The comparative study of Paul and the rabbis, an interest of students of the New Testament ever since Christian Hebraism,Footnote 1 radically changed in the second half of the twentieth century. If “the study of relations between Judaism and early Christianity, perhaps more than any other area of modern scholarship, has felt the impact of World War II and its aftermath,” then, within this, Pauline scholarship has felt this impact the most.Footnote 2 Various post-Holocaust studies read Paul not only in connection to early Judaism but specifically to rabbinic Judaism,Footnote 3 which they saw as the epitome of both halakhic and Midrashic discourses. Turning to Tannaitic and Amoraic literatures expressed an urgent need to recontextualize Paul as part of traditional Judaism.
In these early studies the two corpora were read as practically contemporaneous and were used freely to explain each other. They moved, with little methodological reflection, from Paul to the rabbis and back. Two independent developments changed this picture: the increasing awareness of the need to read Paul as part of first-century JudaismFootnote 4 and the growing uneasiness about conflating second Temple Pharisees and the post-destruction rabbis.Footnote 5
These new sensitivities divided scholars into two opposing camps:Footnote 6 some claimed that rabbinic literature, from its earliest sources, evinces knowledge of Paul and reacts to his work or thought, while others use the Pauline corpus to establish the antiquity of the rabbinic traditions, if not in form then in content. This division resulted in two types of investigations. The first begins with rabbinic literature and attempts to explain it as an anti-Pauline polemic.Footnote 7 The second starts from Paul and rereads him within the context of rabbinic literature.Footnote 8 The former track is easier to defend chronologically, but the question of how the rabbis familiarized themselves with Pauline ideas, and in what form, remains unsolved. Interactions of various forms between rabbis and Christ followers are well attested in both early rabbinic and Christian sources from the second century, but there is no explicit evidence for a familiarity with Paul or Pauline ideas, whether in written or oral forms.Footnote 9
Both approaches face severe methodological difficulties and dangers. Those who move from the rabbis to Paul are in danger of reading Pauline assertions as just Christological patina overlaying Jewish ideas and thus underplaying Paul's theological innovation. Those in the opposite camp run the risk of finding anti-Pauline polemic everywhere or reading “innocent” rabbinic statements in praise of the Torah and of Israel as hidden rebuttals.
The central problem remains that of criteria. Methodological warnings such as Samuel Sandmel's “Parallelomania”Footnote 10 forced scholars to articulate more carefully their criteria for establishing connections between the corpora. Those who study Paul through the lenses of rabbinic literature base their arguments mainly on comparisons with Second Temple literature. In the other direction things are more diverse and elusive. Some scholars suggest that rabbinic responses to Paul began only in Amoraic literature, from the third century on, when Christianity became a significant social phenomenon in the Galilee.Footnote 11 Some look for a smoking gun in the form of specific literary similarities,Footnote 12 while others are content with more general criteria of historical plausibility.Footnote 13
In terms of substantiation, matters are clearly more difficult for those who wish to claim that Paul influenced rabbinic dicta. It is relatively easy to show that certain rabbinic homilies preserve old midrashic motifs, which Paul possibly knew. But moving in the opposite direction, from Paul to the rabbis, is unavoidably founded on vague and circumstantial arguments and is thus in constant need of defense. In this paper, I wish to attempt a defense of this sort, advocating for its possibility and, in some cases, likelihood. The assumption that the rabbis preserve traditions shared with Paul is sometimes a sufficient explanation, but at other times similarities between the texts can be shown to point in the other direction: rabbinic internalization of Pauline problems. The relationship between the texts should be examined on a case-by-case basis.
In what follows I offer a new criterion for establishing the direction of influence from three case studies. Instead of focusing on shared themes and trying to locate their origins, I will ask how and when matters discussed in rabbinic texts became problems in need of solutions. Using Michel Foucault's concept of “problematization,” Footnote 14 I claim that the Pauline perspective is necessary to account for the manner in which the rabbis present the question at hand in all three cases discussed below. It thus increases the possibility that the rabbis were aware of and reacting to Pauline ideas. Although this criterion cannot produce conclusive proofs on its own, I believe it can enhance the plausibility of genetic connections between Paul and the Rabbis in these and similar cases.Footnote 15
Looking for “problematization” means that we ask not just when a theme appears for the first time but when it first appears as a problem, an issue that needs resolving. Shifting the focus from themes to questions can expose fascinating shifts in places where scholars who concentrated on thematic comparisons alone found only continuity, thus leaving much of the actual drama out of sight. Traditions change dramatically when problematized, and taking this into consideration alters our evaluation of them in terms of continuity and discontinuity. To ignore this fact is to overlook a considerable part of the story.
This is of course not the only possible type of connection, and it does not necessarily discredit others. It is, however, one that has not been identified, and it may help to establish the influence of Paul on the rabbis, which scholars are struggling to prove. Moreover, using this criterion allows for the combination of both tracks and enables us to see that the two are not in fact mutually exclusive. Paul relies on midrashic traditions, but he questions them in an unprecedented manner. The rabbinic sources engage with these questions and therefore cannot be seen as a simple continuation of old traditions. While they share with Paul an older Jewish heritage of themes and homilies, they present them in a manner already affected by his new problematizations.
