological battles concerning authority within Judaism(Chapter three).3 And it will draw attention to those radical thinkers who haveseen parallels in Pauls theological struggles to their own search for Jewishmeaningandwho have come to regard him as a dialogical partner with whom they canmeetthe challenges facing the Judaism of their own day (Chapter four).4 Other kindsof Jewish intellectuals have also wrestled with the apostle. In the widely differingtreatments of artists and literary figures, for example, can be found a commonfascination with what has been described as the Judeo-Christian heritage andPauls relation to it (Chapters five and six).5 Consideration will also be given to thehumanistic discourses of philosophy and psychoanalysis, within which one canidentify a Jewish interest in Paul manifested in a series of critiques of the place ofreligion in Western society (Chapters seven and eight).6

It is perhaps best to think of the book as a whistle stop tour of a select groupof some of the most striking Jewish Pauline commentaries available, mainly, butby no means exclusively, from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Each ofthe thirty-nine thinkers was selected for having produced a dedicated, focusedtreatment of the apostles life and legacy, rather than a tangential foray into someaspect of his teachings.7 Because it is impossible to introduce and contextualiseall of them at this point (they encompass the ideological spectrum, from religioustraditionalists to the antireligious), the sitz im leben or life setting of each will bebrought to bear at the appropriate moment. In contrast to earlier treatments of thesubject, this study has little to say in terms of understanding Paul better, nor doesit propose a blueprint for improving JewishChristian interfaith dialogue, nor canit offer a theological contribution to religious understanding.8 Instead, its aim isthe more modest one of simply documenting the fitful emergence and unevendevelopment of Jewish awareness of Paul in a variety of historical contexts. In

3 Chapter three includes Emil Hirsch, Claude Montefiore (again), Joseph Klausner, Micah Berdi-chevsky, Hans Joachim Schoeps, Samuel Sandmel, Alan Segal, Pamela Eisenbaum, Tal Ilan, Amy-JillLevine, Paul Levertoff, Sanford Mills, and Joseph Shulam.

4 Chapter four includes Hugh Schonfield, Richard Rubenstein, Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, and DanielBoyarin.

5 Chapter five includes Felix Mendelssohn, Ludwig Meidner, and Franz Werfel. Chapter six includesSholem Asch and Samuel Sandmel (again).

6 Chapter seven includes Baruch Spinoza, Lev Shestov, and Jacob Taubes. Chapter eight includesSigmund Freud and Hanns Sachs.

7 There are some important exceptions, such as Spinoza andFreud,who are included for the somewhatarbitrary reason that they are exceptionally influential thinkers for Western civilisation whoseoriginal views on Paul have gone largely unnoticed. The figure of thirty-nine is by no meansexhaustive of Jewish commentators on Paul but provides a useful sample. At the same time, onemust take with a pinch of salt the balance of a survey that gives almost equal space to Zionist,anti-Zionist, Orthodox, Reform, Messianic, feminist, and historically and theologically orientedJewish views.

8 For an overview of previous surveys of Jewish Pauline scholarship, see the conclusion to Chap-ter two.

INTRODUCTION 3

particular, it investigates the roles that ideology has played in generating the manydifferent Jewish interpretations. As a result, the reader will learn a good deal moreabout the complex and shifting nature of Jewish identity in themodern world thanabout the first-century founding figure of Christianity.

The remainder of this Introduction will be mainly concerned with theoreticaland methodological issues such as the impact of ideology and identity uponscholarship and the problem of defining Jewishness. It will also provide a briefoverview of the complicated relationship between Christian and Jewish Paulinestudies. The impatient reader is advised to skip ahead to Chapter 1, where theJewish commentary begins and where an historical outline of the phenomenon isoffered.

paul and the landscape of jewish thought

What kind of insights into the world of Jewish thought might the reader hope toobtain from a study of Jewish attitudes towards Paul? At one level, the macro level,it will be argued that the very existence of a body of Jewish interpretations of Paulis best explained by reference to the Jewish historical confrontation with modern-ity. In particular, following the political and legal emancipation of the eighteenthand nineteenth centuries, great pressure was brought to bear on Jews to justifythemselves to a hostile Christian world which regarded their emergence from theghettos with suspicion. At the same time, their increased exposure to alien modesof thought provoked awide variety of internal debates and responses, ranging froma rejection of modernity and all it stood for to a passionate embrace of all thatwas unfamiliar and an abandonment of tradition. More urgently than ever before,Western Jews found themselves forced to take a stand on many complex issuesas part of a process of defining themselves in relation to the surrounding Gentilesocial and intellectual environments. These issues included, amongst others, howto relate toChristianity, whether or not tomaintain religious practices that ensuredsocial segregation, whether to stress universalist or particularist tendencies withinJudaism, and how to counter the vastly increased threats of conversion and assimil-ation. In this situation it should come as no surprise that, for some Jews at least, theattempt to relate themselves to Christian history and culture brought them face toface with the iconic Apostle to the Gentiles who so powerfully embodied these verysame issues. To study Jewish approaches to Paul, then, is to study some of the mostprofound forces acting upon and shaping themodern Jewish ideological landscape.

On another level, the micro level, it will be argued that when it comes to under-standing individual Jewish interpretations of Paul, the individuals historical andsocial contexts, and especially his or her ideological perspective, will often providethe key explanatory factors. The reason is simple enough, having to do with thepaucity and notorious complexity of the evidence upon which scholarly conclu-sions about events and ideas dating back two thousand yearsmust be based, and thenatural inclination to fill in the gaps according to ones particular biases. Jews who

4 THE APOSTLE PAUL IN THE JEWISH IMAGINATION

dedicated themselves to the examination of the life and teachings of the apostlebelieved that they offered fair and objective accounts, whatever conclusions theyreached. But along with the Christian scholars whose historical researches ante-dated them, they have frequently deceived themselves on this account. The numberof conflicting interpretations and theories that have accrued over the centuries isimpressive, and it would be a brave soul who sought to explain the discrepanciesand variations within Pauline studies without reference to the profound impact ofideological bias and scholarly fashions.9 It is not only the dearth of evidence thatallows so much room for intellectual manoeuvring. The fact that Paul himself is atowering figure whose indisputable millennia-old influence uponWestern civilisa-tion is, in modern times at least, as likely to be reviled as it is honoured, also meansthat passions run high and that scholarly objectivity is that much more elusive.In the contextof the studyof Jewish interpretationsofPaul, the reader should expectto encounter, again and again, echoes of Jewish ideological developments in a vari-ety of historical backgrounds. Thus this study reflects many of the intra-Jewishconflicts which arose within the community concerning, among other things,whether or not to attempt to modernise religious traditions and to try to reconciletraditional authorities with the findings of biblical criticism, whether or not tochampion a shared Judeo-Christian heritage or to challenge Christian politicalauthority, and whether to abandon or augment Judaism in the light of a plethoraof -isms including Zionist nationalism, existentialism, pluralism, and feminism.

the relationship between identity, ideology,and scholarship

Much has been written on the relationship between identity, ideology, and scho-larship.10 Here, ideology is defined somewhat loosely as a body of ideas that

9 For a study of reception history which highlights developments in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century approaches to New Testament studies brought about by changes in the wider socioculturaland international spheres, see John K. Riches, A Century of New Testament Study (Cambridge:The Lutterworth Press, 1993). For a survey specifically focusing on the ideological interplay amongcommentators on Paul, and one which includes the classic formulations of Augustine, Luther,Calvin, and Wesley in addition to twentieth-century scholars, see Stephen Westerholm, PerspectivesOld and New on Paul: The Lutheran Paul and His Critics (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans,2004). For a brief introduction to the variety of contemporary scholarly approaches to Paul, whichinclude Jewish, feminist, and liberationist perspectives alongside a renewed interest in the Paulineletters as Holy Writ or as studies in rhetoric, all of which produce quite different ways of thinkingabout the apostle to the Gentiles, see Ben Witherington, Contemporary Perspectives on Paul, inJames D. G. Dunn, ed., The Cambridge Companion to St Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2003).

