Talk:Gabriele Boccaccini (b.1958), Italian-American scholar

@2018 Gabriele Boccaccini, University of Michigan

Chapter 1 -- Introduction

[Paul the Hater]

In an age of resurgent religious intolerance, Jews, Christians and Muslims are challenged to prove that monotheistic religions are not intrinsically intolerant and exclusive, but indeed capable to inspire and unite people of good will in peace and coexistence. Centuries of conflicts show that this has not always been the case. Made fully aware by their own experience, the children of Abraham are compelled to look at themselves and face the “evil within,” the roots of violence and hatred hidden in their own religious traditions and beliefs.

It is only a matter of intellectual honesty to admit that in the road to interfaith dialog and mutual respect, Paul of Tarsus appears today more an obstacle than a facilitator. Born a Jew, we are told that he “became” a Christian, making manifest with his own conversion and teaching that all the unbelievers are doomed unless they also convert and submit themselves to the Christian Messiah. Condemned by their own "perfidy", by their guilty lack of faith, the Jewish people, who once were "the chosen people of God", have been deprived of all dignity, and pushed to damnation like all gentile unbelievers or believers in another religions, if not through the individual experience of conversion and rejection of their own religious identity.

A message of inclusiveness generated an even more insurmountable wall of intolerance between believers and unbelievers. Everybody (Jew and Gentile, man and woman, freeperson and slave) is called and welcomed, but there is only one path to salvation in Christ for all humankind.

Should we than accept the paradox of a message of grace that generated hatred, a message of inclusion that generated exclusion? Or should we deny Paul, and expose him as a champion of intolerance--the "genius of hatred" as Friedrich Nietzsche denounced him, or to put it in a more colorful, contemporaneous vocabulary, “a racist, chauvinist jerk” ? Or should we just forget Paul and resign ourselves to take a different path in spite of him?

<<He preached Even more paradoxical is how the Christian tradition did not see any contradiction between praising Paul as the advocate of Christian universalism vs. Jewish particularism, and making him the major proponent of Christian exclusiveness. Everybody (Jews and Gentile, men and women, freepeople and slaves) are called and welcomed, but there is only one way of salvation in Christ for all humankind. <This wa already notice by Sandmel: “Paul felt that his version of Judaism was for all humankind, yet Paul was no thorough-going universalist. His universalism did lead him to deny any difference between Jew and Greek, so long on both are in Christ” (Sandmel, 21).

A message of inclusiveness generated an even more insurmountable wall of intolerance between believers and unbelievers. Condemned by their own "perfidy", by their guilty absence of faith, the Jewish people, who once were "the chosen people of God", came to be deprived of all dignity, and pushed to damnation like all gentile unbelievers or believers in another religions, if not through the individual experience of conversion and rejection of their own cultural, religious and ethnic identity.]]

<<Are monotheistic religions intrinsically and mutually intolerant and exclusive? The experience and teaching of Paul appear more an obstacle than a seem of much help. who was “born a Jew” and “became a Christian” Isn’t Paul’s experience of “conversion” and his doctrine of salvation insurmountable obstacles in the road to interfaith dialog and respect? Did Paul really believe that faith in Christ was the only path to salvation and all the unbelievers are condemned to perdition unless they convert and submit themselves to the Christian Messiah? Is this idea not only morally untenable, but also historically incorrect?>>

[Paul and Judaism]

In the context of first-century Judaism, Paul's figure appears to be among the most enigmatic and one of the hardest to grasp. A halo of mystery, if not the curse of an ancient taboo, still seems to hover around him and make a serene understanding of his experience difficult.

Paul weighs the cumbersome reputation that indicates him as the first great systematic theologian of nascent Christianity, but also weighs the suspicion - if not the accusation - of having contributed decisively to the separation between Christianity and Judaism and to have thrown the basis of a poisonous polemic against the Torah and the people of Israel, a harbinger of prejudice, intolerance and discrimination, up to the Holocaust tragedy.

The rediscovery of the Jewishness of Jesus, which since the end of the nineteenth century has engaged Jewish and Christian scholars in a joint effort, has contributed to further digging the furrow. The more the figure of the Master proves to be compatible with the spirit of the Judaism of his time, the more his most famous disciple appears to be the man of rupture, when not even the true founder of Christianity as a religion distinct from Judaism. Already in the 10th century, the Karaite leader Yaqub al Qirqasini opposed Jesus

to Paul--the unjustly persecuted Jewish teacher to his unfaithful disciple, seen as the authentic creator of Christianity.

It can’t be easily overlooked that for centuries Paul has been praised by Christians, and blamed by Jews, for separating Christianity from Judaism. “None has produced more animosity between Jews and Christians… Paul has long been regarded as the source for Christian hatred of Jews and Judaism … [He] turned his back on his former life as a Jew and became the spokesman for early Christian anti-Judaism” (Gager 3-4). Paul appeared to Christians as the convert who unmasked and denounced the “weakness” (if not the wickedness) of Judaism, and to Jews as the traitor who made a mockery of the faith of his ancestors (Zetterholm 2009).

(a) In order to affirm the grace of Christianity, Paul denounced Judaism as a legalistic religion

(b) In order to affirm his universalistic project, Paul had to fight against Jewish particularism

"Christianity began with one tremendous problem. Clearly the message of Christianity was meant for all men… But the fact remained that Christianity was cradled in Judaism; and, humanly speaking, no message which was meant for all the world could even have had a more unfortunate cradle. The Jews were involved in a double hatred--the world hated them and they hated the world" (Barclay 1958, p.9).

These shameful words were written in 1958 by one of the most respected Christian theologians of the time. A Britishman

Yet there's something not quite right about this. Among the authors of early Christianity, Paul is the one who most strongly claims his Jewishness ("I too am an Israelite, of the descendants of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin" - Rom 11: 1) defends the irrevocability of the divine promises ( "God has rejected his people? Nothing at all!", Rom 11: 1) and with more readiness reiterates the "privileges" of Israel in the face of the zeal of the new converts among the Gentiles ("You, oleastro [...] boast against the branches! "- Rom 11: 17-18).

On the other hand, Judaism hardly fits the features of "legalism" and "hatred against the world" that scholars like Weber, Schurer, and Bousset identified as the major features of Second Temple (and contemporary) Judaism.

==

Specialists of Rabbinic Judaism like Claude Joseph Montefiore, Salomon Schecter and George Foot Moore repeated in their work that this was not the case, but their work and little impact. In 1921 Moore published an article openly denouncing the bias (and antisemitism) of many of his colleagues.

The war, the Holocaust

Thanks to the works of Krister Stendhal, E.P. Sanders, James D.G. Dunn and others, the "New Perspective" has begun since the '70s to question that radical opposition between grace and law that made Paul the implacable critic of Jewish "legalism", recognizing in this opposition not the authentic voice of the first century, but the anachronistic reflection of the controversy that divided Christianity with the Reformation in the sixteenth century. With the collapse of the "Lutheran Paul" the myth of the supposed stainless coherence of the Pauline thought has also fallen. Scholars and theologians began to insist rather on the paradoxical features of Pauline theology, its non-systematic nature, its being linked to contingent problems and situations, and therefore its substantial inconsistency. Paul was not a theologian or a systematic thinker. Paul was a pastor, dealing with communities of flesh-and-blood people and with extremely real problems. For Paul - as affirmed with effective conciseness by E. P. Sanders - the solution precedes the problem. He saw the Gentiles approaching with Christianity faith and enthusiasm; his theological effort was to try to justify the fact in retrospect. Pauline reflection would then not be the theoretical premise for the entry of the Gentiles into the Christian community, but the attempt, even a bit confused and theologically not entirely coherent, to justify the event in which he recognized the merciful action of God.

The New Perspective has also tried hard to get rid of the most derogatory aspects of the traditional (Lutheran) reading of Paul (claiming that Judaism also should be regarded as a “respectable” religion based on grace). It has effectively rediscovered the Jewish structure of Paul's thought, emphasizing its pragmatic and pastoral aspects against its presumed theological consistency. It has not however challenged the view of Paul as the critic of Judaism and the advocate of a new supersessionist model of relations between God and humankind—God’s grace “in Christ” superseded the Jewish covenant for both Jews and gentiles by creating a third separate “race.” Paul “explicitly denies that the Jewish covenant can be effective for salvation, thus consciously denying the basis of Judaism … Paul polemicizes … against the prior fundamentals of Judaism: the election, the covenant, and the law” (Sanders, 551f).

Another line of thought was pursued by scholars like Krietser Stendahl (1963), Lloyd Gaston (1977), Stanley Stowers (1994), John Lodge (1996), John G. Gager (2000).

Paul was and remained a Jew

Two paths to salvation: “one, God’s unshakable commitment to Israel and to the holiness of the Law (=Judaism), and two, the redemption of the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. (Gager, 152).

Mark Nanos, A new paradigm is emerging today with the “Paul within Judaism” Perspective—a paradigm that aims to fully rediscover the Jewishness of Paul. Paradoxically, “Paul was not a Christian,”2 since Christianity, at the time of Paul, was nothing else than a Jewish messianic movement, and therefore, Paul should be regarded as nothing other than a Second Temple Jew. What else should he have been? Paul was born a Jew, of Jewish parents, was circumcised, and nothing in his work supports (or even suggests) the idea that he became (or regarded himself as) an apostate.3 On the contrary, Paul was a member of the early Jesus movement, and with strength and unmistakable clarity, proudly claimed his Jewishness, declaring that God also did not reject God’s covenant with the chosen people: “Has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin” (Rom. 11:1; cf. Phil. 3:5).

MY VIEW

I have never been content with the traditional “Lutheran” approach. In 1991 in a chapter of my book Middle Judaism devoted to Paul and James, I wrote: “No New Testament writing is more or less Jewish for the simple reason that they are all Jewish… Even Paul belongs to Judaism: the ideas he expresses (including those that appear most extraneous, such as the theories of original sin and justification by faith), are an integral part of the Jewish cultural and religious patrimony of the first century… Of course, there is an obvious ad extra polemic in the New Testament, but this itself is part of the internal debate within Judaism at the time…” (Boccaccini, Middle Judaism, 1991, p.215).

PAUL THE JEW AND PAUL THE CHRISTIAN

Obviously my sympathies are all for the Paul-within-Judaism perspective. Paul was and remained a Jew. He was and remained all his life an observant Jew. And yet I am not persuaded that Paul was just an ordinary Jew’ And yet I am not completely persuaded by the “two ways” The Jesus movement was born within Judaism and the many Jews who joined it (including Paul) did it for personal reasons that where independent from the inclusion of Gentiles. I am convinced of separating Jesus and Paul from their movement I am not convinced that the solution be in a simple call to forget Luther and the Christian Paul, as if they were never existed

Obviously There have been something in their teaching that would lead to future developments. If Paul was a Jew, we should neither try to connect his ideas to later understandings of Judaism, nor isolate the from the contemporary conversation thare must be something that connects Paul to “Jesus was not the first founder of Christianity and Paul was not the second” (Gager, vii) Paul was not a Christian (Eisenbaum).

How is it possible to claim that “Christianity” has nothing to do with Jesus and Paul. There must have been something in Jesus and Paul must have laid the foundations for How is it possible to reconcile Paul the Jew with Paul the Christian.

DIVERSITY IN SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM

Se oggi possiamo parlare del Paolo ebreo e' perche' la nostra comprensione dell’ebraismo del primo secolo è in questi ultimi decenni profondamente cambiata. I manoscritti del Mar Morto e i cosiddetti apocrifi e pseudepigrafi dell’Antico Testamento ci hanno restituito l’immagine di un’età creativa e dinamica e di un ambiente vitale e pluralistico, nel quale convivevano espressioni tra loro anche profondamente diverse dello stesso ebraismo, incluso il nascente movimento cristiano 10. Due elementi sono ormai acquisiti alla ricerca contemporanea e costituiscono il punto di partenza di ogni riflessione ulteriore:

(1) Il giudaismo del Secondo Tempio era diviso in correnti di pensiero in dialogo e competizione tra loro.

Nel secondo Tempio - come testimonia Giuseppe - esistevano tre distinte tendenze dottrinali: i sadducei, i farisei (con l'ala radicale e militante degli zeloti) e gli esseni. A queste correnti dovremmo aggiungere anche il giudaismo ellenistico (di cui Giuseppe Flavio non tratta concentrandosi sull'ambiente palestinese) e il movemento gesuano la cui distintivita' certo nessuno vorra' negare all'interno del giudaismo del Secondo Tempio in nome di un rigido monolitismo.