In order to substantiate the connection, I compare the rabbinic material to pre-Pauline (“Second Temple” or “intertestamental”) Jewish sources that discuss the same issues or cite the same verses. These sources serve as a kind of “control group.” While they share themes and prooftexts, they do not make them into a problem, as Paul does and the rabbis assume. In each of the cases below, Paul raises a question for which the rabbis supply an answer. Moreover, this answer is formed in a way that makes clear that it resolves a problem.
Scholars reconstruct various polemical contexts behind many of the pre-Pauline texts discussed below. In fact, any thematic difference can be translated into a polemic. But we are looking for something more specific. In the cases below a discursive watershed can be traced, after which the old categories of a theological issue can no longer be assumed. Thus, the sources in case B below present all kinds of “Abrahams,” to various, even contradictory, ends. But Paul is the first writer known to us to question Abraham's very belonging to “us,” his being “our” father, and not that of others who are neither us nor joining us. In other words, he is the first author known to redefine the “us” to whom Abraham belongs, preaching that one can become Abraham's seed without becoming a Jew. The rabbis’ explicit insistence that only Jews are Abraham's seed seems to approach this specific matter and to approach it as a problem to tackle. While rabbinic sources celebrating Abraham as the father of converts are based on previous traditions,Footnote 16 the insistence that only Jews are called “Abraham's seed” is not. This is a new and openly polemical emphasis, and it is this emphasis that Paul's unprecedented problematization can explain. The proof is thus in the combination of rabbinic rhetoric and comparison to pre-Pauline texts.Footnote 17
Below I shall also discuss two Tannaitic homilies, Mekhilta Kaspa 3 and m. Makkot 3:16, that present attitudes on “justification” diametrically opposed to Paul's (case A). Mekhilta Kaspa claims that God does not justify the unjust and m. Makkot that Torah can justify. Despite their proximity, I claim that only the latter should be read in light of Pauline ideas. The reason is simple: the former text discusses a biblical problem (does God justify the unjust?),Footnote 18 while the latter defends a position first questioned by Paul (can Torah justify?).
One could object: Paul shares with the rabbis not only the same scripture but also all sorts of religious sensitivities. Perhaps they simply discuss similar problems? I deem this alternative insufficient in the cases below for two reasons. First, the fact that pre-Pauline Jewish sources discussed the same biblical texts without problematizing them shows that the connection between Pauline and the rabbinic ideas are more definite. Second, the issues chosen as case studies below are particular to Paul and stand at the core of his unique engagement with Israel and Torah. The more characteristically Pauline the issues, the less likely the similarities are a result of shared concerns rather than of genetic connections.
Scholars offered similar criteria in other contexts. They identify new manners of engaging with old matters and then try to reconstruct possible historical circumstances behind these changes. Why does God's blessing in Gen 1:28, “Be fruitful and multiply,” become, in the first century Pharisaic milieu, a positive commandment and the subject of a sharp debate between the houses of Hillel and Shammai (m. Yevam. 6:6)?Footnote 19 Or, why is there a sudden burst of praises of “the Land of Israel” from sages of the mid-second century?Footnote 20 Then, usually, political circumstances, such as the different phases of the Roman control, are summoned as answers. In the examples below, I suggest that sometimes it is the penetration of new ideas, rather than changing political conditions, that triggers rabbinic re-engagement with traditions, making them into issues to be engaged with.
The three examples below discuss the three major forms in which scholars identified continuities between Paul and the rabbis: themes (the first case), idioms (the second), and biblical exegesis (the third). But all share the same thorny issue of the special status of Israel, equally troubling to both Paul and the rabbis. The first example discusses this from the perspective of the commandments given to Israel, the second uses the marker of circumcision, and the third questions favoritism in judgment.
Previous scholars were interested in simply identifying polemics. My definition of the rabbis’ relationship with Paul is more cautious. The examples below may be interpreted as deliberate and polemical statements. (I detect some hints of this in the rabbis’ specific choice of words and biblical allusions.) But a weaker reading is also possible. In order to understand how the rabbinic versions of these old themes acquired their special tone, it is sufficient to assume that the awareness of the Pauline ideas reshaped the manner in which they engaged with them. Old ideas are now heard through the sounding-board of Paul's objections and thus can no longer be stated straightforwardly or naïvely. Whether we adhere to the stronger reading or remain with the weaker one, I claim Paul's ideas are indispensable for a proper understanding of our examples.