10 Ideological scholarship that seeks to redress power differentials between social groups (defined interms of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexuality) falls under the rubric of identity politics.In the context of the study of religion, for example, see the collection of essays in Jose IgnacioCabezon and Sheila Greeve Davaney, eds., Identity and the Politics of Scholarship in the Study ofReligion (London: Routledge, 2004).

INTRODUCTION 5

reflect the political or social needs and aspirations of individuals, groups, andcultures. Very often an ideology can be characterised in terms of a consciousprogramme for change, although not always. It might even be thought of as theinstitutionalisation of a worldview. Examples of different types of ideologies mightinclude Zionist nationalism (political), Orthodox Judaism (religious), and Jewishfeminism (gender), though one should bear in mind that these subcategories arenot absolute or exclusive. Identity is another amorphous, imprecise concept. Inpractice, an individuals identity is usually described in terms of race, nationality,ethnicity, culture, religion, gender, and/or sex. It is not always easy to differentiatebetween an ideology and an individuals identity.Which category should be appliedto describe an Orthodox Jewish Zionist feminist, for example? For our purposes,it does not make much difference. Insofar as a scholar is firmly located in a specifictime, place, and social setting, and insofar as such systems of belief and constraintsencourage certain interpretations of evidence and preclude others, it follows thatideology and identity will almost certainly have some impact upon the scholarswritings, whether consciously acknowledged or not. There is nothing remarkableabout this observation. Historians have been trained for generations to allow fordifferent kinds of biases in their sources, and today no academic domain has beenleft untouched by the winds of postmodernism and religious pluralism, whichemphasise the subjectivity of knowledge itself. The rise of Cultural Studies, withits interest in the relation between sociopolitical power and cultural practices suchas scholarship, and its privileging of the local and relative over the universal andabsolute, is testimony to the widespread recognition of such issues. Few todaywould admit to being indifferent to the dangers of failing to recognise multipleideological perspectives or truths concerning any object of study.

In this book, considerable emphasis has been placed on the ways in which indi-viduals self-identity, ideology, and cultural context have shaped their worldviewin general, and their ideas about Paul, Judaism, and Christianity in particular.For those interested in Jewish history and thought, Jewish commentaries on theApostle to the Gentiles represent a rich source of information about the kindsof anxieties implicit in nineteenth- and twentieth-century discussions concern-ing the nature of the Jew and Judaism. Paul becomes a familiar figure in debatesabout how far one should extend the hand of interfaith friendship to Christianity,what distinguishes Judaism from other faiths, and where the borderline betweenspiritual exploration and apostasy lies. Such debates about Paul and Jewishnessprovide useful insight into the world of Jewish ideology and identity, and for his-torians, theologians, and cultural critics this kind of study is to be regarded as anend in itself. For Pauline scholars, however, it might be regarded more usefullyas an extended work of historiography, a survey of the intellectual currents thathave shaped the modern Jewish study of early Christian origins and Pauls placewithin it. For them, ideology is less the object of study and more a potential threatto the furtherance of knowledge. As they would see it, Paul himself is of greater

6 THE APOSTLE PAUL IN THE JEWISH IMAGINATION

interest than the biases bedevilling the scholars who study him. In this context,one particular question about the relationship between scholarship, identity, andideology has been raised by several Jewish Pauline scholars, and merits furtherconsideration here.11

It has been argued that although religious identity and ideology are significantfactors in terms of explaining nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Jewish viewson Paul, this is less true of later commentators. One suggestion is that scholars havebecome increasingly aware of their own prejudices and intellectual constraints,and, as professionals, have sought to take these into account.12 Another is that thereligious identity of modern Pauline scholars has been largely irrelevant since the1950s, since when the wide variety of Jewish ideological perspectives among NewTestament scholars has meant that there is little or no predictive value in knowingwhether or not a scholar is Jewish.13 Either way, support is found in the historicalobservation that circumstances have improved since the days when the prevailingconditions provoked ideological apologetics or polemics:

Where . . . scholars within a particular religious tradition have not enjoyed the benefitof commonly agreed-upon scholarly standards among people of diverse perspectives,orwhere a religious perspective has been either threatened or persecuted, or, conversely,has gone unchallenged by other views, religious identity ismore likely to be predictable,and apologetics rather than scholarship are more likely to prevail.14

Such circumstances, the proponents of this view suggest, were more characteristicof the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries than of the second half of thetwentieth century onwards. Although in the past many Jews were precluded from

11 Two scholars in particular are relevant to this debate. See Alan Segal, Pauls Religious Experiencein the Eyes of Jewish Scholars, in David Capes, April D. DeConick, Helen K. Bond, and Troy A.Miller, eds., Israels God and Rebeccas Children: Essays in Honor of Larry W. Hurtado and Alan F.Segal (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007), 32144; the French version includes an expandedconclusion: Alan Segal, Paul et ses exege`tes juifs contemporains, Recherche de science religieuse 94:3(2006), 41341; and Pamela Eisenbaum, Following in the Footnotes of the Apostle Paul, in JoseIgnacio Cabezon and Shelia Greeve Davaney, eds., Identity and the Politics of Scholarship in the Studyof Religion (London: Routledge, 2004), 7797.

12 Segal observes, Reading the earlier [Jewish] treatments of Paul, one is struck by howmuch they tellus about the predicament of modern Jewish life and how little they tell us about Paul. Of the mostrecent discussants, one is struck about how professional they are. Segal, Pauls Religious Experiencein the Eyes of Jewish Scholars, 322. He also writes, Jewish scholars writing on Paul have progressedfrom expressing more general intellectual issues and problems in modern Jewish identity to moreprofessionally disciplined NT agenda. Segal, Paul et ses exege`tes juifs contemporains, 437.

13 Eisenbaums argument is that because one can no longer speak of a single Jewish perspective, butrather must speak of multiple perspectives among Jewish scholars, the Jewishness of a scholar iseffectively meaningless in terms of predicting how it will affect his scholarly judgement. [T]hereis no essential Jewish perspective on Paul if by Jewish we mean a dominant perspective on Paul,developed, articulated, and widely shared by Jewish scholars. . . . [T]he recognition that there can bemultiple perspectives among Jewish scholars only bolstersmy argument that there is no single Jewishperspective and therefore that religious identity does not determine ones scholarly judgement inany predictable way. Eisenbaum, Following in the Footnotes of the Apostle Paul, 912, 93.

14 Eisenbaum, Following in the Footnotes of the Apostle Paul, 78.

INTRODUCTION 7

university education and suffered social deprivation andpersecution, and althoughChristians were once untrained in rabbinic thought and their religious prejudiceswent unchallenged, this is no longer true to the same extent today. Nowadays, theprofessionalisation of the academic study of Christian origins means that stand-ards are largely agreed upon, few groups are threatened, and no one ideologicalperspective is believed to hold a monopoly on truth. Ones identity as an outsiderneed no longer preclude ones expertise in the study of any particular religioustradition. In principle at least, a Christian who has access to the necessary tools,resources, and training can be as good a specialist in Jewish studies as any Jew (andvice versa), and ones religious perspective by no means automatically determinesones conclusions. From this point of view, of course, any attempt to try to presentan overview of the history of Jewish commentary on Paul primarily in terms ofJewish identity or ideology will appear too deterministic or simplistic.15

At first sight it seems reasonable to agree that Jewish religious identity andideology play a less obvious role in modern New Testament scholarship than theydid in the past. But the claim that Jewish students of the New Testament havede-Judaised themselves (at least to the extent of refusing to allow their Jewishnessto interfere with their professional judgement) is problematic on several counts.After all, one canmake a distinction between approaches which express an explicitideological, polemical agenda, and approaches which eschew such hostile activitiesbut which are nonetheless shaped by those particular worldviews. This differencebetween stronger and weaker manifestations of an individuals identity meansthat it is logically possible to speak of a Jewish perspective without implying, forexample, an overtly anti-Christian one. In addition, historical scholarship can betoo easily caricatured as the practice of uncovering a universally true understandingof the past that will be acknowledged by all neutral observers who are given thetime and resources to examine properly the evidence. Although our collectiveknowledge of the past grows all the time, serious differences in the interpretationof the facts remain. No doubt this is partly due to the inherent complexity ofthe task of trying to reconstruct a comprehensive understanding of the past fromfragmentary remains, but it also suggests that knowledge is not neutral and that

