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The question of the relationship between Paul and Jesus has gained renewed prominence,
primarily because of the recent study by D. Wenham.i The longstanding argument is centered
upon the degree of continuity between the traditions concerning the ministry of Jesus found in the
gospels and the teachings of the Apostle Paul found in his letters. In order to avoid confusion, it
should be made clear that what is being compared and contrasted in this discussion is not two
historical figures, but two literary repositories, which represent the church's memory of the
teachings of these two historical figures. One of the more commendable feature's of Wenham's
book is his forthright assessment of the problem. At the very beginning, he has documented Paul's
remarkable failure to make use of direct quotations from the Jesus tradition. ii
This issue is clouded by two other critical factors. First, the four canonical gospels, in
their final written form, almost certainly post-date all of Paul's writings. In fact, it is likely that the
gospels were all written after Paul's death. Therefore, when we refer to Paul's lack of reference to
the Jesus tradition, we know little about the content, and even less about the form, of that which
Paul did not quote. What we may know is largely the result of hypothetical processes, such as
form criticism of the gospels and the reconstruction of Q. Second, the only evidence we have of
the thought and teaching of Paul is a limited number of canonical epistles, whether their number
be seven, thirteen, or some number in between. We do not know what Paul thought, or what he
taught and preached orally (except perhaps for the sermons recorded in Acts, which may be
One frequent explanation for Paul's failure to quote the Jesus tradition is that it was
common knowledge both for him and his readers.iii I find this argument quite dubious. Paul's
epistles were written primarily to address problems and disagreements within the early church.
That Paul would fail to make explicit use of points of agreement in order to settle points of
disagreement is contrary to his obvious patterns of argument in at least some of his epistles.iv This
argument assumes, rather, that Paul would rely on his readers to recall on their own just the right
portion of the Jesus tradition which would support his argument. A further corollary of this
position is that Paul's extensive quotation of the Jewish Scriptures must have meant that his
In the remainder of this brief essay, I wish to call attention to a few features of Paul's use
of sources, namely the Jewish Scriptures, and what these features may reveal about his failure to
quote the Jesus tradition. In short, Paul used sources like a rabbi. When he offered quotations as
support for his arguments, his most common introduction was kathos gegraptai. Paul wrote in a
time when there were certainly no authoritative written versions of the Jesus tradition. He was,
therefore, unable to construct exegetical arguments from the teachings of Jesus, even if he knew
them well.v
Paul quotes the Jewish Scriptures some ninety-three times. Of these, E. E. Ellis concluded
that fifty-one were "in absolute or virtual agreement with the LXX." Furthermore, he considered
four of these quotations to be in agreement with the Hebrew text and the other thirty-eight to be
divergent from both the Greek and Hebrew traditions.vii Why would Paul use the Jewish
Scriptures in such an inconsistent manner? Was he careless, haphazard, or even ignorant? Surely,
a large number of answers to this question could be advanced. I would like to propose one which
also answers the questions above concerning Paul's use, or lack of use, of the Jesus tradition.
Few interpreters doubt the veracity of the statement in Acts 22:3 that Paul received a
rabbinic education, as a student of the great rabbi, Gamaliel. This raises the possibility, perhaps
probability, that Paul wrote and argued in a manner related to that in which he was taught as a
rabbi. One of the distinctive features of rabbinic exegesis was what Michael Fishbane has
identified as "the al tiqre technique." This refers to the practice of rabbis of the Talmudic era
altering the reading of scripture using the construction "al tiqure (do not read)...elah (but)..." The
actual reading of the Hebrew text would be inserted after al tiqre and the emended reading of the
rabbi after elah.viii Of course, Paul was writing in Greek and most often to a Gentile audience, so
he could not use this esoteric rabbinic construction. Might Paul have been doing something
similar, however, in his alternate uses of biblical traditions. Fishbane made two important
assertions about the al tiqre technique which fit Paul strikingly. The technique "clarifies an
otherwise opaque exegetical exposition" and "is also the means for articulating some relatively
Two examples may serve to illustrate how well both of these descriptions fit Paul's
exegetical arguments. In Gal. 3:6 Paul quotes Gen. 15:6. In this case a literal translation of the
Hebrew text into Greek would clearly not have served his purpose because of the ambiguity of the
Hebrew text. MT reads, "And he believed YHWH, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness."