Before I begin reading the texts, one last crucial issue must be engaged. We know virtually nothing about how the rabbis learned of Paul and his ideas, and in what form. The first writer living in Roman Palestine who unquestionably cited Paul is Origen, who arrived at Cesarea in the 230s CE.Footnote 21 The Didache may have used Paul,Footnote 22 but its Palestinian roots are questionable.Footnote 23 The same holds true for Barnabas.Footnote 24 Justin Martyr, a native of Judea who preached in Asia Minor (possibly Ephesus), never refers explicitly to Paul, but scholars find in his works many allusions to Paul's letters.Footnote 25 None of the other early Church Fathers who cites Paul or alludes to him is from Roman Palestine. But the overall number of testimonies is small;Footnote 26 the evidence is fragmentary and somewhat accidental. Furthermore, scholars identified Paul's effect in more complex and elusive ways than explicit citation and allusions (which assume some form of canonicity), including mimicking his epistolary style.Footnote 27 These testimonies also tell us little about the nature of popular knowledge of Paul.Footnote 28 The rabbis were also aware of developments abroad, not least through journeys to Rome and to the Roman East.Footnote 29
I would argue that, these limitations notwithstanding, the examples cited by the scholars referred to above, and those I add below, indicate that Pauline ideas indeed found their way to the rabbis. There are enough testimonies of oral interactions to make this possible.Footnote 30 To be sure, the Pauline “letters” were not known to the rabbis as literary compositions, let alone a “corpus” (anyway, an anachronism when applied to the second century).Footnote 31 Literary dependency is not likely when discussing early rabbinic material, and there is no point in discussing different messages of specific letters or in distinguishing between authentic and spurious letters. In the context of Tannanitic literature we can only speak of the diffusion of Pauline ideas and concepts.
The rabbis may or may not have identified such ideas with a figure named Paul or his movement. They were more likely to simply label them as “heresy.”Footnote 32 But for us, Paul's letters are a window into those ideas, as the most systematic and condensed assemblage of radical questioning and rethinking of the categories of Israel and Torah.Footnote 33 These questions compelled the rabbis to react. What is important in the context of the rabbis is thus whether these ideas were known, regardless of whether or not they were known as Pauline.Footnote 34
In the last thirty years, scholars worked hard to refute traditional anti-legalist and supersessionist readings of Paul. They ascribed such readings, first and foremost, to the Lutheran legacy,Footnote 35 but identified their roots already in second-century Christian texts that “translated” Paul into a supersessionist,Footnote 36 especially Ignatius, Barnabas, and Justin Martyr.Footnote 37 This “second-century Paul” is the subject of our inquiry. The rabbis, in their time and place, did not have access to the historical Paul of the mid-first century as reconstructed by modern scholars.
The examples below are thus important as a testimony for the reception of Paul in the second century. They specifically point to the significance of two major theological issues of that period: justification by the law and the special status of Israel. Many Pauline scholars today claim that the historical Paul was not engaged with these issues, at least not as a general theological question, but rather struggled with the specific problem of how to let gentiles into the Jewish salvation history.Footnote 38 The “theologization” of Paul is then an effect of early Christian writing, which transformed Paul's specific appeals to his gentile addressees into generalized assertions on the nature of Torah and the Jewish people.Footnote 39 In light of the examples below we can add the rabbis to the testimony of the theologized, generalized early reception of Paul.
Mishnah Makkot 3:15–16Footnote 40
A homily appearing at the end of Mishna Makkot reads: Footnote 41
R. Hananiah b. Akashya says: The Omnipresent, blessed is he, wanted to justify (
) Israel; therefore he multiplied for them Torah and commandments, as it is written, the Lord desired to make [Israel] righteous,Footnote
42
magnified the Law and made it great (Isa 42:21).
R. Hananiah b. AkashiahFootnote
43
discusses the power of the commandments to “justify” (
). Previous claims that this homily is an anti-Pauline polemic were countered by Menachem Kister,Footnote
44
who justly pointed out that praise of the commandments and their life-giving powers could have been equally made before Paul.Footnote
45
Making any progress on this comparison thus requires more precision regarding the nature of the link between the rabbis and Paul here.
is a multivalent term in rabbinic literature: it is, at one and the same time, good deeds, their reward, and the final reckoning that leads to being justified in court. What ties all these meanings together is the legal metaphor, plainly put in our mishnah: the good deeds create merits (see “obtain merit [
] for himself and his generations” discussed below) that effect the judgment (“wanted to justify [
] Israel”).Footnote
46
A clear example of the complex relationship between the legal and theological implications of the translation of
to
(i.e. one acquitted in court) is the Tannaitic homily on Exodus 23:7: “Do not kill the innocent (
) and those in the right (
), for I will not justify (
) the guilty (
).”Footnote
47
For a man who left the courthouse acquitted (
) and then was found to be guilty, do I hear that he be liable? It says, do not kill. . . those in the right. Perhaps, as he left your courthouse acquitted so he will leave my courthouse [acquitted]? It says, for I will not justify the guilty (Ex 23:7).