15 On balance, Eisenbaum is critical of what she describes as the deterministic view of the relationshipbetween identity and scholarship. She points out that although on one level she is an outsider inthe sense that she is a Jewish scholar of Christian texts, nevertheless on other levels she is an insider:first, the New Testament period was a period when the boundaries between Jews and Christians hadnot yet been established and therefore the identity of the authors is actually ambiguous; and second,within scholarly circles, she regards herself as an equal to herChristian colleagues, because the qualityof the argument is based on scholarly criteria and not religious affiliation. Eisenbaum, Followingin the Footnotes of the Apostle Paul, 8081. Segal agrees with Eisenbaum, noting, It is certainlycorrect to see ideological considerations in the earlier and self-acclaimed spokespersons for theJewish community . . . [who] have explicit agendas which speak to Jewish life, Jewish authenticity,Jewish law in modernity, marginality, and support for the state of Israel, among others. But areall Jewish interpreters of Paul involved in the same apologetic? Segal, Paul et ses exege`tes juifscontemporains, 4389.

8 THE APOSTLE PAUL IN THE JEWISH IMAGINATION

identity and ideology can play a crucial role in the process. (For some scholars whohave internalised the idea of the subjectivity of knowledge, one viable response isto write from their own specific perspective, offering no pretence of neutrality.)16

In any case, it is by no means self-evident that professional Pauline scholars sharean agreed-upon consensus concerning the kinds of questions to be asked and thenature and limits of academic enquiry.17 The second claim that it is in fact thediversity of Jewish perspectives thatmake Jewish identity irrelevant in terms of pre-dicting an individuals scholarly conclusions should also be treated with caution.For although the undoubted phenomenon of Jewish ideological fragmentationimplies that any talk of a Jewish perspective is largely redundant, it is by no meansself-evidentwhy the variety or kinds of Jewish identity or ideology should thereforebe disregarded, as if they cannot determine an individuals research agenda andits paradigms and framework assumptions, to a significant extent.18 In which case,Jewish identity does matter.

It is hoped that the following chapters will convince the reader that, as explanat-ory factors, ideology and identity remain as useful for making sense of the Jewishengagement with Paul today as they did for the nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies, the period covered by the bulk of this work. In the end, the proof of the

16 Segal distinguishes between a work of disinterested scholarship and a memoir and an exercise inideology, which is how he regards Daniel Boyarins A Radical Jew, for example. Although he acceptsthat either path is possible, although they may demand different skills and be directed at differentaudiences and towards entirely different purposes, it is clear that Segals sympathies lie with thescholarly pursuit of historical truth, or the technical study of the NT, rather than in seeking tointerest a sympathetic audience with ideology or offering social criticism [from with]in the Jewishcommunity. Segal, Pauls Religious Experience in the Eyes of Jewish Scholars, 3423. Another wayof putting this is to say that Segal stresses the difference between scholars who study Paul for hisown sake and scholars who turn to Paul to illustrate their theories on other, more properly Jewishsubjects. Segal, Paul et ses exege`tes juifs contemporains, 439.

17 Eisenbaum holds up modern Pauline scholarship in order to illustrate that inside a broad scholarlyarena, one with commonly agreed-upon scholarly standards but that also encompasses a diversityof perspectives, personal religious identity is not determinative of scholarly opinion. Eisenbaum,Following in the Footnotes of the Apostle Paul, 78. But Eisenbaums diversity of perspectives iscomposed mainly of liberals and secularists. Segal is more interested in the professionalisation ofNew Testament scholarship, by which he appears to mean the refusal to offer a value judgement; hemaintains that none of the more professionally trained scholars attribute any error to Paul or to theJewish community. Segal, Paul et ses exege`tes juifs contemporains, 439. Arguably, Segals exampleshave simply offered analyses of what Paul or his contemporaries believed rather than value-ladenjudgements on the religious veracity or utility or historical legacy of such views, and there is nothingwrong with this. But nor is there any obvious reason that scholarship should be defined exclusivelyin this way or that a study that included or was even motivated by a strongly held appreciation orcondemnation of Pauline thought need be regarded as necessarily unprofessional.

18 Eisenbaumadmits asmuch. Somemight argue that the diversity of perspective seen among [modernJewish Pauline scholars] . . . is due to the different brands of Judaism they represent. . . . I think theirindividual orientations towards Judaism probably [do] influence them in some way or other. . . .Although she believes that the shackles of religious (specifically, Jewish) identity and ideology havebeen largely cast off, nevertheless she does not doubt for a moment the perspectival nature of allknowledge. Eisenbaum, Following in the Footnotes of the Apostle Paul, 77, 934.

INTRODUCTION 9

pudding will be in the eating.We will certainly meet contemporaries whose Jewishself-identity and personal ideological programmes appear to have influenced thechoice of Paul as a subject of study, the questions asked of his theology, and theassumptions brought to bear in establishing his place in history. Not infrequently,their influence will also be apparent in a strongly held appreciation or condemna-tion of the apostle in general. We will also see the relevance of Jewish identity andideology for understanding the reception and perception of the individuals workby others. One has little difficulty in imagining any number of research topics forwhich a thinkers identity, whether Jew or Greek, bond or free, male or female,would be regarded as irrelevant. But in the light of the history of JewishChristianrelations, it is a little nave to think that an individuals Jewish identity couldbe dismissed as inconsequential when the focus of debate is Paul. The subject istoo highly charged for too many Jews and Christians, both within the scholarlycommunity and outside in the wider world.

All this having been said, it is important to stress that a focus on the identity andideological biases of Jewish Pauline commentators should not be interpreted as anattack on the standard of scholarship discussed. It is logically consistent to speakof bias without doing violence to a researchers reputation. Good scholarshipis characterised by competence in interpreting the evidence as fully as possiblein the light of historical knowledge, willingness to follow wherever the evidenceleads, coherence and plausibility of argument, independence of mind, and criticalawareness of the constraints imposed by the scholarly standards of the day andones own cultural setting. But one should never forget that the passage of time,the paucity of evidence, and the influence of identity and ideology do mean thatwhatever scholarly image we have now of Paul is one we see through a glass,darkly. More than that: as we shall discover, the figure who stares back through theglass is very often a reflection in a mirror, however much we might like to thinkotherwise.

the problem of defining jewishness

This book is an exploration of the place of the apostle Paul in the Jewish ima-gination, that is, a study of Jewish interest in Paul. How, precisely, should oneunderstand the term Jewish? When it comes to defining Jewish identity or Jew-ishness in a systematic way, ones assumptions play a major role. One tendency,not uncommon among theologians, is to essentialise by classifying people andphenomena as Jewish only in so far as they conform to an assumed essence ofa normative Jewishness. This essence may or may not be related to theologicallyderived criteria such as matrilineal decent, conversion to a particular tradition orset of beliefs, adherence to a certain body of law, or a role in salvation history, orto nontheological criteria such as racial, national, or cultural characteristics. From

10 THE APOSTLE PAUL IN THE JEWISH IMAGINATION

this perspective, responsibility for determining Jewish authenticity rests entirelywith the observer, irrespective of whether his views originate from within thecommunity or from outside. For the essentialist, anything or anyone who does notcorrespond to the given definition is to be excluded as marginal at best and devi-ant at worst. One might imagine a core of authenticity surrounded by concentriccircles of ever decreasing legitimacy. The problem, of course, is that observers donot agree on what exactly constitutes the core of authenticity. Which definition isto be regarded as authoritative depends upon ones existing biases. Furthermore,proponents of essentialism do not tend to recognise the historically conditionednature of such definitions and often assume that the characteristics of Jewishauthenticity have remained fundamentally unchanged down through the ages.19