Certamente assieme alla visione monolitica dobbiamo evitare l'estremo opposto, come giustamente rileva Pitta di "considerare ogni variazione cristologica e comportamentale nelle prime comunita' cristiane come forma autonoma di giudaismo e di cristianesimo" (p.24). In media stat virtus dicevano gli antichi e cosi' e' vero anche in questo campo. Se non si puo' negare la diversita' non si puo' nemmeno arrivare arrivare all'assurdo che esista una forma diversa di giudaismo o di cristianesimo per ciascuno dei testi pervenutivi o dei leader conosciuti o di ogni piu' piccola sfumatura di pensiero. Esistono tuttavia delle grandi famiglie all'interno di ogni religione che hanno portato e portano avanti visioni diverse delle stessa religione.

L'ovvia realtà' e' davanti agli occhi di tutti. Non c'e' ne' mai c'e' stato un unico momento nella storia dell'ebraismo o del cristianesimo in cui essi siano stati delle religioni monolitiche. Oggi parliamo di giudaismo ortodosso, conservativo e riformato e di cristianesimi ortodosso, cattolico e protestante ma anche prima che emergessero queste moderne divisioni esistevano altre divisioni e cosi' lungo tutto il corso della storia. Ieri come oggi.

Personalmente trovo un po' oziosa la discussione semantica sull'uso del singolare (varieta' di giudaismo e di cristianesimo) o del plurale (giudaismi o cristianesimi). Che se li chiami "giudaismi" o “varietà diverse di giudaismo" la sostanza non cambia. Al tempo d'oggi come al tempo di Gesu' non esisteva un solo modo di intendere il giudaismo ma modi diverse tra loro in dialogo o in competizione (o giudaismi). E quando il movimento di Gesu; emerse le stesse divisioni ben presto si rifletterono all'interno della nuova sette producendo diverse forme di cristianesimo (o cristianesimi)

E’ questa la ragione per la quale molti studiosi usano oggi comunemente il plurale, "giudaismi", a indicare la grande varietà di pensiero del giudaismo nel primo secolo e le varie movimenti religiosi nel quali l'ebraismo del tempo si divideva. Anche chi come Sacchi o Pitta o Collins conserva remore semantiche sull'uso del plurale applicato al termine "giudaismo", non nega la sostanza del problema, che cioè la religione ebraica del tempo fosse estremamente variegata. E' questa un'idea oggi universalmente accettata nel mondo degli studi. Che si parli di "giudaismi" o di "correnti giudaiche" in discorso non cambia. Comunque la si esprimi, siamo oggi messi in guardia da ogni visione monolitica costruita sulle più tardive fonti rabbiniche11.

(2) Il movimento di gesu e' parte integrante del pluralismo giudaico del Second Tempio.

Una volta liberatici dai pregiudizi interpretativi e teologici del passato, ci troviamo di fronte ad alcune scoperte sorprendenti. Ad esempio, molte di quelle che eravamo abituati a considerare idee “tipicamente” paoline e addirittura “anti-giudaiche” (quali la giustificazione per fede, il peccato originalee la drammatica percezione dell’insufficienza dell’obbedienza alle norme della Torah ai fini della salvezza) si sono rivelate essere idee diffuseanche in altri ambienti e gruppi giudaici del tempo, spesso con alle spalle una storia secolare.

Ma anche di fronte alle idee "nuove" elaborate all'interno del nascente movimento cristiano sarebbe metodologicamente scorretto considerare come non-giudaica (o non più giudaica) ogni idea che non abbia un parallelo con altri autori o testi giudaici del tempo. Con questo criterio nessuno pensatore originale ebraico sarebbe più ebreo nel momento in cui elabora nuove idee rispetto alla tradizione ricevuta. Non lo sarebbe Filone, Giuseppe Flavio o Hillel. Lo stesso vale per Gesu o Paolo. Il fatto stesso che abbiano elaborato idee originali le rende certo distintive del nuovo movimento ma non per questo meno giudaiche. Va rigettato ogni tentativo di applicare una diversa misura nell'interpretazione delle origini cristiane rispetto alle altre forme di giudaismo del tempo.

If we can claim that Philo was a Jew and at the same time represented of a distinctive form of Judaism, the same is possible with Paul.

Three Caveats about the Jewishness of Paul Since my remarks focus on the Jewishness of Paul, it is important to clarify, as a premise, what we should not imply by that, in order to avoid some common misunderstandings. 1. In order to reclaim the Jewishness of Paul, we do not have to prove that he was a Jew like everybody else, or that he was not an original thinker. It is important not to apply to Paul a different standard than to any other Jew of his time. To claim that finding any idea in Paul that is unparalleled in other Jewish authors makes Paul “non-Jewish” would lead to the paradox that no original thinker of Second Temple Judaism should be considered “Jewish”—certainly not Philo or Josephus or Hillel or the Teacher of Righteousness, all of whom also formulated “original” answers to the common questions of their age. Why should only Paul be considered “non-Jewish” or “no longer Jewish” simply because he developed some original thinking? The very notion of making a distinction within Paul between his Jewish and “non-Jewish” (or “Christian”) ideas does not make any sense. Paul was Jewish in his “traditional” ideas and remained such even in his “originality.” Paul was a Jewish thinker and all his ideas (even the most nonconformist) were Jewish. 2. In order to reclaim the Jewishness of Paul, we do not have to 
downplay the fact that he was a very controversial figure, not only within Second Temple Judaism, but also within the early Jesus movement. The classical interpretation that the controversial nature of Paul (both within and outside his movement) relied on his attempt to separate Christianity from Judaism does not take into consideration the diversity of Second Temple Jewish thought. There was never a monolithic Judaism versus an equally monolithic Christianity. There were many diverse varieties of Judaism (including the early Jesus movement, which, in turn, was also very diverse in its internal components). 
 3. In order to reclaim the Jewishness of Paul, we do not have to prove that he had nothing to say to Jews and that his mission was aimed only at the inclusion of gentiles. As Daniel Boyarin has reminded us in his work on Paul, a Jew is a Jew, and remains a Jew, even when he or she expresses radical self-criticism toward his or her own religious tradition or against other competitive forms of Judaism.4 Limiting the entire Pauline theological discourse to the sole issue of the inclusion of gentiles would once again confine Paul the Jew to the fringes of Judaism and overshadow the many implications of his theology in the broader context of Second Temple Jewish thought. 


Chiarite queste premesse metodologiche e' possibile un tentativo di lettura di Paolo non semplicemente in rapporto al giudaismo o nel suo contesto giudaico ma come parte integrante di esso. Se il cristianesimo non si fosse mai sviluppato come religione autonoma, questo sarebbe il modo in cui oggi leggeremmo Paolo, come un autore ebraico del Secondo Tempo, come il Maestro di giustizia o Filone, dei quali nessuno mette in discussione l'ebraicita' nonostante l'originalità delle loro posizioni. Una lettura teologica odierna di Paolo non può ovviamente prescindere dagli sviluppi posteriori, ma una lettura storica non anacronistica ci spinge a immaginare un tempo in cui il "cristiano" Paolo si collocava su un piano non diverso dall'esseno Maestro di Giustizia, dal fariseo "Hillel" o dal giudeo ellenista Filone. Forse e' giunto il momento che la figura di Paolo sia ricollocata nel suo ambito originario storico di appartenenza

Ci sono segnali evidenti che spingono oggi in questa direzione. I piu’ recenti dizionari del giudaismo del Secondo Tempo (come the "Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism" a cura di John J Collins e Harlow contiene un articolo su Paolo (a firma di Daniel Harrington) e 4 Enoch: The online Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism include gli Studi Paolini alla stessa stregua degli studi su Qumran o su Filone. Una tale inclusivita' sarebbe stata impensabile anche solo alcuni anni fa e si colloca in una linea generale di riappropriazione del nascente cristianesimo al giudaismo del primo secolo, di cui si vedono segnali evidenti a livello internazionale. Il presente studio non ha la pretesa di risolvere tutti i numerosi e complessi problemi della teologia paolina ma di offrire alcuni spunti di riflessione che vadano nella direzione di un contributo ad una lettura della figura di Paolo come uno dei protagonisti maggiori del giudaismo del Secondo Tempio, senza negare l'apporto da egli dato al nascente movimento cristiano. Non si tratta di porre il Paolo ebreo in contrasto con il Paolo cristiano, ma di ribadire che all'interno della diversità giudaica del Second Tempio i due termini non sono affatto in contraddizione ed e' possibile leggere Paolo (e Gesu') come pensatori ebrei ed esponenti di un movimento riformatore ebraico che e’ parte integrante della diversita’ ebraica del primo secolo e che solo in seguito (e con molto gradualita) si separata' dalle altre forme di giudaismo a formare una religione separata ed autonoma.

The goal of this volume is fully to embrace the paradigm of the “Paul within Judaism” Perspective not as the conclusion, but as the starting point of our conversation about Paul In my opinion, the potential of such an approach has just begun to be manifested. We have still a long way to go before fully understanding all its monumental implications. In order to properly locate Paul the Jew within the diverse world of Second Temple Judaism, we need, first of all, to establish a better communication between New Testament scholars and Second Temple specialists—two fields of studies that, to date, have remained too distant and deaf to each other. No much will be accomplished as long as Pauline specialists, NT scholars and theologians discuss Paul among themselves and Second Temple specialists refutes to be engaged in any conversation on Paul. The future of Pauline studies is first of all in filling this gap.

Chapter 2 - PAUL WITHIN JUDAISM Paul “the Convert”? 


A major tenant of the traditional interpretation of Paul is “a perception of Paul and his communities as something other than Judaism” (Nanos, p.15). As a “convert” Paul was transformed into “an ex- or even anti-Jew; indeed, into the founder of gentile Christianity”. (Paula Although downplaying the traditional derogatory view of Judaism, the New Perspective has not abandoned the supercessionist model, from E.P. Sanders (“this is what Paul finds wrong in Judaism; it is not Christianity, 552) to N.T. Wright (“Being a Jew was no longer Paul’s basic identity”, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 1436).

“Paul lived his life entirely within his native Judaism.” Only in later Christian tradition “Paul will be transformed into a “convert”, an ex- or even anti-Jew; indeed, into the founder of gentile Christianity”. (Paula As in the case of Jesus, the problem of Paul is not whether he was a Jew or not, but what kind of Jew he was, because in the diverse world of Second Temple Judaism, there were many different ways of being a Jew.5 << “Paul had no sense of his being something other than a Jew… He had no sense that he was abandoning Judaism” (Sandmel, 21) From Paul’s own standpoint, he has remained completely within Judaism” (63). For Sandmel however this was simply Paul’s personal perception, since he did abandon Judaism. Paul did not intend to abandon Judaism, even though he did. Anything for Sandmel was a consequence of “Paul’s personal difficulties with the Law [which] antedate[d] his conversion, rather than follow it” (28)>>

The Pauline Letters and the Acts of Apostle offer some information about Paul's life before he joined the Jesus movement. Paul was a Jew, "from the tribe of Benjamin" (Rom 11:1; Phil 3:5). He lived in the Diaspora, as a native and citizen of Tarsus, the capital city in the Roman province of Cilicia (Acts 9:11; 21:39; 22:3). In the Acts, Paul repeatedly boasts his status of Roman citizen, which granted him privileges and the protection of the Roman Law (Acts 16; 22), and claims that he inherited Roman citizenship from his father ("I was born a citizen," Acts 22:28).

As usual among Jews in the Diaspora, Paul was known by his Hebrew name "Saul" (אוּלאוּל שָׁ) and his Greek name Paulos (Παῦλος; Lat. Paulus).

Born and raised into a Jewish family, since his childhood Paul was presumably a member of the local Jewish community and was instructed in the reading of the Bible in Greek (and Hebrew?). He was certainly fluent in both Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek. It seems likely from his writings that he also received some kind of Greek rhetorical education, but no specific reference to it is made in ancient sources.

In the diverse world of Second Temple Judaism, it is relevant to understand what kind of Jew Paul was, as there were many different ways of being a Jew. Paul calls himself "a Pharisee" (Phil 3:5) and so he does repeatedly in the Acts, where it is also claimed that he lived in Jerusalem and was a pupil of Gamaliel.