The acquitted person (
,
) may not be actually “innocent” (
) but only when an earthly court is involved. For the heavenly judge, unlike the human one, there is no gap between
(in court) and
(blameless), law and truth. So too in m. Mak. 3:16, “to justify Israel” refers to the heavenly court that only justifies those who are worthy of justification, whether in this world or the next.
The rabbis were not unique in reading
in Isa 42:12 as referring to Israel (or “Israel,” the church).Footnote
48
It is also not surprising that they translated BH
to the MH (Aramaic based)
,Footnote
49
or understood “Torah” as both study of scripture and fulfilling the commandments.Footnote
50
But R. Hananiah b. Akashiah goes further than both the Targumic tradition and other rabbinic homilies. Paraphrasing the verse almost word for word,Footnote
51
he turns it into a manifesto of “justification by the law.” In his homily the verse is not enlisted in order to prove a specific point, but rather serves as the basis of an independent, general assertion of the power of the Torah to justify. The novelty of this statement can be seen by comparing it to an idiom, appearing twice in the Mekhilta, which asserts that the multiplication of commandments in biblical verses is designed only “to increase the wages of those who do His will” (
).Footnote
52
While the Mekhilta is similar to R. Hananiah b. Akashiah's homily and might in fact be based on it,Footnote
53
it does not preserve the multivalence of
/
, but rather translates it into a generic slogan on divine reward. The specific context of R. Hananiah b. Akashiah's homily was lost here, as in similar later paraphrases.Footnote
54
Isaiah 42:12 was adapted by the ancient translators to meet their changing ideological needs. It was also used at Qumran for specific theological purposes.Footnote 55 But as much as we can follow, the verse was not employed before to discuss Israel's “justification” through the commandments. Importantly, this is the only verse in the Hebrew Bible that combines “justification” and Torah.Footnote 56
The question of the ability of the law to “justify” was not presented thus before Paul's sharp critique of the idea of justification by the Torah, especially in Rom 3–4 and Gal 2–3. In both Rom 3:20 and Gal 2:16 (a repetition which is telling in and of itselfFootnote
57
), Paul paraphrases Ps 143:2 (LXX 142:2): “for no one living is righteous/justified (
; δικαιωθήσεται) before you,” adding only “by the works of the law.” It is thus reasonable that this homily is a response to the novel Pauline challenge.Footnote
58
It may also resonate with Pauline exegesis:
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written: Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them (Deut 27:26). Now it is evident that no one is justified (δικαιοῦται) before God by the law, for the righteous (
; δίκαιος) will live by faith (Hab 2:4). (Gal 3:10–11).
Both verses quoted here are unique. The former is the only verse that features “Torah” and “curse” together, and the latter intertwines “justification” with “faith” in a manner paralleled only in Gen 15:6 (quoted in Gal 3:6).Footnote 59 The Mishnah's citation of Isa 42:21—a verse that contains the exact opposite combination, that of “Torah” and “justification”—may thus be read as a direct rebuttal of this exegetical move.Footnote 60 Whether or not we accept this interpretive struggle, the Mishnah defends the position that the Torah can justify, which only needs defense when others begin to ask if the Torah can in fact justify. As far as I can tell, Paul is the first to uncompromisingly make this a problem.
There is another homily in this cycle at the end of Mishnah Makkot that may be read, although less decisively, in this manner (and that, in fact, could be the reason for the inclusion of R. Hananiah b. Akashya's homily there). The unit which comes just before the R. Hananya addendum includes three, originally independent, units, likely assembled only after the redaction of the Mishnah:Footnote 61
(1) All those who are liable for karet are exempted if they have been lashed, for it is written. And your brother will be shamed before your eyes (Deut 25:3); when he is shamed then he is like your brother. The words of R. Hanina b. Gamaliel.
(2) R. Hanina b. Gamaliel said: If a man who commits one transgression forfeits his soul, how much more, if he performs one commandment, his soul shall be given to him! R. Simeon says: it is derived from its place [in scripture], for it is written the souls that do them shall be cut off from their people (Lev 18:29) and it says, which a man shall do and live by them (Lev 18:5). Thus anyone who sits and commits no transgression is given payment as one who performed a commandment.
(3) R. Simeon the son of Rabbi says: it says, only be sure that you eat not the blood, for the blood is the life (Deut 12:23). If a person only keeps himself apart from blood, which people do not desire, he receives payment; how much more, if he keeps himself apart from robbery and fornication, which a person longs after and covets, shall he obtain merit (
) for himself and his generations and the generations following his generations to the end of all generations!