An alternative method of categorisation is that of self-definition, the approvedmethod for many social scientists and historians. This nonessentialist approachdoes not predetermine the outer limits of Jewishness and so deviancy and mar-ginality are terms free of negative connotations. The inclusion of those whodefine themselves Jewishly can lead to political controversies, such as the accept-ance of Messianic Jews despite their dismissal as Christians-by-another-name by abroad spectrum of the Jewish community. But the advantage of a self-definitionalapproach is that it largely frees the observer from the responsibility for selec-tion and minimises the projection onto the subject of his own ideological biases.For some, self-definition implies that the individual defines himself primarilyin Jewish terms, but this need not be the case. Arguably, an individual can pos-sess a self-image that includes a Jewish component, however he defines it. This isan important point, especially in the context of intercultural studies which takefor granted overlapping or hierarchical identities. Nor should one forget that anindividuals self-image evolves and transforms in real time and changes accord-ing to social context. The self-definitional approach is commonly used because itattempts to accommodate the complex, shifting reality of Jewish identity.20

Unfortunately, self-definition excludes many who do not appear to see them-selves in Jewish terms and yet who live lives and produce works that strike thesensitive observer as inexplicable without reference to a Jewish dimension of somesort. Celebrated examples include the seventeenth-century philosopher BaruchSpinoza and the nineteenth-century composer Felix Mendelssohn. A work ofmonumental Jewish scholarship such as the Encyclopaedia Judaica will includesuch problematic individuals because of its working principle that anyone born aJew is qualified for inclusion, even if he later converted or disassociated himself

19 For a powerful critique of the essentialising tendency, see Laurence J. Silberstein, Mapping JewishIdentities (New York: New York University Press, 2000).

20 For a survey of the changing understandings of Jewishness, especially in the ancient world, see ShayeJ. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1999).

INTRODUCTION 11

from Jewish life, as are individuals born of only one Jewish parent who are suffi-ciently distinguished.21 But no theoretical justification is offered for this approachand it appears to be premised upon unacknowledged essentialist assumptions of atheological and/or racial kind. Is it possible to qualify the self-definitional method,so that a more nuanced treatment of such individuals can be offered that avoidsthe common essentialist definitions?

The key question, surely, is whether a significant part of an individuals world-view is best explained in terms of his self-identification at some level as a Jew, andwhether the failure to take this dimension seriously would result in an impover-ished understanding of his life and work. (For our purposes, it does not matterwhether the individuals perception of Jewishness or Judaism is real or imagined or even whether or not it is consciously acknowledged.) For those Jews who laterconvert to Christianity or who try to disassociate from Jewish life in general, break-ing the psychological ties of association is very difficult, if not impossible. This isespecially true for those living in the modern period, when the authority of theChurch and its belief in the transformative power of baptism were losing groundto the natural sciences and the assumption of eternal and fixed species. Thus aSpinoza or a Mendelssohn would have been well aware that their contemporariescontinued to see in them an indelible trace of Jewishness and, at some level at least,they must have internalised this social reality. One should be wary of underes-timating the impact of this kind of intersubjective assessment of Jewishness.22 Toput it another way, it might be possible to expand the self-definitional approachto include those born Jews who, after leaving the community, continue to self-identify as Jews on some level. The problem, of course, is how an observer canknowwhether the individual so identifies if this association is not articulated expli-citly. But if one takes seriously such a Jewish dimension to the individuals innerworld, then one should admit the possibility of it having a tangible impact on theindividuals creative work. Such works then become evidence of the authors stateof mind at the time of production. Arguably, Spinoza and Mendelssohn shouldbe included under the self-definitional approach if a case can be made that anawareness of their identification as Jews (in some sense) contributes to a better

21 In their Introduction the editors write, In certain biographical entries a problem was to determinewho was a Jew. The first principle adopted was that anyone born a Jew qualified for inclusion, even ifhe or she had subsequently converted or otherwise dissociated himself from Jewish life (where thesefacts are known, they are stated). The second principle was that a person with one Jewish parentwould qualify for inclusion (with the relevant information stated) if he or she were sufficientlydistinguished. A person whose Jewish origins were more remote would only be the subject of anentry in very unusual cases. However, amore generous attitude was taken in the case ofMarranos, inview of the special circumstances surrounding their history. Geoffrey Wigoder and Fern Seckbach,Editors Introduction, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 7.

22 In this vein Krausz has argued that Jewishness is understood as a set of characteristic positions inwhich certain people are cast or ascribed by themselves and by others. Michael Krausz, On BeingJewish, in David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz, eds., Jewish Identity (Philadelphia: TempleUniversity Press, 1993), 266.

12 THE APOSTLE PAUL IN THE JEWISH IMAGINATION

understanding of their philosophical and musical compositions. Consequently,both the subject and the observer must share the responsibility for establishingself-definition because however much depends upon the subjects assumptions,attitudes, value judgements, and ideas, just as much hangs on the observers abilityto uncover and interpret them in their historical context. One can make a usefuldistinction in this regard between essentialist, ahistorical characteristics of Jewish-ness and historically and culturally determined characteristics of what constitutesJewishness.23 Thus the observer will need to mine the Semitic discourse, thatis, the dominant ways a society understands and represents Jews at a given timeand place, in order to reconstruct the meaning of Jewishness in the subjects owncultural environment.24 In so doing, one should be wary of any overly simplisticcategorisation of ideas as either Jewish or non-Jewish; the historianmust take greatcare in grappling with the almost imponderable complexity of the development,transmission, and interpenetration of ideas and attitudes.

It should be clear that inclusion based on the criterion of Jewish self-definitionallows one to take into account more fully the rich variety of Jewish experience.Arguably, the self-definitional approach can be expanded to include individualssuch as Spinoza and Mendelssohn whose Jewish self-identification on some levelalso had consequences for their life and work. Thus the approach adopted in thisbook is not to ask Is this commentator on Paul authentically Jewish? but ratherWhat kind of Jewish commentator is this? and How does his or her Jewishnessexhibit itself and affect his or her understanding of Paul? This focus upon Jewishdiversity, marginality, and JewishChristian cultural interrelations means that itwill inevitably include the work of individuals who might be regarded somewhatsuspiciously in some circles.25

the relationship between jewish and christianpauline studies

Finally, a few words about the relevance of Christian Pauline Studies to the Jewishtreatments included in this book. Among the intellectual influences acting uponJewish commentators, especially those whose professional lives brought them into

23 Krausz maintains that one can distinguish between essentialism the doctrine that there areahistorically fixed conditions for a thing to be that thing from what, at particular moments inhistorical evolution, are taken to be necessary conditions for a thing to be a thing. Krausz, OnBeing Jewish, 267.

24 The seminal study by Bryan Cheyette, Constructions of the Jew in English Literature and Soci-ety: Racial Representations, 18751945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) showed thatan analysis of Semitic discourse generates a range of definitions of Jewishness that offer realinsight into a cultures particular ideological landscape. Undoubtedly, the Semitic discourse hasimplications for the self-image of Jews living within that culture, too.

25 At this point it is probably appropriate to acknowledge my own perspective, which I would describeas nonreligious or agnostic. My working life is dictated bymy location in a Centre for Jewish Studiesand a nondenominational Department of Religions and Theology at the University of Manchesterin the United Kingdom.

INTRODUCTION 13

regular contact with the New Testament, were scholarly works on Paul writtenby Christians. The relationship between the two bodies of work is complicated.Many Jewish studies were written as critiques of Christian accounts of history andof Pauline theology in general, but their engagement with the specific findings ofcontemporary Christian scholarship could be patchy and superficial.26 And, untilrecently, Christian interest in Jewish studies of Paul has been rare and patronisingin the main as a result of widespread prejudice.27 Furthermore, if one looks backover the last century and a half, bearing in mind the broad trends of mainstreamPauline studies, then the mutual indifference that characterises much of what waswritten in the twentieth century hints at the very different paths taken by PaulsJewish and Christian interlocutors.