It is not at all clear who is reckoning what to whom. Instead, Paul quotes LXX almost precisely.
LXX reads, "And Abram believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness." While 15b
still contains only pronouns, the ambiguity has effectively been removed. Thus the LXX reading
of Gen. 15:6 makes Paul's point that righteousness (justification) is the result of belief (faith). In
essence, Paul may just as well have said "Al tiqre the Hebrew text elah the Greek text." Just a
few verses later in Gal. 3:11 Paul makes reference to Hab. 2:4b. Here are literal translations of
Paul makes the phrase fit into his argument smoothly by choosing neither the third nor the first
person pronoun. Here the rabbinic equivalent would have been "Al tiqre his faith or my faith elah
faith." By omitting any possessive pronoun, Paul avoids a thorny theological problem. Is faith a
human achievement or purely a gift from God?ix Through use of his own equivalent of the al tiqre
Surprisingly, the major works on Paul's relation to Judaism make little or no mention of
Paul's techniques of using scripture compared to those of the Jewish scribes. I have found no
such reference in either W. D Davies's Paul and Rabbinic Judaism or E. P. Sanders's Paul and
Palestinian Judaism. Ellis did make reference to some similarities and differences between Pauline
and rabbinic method, but this was almost exclusively in reference to the use of introductory
formulae.x Paul was writing Greek epistles for Gentile Christians, not midrash for fellow Jewish
scholars. Therefore, he was limited in the extent to which he could make use of characteristic
rabbinic methods. I hope I have demonstrated, however, the distinct possibility that he made use
Conclusion
The question with which this essay began was "Why did Paul quote the Jewish Scriptures
so often and not the Jesus tradition?" Perhaps the way in which Paul used the former makes it
clear why he could not use the latter. Rabbis in Paul's time quoted accepted authoritative tradition
in their arguments. Paul, arguing like a rabbi, could no use the Jesus tradition for support. His
lack of clear references to the Jesus tradition tells us nothing about whether he knew it, but only
Recent interpretation of Paul's writings have focused almost entirely on Hellenistic literary
forms as a basis for comparison. As nearly every Pauline scholar has acknowledged, Paul was
also a child of first century Judaism. The role which this literary tradition played in Paul's work as
a writer has not been adequately explored. I hope this essay may serve as some small impetus for
Notes
i. D. Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). See also the
important review of this work by M. D. Hooker in SBL 115 (1996), pp. 756-758, with which I am largely in agreement.
iii. See D. Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity, pp. 5-6.
iv. See the analysis of Paul's argument in the Galatian epistle by J. G. D. Dunn, The Theology of the Epistle to the
Galatians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
v. An argument similar to this is hinted at by Hooker, "Review of Paul. Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity,"
SBL(115), p. 758. She proposes that Paul quoted Scripture and not Jesus because Scripture was "the authoritative body of
teaching to which one appealed." The unaddressed question this begs is, why was Scripture authoritative for a Christian
apostle and the teaching of Jesus was not?
vi. Naming the entity which Paul quoted is difficult, as will become clear below. I use this vague designation to describe
the scriptures of the Jewish people, both in their Hebrew and Greek forms.
vii. This is the count of E. E. Ellis, Paul's Use of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1957), pp. 11-12.
viii. M. Fishbane, The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press),
pp. 22-23.
ix. Note how Paul stumbles over this same issue in 4:9.
TRANSLATE
Este problema se ve empañado por otros dos factores críticos. En primer lugar,
los cuatro evangelios canónicos , en su forma final por escrito , casi con toda
seguridad posterior a la fecha de todos los escritos de Pablo . De hecho , lo más
probable es que los evangelios fueron escritos después de la muerte de Pablo.