This text consists of a cycle of homilies on the benefits of the commandments and their ability to give life: 1) R. Hananiah b. Gamaliel's metaphysical explanation of the efficacy of the lashes to save people from the karet punishment executed by heaven;Footnote
62
2) The same rabbiFootnote
63
notes that since doing one sin can cause the loss of life, all the more so can doing one mitzvah give life.Footnote
64
R. Simeon grounds this inference in the Biblical passage discussing karet itself (“it is derived from its place”) based on the use of the same verb,
, in both Lev 18:5 and 18:29;Footnote
65
3) A homily attributed to R. Simeon son of Rabbi continues both the inference on avoidance of sin and the a fortiori argument of R. Hananiah b. Gamaliel. The attribution to the son of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch points to the later date of this addition.Footnote
66
Let us look at R. Simeon's homily (2) on Lev 18:5: “Which a man shall do and live by them.” This verse is echoed various times in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple literature but always as a simple, straightforward assertion as to the power of Torah to give life.Footnote 67 Not so in our Mishnah, where the verse appears as part of an explicit tension between the life-giving power of the commandments and their ability to cause death.Footnote 68
Paul cites Lev18:5 twice and both times uses it to characterize the doctrine of the law, explicitly opposing nomos and pistis. “But (δὲ) the law is not of faith, rather: The one who does them shall live by them” (Gal 3:12). The next verse in Galatians further discusses the deadly curse of the law. Again, in Romans: “For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But (δὲ) the righteousness based on faith [. . .]” (Rom 10:5–6).Footnote 69 Another place in Romans also alludes to the verse, and there, too, death is at stake: “I found that the same commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death” (Rom 7:10). The Mishnah's insistence that the law brings life and not death, and the a fortiori inference from the death brought by transgressions to life brought by avoidance of sin, are better understood when read against Paul's objection.
Leviticus 18:5 is cited also in the Damascus Document: “But out of those who held fast to God's ordinances [. . .] God established his covenant with Israel forever, revealing to them hidden things in which all Israel had strayed: the holy Sabbaths, the glorious appointed times, the righteous testimonies, his true ways, and the desires of his will, which a person shall do and live by them” (CD 3:12–16). The law that was revealed to the sect can offer life but not the laws of its opponents (“those who scorn them will not live”).Footnote 70 This is a sectarian translation of the opposition made in Lev 18:1–5 between God's ordinances and that of Egypt and Canaan. But for the Mishnah, just like for Paul, it is the very idea that the commandment gives life that becomes the crux of the matter.
The key to decoding the relationship between Paul and the rabbinic sources here is thus not their shared content per se but rather its transformation, in both corpora, into a problem. In both cases the verse is cited as part of a question about the ability of the Torah to give life, a question not shared by the Damascus Document. Similar traditions can be treated in very different ways, and we must be sensitive to the issues with which they grapple. From this perspective, precedents to rabbinic statements, especially from the Dead Sea scrolls, can actually explicate the novelty of the rabbinic framing and therefore the new issues with which they contend, rather than their allegedly traditional nature.
Whether or not we accept this reasoning with regard to the second homily, it may be the reasoning of the formation of the cycle and the attachment of R. Hananya's homily (which points to previous verses in Gal 3) to it. Together these units form a cycle of homilies on the question of commandments and “justification,” a central question in Pauline theology.Footnote 71
Mishnah Nedarim 3:11
[If he said] “Konam if I have any benefit from the children of Noah” he is permitted [to have benefit] from Israelites, but not from other nations. “[Konam] if I have any benefit from the seed of Abraham” he is forbidden to have benefit from Israelites but not from other nations. [. . .]
[If he said] “Konam if I have any benefit from the uncircumcised,” he is permitted to have benefit from the uncircumcised of Israel, but not from the circumcised of other nations. “[Konam] if I have any benefit from the circumcised” he is forbidden to have benefit from the uncircumcised in Israel but he is permitted to have benefit from the circumcised among the nations, for “uncircumcised” is used only as a name for the gentiles, as it is written: For all the [other] nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart (Jer 9:36). Again it says: This uncircumcised Philistine (1 Sam 17:36). Again it says: Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph (2 Sam 1:20).
These two laws are part of a larger list of vague phrases used in votive language. In each of these phrases the Mishnah decides the actual scope of the vow. Thus: “If a man vowed to have no benefit ‘from them who see the sun’ (cf. Ecc 7:11), he is forbidden to have benefit from blind people too, since he meant naught but ‘any that the sun sees’” (m. Ned. 3:7).
The last part of the list discusses differences between Jews and others—first Samaritans, and then, in the unit cited above, gentiles—reading a series of utterances as markers of difference between groups. However, these differences are not explicit in the votive phrases themselves but are imposed by the Mishnah, which seems to be using them as an opportunity to discuss group boundaries.