The next chapter will describe how the emergence of a scholarly Jewish concernfor Paul coincided with the rise of German Liberal Protestant biblical scholarshipin the nineteenth century. The new historical-critical research soon concluded thatthe apostle had been largely responsible for the creation of the Gentile Church; hewas presented as the chief agitator in a political conflict that had resulted in theincorporation of non-Jews (the Tubingen school),28 and as one heavily dependentupon Hellenism, rather than Judaism, for his teachings (the History of Religionsschool).29 About this, Jews and Christians could readily agree, even if their valuejudgements as to whether or not it had been a good thing differed markedly. The

26 Amongst those whomade few or no references to Christian Pauline scholarship were Elijah Benam-ozegh (1867), Isaac Mayer Wise (1883), Paul Levertoff (1907, 1928), Joseph Krauskopf (1908), MicahBerdichevsky (c.1921), Lev Shestov (1929), Sigmund Freud (1939), and Hanns Sachs (1948).

27 Christian scholarly disregard for Jewish views on Judaism, in general, has been explained in terms ofanti-Semitismor anti-Judaism for some timenow. See, for example, CharlotteKlein,Anti-Judaism inChristian Theology (London: SPCK, 1978), andRosemary Radford-Ruether, Faith and Fratricide; TheTheological Roots of Anti-Semitism (London: Search Press, 1975). Very few Christian scholars beforethe Second World War acknowledged the Christian tendency to caricature Judaism, but amongthose who added their voices to the Jewish ones protesting the widespread misunderstandings ofJudaism and the Law, ultimately derived from Paul, were George Foot-Moore and James Parkes.See George Foot-Moore, ChristianWriters on Judaism,Harvard Theological Review 14:5 (July 1921),and James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and Synagogue: A Study in the Origins of Anti-Semitism(London: Soncino Press, 1934) and Jesus, Paul and the Jews (London: SCM, 1936).

28 F. C. Baurs Tubingen school of thought, which offered a radical reconstruction of the history ofthe early Church (and the New Testament itself) as a clash between Jewish Christian and GentileChristian factions, dominated biblical-critical studies for much of the nineteenth century. As he putit, [T]he harmonious relation which is commonly assumed to have existed between the ApostlePaul and the Jewish Christians with the older Apostles at their head, is unhistorical, and that theconflict of the two parties, whom we have to recognise upon this field, entered more deeply into thelife of the early Church than has been hitherto supposed. F. C. Baur, Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ,trans. Eduard Zeller, second edition (London: Williams and Norgate, 1876), vi. German original:Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi (Stuttgart, 1845).

29 The History of Religions school (Religionsgeschichtliche Schule) was established around 1890 andwould dominate biblical-critical studies into the 1920s and beyond. Its characteristic focus wason the rituals and practices of Christianity, such as baptism and the Eucharist, and the commonmethodology was to find parallels in the surrounding Hellenistic and Oriental worlds to explainthem. Key figures included Bousset, Cumont, Dieterich, Eichhorn, Gunkel, Reitzenstein, Pfleiderer,and Wrede.

14 THE APOSTLE PAUL IN THE JEWISH IMAGINATION

centuries-old sway of the great Christian interpreters of Paul, such as Luther (whohad venerated Pauls experience of liberation from bondage under the Law and hiscontrast of justification by faith alone against works-righteousness), continuedto foster a disparaging attitude towards Judaism among Christian scholars into thetwentieth century.30 Nevertheless, some Jewish commentators caught the atten-tion of their Christian counterparts,31 and, similarly, as long as Christian scholarsretained a historical-critical bent and persisted in their emphasis on a sharp dis-juncture between the theology of Paul and the teachings of Judaism, Jewish scholarswere happy to bolster their own credibility by making reference to them.32 Andyet real engagement, in terms of shared scholarly agenda or technical debates overcommon questions or methodologies, was noticeable by its absence for consider-able periods of the twentieth century. For many Christian Pauline scholars at theturn of the century, the debate hadmoved back to a focus on Pauls Jewish context,although now this meant the importance for his theology of a Jewish belief in theimminent end of the world,33 an issue which succeeded in partially reconcilingthe apostle with the eschatologically minded Jesus (Schweitzer).34 This had beenfollowed by a more radical development still: the re-prioritisation of theological,rather than historical, interpretations of the apostle.35 For some this theological

30 The Lutheran reading of Paul privileges justification by faith alone, that is, faith in Gods grace ingranting salvation (for which read Pauline or Protestant faith) over works-righteousness, that is,any kind of human effort to achieve salvation (for which read Jewish or Catholic legalism).

31 Examples of those who were well known to the wider contemporary scholarly community includedClaude Montefiore (1894, 1901, 1914), Kaufmann Kohler (1901, 1929), Joseph Klausner (1939), HughSchonfield (1946), and Samuel Sandmel (1958).

32 Examples of those who cited Christian scholars approvingly in this regard included Emil Hirsch(1885), Kaufmann Kohler (1901, 1929), Claude Montefiore (1894, 1901, 1914), Leo Baeck (1901, 1922,1952), Hugh Schonfield (1946, 1997), Sanford Mills (1969), and Joseph Shulam (1997). Of course,these works often contained criticisms of Christian assumptions concerning Jewish legalism.

33 Only two Jewish scholars made this idea central to their interpretations, namely Leo Baeck (1952)and Hans Joachim Schoeps (1961).

34 Schweitzer had given lectures to this effect as early as 1906. As he would put it, later: Paul shares withJesus the eschatological world-view and the eschatological expectation, with all that these imply.The only difference is the hour in the world-clock in the two cases. To use another figure, both arelooking towards the samemountain range, but whereas Jesus sees it as lying beforeHim, Paul alreadystands upon it and its first slopes are already behind him. Albert Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paulthe Apostle, trans. W. Montgomery (London: ARC Black, 1931), 113. German original: Die Mystikdes Apostels Paulus (Tubingen: Mohr, 1930). Strictly speaking, Schweitzer was interested in Jewishapocalypticism (that is, the belief and hope that a sudden intervention of Godwould bring an end tohistory and to the world) rather than eschatology (that is, last things relating to death, resurrection,judgement, and eternal life). In any case, his emphasis was on a Jewish context for Pauls thought andhewas critical of the focus onHellenism characteristic of theHistory of Religions school, althoughheaccepted that after Paul and Christs failure to return, Hellenistic thought became more important.The Hellenization of Christianity does not come in with Paul, but only after him. . . . Paul was notthe Hellenizer of Christianity. But in his eschatological mysticism of being in Christ he gave it aform in which it could be Hellenized. Ibid., viiiix.

35 The treatment by Martin Buber (1950), written in a kind of existentialist theological style, comesclosest to this phenomenon. It is no coincidence that Buber writes in the Foreword, I am obligedto Rudolf Bultmann for fundamental instruction in the field of New Testament exegesis. He also

INTRODUCTION 15

turn required the faithfulChristian to engagewith the apostles concerns as revealedin the Word of God in order to discover its actual meaning (Barth),36 whereas forothers it meant translating the apostles mythical language into modern existentiallanguage about the human condition (Bultmann).37 Overtly historical treatmentscontinued to appear, of course, although often these led to blind alleys, such asoverconfidence in the use of rabbinic literature to reconstruct first-century Jewishthought,38 or overly simplisticmodels of Hellenistic and Palestinian Judaism.39 Butthe paths followed by Barth and Bultmann, whose theological agendas dictated

specially acknowledges Schweitzer. Martin Buber, Two Types of Faith, trans. Norman P. Goldhawk(Routledge & Kegan Paul: London, 1951), 1314. German original: Zwei Glaubenweisen (Zurich:Manesse Verlag, 1950).