Philippians (3:4-6) provides a sort of resume of Paul's early life. Paul refers to himself as being "circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; [6] as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless." Acts abruptly introduces Paul as an enemy of the Church, in sharp contrast with the example of the first martyr Stephen. Paul "approved" the killing of Stephen and harassed members of the early Jesus movement, serving "out of zeal" the Sadducean high priests (Annas and Caiaphas?). Paul in particular is described as a protagonist of the persecution against the church in Jerusalem that led the Hellenists to be "scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria." The brief narrative also includes a reference to the Burial of Stephen. In several instances in his own letters Paul openly refers to his persecutory actions against the members of the Jesus movement before his "conversion".

Paul was a Pharisee (see Paul's Early Life). His claim that his persecution came "out of zeal", seems to indicate that Paul the Pharisee was attracted by the teachings of the Zealots and joined the High Priests, i.e. the Sadducees, in their campaign against the most radical members of the Jesus movement.

It should be noted, however, that the persecution by Paul did not target all members of the Jesus movement but only the Christian-Hellenistic party led by Stephen, which according to Acts 7 was charged of promoting radical views about the Jerusalem Temple and observance to the Torah. The "Hebrews" of the Jesus movement were exempted; Acts 5:34-39 claims that Gamaliel played an decisive role in protecting the apostles from the wrath of the Sadducees after the death of Jesus. Paul did not act in complete contrast with the position of his teacher Gamaliel.

Paul was then sent to Damascus to investigate the whereabouts of the Christians there. It was during his voyage to Damascus, that something happened to change radically his attitude toward the Jesus movement.

According to his own words, Paul was educated as a Pharisee. The idea that he abandoned Judaism when he “converted” to the Jesus movement is simply anachronistic. Conversion as an experience of radical abandonment of one’s religious and ethical identity was indeed known in antiquity (as attested in Joseph and Aseneth, and in the works of Philo).

In the ancient society, so much defined by ethnic boundaries conversion was a

“A proselyte offended patriotic pagans complained, turned his back on family, on ancestral customs, and on the gods” (Paula 68). Tacitus despises proselytes as the first lesson they receive is “to despise the gods, to disown their own country and to regard their parents, children, and brothers as of little account” (Hist V.5.1, 2). Joseph and Asenth shows that this is exactly what was expected from a convert. Resented by their own people, converts were not easily welcomed in their new family, either. as Philo shows:

In addition to examples of non-Jews who converted to Judaism, in ancient sources we have examples of Jews who "removed the marks of circumcision and abandoned the holy covenant. They joined with the Gentiles" (1 Mac 1:15). But this was not the experience of Paul. Christianity at his time was a Jewish messianic movement, not a separate religion. Paul, who was born and raised a Jew, remained such after his “conversion”; nothing changed in his religious, ethical and cultural identity. What changed, however, was his view of Judaism. “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I” (2 Cor 11:22-23)

Nothing changed in Paul if not his awareness of the identity of the Messiah.

“believing that Jesus was the Messiah and affiliating with other Jews who shared that convinctiobn involved making a choice between different groups of Jews, but the choices were within Judaism, they did not signify leaving the practice of a Jewish way of life” (Nanos, 32)

A radical move

“The model of a conversion within a religious tradition is clearly more appropriate than any other” (Gager 25). In describing his experience not as a “prophetic call,” but as a “heavenly revelation,” Paul himself indicated the radicalness of the event. Paul did not abandon Judaism, but “moved” from one variety of Judaism to another. With Alan Segal, I would agree that “Paul was a Pharisaic Jew who converted to a new apocalyptic, Jewish sect.”6 In no way should we downplay the relevance of the event. It was a move within Judaism, and yet, a radical move that reoriented Paul’s entire life and worldview. If, today, a Reform Rabbi became an ultraorthodox Jew, or vice versa, we would also describe such an experience in terms of “conversion.” Likewise, Paul’s conversion should be understood not as a chapter in the parting of the ways between Christianity and Judaism, but as an occurrence in the context of the diversity of Second Temple Judaism.

Note: Replacing the conversion with a “call” to be the apostle of Gentiles however misses the point. Paul will become the apostle of Gentiles only many years later. The revelation he received made him not the apostle of gentiles but a follower of Jesus.

Christianity did not exist yet as a separate religion from Judaism. The Jesus movement however already existed as a distinctive group within Judaism. The first (Jewish) members of the new movement came from other Jewish groups. In the Acts of the Apostle we notice the tendency to continue to identify members of the Jesus movement according to their former affiliation. The Hellenists (like Stephen and his companions) as opposed to the Hebrews are those who came from Hellenistic-Jewish communities. Acts defines “Pharisees” those “followers of Jesus” who at the Council of Jerusalem. They interestingly Paul is not reckoned among them, but among their most strenuous opponents It is true that both in his letters Paul and in Acts Paul refers to himself as a Pharisee especially in relation to the doctrine of resurrection. Modern scholars have then highlighted the Pharisaic elements in Paul’s theology. Paul was and remained a Jew, and should never be labeled as a former Jew. However, the Paul’s major commitment is with the Jesus movement. Which justifies his definition as a “former” Pharisee.

certainly Pharisees who had joined

Paul the Jesus Follower Paul was a Pharisee who joined the early Jesus movement. Before being known as the apostle of the gentiles, Paul became a member of the Jesus movement, and then, characterized his apostolate within the Jesus movement as having a particular emphasis on the mission to gentiles. Before Paul the apostle of the gentiles, there was Paul “the Jesus follower.” Any inquiry about Paul cannot, therefore, avoid the question of what the early Jesus movement was about in the context of Second Temple Judaism and what it meant for a Jew like Paul to join the Jesus movement. We all agree that, at its inception, Christianity was a Jewish messianic movement, but what does that mean exactly? It would be simplistic to reduce the early “Christian” message to a generic announcement about the imminent coming of the kingdom of God and about Jesus as the expected Messiah. And it would be simplistic to imagine Paul as simply a Pharisee to whom the name of the future Messiah was revealed and who now believed himself to be living at the end of times.

THE APOCALYPTIC PAUL Scholars of the “Paul within Judaism” perspective have focused their attention especially on the covenantal implications of Paul’s message for the inclusion of gentiles.

There is a growing attention among scholars on the apocalyptic framework of Paul’s thought. As Paula Fredriksen has said, Paul lived in “a Jewish world incandescent with apocalyptic hopes” (Fredriksen, p.xii). It was Paul’s firm belief that his times were history’s final hour. To the Thessalonians Paul repeats his belief that “we who are alive” will experience “the coming of the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:15-17). Every day that passes, the end is closer: “You know what hour it is, how it is full time now to awake from sleep. Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand!” (Rom 13:11-12). Yet, the eschatological expectations about the end of time, the coming of the Messiah and the inclusion of non-Jews are not enough to explain all aspects of Paul’s apocalyptic thought. As all specialists (Collins, Nickelsburg, Sacchi, etc.) have highlighted, apocalypticism was a much more complex word-view in Second Temple Judaism. First of all, it had something to do with the idea of the superhuman origin of evil. Eschatology was a product of protology. We are unfortunately so much influenced by later Christian speculations on the “original sin” by Augustine and Luther that we may not willing to recognize the Second Temple Jewish roots of such a concept by fear of transferring back “Christian” ideas on ancient Jewish sources. From texts like 1 Enoch, Jubilees and 4 Ezra, however, we know that in Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic circles there was a heated debate about the origin of evil that some saw not as a consequence of God’s will or human transgressions but attributed to superhuman powers. <On Paul and The Devil: see Derek R. Brown. “The God of This Age: Satan in the Churches and Letters of the Apostle Paul,” PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 2011.>

The letters of Paul are rife with references to evil powers and figures, including “principalities” (a)rxai/), “powers” (duna&meij), “authorities” (e0cousi/ai), angels (a!ggeloi), “rulers” (oi9 a!rxontej), “elemental spirits” (ta_ stoixei=a), demons (ta_ daimo&nia), and Satan (o( satana~j).

Paul mentioned Satan in several of his epistles [Rom 16:20; 1 Cor 5:5; 7:5; 2 Cor 2:11; 4:4; 6:15; 11:14; 12:7; 1 Thess 2:18; 3:5], often in the context of temptation (1 Cor 7:5; 2 Cor 2:11) and spiritual conflict (Rom 16:20; 1 Cor 5:5; 2 Cor 12:7; Eph 4:27; 6:11; 1 Thess 2:18). [He usually refer to the Devl as “Satanas” and in one occurrence as Beliar (2 Cor 6:15).] Paul call Satan “the god of this age” (2 Cor 4:4) and announce that “Soon the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20). In view of 1 Thess 2:18–3:5 and 2 Cor 4:4, Paul’s notion of Satan apparently included his belief that Satan specifically opposed his work as a pioneer missionary and an apostle called to preach the gospel and establish communities of faith. Many scholars (starting from F.C. Bauer) have downplayed these references and the apocalyptic connection between Satan and sin, fail to take seriously the implications of Paul’s references to Satan for the apostle’s wider theology. Only a few scholars, from Otto Everling’s 1888 volume, Die paulinische Angelologie und Dämonologie to J. Christiaan Beker’s Paul the Apostle and Richard Bell’s Deliver us from Evil: Interpreting the Redemption from the Power of Satan in New Testament Theology [WUNT 216; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007], have taken more seriously the Jewish apocalyptic worldview of Paul. one of Paul’s boldest appellations for Satan, “the god of this age” (2 Cor 4:4), reveals a strong dualistic framework similar to that of the Jewish apocalyptic tradition

The Devil and the Serpent: The clearest NT example of Satan’s identification with the serpent of Gen 3 is found in the book of Revelation (Rev 12:9; cf. 12:14, 15; 20:2). In Rom 16:20a Paul seems to allude to the eschatological defeat of Satan by echoing Gen 3:15: “the God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet.” Paul’s reference to the “crushing” of Satan, it is often claimed, echoes God’s cursing of the serpent and promise that Eve’s offspring will “bruise” (MT: Pw#$; LXX: thre/w) the serpent. See the Parables of Enoch. See also 2 Cor 11:3

Paul finds himself at the juncture of the two ages, a unique moment in history in which the powers of evil have, in one sense, already been defeated through the Christ event and thereby “disarmed” of their full power, but in another sense endure in the present age with residual, but deleterious power against the people of God. (p.75) Although, for Paul, Satan and evil powers have been judged in Jesus’ death and resurrection and will be ultimately defeated in the eschaton, such forces remain at work in the present age. (p79). Satan is still operating as a Tempter.