First, the Mishnah rules that someone who vows to derive no benefit from the “sons of Noah” is forbidden to benefit only from gentiles, and not—as a simple reading of the biblical narrative would imply—from all of humanity. The novelty of this statement becomes clear when considering pre-rabbinic traditions regarding Noahides. In several Second Temple compositions the commandments of Noah to his sons came to represent universal commandments,Footnote 72 and the term “sons of Noah” itself appears in a clearly universal context (CD 3:1).Footnote 73 The TannaimFootnote 74 were the first to transform the idea of the commandments given to the sons of Noah into a systematic distinction between Jews and gentiles,Footnote 75 completely identifying the sons of Noah with non-Jews.Footnote 76 In light of this, the need for the Mishnah's assertion that “sons of Noah” does not include Jews is clear, as is its polemical tone.Footnote 77
Then, however, the Mishnah rules that “the seed of Abraham” refers in votive language only to Israel and not to the nations. The context of this assertion is much less straightforward than the previous one. “The seed of Abraham” is found in canonical and deuterocanonical literature,Footnote 78 where it means simply “Israelites” or “Jews.” Why then does the Mishnah need to emphasize that gentiles are not included in “the seed of Abraham”? Isn't this self-evident? After all, the Mishnah would not bother to clarify this with regard to names like “Israel” or “Hebrew.” The juxtaposition of this term with “sons of Noah”—the former attributed only to Jews while the latter only to gentiles—suggests that this assertion is also polemical in nature. But with whom is the Mishnah arguing here? Who let the gentiles in and compelled the rabbis to exclude them explicitly?
While Abraham had two legitimate sons (cf. Gen 25:6) only one was considered an “offspring.” Thus in Gen 21:12 God promises Abraham that “for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you.” Jubilees further elaborates: “All the descendants of his sons would become nations and be numbered with the nations. But one of Isaac's sons would become a holy progeny and would not be numbered among the nations, for he would become the share of the Most High” (16:17-18).Footnote 79 As far as I can trace, this was taken as self-evident by post-biblical texts and for good reason, as it is so deeply rooted in the biblical salvation history. Only Paul busied himself with a discussion and definition of this term and its scope.Footnote 80 In his hands, σπέρμα Ἀβραὰμ became separate from “Israel” and was refashioned as a reference to the community of the believers in Christ. Footnote 81
Paul presents his redefinition of the term in Galatians as oppositional, his rhetoric disclosingFootnote 82 its innovativeness: “Know then that those of faith,Footnote 83 they (οὗτοι, i.e., they and not others) are the sons (υἱοί) of Abraham (3:7; cf. 3:29: σπέρμα).”Footnote 84 This is doubly significant against the backdrop of the other occurrences of the term in the Pauline corpus, where Abraham's seed is employed in the traditional manner, as a synonym for “Israelite” and “Hebrew.”Footnote 85 Paul's polemic in Galatians is twofold. He claims that Abraham is not a model for observance of the Torah and circumcisionFootnote 86 but rather for faith (probably against those with the “other gospel” of Gal 1:6).Footnote 87 He also asserts that “seed of Abraham” is about sonship (of Jesus, and, maybe through him, of Christ-following gentiles) rather than genealogyFootnote 88 and is thus not equal to “Jews.”Footnote 89 Paul's particular choice to use the term “seed of Abraham” for the believers from the nations is deliberate.Footnote 90 He needs it in order to integrate them into the biblical Heilsgeschichte of election and inheritance without using the term “Israel,” which would undermine the status of ethnic Israel altogether.Footnote 91 The Mishnah's claim that only Jews can be called “the seed of Abraham” is intended to counter the Pauline claim that there are those who are not of Israel, but are still Abraham's seed.Footnote 92
Scholars noted that similar ideas might be found in homilies from Q, preaching that God can create new descendants of Abraham from stones (Luke 3:8=Matt 3:9) or in the Fourth Gospel's critique of the self-confessed privilege of the Jews as Abraham's σπέρμα (John 8:33–41).Footnote 93 But neither of these sources, both likely written in a Jewish context,Footnote 94 actually claims that the believers are Abraham's seed, and as readers we would not deduce such a claim from them unless we had Paul's explicit references. We are not dealing with a generic early Christian principle here, but rather with a specifically Pauline one.
My student, Yedidah Koren, detected a similar dynamic in the second clause of the Mishnah.Footnote
95
In certain post-biblical circles the designation “uncircumcised” (ἀπερίτμητος,
) was expanded to include gentile men with no foreskin. Both Paul and the Mishnah radicalize this move by completing the argument symmetrically: if men with no foreskin can be “uncircumcised,” then men with foreskins can, under the right circumstances, be considered “circumcised.” The terms “circumcised” and “uncircumcised” (or, in Paul's idiosyncratic turn of phrase, “the foreskin,” ἡ ἀκροβυστία, and “the circumcision,” ἡ περιτομή), detached from their physical markers, can be used as metonyms for Jews and gentiles. While Paul uses this argument to grant believing gentiles standing before the Jewish God,Footnote
96
the Mishnah uses it to deepen the division between ethnic Jews and ethnic gentiles, regardless of the individual's deeds or bodily condition. Footnote
97
Koren also noted that the use of
exclusively to denote gentiles is opposed to the Mishnah's own usage of the term elsewhere as a reference to Jews with foreskins, who are considered entirely and non-problematically Jewish (see especially m. Yevam. 8:1). She correctly reads this as an indication of our mishnah's unique polemical context.