36 Barths approach is described as dialectical theology. In the preface to the second edition to hiscommentary on Romans (1921), he wrote: My complaint is that recent commentators confinethemselves to an interpretation of the text which seems to me to be no commentary at all, butmerely the first step towards a commentary. . . . Now, [a real commentary] involves more than mererepetition in Greek or in German of what Paul says; it involves the reconsideration of what is setout in the Epistle, until the actual meaning of it is disclosed. . . . By genuine understanding andinterpretation I mean that creative energy which Luther exercised with intuitive certainty in hisexegesis; which underlies the systematic interpretation of Calvin . . . [who] having first establishedwhat stands in the text, sets himself to re-think the wholematerial and to wrestle with it, till the wallswhich separate the sixteenth century from the first become transparent! Paul speaks, and the manof the sixteenth century hears. The conversation between the original record and the reader movesaround the subject matter, until a distinction between today and yesterday becomes impossible.Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns, 6th ed. (London: Oxford UniversityPress, 1933), 67. German original: Der Romerbrief (Bern: Bachlin, 1919).

37 Bultmannwas particularly interested in our ability to observe the effect of forces, acting fromwithinor from without to create a sense of self-alienation or of internal harmony. He is not always easy tounderstand, but an indication of his approach can be seen in his treatment of Pauls statements Iam carnal, sold under sin and For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh(Rom. 7:14 and 18), together with related texts: [T]his language stamps flesh and sin as powers towhich man has fallen victim and against which he is powerless. The personification of these powersexpresses the fact that man has lost to them the capacity to be the subject of his own actions. . . . Thatself which in Rom. 7:17,20 distinguishes itself from the sin which dwells withinme, is flatly labelledin v.14 as carnal and sold under sin. . . . Therefore the I and I, self and self, are at war with eachother; i.e. to be innerly divided, or not to be at one with ones self, is the essence of human existenceunder sin. This inner dividedness means that man himself destroys his true self. In his self-reliantwill to be himself, a will that comes to light in desire at the encounter with the commandment,he loses his self, and sin becomes the active subject within him (Rom. 7:9). Thereby the self theI dies. . . . Man, called to selfhood, tries to live out of his own strength and thus loses his self his life and rushes into death. This is the domination of sin. All mans doing is directed againsthis true intention. Rudolf Bultmann, The Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Grobel(Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007), 245. German original: Theologie des Neuen Testaments(Tubingen: Mohr, 194853).

38 Jewish writers who were, at times, too confident in the relevance of rabbinic literature includedElijah Benamozegh (1867), Isaac Mayer Wise (1883), Claude Montefiore (1914), Micah Berdichevsky(c. 1921), and Harris Hirschberg (1943). Modern scholars are much more cautious and tend not toaccept alleged references to Paul in the Talmud or to interpret apparent parallels in the Christianand Jewish literatures as evidence of direct influence.

39 Claude Montefiore (1914), Samuel Sandmel (1958), and Hans Joachim Schoeps (1961) all overestim-ated the importance of distinguishing between the categories of Hellenistic and Palestinian Judaism.Modern scholarship tends to stress the significant cultural and intellectual intercourse.

16 THE APOSTLE PAUL IN THE JEWISH IMAGINATION

the direction of Pauline scholarship for a good portion of the century, were oflittle or no interest to the majority of Jewish commentators, whose basic concernsremained closely allied to those raised by the Tubingen and theHistory of Religionsschools, namely, Pauls grand role in an historical understanding of the parting ofthe ways, and specifically the nature of his apparent disagreement with Judaismand the Torah.

The most recent turning point within mainstream Pauline Studies came withthe realisation that the tradition of interpretation that privileged inward reflec-tion, a tradition running from Augustine and Luther to Barth and Bultmann,owed more to their anguished self-doubts than to Pauls (Stendahl).40 Eventually,this would lead to the so-called New Perspective on Paul, characterised by anacknowledgement of the distorted view of first-century Judaism that had shapedmuch Christian discussion of the apostles attitude towards Israel and the Torah,and a tendency to locate firmly the apostle in a first-century Jewish environment(Sanders).41 Some Jewish scholars have actively partaken in this revolution andhave emphasised Pauls Jewishness in their work.42 Others, who have welcomedthe more positive view of Judaism, and who have contributed to the scholarlydebates, have attacked this claim or have been more interested in working out itsimplications in other contexts.43 Regardless, the debates and scholarly pursuits of

40 Especially in Protestant Christianity . . . the Pauline awareness of sin has been interpreted in the lightof Luthers struggle with his conscience. But it is exactly at that point that we can discern the mostdrastic difference between Luther and Paul, between the 16th and the 1st century. . . . A fresh look atthe Pauline writings themselves shows that Paul was equipped with what in our eyes must be calleda rather robust conscience. . . . It is most helpful to compare . . . Paul with the great hero of whathas been called Pauline Christianity, i.e., with Martin Luther. In him we find the problem of latemedieval piety and theology. Luthers inner struggles presuppose the developed system of Penanceand Indulgence. . . . We should venture to suggest that the West for centuries has wrongly surmisedthat the biblical writers were grappling with problems which no doubt are ours, but which neverentered their consciousness. Krister Stendahl, The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscienceof the West, Harvard Theological Review 56:3 (July 1963), 200, 202, 214.

41 The New Perspective rejects the Lutheran understanding of Pauls theology (and in particular,the doctrine of justification) as primarily a critique of Jewish legalism. Among those most closelyassociated with its rise are W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements inPauline Theology (London: SPCK, 1948); Krister Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles and OtherEssays (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,1976), E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London: SCMPress, 1977); John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983);Francis Watson, Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles: A Sociological Approach (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1986); LloydGaston,Paul and the Torah (Vancouver:University of BritishColumbiaPress, 1987); JamesD.G.Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law (Louisville, KY:Westminster/JohnKnoxPress,1990); and Nicholas T. Wright,What St Paul Really Said (Oxford: Lion, 1997). The New Perspectivehas been challenged by many conservative Protestants; perhaps the most eloquent critique has beenoffered by StephenWesterholm in his Perspectives Old and New on Paul. It is worth noting that bothDavies and Sanders take Claude Montefiores approach to Paul as a starting point for their ownstudies. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 15. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 410.

42 For example, Alan Segal (1990), Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer (1990), Daniel Boyarin (1994), Mark Nanos(1996, 2002), Pamela Eisenbaum (2000), Tal Ilan (2001), and Amy-Jill Levine (2004).

43 For example, Hyam Maccoby (1986, 1991) was keen to distance Paul from Judaism entirely. Othersrecognised Pauls Jewishness, of one sort or another, but were less interested in reconstructing Pauls

INTRODUCTION 17

many Jewish and Christian Pauline scholars are now closer than they had been fora long time.

At the centre of the scholarly debates, polemics, and apologetics lie the enigmaticletters of Paul, probably themost minutely examined collection of correspondencein thehistory ofWestern civilisation.44 For Jews reading thepastoral, nonsystematictheological writings of this first-century itinerant preacher, it is his views of thepeople of Israel and the Torah which constitute the abiding concerns. And it isprecisely here where he is most perplexing. Not only is he difficult to understand,but also he often appears to be contradicting himself. For example, one can pointto verses that appear to drip hostility and condemnation.

[B]y the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Lawcomes the knowledge of sin. (Rom. 3:20).

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. (1 Cor. 15:56).

[We] are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons ofIsrael would not look intently at the end of what was fading away. But their mindswere hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veilremains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses isread, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil istaken away. (2 Cor. 3:1316).

For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, Cursed iseveryone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the Law, to performthem. Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for The righteousman shall live by faith (Gal. 3:1011).

For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. (Gal.6:15).

For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are inJudea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen,even as they did from the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, anddrove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men, hindering us fromspeaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill

historical relation to his first-century Jewish context than they were concerned to engage his thoughtin the context of contemporary discussions about the search for Jewish meaning (Richard Ruben-stein, 1972), or messianism and political philosophy (Jacob Taubes, 1987), or interfaith relations(Pinchas Lapide, 1984).