The idea of the Messiah as the forgiver on earth makes perfect sense as a development of the ancient Enochic apocalyptic tradition. The apocalyptic “counternarrative” of 1 Enoch centered on the collapse of the creative order by a cosmic rebellion (the oath and the actions of the fallen angels): “The whole earth has been corrupted by Azazel’s teaching of his [own] actions; and write upon him all sin” (1 En. 10:8). It was this cosmic rebellion that produced the catastrophe of the flood, but also the need for a new creation. The Enochic view of the origin of evil had profound implications in the development of Second Temple Jewish thought. The idea of the “end of times” is today so much ingrained in the Jewish and Christian traditions to make it difficult even to imagine a time when it was not, and to fully comprehend its revolutionary impact when it first emerged. In the words of Genesis, nothing is more perfect than the perfect world, which God himself saw and praised as “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Nobody would change something that “works,” unless something went terribly wrong. In apocalyptic thought, eschatology is always the product of protology. The problem of Enochic Judaism with the Mosaic law was also the product of protology. It did not come from a direct criticism of the law, but from the recognition that the angelic rebellion had made it difficult for people to follow any laws (including the Mosaic Torah) in a universe now disrupted by the presence of superhuman evil. The problem wasnot the Torah itself, but the incapability of human beings to do good deeds, which affects the human relationship with the Mosaic Torah. The shift of focus was not primarily from Moses to Enoch, but from the trust in human responsibility to the drama of human culpability. While at the center of the Mosaic Torah was the human responsibility to follow God’s laws, at the center of Enochic Judaism was now a paradigm of the victimization of all humankind. This is the reason it would be incorrect to talk of Enochic Judaism as a form of Judaism “against” or “without” the Torah. Enochic Judaism was not “competing wisdom,” but more properly, a “theology of complaint.” There was no alternative Enochic halakah for this world, no Enochic purity code, no Enochic Torah: every hope of redemption was postponed to the end of times. The Enochians were not competing with Moses—they were merely complaining. In the Enochic Book of Dreams, the chosen people of Israel are promised a future redemption in the world to come, but in this world, Israel is affected by the spread of evil with no divine protection, as are all other nations. The Enochic view had disturbing implications for the self- understanding of the Jewish people as the people of the covenant. It generated a heated debate within Judaism about the origin and nature of evil.7 Many (like the Pharisees and the Sadducees) rejected the very idea of the superhuman origin of evil; some explored other paths in order to save human freedom and God’s omnipotence—paths that led to alternative solutions, from the cor malignum of 4 Ezra to the rabbinic yetzer hara‘. Even within apocalyptic circles, there were competing theologies. In the mid-second century BCE, the book of Jubilees reacted against this demise of the covenantal relation with God by creating an effective synthesis between Enoch and Moses that most scholars see as the foundation of the Essene movement. While maintaining the Enochic frame of corruption and decay, Jubilees reinterpreted the covenant as the “medicine” provided by God to spare the chosen people from the power of evil. The merging of Mosaic and Enochic traditions redefined a space where the people of Israel could now live, protected from the evilness of the world under the boundaries of an alternative halakah as long as they remained faithful to the imposed rules. The covenant was restored as the prerequisite for salvation. In this respect, as Collins says, “Jubilees, which retells the stories of Genesis from a distinctly Mosaic perspective, with explicit halachic interests,” stood “in striking contrast” to Enochic tradition.8 Even more radically, the Community Rule would explore predestination as a way to neutralize God’s loss of control of the created world and restore God’s omnipotence.9 Enochic Judaism remained faithful to its own premises (Jews and gentiles are equally affected by evil), but was not insensitive to the criticism of having given too much power to evil, thereby dramatically reducing humanity’s chances of being saved. The later Enochic tradition tried to solve the problem by following a different path, a path that led them to address the problem of forgiveness of sins.

As a result of his “conversion,” Paul did not abandon Judaism, but switched his allegiance from one form to another of Second Temple Judaism. He fully embraced the apocalyptic worldview and the claim that Jesus the Messiah had already come (and would return at the end of times as the final judge). This included not only the believe that the Messiah had already come, but also and foremost the explanation of why the Messiah had come before the end. The early followers of Jesus had an answer: Jesus did not come simply to reveal his name and identity. Jesus came as “the Son of Man who has the authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2 and parallels).

Chapter 3: FORGIVENESS OF SINS

(1) Forgiveness of Sins in the Enochic Tradition

Talking of “Forgiveness of sins” in the Enochic tradition may seem paradoxical. At the center of the Enochic “theology of complaint” is the apparently absolute rejection of God’s forgiveness of sins. In the introduction to his commentary Nickelsburgh devotes one of his shortest paragraphs to that he defines as “a minor issue in 1 Enoch” (p.54), and attributes this lack of interest in the subject to “its black-and-white distinction between the righteous and the sinners.” A reading of 1 Enoch seems to confirm Nichelsburg’s conclusion. The message of repentance and forgiveness is significantly missing in 1 Enoch. Enoch was chosen by God not as a preacher of forgiveness, but rather as a messenger of unforgiveness--to announce to the fallen angels that "there will be no forgiveness for them." (1 En 12). A compassionate Enoch indeed accepted to intercede on behalf of the fallen angels and "drew up a petition for them that they might find forgiveness, and to read their petition in the presence of the Lord of Heaven." (13: 4-5) but only to be lectured by God. Enoch had to report back to the fallen angels that such a petition “will not be accepted.” The last word of God leaves no room for any hope of forgiveness. "Say to them: You have no peace" (16:4).

Later Enochic texts, Both Dream Visions and the Epistle of Enoch draw a clear distinction between the righteous and the sinners and make no reference to forgiveness of sins. In the Animal Apocalypse there are white sheep who open their eyes but no black sheep becomes white. In the Epistle of Enoch the opposition between the righteous and the sinners is turned into a sociological conflict between the rich and the poor, the oppressors and the oppressed, the haves and the have nots.

Also the introductory chapters of the Book of Enoch attributes forgives for sins only to the <righteous> (Ch.5.

And yet, in spite of the consistency of the Enochic tradition on the rejection of forgiveness of sins, something substantially changes with the Parables of Enoch.

At first the Book of Parables seems to reiterates in its language of revenge and judgment the same attitude uncompromised opposition between the oppressed and the oppressors, the righteous and the sinners.

With a language that is reminiscent of the Book of the Watchers, it says that in the Last Judgment the destiny of the “kings and the mighty” will be like that of the fallen angels at the beginning of creation: “no one will seek mercy for them from the Lord of the Spirits” (38:1).

In heaven instead the “Holy ones” (who seem to include the deceded righteous) are petitioning and interceding for the sons of men.

CHAPTER 40:

The voice of the archangels:

And the third voice I heard petitioning and praying for those who dwell on the earth and interceding in the name of the Lord of the Spirits … The one who is in charge of the repentance to hope of those who inherit everlasting life, his name is Phanuel” (40:6, 9).

In 1 Enoch ch. 48 the emphasis is on the Last Judgment and the revelation of the Messiah Son of Man. The reference is explicitly to Daniel 7, but contrary to the source text, the Son of Man is not the recipient of God's judgment but is now the Judge, sitting on the throne of God.

We are repeated that at the Last Judgment the righteous will be saved in the name of God as they are filled with good works and have hated the world of unrighteousness

An opposite destiny awaits the sinners; they will not be saved "because of the works of their hands". (here are the kings and the Mighty.)

The denial have any reference to God’s forgiveness is one of the major obstacles in establishing a connection between the book of Parables and the Synoptics, where the idea of forgiveness of sins takes central stage. What does the Forgiving Jesus have to do with the unforgiving Enoch?

Then after a brief interlude (ch. 49) praising the justice of God and the Elect,

Then in chap. 50-51 the judgment is presented in his more universal way , as the days in which earth will give back what has been entrusted to it and Sheol will give back what it has received… (51:1).

As expected the righteous will be rewarded and the sinners punished. However, quite unexpectedly a third group ("the others") is singled out besides the righteous and the sinners--they are "those who repent and abandon the works of their hands."

"1 And in those days a change shall take place for the holy and chosen, and the light of days will dwell upon them, and glory and honor will return to the holy, 2 On the day of distress, evil will be stored up against the sinners. And the righteous will be victorious in the name of the Lord of Spirits: and He will cause the others to witness (this), so that they may repent and abandon the works of their hands. 3 They will have < no > honor in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, yet through His name they will be saved, and the Lord of Spirits will have mercy on them, for great is His mercy. 4 And He is righteous in His judgement, and in the presence of His glory unrighteousness will not stand: at His judgement the unrepentant will perish in His presence. 5 "And hereafter I will have no mercy on them," says the Lord of Spirits.

In the context of the Enochic tradition, the passage is extremely important as for the first time introduces the idea of repentance at the time of the Last Judgment, yet it has not received the attention it deserves and has been mistranslated and misinterpreted even in the most recent and comprehensive commentaries to the book of Parables by Sabino Chiala' (1997) and George Nickelsburg (2012).

With the majority of manuscripts and all previous translations, Chiala' correctly translates verse 3 as 'they will have no honor' (Eth. kebr)", in the sense that they will have no "merit" before God. In the commentary however Chiala understands the verse as referred to the "righteous": "they" (not the others) are the subject of the sentence. Chiala' takes then the verse as a general statement that God's judgment is based exclusively on God's Mercy even for the "righteous," who cannot claim any "honor" before God. But this contradicts what the Book of Parables had said in chapter 48; the righteous have good works, while the sinners do not. Besides, here the author refers to "the others" (the ones who repent and abandon the works of their hands) as it is proved by the fact that the following verses (4-5) continue the discussion about repentance not "righteousness", to the extent that "the sinners" are now denoted as "the unrepentant."

Nickelsburg correctly identifies the "others" as a distinctive group—an intermediate group between the righteous and the sinners, but understands them as a subgroup of "the righteous" who may not have the same merits but will share the same destiny. "Given the references to the righteous and their oppressors in vv. 1-2b, 'the others' mentioned in this action must be either the gentiles not included among the oppressors of the righteous or other Israelites not included among the righteous, the holy, and the chosen" (Nickelsburg, p. 182). To reinforce his own interpretation Nickelsburg quite arbitrarily "corrects" the text, based on the testimony of only two manuscripts against most mss. (and previous translations, like Charles and Chiala'), and suppress the negative ("they will have no honor"). Like the righteous, the others will have "honor" before God and will be saved in His Name. But "the others" are not defined in the text for who they are but for what they do (“they repent and abandon the works of their hands”). Nickelsburg's interpretation that the "works of their hands" is a reference to idolatry is contradicted by the fact that the text here repeats the same phrase used in 48:8 to denote the sinners ("the strong who possess the land because of the works of their hands… will not be saved"). "The others" are not "good gentiles" or "not-so-bad Israelites"; like the sinners they can claim no honor before God.

Both Chiala' and Nickelsburg miss the revolutionary importance of the text, which at the end of times envisions the emergence of a third group beside "the righteous" and "the sinners." The righteous have "honor" (merit, good works) and are saved in the name of God, while "the sinners" have no honor (no good works) and are not saved in the name of God. The others are not a subgroup of the righteous nor a less guilty group of sinners or gentiles, but as the text explicitly states, they are rather a subgroup of the sinners who will repent and abandon the works of their hands. Like the sinners (and unlike the righteous), the "others" have no "honor" (no merit or good works) before God, but because of their repentance they will be saved in the name of God, like the righteous (and unlike the sinners).

In other words, the text explores the relation between the Justice and Mercy of God, a theme that we would find at the center of the Jesus movement and broadly discuss also in the early rabbinic movement. According to the Book of Parables, the righteous are saved according to God's Justice and Mercy, and the sinners are condemned according to God's Justice and Mercy, but those who repent will be saved by God's Mercy even though they should not be saved according to God's Justice. Repentance makes God's Mercy prevail on God's Justice. No reference is made to the traditional means of atonement related to the Temple or good works; the Book of Parables refers to the time of the manifestation of God and the Messiah as a (short) time in which a last opportunity of repentance will be offered to the sinners. The time is limited: after the judgment absolutely no further chance of forgiveness will be offered to "the unrepentant." The ones who do not repent will be lost forever.

The interpretation of ch. 50 is consistent with the entire Book of Parables and allows to better undestasnd the develo Having affirmed that at the end repentance is granted to the sinners who repent, the text must clarify that nonetheless this possibility is not given to everybody. It does not apply to the Fallen angels and does not apply to the kings and the landowners.

In cgh.53 we re told that the same angels of punishment who “are preparing all the instruments of Satan, are also preparing these for the Kings and the Mighty and the

and is not contradicted in chs 62-63, on the contrary it is reinforced as the goal of these chapters is to clarify that the kings and the mighty are excluded by this possibility of repentance.

In ch. 62-63 it is affirmed that the possibility of repentance does not apply to “the kings and the mighty and the exalted and those who possess the land”

The son of Man will overturn the kings from their thrones and their kingdoms, Because they do not exalt him or praise him, Or humbly acknowledge whence the kingdom was given to them (46:5)

The possibility of repentance granted to the sinners make(rhetorically) shine in stark contrast with the destiny the Kings. Now we better understand why they do what they do.

In what Nickelsburg describes as a “pitiful spectacle of role reversal” (p.266) at the moment of judgment all the kings and the mighty and the exalted and those who rule the land will fall on their faces in his presence; and they will worship and set their hope on that Son of Man, and they will supplicate and petition for mercy from him.”

Once again the language is reminiscent of the Book of Watchers. Like the fallen angels did with Enoch, the kings and the Mighty will petition to have mercy. They also think that they could take advantage of God’s mercy. But this is not the case: But the Lord of the Spirits will press them.. and he will deliver them to the angels for punishments…

In order the reinforce the point, the same scene repeats itself.

Even when in the hands of the angels of punishment, thay will implore them (They will even ‘Implore the angel of his punishment”) to give them “a little respite, that they might fall down and worship in the presence of the Lord of the Spirits, and the at they might confess their sin in his presence” (63:1)

The Parables then reiterate the same message of unforgiveness Like the fallen angels in the Book of the Watcher, so the powerful will no have peace and forgiveness.