In this example, the issue is the meaning of specific idioms of ethnic distinction, while in the previous example general themes (on the power of the commandments) were at stake. In both cases Paul is the first author we know who puts a question mark after statements that were considered obvious before him. Axioms like, “Israelites are Abraham's seed” and “Torah gives life” are now contested. This is already assumed in the rabbinic sources that offer answers of their own to them. They thus betray a dependency on Paul's preaching that had previously gone undetected.
In both examples the polemical context of the rabbis’ discourse is enhanced by the joining of several statements together in the Mishnah. The context of both these cycles is important as well: Makkot discusses the question of law and justification, while Nedarim focuses on collectives and their borders. Both issues are central to Pauline theology.
“Lifting the Face”
Several homilies discuss the biblical description of God as “lifting [one's] face” (
) in judgment, i.e., showing partiality or favoritism.Footnote
98
One example, likely the earliest, is Sifre Numbers 42 (ed. Kahana 111–112):
May the Lord lift his face towards you (Num 6:26) – when you stand and pray. As it says: And he said to him, see, I have lifted your face concerning this thing also (Gen 19:21). And the matters are a fortiori: if [I] lifted face (
; i.e. showed partiality) to Lot because of his friend Abraham, should I not show you partiality (
) because of you and because of your fathers? That is the meaning of, May the Lord lift his face towards you.
One verse says: May the Lord lift his face towards you (Num 6:26) and another verse says: Who does not lift face (
) (Deut 10:17). How can the two verses stand? When Israel obeys the will of the Omnipresent, [He] lifts [his face], but when they do not do the will of the Omnipresent Who does not lift face. Another interpretation: until the verdict is sealed The Lord will lift his face toward you, when the verdict is sealed Who does not lift face.Footnote
99
In his commentary on the Sifre, Menahem Kahana pointed to Rom 2:9–11 as a parallel to this text.Footnote 100 Both sources discuss divine favoritism and connect it to observing the commandments and to the special relationship between God and Israel. Footnote 101 At first blush, however, Paul seems to be making a point diametrically opposed to that of the Sifre: “For there is no partiality (προσωπολημψία) with God” (Rom 2:11). Kahana seems to suggest that Paul reworked a homily similar to the one found in the Sifre and used it to his own ends. In other words, Paul may have been familiar with a homily similar to the one above—which connects divine “lifting of face” to following God's will—and radicalized it to claim that God does not show partiality to Jews at all but rather shines his countenance upon all who do His will.
This case, however, is more perplexing. Numbers 6:26, the central text of the homily that proves that God does in fact show favoritism to Israel, is ignored by Paul. Unlike him, the homily approves the statement that God is not impartial toward Israel under all circumstances.Footnote
102
And yet the similarity is undeniable; both Paul and the Midrash use the term προσωπολημψία or
to problematize Israel's privileges. This connection deserves a re-examination.
Two homilies from the Babylonian Talmud, probably dependent on the Sifre's homily, further elaborate the alleged contradiction between the verses marked by the Sifre:
R. Ze'iraFootnote
103
expounded, sometimes in the name of R. Ammi, sometimes in the name of R. Jose. The ministering angels said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, it says in your Torah: Who does not lift face (
) and does not take bribes (Deut 10:17), but you yourself show partiality (
) to Israel, as it says: May the Lord lift his face towards you (Num 6:26). [God] said to them: How could I not show partiality (
) to Israel, to whom I wrote: You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God (Deut 8:10), but they were stringent upon themselves [to say the blessing after meals] even for an olive-sized and egg-sized [portion of bread] (b.Ber 20b).
Balloria the Convert asked Rabban Gamaliel: It says in your Torah: Who does not lift face (
) and does not take bribes (Deut 10:17) and it says: May the Lord lift his face towards you (Num 6:26). Jose the Priest joined her and said: I will tell you a parable. This is like a man whose fellow owes him a hundred [denarii] and he set a time for the return before the king, and [the debtor] swore to him by the life of the king [that he would pay]. The time came, and he did not pay. [The debtor] came to appease the king, who said: I forgive you my insult, go and appease your fellow. Here too: Here for sins between people and their fellows [God does not take bribes], here for sins between people and the Omnipresent [the Lord lift his face towards you]. Until Rabbi Akiva came and taught: Here before the verdict, here after the verdict (b. R. H. 17b–18a).