44 Of the thirteen letters traditionally attributed to Paul, a number have been rejected as inauthenticsince nineteenth-century biblical scholars first cast their sceptical eyes over the texts. Generallyspeaking, few have disputed Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians, from which have beenderived Pauls core theology and teachings. The tendency has been to include in addition 1 Thes-salonians, Philippians, and Philemon, but to dismiss as non-Pauline Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians,Colossians, and the pastoral epistles 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. The historicity of the Acts of theApostles, which narrates Pauls transformation from a zealous Pharisee to a leading light of the earlychurch and successful missionary to the pagans, has also been regarded with great suspicion.

18 THE APOSTLE PAUL IN THE JEWISH IMAGINATION

up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost. (1 Thess.2:1416).

Texts such as these are closely associated with teachings that have blighted Jewish-Christian relations for a long time, including the blindness of the Jews,45 thehypocrisy of the Pharisees,46 and the disastrous association of Judaism with anegative conception of legalism.47 Yet other verses that seem to exhibit quite adifferent attitude can also be readily found, and not infrequently in the very sameletters:

Thenwhat advantage has the Jew?Orwhat is the benefit of circumcision?Great in everyrespect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. (Rom. 3:12).

Dowe then nullify the Law through faith?May it never be!On the contrary, we establishthe Law. (Rom. 3:31).

What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! . . . So then, the Law is holy,and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. (Rom. 7:7 and 12).

I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of mybrethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the

45 The Good Friday Prayer of the Roman Catholic liturgy (1570) draws heavily upon 2 Cor. 3:1316 inits traditional form: Let us pray also for the faithless Jews: that Almighty God may remove the veilfrom their hearts; so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord. . . . Almighty and eternalGod, who dost not exclude from thy mercy even Jewish faithlessness: hear our prayers, which weoffer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of thy Truth, which is Christ, theymay be delivered from their darkness. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reignethwith thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen. RomanMissal (1920), 2212.It was only after the Second Vatican Council, in the revised prayer of the 1970 edition of the RomanMissal, that the reference to the blindness of the Jews and the veil on their hearts was removed.

46 Throughout Christian history, the label Pharisee has been synonymous with hypocrisy and self-righteousness, partly because of their representation in the Gospels as Jesus foes (despite the factthat they are also represented in neutral and even friendly terms in relation to early Christians)and partly due to their association with the classic Pauline critique of the Law (despite the factthat Paul only once refers explicitly to the Pharisees in his letters, and actually does so in order todemonstrate his Jewish credentials: If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I farmore: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew ofHebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousnesswhich is in the Law, found blameless. Phil. 3:46. In contrast, Jewish tradition accords the Phariseesa more venerated position, because the first postbiblical classic text of Judaism, the Mishnah, isunderstood to rest upon Pharisaic traditions dating back to before the destruction of the Templein 70 CE. For a study of the portrayal of the Pharisees in a variety of ancient sources, includingin relation to Paul, see Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton, eds., In Quest of the Historical Pharisees(Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007).

47 In Christian theology, legalism has a pejorative sense. It is often contrasted with justification byfaith (after Luther) and associated with hypocrisy and obsessive casuistry. To speak of legalism isto claim that the letter of the law is valued over the spirit of the law, or the ceremonial over themoral.In particular, the term has often been used of Jewish scholasticism. Useful discussions of legalismin a historical context can be found in Bernard S. Jackson, Legalism, Journal of Jewish Studies 30:1(1979) and E. P. Sanders, Reflection on Anti-Judaism in the New Testament and in Christianityin William Farmer, ed., Anti-Judaism and the Gospels (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International,1999).

INTRODUCTION 19

adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and thetemple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christaccording to the flesh. (Rom. 9:35).

I say then, God has not rejectedHis people, has He?May it never be! . . . and so all Israelwill be saved. (Rom. 11:1 and 26).

Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be!. (Gal. 3:21).

One does not have to be a professional biblical scholar to become intrigued bysuch an apparent display of theological ambivalence. For the historically-sensitiveJew, however, the issues of Pauls teaching and influence, as derived from his lettersand from the book of Acts, have become central to the quest for an understandingof the roots of Christian enmity towards the Jew. Upon such verses could besaid to hang the history of the Jewish people in the Christian world. But we aregetting ahead of ourselves. As hinted at earlier, the Jewish recognition of Paulssignificance for Judaism and Jews is a relatively recent phenomenon. Let us begin,then, by investigating how this historical awareness of the Apostle to the Gentilesfirst developed and, in particular, his place in the popular Jewish imagination.

PART I

THE APOSTLE PAUL AND POPULAR JEWISH

CULTURAL IDENTITY

1

Paul in the Popular Jewish Imagination

In the post-Holocaust, postVatican II world of ecumenicalism and interfaithrelations much has been written about Jewish views of Jesus, including worksthat approach the subject from a cultural perspective, drawing upon literatureand artwork.1 Relatively little has been written about Jewish views of the apostlePaul, and what has been written tends to address the interests and concerns oftheologians and New Testament scholars.2 In what follows, the role of the Apostleto the Gentiles in the popular Jewish imagination will be approached from asociocultural perspective. The idea of a Jewish tradition of hostility towards Paulwill be queried before the argument is made that popular awareness of the apostlehad its origins in the nineteenth century.Drawingupon theweekly JewishChronicleas a useful indicator of public opinion, inBritain at least, some tentative suggestionsfor the different roles Paul has played in modern popular discourse will also beoffered.

the myth of a jewish tradition of hostility towards paul

The Reconstructionist rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer once observed in an imaginaryletter to Paul, as one rabbi to another, that

Most of my co-religionists, from your era right up till mine, see you as the archetypeof the Jewish heretic, the prototypical Jew who abandons the faith and then unjustlycriticizes it in a way our enemies can use against us, to put it bluntly a traitor.3

Elsewhere, the historical Jewish attitude to Paul has been presented as portrayinghim as the ultimate enemy of Judaism . . . [and] supreme apostate,4 its greatest

1 See, for example,MatthewHoffman, FromRebel to Rabbi: Reclaiming Jesus and theMaking ofModernJewish Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007). The most comprehensive treatmentof Jewish views of Jesus remains Donald Hagner, The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus: An Analysis andCritique of the Modern Jewish Study of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984).

2 See the conclusion of Chapter 2 for some examples.3 Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, Seven Extant Letters of Rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer of Philadelphia to

Rabbi Paul of Tarsus: Letter 1, The Institute for Christian-Jewish Studies, http://www.icjs.org/scholars/letters.html.

4 Richard L. Rubenstein, My Brother Paul (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 4, 5.

23

24 THE APOSTLE PAUL IN THE JEWISH IMAGINATION

heretic,5 the quintessential convert . . . [and] a villain,6 the arch self-hating Jew,7

and the one single-handedly responsible for two thousand years of anti-SemitismandChristian brutality towards Jews.8 It is not unusual for commentators to alludeto a traditional Jewish view when considering the question of the origins of themodern cultural conception of Paul, a view that might easily be understood toimply centuries of Jewish polemic that reflected and shaped the views of the Jewishpeople.9 What evidence is there of such a tradition?

A number of scholars have suggested that references to Paul can be found inancient Jewish literature.10 Isaac Mayer Wise argued that, in reality, the apostate

5 Paul Levertoff, St. Paul in Jewish Thought: Three Lectures (London: Diocesan House, 1928), 7.6 Pamela Eisenbaum, Following in the Footnotes of the Apostle Paul, 84.7 Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, The Essential Heresy: Pauls View of the Law According to Jewish Writers,

18861986 (Ph.D. thesis, Temple University, May 1990), 7980.8 Pamela Eisenbaum, Is Paul the Father of Misogyny and Antisemitism? Cross Currents 50:4 (Winter

20002001), 506.9 For example, the Hebrew Christian Paul Levertoff noted that for almost nineteen centuries [Paul]

had been either ignored by the representatives of Jewish thought or hated and despised by thoseJews who happened to hear or read something about his conversion and his attitude towards theLaw, Israel and the Gentiles. Paul Levertoff, St. Paul in Jewish Thought, 14.