But once again there will not be peace for them.

The Book of Parables does not attribute any special power of forgiveness to the Messiah, who remains the judge and destroyer of evil.

The exception however confirms the rule.

Yet the text signals a radical turn in a tradition that had never paid attention to the problem of repentance or forgiveness of sin, if not in order to exclude such a possibility. Repentance is now a central theme in the book of Parables; and a central aspect i [[it is so important that it becomes now clear why one of the four archangels (besides Michael, Raphael and Gabriel) was said to be specifically entitled to this task--"Phanuel, who is set over the repentance unto hope of those who inherit eternal life" (1 En 40:9).]]

[[In the Parables of Enoch, we read that at the end of times in the last judgment, as expected, God and his Messiah Son of Man will save the righteous and condemn the unrighteous. The righteous have “honor” (merit, good works) and will be victorious in the name of God, while “the sinners” have no honor (no good works) and will not be saved in the name of God. But quite unexpectedly, in chapter 50, a third group emerges at the moment of the judgment. They are called “the others”: they are sinners who repent and abandon the works of their hands. “They will have no honor in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, yet through His name they will be saved, and the Lord of Spirits will have mercy on them, for great is His mercy.”10 In other words, the text explores the relation between the justice and the mercy of God and the role played by these two attributes of God in the judgment. According to the book of Parables, the righteous are saved according to God’s justice and mercy, the sinners are condemned according to God’s justice and mercy, but those who repent will be saved by God’s mercy even though they should not be saved according to God’s justice. Repentance makes God’s mercy prevail over God’s justice. ]]

THE MESSIAH’S MISSION TO THE “MANY”

The text does not further elaborate on these points, but if we read the Synoptics about the preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus, it is like reading a midrash of 1 Enoch 50. Regardless of the issue whether or not this interpretation reflects, "adjusts" or corrects what the historical John the Baptist and the historical Jesus "really" did or meant to do, from the view point of the Synoptics the time of the end has come and God's Messiah has been revealed in Jesus. The prophecy of 1 Enoch 50 does no longer belong to the future but has become true in the manifestation "on earth" of the Son of Man Jesus and his precursor John the Baptist. Their entire mission would be devoted to "the others."

The Christian idea of the first coming of the Messiah as forgiver is a radical, yet very logical, variant of the Enochic system. The concept of the existence of a time of repentance immediately before the judgment and the prophecy that, at that point, “the sinners” will be divided between “the repentant” (the others) and “the unrepentant,” is the necessary “premise” of the missions of John and Jesus, as narrated in the Synoptics. The “historical” John the Baptist is certainly a complex figure with his emphasis of purity but the way in which the Synoptics reinterprets his preaching force him in the line opened by the Parables of Enoch, The imminent coming of the last judgment, when the earth will be cleansed with fire, means urgent repentance and “forgiveness of sins” for those who in this world have “no honor.” “Be baptized with water; otherwise, you will be baptized with the fire of judgment by the Son of Man”: this seems to be, in essence, the message of John the Baptist as understood by the Synoptics, an interpretation that does not contradict the interest of the Christian authors to present it as a prophecy of Christian Baptism (by the Holy Spirit). Similar ideas find an echo also in the Life of Adam and Eve—a text generally dated to the first century CE—where the sinner Adam does penance for forty days, immersed in the waters of the Jordan (and it is not by accident that John baptized in the living water of the Jordan). The first man (and first sinner) is driven by one steadfast hope: “Maybe God will have mercy on me” (L. A.E. 4:3). His plea to be allowed back in the Garden of Eden will not be accepted, but at the time of his death, his soul will not be handed over to the devil, as his crime deserved, but carried off to heaven; so, God decided in his mercy, despite the complaints of Satan. In the Christian interpretation, John the Baptist, as the precursor, could only announce the urgency of repentance and express hope in God’s mercy. But with Jesus, it was another matter: he was the Son of Man who had authority on earth to forgive sins, who left to his disciples the power of forgiveness through Baptism “with the Holy Spirit,” and who will return with the angels to perform the judgment with fire. After all, who can have more authority to forgive than the one whom God has delegated as the eschatological judge? As the forgiver, Jesus was not sent to “the righteous,” but to “sinners,” so that they might repent. There is no evidence in the Synoptics of a universal mission of Jesus to every person: Jesus was sent to “the lost sheep [of the house of Israel]” (Matt. 10:6; cf. 15:24); the righteous do not need the doctor. Jesus was the doctor sent to heal sinners (Mark 2:17; Matt. 9:13), as Luke makes explicit: “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). Reading the Synoptics in light of the book of Parables of Enoch sheds light also on some parables that the Christian tradition attributed to Jesus. The parable of the lost sheep (Matt. 18:10–14; Luke 15:1–7) defines the relationship between God and “the others”; Luke’s parable of the prodigal son (15:11–32) reiterates the theme, but also adds a teaching about the relationship between “the righteous” and “the others”—between those who have honor and are saved because they have never abandoned the house of the Father and those who have no honor, and yet, are saved as well since they have repented and abandoned the works of their hands. The examples could be numerous, but no parable seems more enlightening to me than the one narrated by Matthew on the workers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1–16). The householder who pays the same salary for different “measures” of work gives the full reward (salvation) to the “righteous” and to the “others,” just as chapter 50 of the Parables claim that God will do in the last judgment. God’s mercy (“Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”) bests God’s justice, or, as the letter of James will say, “Mercy triumphs over the judgment [κατακαυχᾶται ἔλεος κρίσεως]” (James 2:13). The contrast with the traditions developed in the rabbinic movement could not be stronger. The rabbis freely discuss the relation between the two middot—God’s measures of justice and mercy—providing flexible answers to the issue. Mishnah Sotah (1:7–9) sticks to the principle “with what measure a man metes it shall be measured to him again,” and affirms that “with the same measure,” God gives justice when punishing evil deeds and mercy when rewarding good deeds. On the contrary, the parallel text in Tosefta Sotah (3:1–4:19) claims that “the measure of Mercy is five hundred times greater than the measure of Justice.” But the two divine attributes are never opposed as in the book of Parables and in the early 10 Christian tradition; on the contrary, their necessarily complementary nature is emphasized. Not accidentally, the “rabbinic” version of the parables will end with different words in which God’s mercy is praised, but God’s justice is not denied: “This one did more work in two hours than the rest of you did working all day long” (y. Ber. 2:8).

Chapter 4: Paul the Apocalyptic Thinker / THE PROBLEM OF JUSTIFICATION

In the traditional Christian reading of Paul “justification by faith” is a central element, if not the central element of his thought. Endless discussion about it meaning The meaning if the term must be understood in the context of second temple Judaism as well as in the development of the early Jesus movement. The difficulty to find “parallels” in contemporary Jewish sources has led scholars to dismiss completely the “justification theory” as the imposition on Paul of a much later Christian paradigm. Other scholars instead like Stephen Westerholm have struggled to reaffirm the “traditional” understanding as the only plausible interpretation of Paul and evidence of his uniqueness. The difficulty to find the “Lutheran” concept of justification in the Christian literature outside of Paul led scholars to assume that the concept was “forgotten” in the post-Pauline tradition before being “rediscovered” by Augustine and Luther. The assumption was that Paul had been and as a reactions Christian authors went back to the idea of justification by works”. A book by Brian J. Arnold has recently revisited the problem, reaching the opposite conclusion that “justification by faith” remains indeed an important element in the post-Pauline tradition. Arnold fails to read Paul “within Judaism” however,

The discussion has reached a level of polarization, that seems to prevent from any dialogue. Either Augustine and Luther were totally right in their understanding of Paul or they were totally wrong. Each party seems to have good arguments in support of their thesis. Both parties have a weakness, which is not only the lack of listening to the other side but the tendency to create a totally unique Paul, who in order to be remain Jewish is completely isolated from the other members of the Jesus movement, or in order to remain “Christian” is totally isolated from his fellow Jews. But what if we read Paul in light of the Parables of Enoch and in line with the Synoptic tradition? What if we try to see him as a Second Temple Jew and a follower of Jesus messianic group. The problems of the origin of evil, the freedom of human will, and the forgiveness of sins are at the center of Paul’s thought. As we have seen, these were not Pauline problems, but Second Temple Jewish problems. The originality of Paul was not in the questions, but in the answers. The “Enochic” apocalyptic context and the emphasis on forgiveness of sins allows us the rethink the problem of justification in Paul.

Scholars have long noticed the existence or some tension in Paul between “justification by faith alone” and “judgment according to the deeds” The same Paul who claims that “a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (2:16) a few lines before had stated that God “will recompense everyone according to their works” (2:6).

Clement reminds fellow Christians to use “self-control” as we will be “justified by our works, and not our words” and then reiterate

Apocalyptic Jews and followers of Jesus did not see the things in contradiction to one other. We do. Obviously, the problem is ours not theirs.

Let us clothe ourselves with concord and humility, ever exercising self-control, standing far off from all whispering and evil-speaking, being justified by our works, and not our words. (Clement 30). [Here he is talking to Christians]]

“And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (1 Clement 32) [Here Clement is taking about eschatological renewal).

Clement is also referring to the blood of Christ in many passages.

redemption should flow through the blood of the Lord to all those who believe and hope in God. (Clement chap. 12) 

Let us look steadfastly to the blood of Christ, and see how precious that blood is to God, which, having been shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole world. Let us turn to every age that has passed, and learn that, from generation to generation, the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all who would be converted to Him. Noah preached repentance, and as many as listened to him were saved. Jonah proclaimed destruction to the Ninevites; but they, repenting of their sins, propitiated God by prayer, and obtained salvation, although they were aliens [to the covenant] of God. (Clement. Chap. 7)

Letter to Diognetus: CHAPTER 9 9:1 Having thus planned everything already in His mind with His Son, He permitted us during the former time to be borne along by disorderly impulses as we desired, led astray by pleasures and lusts, not at all because He took delight in our sins, but because He bore with us, not because He approved of the past season of iniquity, but because He was creating the present season of righteousness, that, being convicted in the past time by our own deeds as unworthy of life, we might now be made deserving by the goodness of God, and having made clear our inability to enter into the kingdom of God of ourselves, might be enabled by the ability of God. 9:2 And when our iniquity had been fully accomplished, and it had been made perfectly manifest that punishment and death were expected as its recompense, and the season came which God had ordained, when henceforth He should manifest His goodness and power (O the exceeding great kindness and love of God), He hated us not, neither rejected us, nor bore us malice, but was long-suffering and patient, and in pity for us took upon Himself our sins, and Himself parted with His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy for the lawless, the guileless for the evil, _the just for the unjust,_ the incorruptible for the corruptible, the immortal for the mortal. 9:3 For what else but His righteousness would have covered our sins? 9:4 In whom was it possible for us lawless and ungodly men to have been justified, save only in the Son of God? 9:5 O the sweet exchange, O the inscrutable creation, O the unexpected benefits; that the iniquity of many should be concealed in One Righteous Man, and the righteousness of One should justify many that are iniquitous! 9:6 Having then in the former time demonstrated the inability of our nature to obtain life, and having now revealed a Saviour able to save even creatures which have no ability, He willed that for both reasons we should believe in His goodness and should regard Him as nurse, father, teacher, counsellor, physician, mind, light, honour, glory, strength and life. “The Epistle to Diognetus is the Locus classicus of justification by faith in the second century, Rooted in grace and mercy, justification equates to the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.” (Arnold, p.100) Arnold wants to defend to traditional idea of “forensic justification”

LETTER TO THE ROMANS

In the letter to the Romans, Paul wrote to the Jesus community of Rome: a community of people—Jews and non-Jews—who confessed Jesus as the Messiah and had received baptism. Why did they do it? They did it for the same reason why all first followers of Jesus (including Paul) had done, because they were told that the end of time had come and that this was the time in which God would grant forgiveness to the sinners who believe. Paul knew that he could count in Rome on some important connections, first of all Priscilla and Aquila, who were with him in Corinth and Ephesus. Yet he addressed a community he had not founded. He does not need This world is dominated by the Devil, but the time is approaching of the end of his power. “The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet” (16:20). And above all, Paul reminds that the Lord has come and has delivered a message of salvation for “everyone who have faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greeks” (1:16). Paul believed that the time of judgment is close, the time of “God’s wrath against all ungodliness” (1:18). Non-Jews also will be judged (“they are without excuse” Using an argument frequently used by Hellenistic Jews

have joined were former sinners, but who believed that they had received forgiveness of sins through Jesus’ death. 