In both homilies an outsider—the ministering angelsFootnote 104 or Balloria the Convert—contrasts the two verses. The first story then affirms God's favoritism towards Israel, as in the Sifre's first homily, while the second makes a distinction between different cases, as in the Sifre's second homily.Footnote 105
“Lifting Face” appears in scripture in both positive and negative contexts. The former refers to God's mercy and forgiveness. The latter, appearing specifically in judicial contexts, indicates illicit favoritism and more specifically the taking of bribes (as is clear from the parallelism).Footnote
106
The homilists notice this context of course. For example, m. Avot 4:22 asserts that before God “there is no sin or forgetfulness or favoritism (
) or bribery.” Similar claims appear in other Tannaitic sources too.Footnote
107
Why then do the homilies above use such a loaded term? Why apply it to the collective realm and reverse its negative judicial context?Footnote
108
Rabbinic literature is full of unequivocal expressions of God's love of and care for Israel, and the use of a scriptural term with such negative connotations is puzzling.Footnote
109
Jubilees too features this term favorably in a collective, judicial context. Thus in chapter 5 the following appears as an introduction to the flood:
[God] will exercise judgment regarding each person [. . .] each one in accord with his way. (16) He is not one who shows favoritism nor one who takes a bribe [. . .] If a person gave everything on earth, he would [still] not show favoritism nor would he accept (it) from him because he is the righteous judge. (17) Regarding the Israelites, it has been written and ordained: If they turn to him in the right way he will forgive all their wickedness and will pardon all their sins. (18) It has been written and ordained that he will have mercy on all who turn from all their errors once each year. (19) To all who corrupted their ways and their plan(s) before the flood no favor was shown except to Noah alone, because favor was shown to him for the sake of his children whom He saved from the flood waters for his sake, because his mind was righteous in all his ways [. . .] He did not transgress from anything that had been ordained for him.Footnote 110
Both verses 16 and 19 use the same expression, translated from
. In both cases the context is clearly judicial: the former indicates that God is impartial, while the latter points out that he showed mercy to Noah.Footnote
111
Together, these verses convey that God does not show favoritism, except for his chosen ones. Noah, of the lineage of the elect, is the first exemplar of Israelite exceptionalism, extended to the institutionalization of the Day of Atonement in verses 17–18. Cana Werman notes, “The Israelites are not included in the laws of justice that were laid down from creation, which have no room for forgiveness.”Footnote
112
Sifre Numbers might be continuing the same tradition. Indeed, Jubilees, like the Sifre, specifically connects favoritism with the observance of the commandments: Noah was saved because he “did not transgress from anything that had been ordained for him.” (v. 19)
Unlike Jubilees, however, rabbinic literature explicitly problematizes God's favoritism to Israel. All the homilies cited above contest the notion of “lifting the face,” show discomfort with it, and try to resolve it. They also place it within a clearly polemical context. It is this novelty that can be explained by the Pauline (and Pauline-like) texts. “Lifting the face” appears in the context of God's relation with Israel in Rom 2:11 (see above) and again in Acts 10:34 where Caiaphas concludes, after the episode with Cornelius the centurion, that “God is not a favoritist (προσωπολήμπτης).” Both occurrences unquestionably translate the biblical term
and use it in its negative meaning.Footnote
113
Paul is also the first known author to use it as an abstract noun.Footnote
114
This term—an amalgam of “receive” (λαμβάνω) and “face” (πρόσωπον)—is unequivocally negative in all its other appearances in the New Testament.Footnote
115
As Jouette Bassler has shown, no Jewish text prior to Paul developed the idea of divine impartiality into a universal concept that undermines the distinction between Jews and gentiles.Footnote
116
Furthermore, as both Jouette Bassler and Andrew Das demonstrated, the emphasis on impartiality and the negation of favoritism is the leitmotif in Rom 1–2.Footnote 117 These chapters lead to the unavoidable conclusion about the universal condition of sinfulness and its solution through Christ in chapter 3, and impartiality continues to be a central theme there as well (see especially 3:29–30). It is the opposition to favoritism, rather than any general care for divine justice (or the preservation of scriptural commandments), that motivates Paul in these verses in Romans.Footnote 118
Paul and other followers of Jesus opposed the idea of divine favoritism and used scripture's opposition to “lifting the face” to make that point. The rabbis are compelled to use this very same term to rebut those claims. Just as m. Mak. 3 uses Isa 42:21 to counter Deut 27:26, the Sifre uses “May the Lord lift his face towards you” to depict an image diametrically opposed to the Pauline one.Footnote 119 This may also explain why later iterations of the homily are cast as polemic with “outsiders.” The rabbis are indeed engaging in polemic with outsiders on this matter.Footnote 120
This is where Kahana and I part ways: I believe that this Tannaitic Midrash already has Paul's challenge in its background. It is again the question mark that serves as the marker of the direction of influence. The rabbis’ recognition that God's favoritism to Israel is a problem sends us back to Paul, who marked this problem unlike anyone before him.
Conclusion
The three examples discussed here vary in form and content, but all move in both directions—from Paul to the rabbis and back again. Paul is clearly responding to proto-rabbinic ideas that he knows, which are then reworked in rabbinic literature through an anti-Pauline prism. None of these topics—justification through the Torah, the status of the uncircumcised, and divine favoritism—was invented by Paul, but he turned them into contentious issues.
Shifting the viewpoint from claims to problematizations allows for a finer-grained reading of the rabbinic homilies. This shift also enhances the possibility that Tannaitic literature indeed reacts to Pauline ideas, just as Paul responds to proto-rabbinic ones. The proof of course would be in the cumulative evidence, which remains to be painstakingly collected.