10 In addition to the rabbinic sources that follow, one might also consider references to Paul by earlyJewish believers in Jesus, but the difficulty in establishing the origins and dates of relevant traditionsmakes this particularly problematic. One possibility might be the Pseudo-Clementine writings,which were given great prominence by the nineteenth-century Tubingen School for demonstratingconflict between the Judaising and Gentilising followers of Peter and of Paul, respectively. In theHomilies, for example, Peter attacks the figure of Simon Magus (who is widely regarded by modernscholars as representing Paul) by arguing that a true understanding of Jesus teaching comes via eyesand ears rather than via visions or apparitions (17:13.1), alluding to Pauls reference to his vision ofChrist in 1 Cor. 15:8. Peter goes on to undermine further Simon/Pauls authority: If then, our Jesusappeared to you in a vision . . . and spoke to you, it was as one who is enraged with an adversary;and this is the reason why it was through visions and dreams, or through revelations that werefrom without that he spoke to you [rather than face to face as with a friend]. (17:19.1). AlthoughStanton tentatively accepts a date around 200, next to nothing can be said about the Jewish-Christiancommunity which generated Homilies 17, and he cautions against associating such traditions withthe Ebionites. In another Pseudo-Clementine account, Recognitions 1.70ff, a certain hostile personwho is clearly intended to be identified as Saul debates and then attacks James before receiving acommission from Caiaphas to arrest Peter in Damascus. Stanton suggests a mid-second-centurydating for this particular Jewish-Christian tradition. Graham Stanton, Jewish-Christian Elementsin the Pseudo-ClementineWritings in Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik, eds., Jewish Believers inJesus: The Early Centuries (Peabody,MA:HendricksonPublishers, 2007), 31517, 322, 324. InPanarion30.16.9 (also known as Against Heresies), Epiphanius of Salamis (d.403) cites the (lost) anti-PaulineAnabathmoi Iakobou, which is attributed to the Jewish-Christian Ebionites: They assert that Paulwas from the Greeks . . . the child of both a Greek mother and a Greek father, that he desired tomarry a priests daughter, that for this reason he became a proselyte and was circumcised, that whenhe still did not receive the girl he became angry and wrote against the Sabbath and the law. Thename Ebionites (the poor ones) was probably a self-designation current among Palestinian Jewishbelievers in Jesus in general, which became associated with a specific group for whom there is nocertain firsthand evidence after the third century. Irenaeus claimed in Against Heresies (c. 180) thatthey believed that Jesus was a son of Joseph and of the Davidic line who was eligible to be messiahbecause of his flawless Torah observance, and whose example in this regard should be followed bybelievers. He also observed that they only used the Gospel of Matthew and that [t]hey repudiate theapostle Paul saying that he was an apostate from the Law (Against Heresies 1:26.2), a charge which

PAUL IN THE POPULAR JEWISH IMAGINATION 25

of Talmudic tradition, Elisha ben Abujah (also known as Acher), had been Paul(Berakhot 57b).11 Travers-Herford drew a parallel between the rabbinic story ofthe wayward Gehazi whose master visited him in Damascus to bring him back tothe right way (Sotah 47a; Sanhedrin 107b) and the account of Pauls conversionto Christianity in Damascus.12 Gerhard Kittel and Paul Levertoff suggested that itwas Paul who was described in the Mishnah as one who profanes the HallowedThings and despises the set feasts and puts his fellow to shame publicly andmakes void the covenant of Abraham our father, and discloses meanings in theLaw which are not according to the Halakhah (Pirke Abot 3.11).13 Later, JosephKlausner argued that it was Paul who was referred to in the Talmud as a pupilof Gamaliel who went wrong and who interpreted the Torah in a perversemanner (Shabbat 30b).14 Harris Hirschberg, drawing upon a raft of Talmudictexts, adduced that Paul and Simon Magus, a figure found in the Acts of theApostles and the Patristic literature, were one and the same person and that therabbis opposition towards theminim (heretics) had actually been directed againstthe apostles followers.15 Leo Baeck accepted the alleged reference to Paul in a laterrabbinic commentary onProv. 21:8which reads Thisman . . . made himself strangeto the circumcision and the commandments (Ruth Rabba 3).16 And, by claimingan ancient pedigree for a medieval legend, Micah Berdichevsky suggested that thestory ofAbbaGulish, a paganpriestwhowas accusedof embezzlement and afflictedwith blindness as a result of his sins but whose eyesight was miraculously restoredto him inDamascus, causing him to convert (to Judaism), was too close to the NewTestament account of Paul to be a coincidence.17 Few modern scholars, however,

Skarsaune regards as entirely plausible, historically speaking. Oskar Skarsaune, The Ebionites, inOskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvick, eds., Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries (Peabody,MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2007), 437, 442, 462.

11 Isaac Mayer Wise, Paul and the Mystics, in Three Lectures on the Origin of Christianity (Cincinnati:Bloch & Co., 1883), 556.

12 Robert Travers Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (London: Williams & Norgate, 1903),71, 99f.

13 Paul Levertoff, St. Paul in Jewish Thought, 8. Gerhard Kittel, Paulus im Talmud, Rabbinica, Arbeitenzur Religionsgeschichte des Urchristentums 1.3 (1920), cited in Donald A. Hagner, Paul in ModernJewish Thought in Donald A. Hagner and Murray J. Harris, eds., Pauline Studies: Essays Presentedto F. F. Bruce (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1980), 160.

14 Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (trans. William F. Stinespring; London: Allen & Unwin, 1943),31011.

15 Harris Hirschberg, Allusions to the Apostle Paul in the Talmud, Journal of Biblical Literature 62:2(June 1943), 7387.Hirschbergwas concernedwith rabbinic texts andwithPauls followers asmuch aswith Paul himself.With regard to Paul as represented in theNewTestament, he referred to the ethicalissues raised in 1Cor. 5:1 (It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immoralityof such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his fathers wife) and10:25 (Eat anything that is sold in the meat market without asking questions for conscience sake).Among Christian Pauline scholars, he cited Sanday, Headlam, and Travers-Herford.

16 Leo Baeck, The Faith of Paul, Journal of Jewish Studies 3 (1952), 93110 (109).17 Micah Berdichevsky, Shaul ve-Paul, ed. Immanuel Bin-Gorion (Tel Aviv: Moreshet Micha Yosef,

1971), 1317. Berdichevsky discovered the story, which he describes as being written in the Hebrew

26 THE APOSTLE PAUL IN THE JEWISH IMAGINATION

would be confident in associating such texts with the apostle Paul for, althoughthere is no doubt that the rabbinic material contains oral traditions from earlierperiods, controversies continue to rage about their dating and provenance. Thetrend today is to avoid such sensational claims and to interpret these kinds of textsas references to contemporary Jewish heresies or to competing Christian or othernon-Jewish teachings more generally.18

Nor have the medieval and early modern periods much to offer, consideringhowmany hundreds of years passed. Paul and his teachings were rarely referred toexplicitly.19 Of course there are exceptions. The ninth-century Iraqi philosopher,al-Mukammis, who converted to Christianity and then returned to Judaism,main-tained in the Judeo-Arabic Book of Urging-on to Attack that Paul (along with Peter)had given Christianity many of its laws and regulations, which they claimed hadbeen divulged to them by Jesus but which cannot be found in either the Gospelsor the Torah.20 Around the same time, the anonymously authored Judeo-ArabicAccount of the Disputation of the Priest, which was translated in the twelfth centuryinto a widely distributed Hebrew tract known as The Book of Nestor the Priest,

of the Mishnaic and Talmudic period and which he believed had been originally composed inthat period, in a collection of aggadot called Sefer hamaasiyot or The Book of Tales which MosesGaster, who had published some of this material in 1896, had dated variously from the ninth to thethirteenth centuries. We will return to Berdichevsky and Gasters Book of Tales in Chapter 3.

18 In the broader context of Talmudic references to Christianity and Christian figures more generally,Sacha Stern maintains that most are later literary creations rather than the legacy of some historicaltradition. The surprising scarcity of material might be the result of self-censorship but more likelyreflects a lack of interest in others religions within early Rabb