First of all, Paul reminds his readers that according to God’s plan, the moral life of Jews is regulated by the Torah, while the moral life of gentiles is regulated by their own conscience (or the natural law of the universe—an idea that Paul borrowed from Hellenistic Judaism and its emphasis on the creative order as the main means of revelation of God’s will). Then, Paul repeats the undisputed Second Temple belief that on the day of judgment, God “will repay according to each one’s deeds” (Rom. 2:8). In no way did Paul dispute that if Jews and gentiles do “good deeds” (follow the Torah and their own conscience, respectively), they will obtain salvation. Evildoers will be punished and the righteous will be save with no distinction. “There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jews first and also the Greeks, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jews first and also the Greeks. For God shows no partiality” (Rom 2:9-10). Now Paul turns to his fellow Jews: having the Law does not automatically include all of them among the righteous. “for it is not the hearers of the Law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the Law who will be justified” in the last judgment” (2:13). Being a Jew is not in itself does not mean a special treatment. “Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law; but you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision” (2:25). Paul does not deny that being a Jew has “an advantage”, as the Jews have receives “the oracles of God”, but this will not prevent God from applying his justice against the trangressors. This leads to Paul’s central argument: “all, both Jews and non-Jews, are under the power of sin” (3:9). In order to prove his point Paul quotes a series of “biblical” passages, or better crafts a composite quotation made of different biblical verses showing widespread evil.

Qohelet 7:20: “Surely there is no one on earth so righteous as to do good without ever sinning” Ps. 14:1-2: is no one who does good; no, not even one”] Ps. 52:3 [LXX]: “[God looked down to see if] there is there were any that understood, or sought after God. They have all gone out of the wayno one who does good; no, not even one”]; Ps. 5:9 [“Their tho; 140:3; 10:7; Isa. 59:7-8 [“The way of peace they do not know]; Ps. 36:1 (cf. Rom 3:18): “There is no fear of God before [his] eyes” This passage has been traditionally interpreted not as a simple recognition that all people commit sins but as a general statement asserting the human inability to do good. As a result, “The apostle thought along the same lines as Augustine, Luther and Calvin” (Westerholm, p.48): “sinners, incapable of doing good, can be justified only by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus Christ” (Westerholm, p.49). The quotation express the recognition by God of the presence of sinners; how pervasive evil is. In so doing the Christian interpretation has reversed the order of the discourse. The quotation has become the center of the discourse while in the text the emphasis is not on the quotation but on the statement that the quotation intends to prove. The point of Paul is not that all people are sinners as it is proved by the fact they are all under the power of sin, but that both Jews and Gentiles alike are affected by evil (“under the power of sin”) as it is proved by the fact that there are so many sinners among them. The goal is to show that sin is a common experience of Jews and non-Jews, and none can claim to be spared. Does the fact that all humans are “under the power of evil”, mean that all and each human being are so sinful that they will not pass judgement? Paul has just said that in the judgment God reserves “glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jews first A conviction that he is repeated in II Corinthians: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good and evil, according to what he has done in body (2 Cor 5:10). Scholars have long noticed the existence of some tension in Paul between the “Christian” idea of “justification by faith alone” and the “Jewish” idea of “judgment according to the deeds”

Some have concluded that Paul was “incoherent” in his doctrine of evil, and the statement about judgement according the deeds should be taken as a meaningless Jewish remaint superseded by the new Christian doctrine. Sanders has offered the most successful to harmonize the two ideas under the concept of “covenantal nomism”, showing that there is no conflict: both in Judaism and in Christianity salvation is by grace but requires “works” to “remain in”. “The distinction between being judged on the basis of deeds and punished anor rewarded at the judgment (or in this life), on the one hand, and being saved by God’s gracious election, on the other, was the general view in Rabbinic literature … Salvation by grace is not incompatible with punishment and reward for deeds” (Sanders, 517). Following Sanders, Kent L. Yinger also concluded that there is no contradiction as the judgment by works “will nor so much determine as reveal one’s character and status as righteous or wicked” (Yinger, p. 16). The assumption remains that “justification by faith” and “salvation by works” both deal with the final verdict of righteousness for eternal life. But the idea of “covenantal nomism” was complicated for some Jews by the superhuman power of evil. The Enochians would not have denied that salvation is ultimately an act of grace, but their doctrine of cosmic evil implied the expectation of an additional gift of grace to the sinners that could compensate the power of evil and restore the terms of the covenant. In light of their apocalyptic premises the early followers of Jesus believed that this additional gift of justification by faith had already offered to those who had accepted the authority of Jesus the Messiah, before the (future) Last Judgment according to the deeds”. Coherently, Paul invites the

Once again the apocalyptic context tells us that there is no contradiction. This is perfectly in line with the apocalyptic position that affirms the difficulty, not the impossibility, to do good.

The problem is another:

As an apocalyptic Jew, Paul knows that evil is not only a consequence of human transgression, has come from a rebellion in heaven, which was not a consequence of the human transgression of the covenant, and therefore was “apart from the law”. This makes difficult (not impossible) to do good as it does not depends only by human choice but people are victims of a cosmic evil. Some apocalyptic Jews had reacted by claiming that cosmic evil is a problem of Gentiles only as Jews are protectd by the covenant, but this is not the position of Paul. He sides uncompromisingly with Dream Visions against Jubilees, with the view that this cosmic evil is affecting all humans (including the Jews), vs. the view that the Jews are protected by the evil. The law can only give the Jews “the knowledge of sin”.

The good news for Paul is that in the imminence of the Judgment God has provided God must provide a gift of justification to compensates the power of cosmic evil. This gift is equally “apart from law” (as it does not depend of human obedience to the law) and is given to both Jews and Gentiles, with no distinction, as both are affected by evil. This gift of forgiveness is Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith” (3:25). The gift is offered “apart from works prescribed by the law, and as such is offered indistinctively to Jews and Gentiles, through the same requirement, “faith in Jesus”. Paul immediately clarifies that this is not a challenge to the law, on the contrary, it confirms what the law itself affirms, by presenting the case of Abraham as example that God has the power to forgive sins “by faith”. The gift of justification came through the death of Jesus Paul establish a close parallelism between the fall of Adam and the “free gift” of Jesus. The grace of God through Jesus has then counterbalance the power of cosmic evil, restoring the relation between God and humans.

The parallelism between Jesus and Adam is central in Paul. Jesus has a certain degree of divinity, but is not “theos” (God); He does not the term “son of man”, but he gives him the same status as a “man from heaven” (1 Cor 15:48).

The two “sons of God” were both were created with a divine status

The christology of Paul does not radically depart from the Enochic pattern. Like the Synoptic “Son of Man,” the Pauline Son-kyrios belongs to the heavenly sphere, and is separated from and subordinate to the Father-theos. After completing his mission of forgiveness through his self-sacrifice, “the Son, too, will be subjected to the One who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). If Paul does not use the term “Son of Man” (even in contexts such as 1 Thess 4:16–17, where the reference to Dan 7 would have made it obvious), it is because the title would have interfered with the parallelism he establishes between Adam and the new Adam, by suggesting the subordination of Jesus ben Adam to the first Adam. As the obedient son, Christ is compared to the disobedient son, Adam, with whom he shares the nature and dignity as the other “Son of God” (see Luke 3:38). Both were created in the image and likeness of God, taking upon himself the “form” of God; Adam and Jesus, however, are separated by a different fate, that is, one of guilt and transgression in the case of Adam, and the other of obedience and glory in the case of the new Adam. The lowering (kenosis) of Adam is a punishment caused by his disobedience, while in Jesus the lowering (kenosis) is a voluntary choice for accomplishing his mission of forgiveness and is followed by his elevation and glorification (Phil 2:5–11) to a “divine” status that is higher than he was before. The veneration of Jesus is evidence of Jesus’ “divine” status, not of his uncreated status; it is the veneration due to the Son of Man at the time once his name is manifested. As the Collins correctly point out, the prose hymn in Philippians “clearly speaks about the preexistence of Jesus … [but] does not imply that Jesus was God or equal to God before his birth as a human being.” In Ehrman’s words, “Paul understood Christ to be an angel who became a human.” Erhman’s definition of the Philippian hymn as an early example of “incarnation christology,” however, is misleading, and his rejection of the parallelism with Adam is unnecessary. Philippians' description of the lowering of the divine “Son” who became human as an act of obedience and was then exalted to an higher degree of divinity parallels the story of the “divine” Adam, the other “Son of God,” who also was created “immortal” like an angel but became “human” (i.e. mortal) as a punishment for his desire of acquiring a higher degree of divinity. Yes, Paul describes Jesus as “a preexistent divine being,” but there is no “incarnation” in Paul; in no place does Paul talk of Jesus as an uncreated being who became flesh. Yes, “Christ could be a divine being yet not be fully equal with God.” Paul is very careful; he never refers to Christ as the “theos,” the only uncreated Maker of All.

The problem is not the Mosaic law or the natural law; the problem is sin. With all Second Temple Jews, Paul acknowledges the presence of evil, and he quotes a passage of Scripture (Eccles. 7:20) to stress that evil is a universal problem. Every Second Temple Jew would have agreed. The problems are the implications and the remedies to this situation.

Paul sides with the apocalyptic tradition of a superhuman origin of evil. With the Enochic traditions, he shares a similar context of cosmic battle between the Prince of Light and the Prince of Darkness—“What fellowship is there between light and darkness? What agreement has Christ with Belial?” (2 Cor. 6:15)—as well as the hope for future redemption from the power of the devil: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom. 16:20). What we can notice, however, is a certain—more pessimistic—view of the power of evil. In the Pauline system, the sin of Adam takes the place of the sin of the fallen angels: “Sin came into the world through one man [Adam], and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12). Adam’s sin is counterbalanced by the obedience of the “new Adam,” Jesus. In order to create the conditions that made necessary the sacrifice of the heavenly Savior, Paul exploits the Enochic view of evil by radicalizing its power. While in Enoch, people (Jews and gentiles alike) are struggling against the influence of evil forces, Paul envisions a postwar scenario where “all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin” (Rom. 3:9). Adam and Eve have lost the battle against the devil, and as a result, all their descendants have been “enslaved to sin” (Rom. 6:6). Slavery was an established social institution in the Roman Empire. When Paul was talking of people defeated and enslaved as a result of war, everybody knew exactly what the implications were for them and their children. Once the fight was over, the slaves were expected to resign themselves to their condition. Josephus voices the common sense of his time when he addresses the inhabitants of besieged Jerusalem and reminds them that: . . . [F]ighting for liberty is a right thing, but ought to have been done at first . . . To pretend now to shake off the yoke [of the Romans] was the work of such as had a mind to die miserably, not of such as were lovers of liberty . . . It is a strong and fixed law, even among brute beasts, as well as among men, to yield to those that are too strong for them. (J. W. 5.365–67) The Romans admired and honored those who fought bravely for liberty, but despised rebellious slaves and condemned them to the cross. No one could expect the devil to be weaker than the Romans. Freedom could be regained only through the payment of a ransom. Does that mean that all “slaves” are evil? Not necessarily. Once again, this was a matter of common experience. Being a slave does not necessarily equate to being “unrighteous.” However, slaves are in a 12 very precarious situation since they are not free, and at any moment, they could be commanded by their master to do evil things. Paul never questions the holiness and effectiveness of the Mosaic Torah or implies its failure. On the contrary, he reiterates the “superiority” of the Mosaic Torah and the Jewish covenant that has given to Jews a “a full awareness of the fall” (Rom. 3:10) and the “prophecies” about the coming of the Messiah. It is sin that must be blamed, not the Torah: The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. . . . For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Rom. 7:12–17, 22–24) It is this situation of total enslavement, not an intrinsic weakness of the “good” Torah, that leads Paul to do what the book of the Parables of Enoch had already done: that is, to seek hope for sinners not only in an heroic attachment to the law (according to God’s justice), but also in an intervention of God’s mercy, a gracious offer of forgiveness of sins “apart from the Law” (and God’s justice). The power of cosmic sin determines that “no human being will be justified by deeds prescribed by the law” (Rom. 3:20), but only by a gracious act of “justification by God’s grace as gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood” (Rom. 3:24–25). God had to react to an extreme situation of distress and counterbalance the action of the devil with an extreme act of mercy: For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. (Rom. 5:6–9) The entire debate about “justification” and “salvation” in Paul is still too much affected by the framework of Christian theology. As an apocalyptic Jew and a follower of Jesus, Paul claimed that forgiveness of sins was the major accomplishment of Jesus the Messiah for Jews and gentiles alike in the cosmic battle that Jesus fought (and won) against demonic forces. Justification provides to sinners (Jews and gentiles alike) an antidote, or at least, much-needed relief, to the overwhelming power of cosmic evil—a second chance given to people without hope. They were “enemies,” and yet, Christ died for them. In the language of the Parables of Enoch, those Jewish and gentile sinners who have received Baptism have put themselves among the “others” who are neither “righteous” nor “unrighteous,” but are now “repented sinners.” They have no merits to claim, according to God’s justice, but have received justification by the mercy of God.