Por lo tanto , cuando nos referimos a la falta de referencia a la tradición de Jesús
de Pablo , sabemos poco acerca de los contenidos, y menos aún sobre la forma ,
de la que Pablo no citó . Lo que podemos saber es en gran parte el resultado de
procesos hipotéticos , como forma de crítica de los evangelios y de la
reconstrucción de Q. En segundo lugar, la única evidencia que tenemos del
pensamiento y la enseñanza de Pablo es un número limitado de las epístolas
canónicas , si su número ser siete, trece, o algún número en el medio. No
sabemos qué pensó Paul , o lo que él enseñó y predicó por vía oral ( excepto
quizás para los sermones registrados en Hechos , que pueden ser propios
construcciones literarias) . Lo único que sabemos algo de lo que él escribió .
Una explicación frecuente de fracaso de Pablo a citar la tradición de Jesús es que
era del dominio público , tanto para él como para sus lectores . Me parece que
este argumento bastante dudosa . Epístolas de Pablo fueron escritas
principalmente para hacer frente a los problemas y desacuerdos dentro de la
iglesia primitiva. Que Pablo dejaría de hacer uso explícito de puntos de acuerdo a
fin de resolver los puntos de desacuerdo es contrario a sus patrones obvios de
argumento en al menos algunas de sus epístolas. Este argumento supone , más
bien, que Pablo se basaría en sus lectores a recordar por su cuenta sólo la parte
derecha de la tradición de Jesús lo que apoyaría su argumento. Otro corolario de
esta posición es que la amplia cita de Pablo de las Escrituras judías debe haber
querido decir que su audiencia era bastante familiarizados con esta tradición.
En el resto de este breve ensayo , me gustaría llamar la atención sobre una serie
de características de uso de Pablo de las fuentes , es decir, las Escrituras judías ,
y lo que estas funciones puede revelar acerca de su fracaso para citar la tradición
de Jesús . En resumen, Pablo utilizó fuentes como un rabino. Cuando se
ofreció citas como apoyo a sus argumentos , su introducción más común fue
kathos gegraptai . Pablo escribió en una época en que no había duda hay
versiones autorizadas por escrito de la tradición de Jesús. Fue, por tanto
, incapaz de construir argumentos exegéticos de las enseñanzas de
Jesús, aunque él los conocía bien .
Pablo cita las Escrituras judías unos noventa y tres veces. De éstos, EE
Ellis concluyó que el cincuenta y uno fueron " totalmente de acuerdo o
virtual con la LXX. " Por otra parte , consideró que cuatro de estas citas
para estar de acuerdo con el texto hebreo y los otros treinta y ocho a ser
divergente tanto de la tradición hebrea y griega . ¿Por qué Pablo usar las
Escrituras judías de una manera tan inconsistente? ¿Era negligente o al azar , o
incluso ignorante? Sin duda , un gran número de respuestas a esta pregunta se
podría adelantar . Me gustaría proponer una que también responde a las
preguntas anteriores sobre el uso de Pablo, o la falta de uso, de la tradición de
Jesús.
conclusión
La pregunta con la que se inició este ensayo fue " ¿Por qué Pablo cita las
Escrituras judías tan a menudo y no la tradición de Jesús ? " Tal vez la forma en
que Pablo usó la antigua deja claro por qué no podía utilizar la última. Rabinos en
el tiempo de Pablo citado aceptados tradición autoritaria en sus argumentos. Paul
, con el argumento como un rabino, no podía usar la tradición Jesús por ayuda.
Su falta de claras referencias a la tradición Jesús nos dice nada acerca de si él lo
sabía, pero sólo que él no consideró autoritario.
Interpretación reciente de los escritos de Pablo se han centrado casi
exclusivamente en formas literarias helenísticas , como base para la
comparación. Como casi todos los Pauline estudioso ha reconocido , Paul
fue también un niño del judaísmo del primer siglo. El papel que esta
tradición literaria jugó en la obra de Paul como escritor no ha sido
explorado adecuadamente . Espero que este ensayo puede servir como un
pequeño impulso para los más expertos en rabínicos para intensificar esa
exploración .