Already Sanders had noticed that in Paul’s words, people “have been” justified by faith, but “will be” saved by works. (Sanders, 516) In the experience of the members of the Jesus-followers, “justification by faith” belongs to the past, while “judment according to the deeds” belongs to the future. But Sandrs intended this as an universal process through which all humans (jews and Gentiles alike) are saved by grace (as they are included in the new covenant) and their salvation will will be confirmed in the last judgment by the goody will “remain in”: “Paul’s principal view thus seems to be that Christians have been cleansed and established in the faith, and that they should remain so, so as to be found blameless on the day of the Lord” (Sanders, p.452). But “justification by faith” is not “salvation by grace”. For Paul, as for all the first followers of Jesus”, what has already been received through Baptism is forgiveness of sins for the sinners who repent and accept the authority of the Son of Man.

.

Paul is confident that all those who are “justified by faith” in Christ will also be “saved” in the judgment according to the deeds”. Their past sins have forgiven, they have been freed from the power of evil and now they live “in Christ” and are assisted by the Spirit. Paul expected them to produce plenty of good works and remain “blameless”. After all, they have received so much and the time to the end is so short, isn’t it?

but “justification by faith” does not equal salvation.11 Being forgiven of their sins and freed from the power of evil is, for the sinners, an important step on the way to salvation, but it is not a guarantee of future salvation at the judgment where only deeds will be assessed. Hence, Paul continually reminds his readers of the necessity of remaining “blameless” after receiving Baptism, i.e. forgiveness of their past sins. 22Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. (Rom 11:22)

Paul cannot even sure about his own salvation: “it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. 4 I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God. (1Cor 4:2-5)

[[When the idea of “justification by faith” is not unique to Paul: In the Synoptics Jesus heals (forgives) those who have faith. In Acts Peter repeats to Cornelius that “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43).]] On this issue there is perfect agreement between Paul and the other writers of the early Jesus movement. 1 Peter - like the dogs. “if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them. 22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “The dog turns back to its own vomit,” and, “The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud.” (2 Peter 2:20-22).

Shepherd of Hermes

Conclusion Westerholm finds “inconceivable that [Paul] meant to distinguish an anticipatory justification based on faith … from a final justification based on a different criterion (performance of “works of the law”)” [p.84] This is however what the Book of Parables does 9and what the Synoptics do and what 1 Clement does. The idea of justification by faith and God’s Final Judgment by works harmoniously coexist in that document (and in the Synoptics as well). There is no reason why Paul (and Clement) would not do the same. On the contrary there is an absolute continuity between Enochic sources and early “Christian” sources. The “Enochic” apocalyptic Paul (unlike the “Lutheran” Paul) is perfectly at home within Judaism and within the early Jesus movement.

Having transformed a difficulty of people to be righteous into an impossibility Having equated “justification by faith” (which Paul preached) with “(eternal) salvation by faith” (which Paul never preached) is one of the major distortions of the Christian reinterpretation of Paul.

Chapter 5: Paul the Controversial Christian vs. James and Peter

Paul was just one voice in a debate that involved and divided the many components of Second Temple Judaism, and his position reflects the general position of the early Jesus movement. We may understand why Paul was viewed with suspicion by other Jews who did not share the apocalyptic idea of the superhuman origin of evil and rejected his emphasis on the mission of forgiveness accomplished by Jesus the Messiah. So, why was Paul also a controversial figure within the early Jesus movement? The answer cannot be attributed only to a natural suspicion toward a person who was long regarded as an “enemy,” and, by his own admission, persecuted the church. For some time has been traditional to attribute

There is something in the theology of Paul that differentiated him from other leaders (such as Peter and James). While other members of the early Jesus movement seem more interested in a perspective of restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel (see the incipit of the letter of James), in Paul, there is a special emphasis on the inclusion of gentiles. It was not a new problem: long before Paul, Jewish-Hellenistic communities had already developed models of inclusion of gentiles into their communities as “God-fearers.” In the Enochic Book of Dreams we read that, in the world to come, the “white sheep” (the righteous Jews) will be united with the “birds of the sky” (the righteous gentiles) to form the new people of God. In the Parables of Enoch, also, the Messiah Son of Man is indicated as the “light” of the nations.

At the beginning, the members of the Jesus movement do not seem to have been much interested in preaching to gentiles. The gift of eschatological forgiveness could be understood as a special gift reserved exclusively or primarily to the sinners among the children of Israel, without denying the presence of gentiles in the world to come: “I came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. The inclusion of some Gentiles could be understood as a possible exception to the rule without denying that the gift was offered to the “children”, as in the story of the meeting of Jesus with the Syrophoenician woman: “[Jesus] said to her: Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. But she answered: Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” (Mk 7:28).

In the Synoptic tradition these is the only recorded meeting of Jesus with a gentile. The meeting with “a centurion” at Capernaum in Matthew (8:5-13) and Luke (7:1-10) seems to be more a wishful thought, as the parallel text in John (4:46-53) talks of “a royal official” who under Herod Antipas would have been Jewish. Matthew and Luke inherited a version of the story that had already updated it to the new experience of the church of The later Christian tradition longed for stories that could support their experience about the now pervasive presence of gentiles, and yet the Acts offers a narrative that shows the early community completely unprepared. “the goal of the earliest mission, after all, had been to bring the good news to Israel. And the positive pagan response to the movement’s apocalyptic message had most likely caught the early apostles off-guard: no plan for such a contingency was in place” (Paula Fredriksen, p.94) What is apparent is that Jesus himself left no instruction on the integration of gentiles. (Paula 30)

Not only the first followers of Jesus did not plan any campaign toward gentiles, but the initiative of baptizing gentiles came by gentiles themselves. The first baptism of a gentile was the work of Philip the Evangelist, an Hellenistic Jew and a companion of Stephen who had joined the movement after the death of Jesus and even in this case he did not approach the eunuch, presented as a “God-fearer” well acquainted with the scriptures of Israel, with the intention of baptizing him. It was the eunuch who abruptly confronted Philip with a direct question: “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:37). The story of the centurion Cornelius follows the same pattern. For the apostles who “were presumably not accustomed to the mixed demography of synagogues in the Diaspora” (Paula, p.95), it must have been very hard indeed to embrace the new perspective. Only reluctantly Peter accepts the invitation by Cornelius (he even needed a dream vision to confirm his choice): “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile” (10:28).

and then baptism occurred only as “the gift of the holy Spirit was poured out on the gentiles” ().

The decision of baptizing gentiles does not come from a positive and premeditate commitment, but by “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:47) And yet Peter’s decision is meet with great criticism at Jerusalem by circumcised members. The conclusion is that both Jews and Gentile are receiving the same gift of eschatological forgiveness: “God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” (10:18).

Paul was not the first Second Temple Jew to preach to Gentiles and was not the first Christ-follower to baptize gentile. The Acts 13:1 mentions him as the last in the list of the leaders of the community of Antioch. After Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manean a member of the the court of Heros the ruler”. Paul joined Barnabas in a missionary trip that should be called Barnas ‘ First missionary journey as Paul was his helper and such he was perceived even by non-Jews. At the market of Lystra; Barnabas was Zeus and Paul Hermes (14:12)

Paul, instead, did it in an apocalyptic fashion, along the lines of texts such as Paul never claimed to have been the first to baptize gentiles. What is distinctive is the enthusiasm with which Paul devoted his life to preaching to gentiles. But there is something that is far more controversial. Paul seemed to have pushed for an equal status of gentiles within the new community.

LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

According to Acts of Apostles, a dispute arose in the early Church whether baptized Gentiles should "be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses." The opinion is attributed to "some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees"--a sign that the divisions within Judaism tended to be replicated within the early Church, as it had already happened with the coming of Hellenistic Jews (the Hellenists led by Stephen and Philip the Evangelist).

Barnabas and Paul led a delegation sent from Antioch to Jerusalem to discuss the matter "with the apostles and the elders." Both Peter and James agreed with Barnabas and Paul that "no further burden" should be imposed on the Gentile believers. They were only asked to "abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication." In other words, the leaders of the early church agreed on the solution already adopted with success by the Hellenistic-Jewish communities in their relation with the God-fearers.

“This meant no idols. But it also meant no circumcision: gentiles-in-Christ were to remain gentiles, up to and through the End “(see Rom 15:9-12; 16:26-27).

The apparent unanimity did not solve all problems, as attested by the Letter of Paul to the Galatians. Provided that baptized Gentiles were not required to be circumcised or to keep the law of Moses, the controversy exploded on the relation between Jews and Gentile within the community especially during communal meals. Should they sit into separate tables or might they join the same table--Jews and Gentiles, males and females, freepeople and slaves? The Incident at Antioch would soon reveal the profound divisions on this issue between Paul, on one side, and Peter, James, and Barnabas, on the other. James opposed the sharing of tables among Jews and Gentiles, while Paul favored it. Peter was caught in between. At the beginning he conformed with the practice of the Church of Antioch but after "certain people came from James" he "drew back." Barnabas also followed his example. Paul reacted vehemently, confronting Peter and accusing him (and Barnabas) of "hypocrisy." For Paul there is no distinction between Jewish and Gentile members, because they were equally sinners and were equally justified by the grace of God through Jesus. Concerning justification, Jews cannot claim any superiority, unless they deny the grace of God. "I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing." (2:21).

Contrary to a common interpretation, the incident of Antioch was not a rematch of the Council of Jerusalem. Paul is not addressing the problem of non-Jews who are required to become Jew in order to be baptized. Paul is writing to baptized non-Jews who were invited to become proselytes. [[Paula Fredriksen sees it as s possible reaction by some Christ-followers to the “delay of the end”: “they begun to insist that gentiles in the movement formally affiliate to Israel by receiving circumcision (Gal 2:4)” (Paula, p.103) It is in this context that Paul first talks of “justification by faith”. The gift of forgiveness that they have received in Christ is completely independent from the Mosaic Law. The Law does not have power against cosmic evil.

A gentile does not need to become a proselytes, and by becoming a proselytes would show that the justification he/she received is related to the Law, which is not. If the Law had power against cosmic evil, the sacrifice of the Christ would be pointless: “if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing” (Gal. 2:21).

The second point that Paul makes in the letter is a fundamental distinction between “justification” and salvation. Being freed “by faith” from cosmic sin is an important step, but not sufficient. “I am warning you, a s I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:21).

Paul exploited his pessimistic view about the sinfulness of human nature in order to affirm the “equality in sin” of Jews and gentiles within the church. The parting of Christianity from its Jewish apocalyptic roots would lead later Christian theology to wonder whether justification and forgiveness of sins are the same thing; but in the first-century apocalyptic worldview the two terms are synonymous. The most controversial aspect of Paul’s preaching was rather his statement that justification—that is, the gift of forgiveness of sins by the Christ—comes into effect “by faith only.”While most of the first Jewish followers of Jesus would talk of sin as a temptation (allowing a larger role to the freedom of human will), the metaphor of slavery leaves room only for a personal “yes” (and makes meaningless the idea of any prerequisites or any claim of “superiority” of the Jews over the gentiles, and therefore, any rationale for a distinction between the two groups within the new community). If only a “yes” is asked of the sinners, there is no room for “works” and justification is “by faith only.” If, instead, sin is a temptation and sinners maintain a certain degree of freedom, then they can, and should, be asked to “prove” their faith with some “works.” This is the move the letter of James makes by claiming that “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone,” and that “faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:19–26). Justification is the result of a synergy between humans and God: [God] gives all the more grace; therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. (James 4:6–10) Not accidentally, the letter of James does not even mention the death of Jesus; the preaching of Jesus, the “law of liberty” he taught, is the prerequisite for justification. For Paul, instead, the death and sacrifice of Jesus is the only thing that counts as a unilateral and gracious act of mercy: “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing” (Gal. 2:21). The theological dispute had profound practical implications in the life of the church. The incident at Antioch shows that Paul and James had different views of how Jews and gentiles should coexist in the church. James opposed the sharing of tables among Jews and gentiles, while Paul favored it. Peter was caught in between. At the beginning, Peter conformed to the practice of the church of Antioch, but after “certain people came from James,” he “drew back.” Paul reacted vehemently, confronting Peter and accusing him of “hypocrisy.” For Paul, in the communal meals, there is no distinction between Jewish and gentile church members because they were equally sinners and were equally justified by the grace of God through Jesus. Concerning justification, Jews cannot claim any superiority, unless they deny the grace of God: “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing” (Gal. 2:21).

DID PAUL THE APOCALYPTIC JEW ABOLISH THE TORAH?

Does that mean that Paul “abolished” the distinction between Jews and gentiles in this world tout court? This

does not seem to be the case. 

“Paul maintains, and nowhere erases, the distinction between Israel and the nations” (Paula, p.114)

At the same time they are not “God-fearers”, affiliated to Judaism, but full members, “engraved” as living branches on the olive tree of Israel. How can we make sense of these (apparently conflicting) statements?

Very interestingly, Paul’s famous saying about the equality between Jews and gentiles comes in a broader context that included “male and female” and “slave and free”: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). The attitude of Paul toward Gentiles must be studied not in isolation but in parallel with his attitude toward women and slaves. In Paul’s view, these categories are somehow altered in this world; there is no longer enmity and opposition in Christ.

In the words of Nanos, “it is fundamental to the truth of the Gospel that difference remains, that social boundaries are acknowledge, but that discrimination should not.” (Nanos 40) There is no abolishment in this word,

Yet, none of these categories is abolished. Paul asks Philemon to welcome his fugitive slave Onesimus as a brother in Christ, and yet, does not tell Philemon to free all his slaves, using the argument that in Jesus Christ, there is no longer slave or free. Paul mentions Priscilla before her husband, Aquila, in the ministry of Christ (Rom. 16:3–4), and yet, reiterates that “the head of the woman is the man” (1 Cor. 11:3) when he could have claimed that in Jesus Christ, there is no longer male and female. Paul proclaims the end of any enmity between Jews and gentiles in Christ, and yet . . . Why should he have claimed only in this case that such a distinction is no longer valid? Ironically, traditional Christian theology has stressed the definitive “end” of the distinction between Jews and gentiles as a divine decree and has never taken an equally strong stance about the “abolishment” of any distinction of gender and social status. Either Paul abolished all three categories or he did not abolish any of them.

For the apocalyptic Paul there was no ambivalence • For Paul the distinctions between Jews and non-Jews, males and females and free and slaves belong to this world and will be abolished in the word to come. (In the Enochic Animal Apocalypse it is clearly stated that all different species will become one in the world to come) • The coming of the end modified radically the relations between Jews and non-Jews, male and female, free and a slave but does not abolish these distinctions, yet. They will be abolished only in the new creation. • The communal meals in which the new community is reunited, already anticipate this reality, Therefore Jews and non-Jews can sit at the same table, eating the same food (although Paul recommend to be respectful if somebody is not strong enough), women may prophesize and slaves are “brothers”. But outside of that mystical moment in which the members of the community partake with the angels in the world to come, in the everyday life these distinctions are not abolished. Scholars have noticed the same tension It I unlikely that Paul and the first followers of Jesus intended the egalitarian words of Galatians as a political manifesto (see . For Paul gender, ethnic , social distinction will not be abolished in this world, but in the world to come. Paul believed that they were abolished in the communal meals “before the angels” They wer not unaltered but transformed. The “cosmopolitan ideal” of Paul is not a philanthropic or philosophical move byt the resul between

Karin B. Neutel, A Cosmopolitan Ideal: Paul's Declaration 'Neither Jew Nor Greek, Neither Slave Nor Free, Nor Male and Female' in the Context of First-Century Thought (The Library of New Testament Studies) 2016.

Chapter 6: Summary and Conclusion

The analysis restores the image of Paul as a preacher of God’s love not as a preacher of hatred and intolerance. Paul was not a prophet of doom condemning to hell everybody (Jew or Gentile) who does not admit to be a sinner and does not believe in Jesus. Paul was an herald of God’s Mercy toward the sinners. You can now summarize the basic convictions which governed Paul, as follows: (1) God has called all humans to righteousness, having revealed them God’s will (what is good and what is evil)—the Jews according to the Torah, the Gentiles according to the natural law. There are no excuse nor favoritism: at the end each will be judged according to their deeds (2) because of the fall of Adam (seduced by the Devil) all humans are affected by the power of evil, This cosmic rebellion, which happened “apart for the law”, limits their capability to obey God’s will, making harder (not impossible) for the individual to be “righteous”. Humans are victims of evil no less than responsible for evil. (3) God however is not cruel. At the end he will compensate this act of rebellion with an act of grace “apart from the law”, by offering the sinners a possibility of justification “apart from the Law” so that the Law be restored. (4) This gracious act is for Paul the coming and death of Jesus the Messiah, who came as the forgiver, so that through his death God could provide for the justification of all sinners who have faith in him (Jews first and Gentiles alike), (5) Paul believed that he was called to be in particular as the messenger of this opportunity of justification to Gentile sinners, whereas other apostles concentrated on Jewish sinners. (6) Jesus will soon return as the final Judge “according to the deeds”, as the savior of the righteous (Jews and Gentile alike) as well as of the (former) sinners who, justified by faith, have remained “righteous” in Christ.

A Paul that is not isolated in totally unique but is equally at home in the Second Temple Judaism and in the early Jesus movement. Time is ripe for a new synthesis (paradigm) that without disproving the achievements of the past will incorporate the new results of research.

WHERE THE TRADITIONALISTS HAVE FAILED The traditional has highlighted the centrality of “grace” in Paul justification by faith as a gracious act of God’s mercy, but has failed to understand properly the function and the limits that in its original apocalyptic context this special eschatological gift offered to the sinners had in order to counterbalance the power of evil. The individual’s Judgment remains “according to the deeds”.

By transforming the apocalyptic plea about the power of evil into an ontological impossibility to do good,

It is true that “sinners for whom Christ died are declared righteous by God when they place their faith in Jesus Christ” (Weserholm, 22).

But the message of Paul is that all human beings (Jews and gentiles) are “under the power of evil” not that they are “Paul’s message of justification … does not address a need peculiar to Gentiles, but the need of all human beings – Jews like Peter and Paul no less than Gentiles like the Galatians – inasmuch as all are sinners” (Westerholm, 15). The message of forgiveness is addressed to all (Jews and Gentiles) but is limited to the sinners, not to the righteous.

WHERE SANDERS HAS FAILED. Sanders has been a landmark, a masterpiece. It has redeemed Pauline studies from their most derogatory anti-Jewish elements. Disproving in particular the opposition between grace and law. Sanders’ conclusions however need to be revisited and updated Paul did not present, as Sanders concluded, “an essentially different type of religiousness from any found in Palestinian Jewish literature” (Sanders, 543) nor does he “explicitly denies that the Jewish covenant can be effective for salvation thus consciously denying the basis of Judaism” (Sanders, 551). On the contrary, Paul Justification is by faith, but judgment is according to works. It is true that “the main theme of Paul’s gospel was the saving action of God in Jesus Christ and how his hearers could participate in that action” (Sanders, 447) Paul never affirmed that “since salvation in only by Christ, the following of any other path is wrong. … Christ has put an end to the law and provides a different righteousness from that provided by Torah obedience” (Sanders, 550) Christ came for the sinners, not for the righteous. He offered not salvation but forgiveness of sins, before returning as the final judge of an universal judgment according to the deeds. The Christ-believers have been cleansed of their former sins. They are no longer under the power of sin. The y live in Christ. However, they are not saved yet.

Gager: Preached to Gentiles! No, Paul preached to Gentile sinners

Paul was a Second Temple Jew, a former Pharisee who became a member and a leader of the early Jesus movement. Like many Second Temple Jews (also outside the Jesus movement), as a result of his decision (which should not be call a “conversion,” but a move within Judaism) Paul embraced the apocalyptic view of the superhuman origin of evil and looked at the sinners not only as people responsible for their own actions, but also as victims of a supernatural evil. Like others, he wished for, and expected, some help from heaven to counterbalance the power of evil. With the other members of the Christian group, Paul shared the idea that Jesus the Messiah had come to earth as the Son of Man to bring forgiveness to sinners, and he believed that Jesus would soon return to carry out a judgment. More than other members of the early Jesus movement, Paul strongly believed that this message of forgiveness included gentile sinners as well, and he decided to devote his life to preaching to the gentiles. Contrary to other members of the Jesus movement, he refused to accept that baptized gentiles had a different or inferior status within the church, as he could not see any distinction between a Jewish sinner and a gentile sinner: they had both been forgiven “by faith only.” This does not mean that he advocated the abolishment of the distinction between Jews and gentiles in this world; on the contrary, as in the case of gender and social distinctions, he accepted it as an inevitable (and perhaps, even providential) reality until the end of times, when these distinctions would eventually disappear. Having received as a Jews the gift of eschatological forgiveness promised by Jesus to the “lost sheep” of the House of Israel, Paul decided to devote his life to the “lost sheep” among the nations

Paul believed that justification occurred “apart from the law” and was an eschatological gift to be received “by faith alone”, but never intended it as an exclusive path to salvation, as the universal final judgment will be according to the deeds.

As a Second Temple Jew, Paul never questioned the validity of the Torah; his only concern was the difficulty of people to obey the Torah. Paul was a Torah-observant Jew who believed that “justification by faith” was an eschatological gift offered through Jesus the Messiah to all “sinners” (not only to gentiles) in the imminence of the final judgment. Does that mean that he believed that Jews should abandon the obedience of the Torah and that no Jew could be saved without Baptism? Not at all. While repeating the common Jewish teaching that “all people are sinners,” Paul shared the apocalyptic idea that the judgment will be according to deeds and that humankind is divided between the “righteous” and the “unrighteous.” But now that the time of the end has come, the unrighteous have been offered the possibility to repent and receive justification through forgiveness. Paul preached to gentiles, but his message was neither addressed to gentiles only nor uniquely pertinent to them. Exactly the same gospel was announced to Jews and gentiles—the good news of the gift of forgiveness: “I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised” (Gal. 2:7). Paul had a more pessimistic view of the power of evil. He compared the situation of humankind to a population defeated and enslaved by the devil, but he would have shared the principle that only the sick need a doctor. The sick include Jews and gentiles alike, although not all of them. The righteous do not need a doctor. And he never intended ‘Justification by faith” as a substitute for “judgment according to the deeds”. He expected all those justified and now living in Christ to be saved because their past sins had been forgiven and their life was now filled with good deeds. But he did not take it for granted, not even for himself; Justification by faith was a way to restore (not annul) human responsibility and restore the covenant. To say that all humans must believe in Christ in order to be saved is a misrepresentation of Paul’s preaching. To say that the Jews have the Torah while the gentiles have Christ also does not faithfully represent the position of Paul. In Paul’s view, Christ is God’s gift not to gentiles, but to sinners. The righteous (Jews and gentiles) will be saved if they have done good deeds. But Paul is conscious of the fact that the power of evil makes it hard for all humankind to be righteous: for the Jews to follow the Torah and for the gentiles to follow their own conscience. He preaches the good news that, at the end of times, sinners (Jews and Gentiles alike) are offered the extraordinary possibility to repent and be justified in Christ by God’s mercy apart from God’s justice. Paul was not Lutheran: he never taught “salvation by faith only” to humankind, but announced to sinners, “justification (that is, forgiveness of past sins) by faith.” Paul did not preach only two ways of salvation, but rather three: righteous Jews have the Torah, righteous gentiles have their own conscience, and sinners—Jews and gentiles alike, who have fallen without hope under the power of evil—have Christ the forgiver.

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