Paul within Judaism

FC Bauer, the initial champion of Jewish particularism/Christian universalism, wrote from a

mileu of universalism, epitomized by a move from fractured German states into a single
German nation. Wright and Dunn, more recently, have written during a time when colonialism
is seen as the negative power it is; maintaining the Jewish exclusivism vs Christian particularism
is more of a theological project underwriting a particularism that masquerades as inclusivism.
What was Paul’s view of gentiles prior to his conversion? What did he carry over from his
previous way of life and what did he end (continuity and discontinuity)?
“If I am still preaching circumcision…” may indicate that Paul, at one time in his life, had
a very different mission to the gentiles.
When there is an ethnic converstion in the mediteranean, law court language is used.
They forsook their ancesteral laws (patria nomoi). How far does this language go? Can it
extend to the various forensic metaphors present in Paul?

Luke and the Spirit

Luke and the Dead Sea Scroll
The problem of interpreting “the spirit” within a Trinitarian framework…?
The use of the definite article is not the same in English as in Greek
Spirit- the human spirit – inspiritation or power within the human being
Spirits, wicked or benevolent, spiritual power
Holy Spirit is a characteristic concept of lUke acts, as it occurs more than 50 times in the
writings
In Paul- dunameis and pneuma hagio (1 thes 4:7)

Pauline theology
Pistis is almost always relational in the Greco-roman world.

Carrol Newsom
Wisdom and Apocalyptic Lit
High political content and imminent eschatology
Michael Stone “watchers dated to 3rd century BCE”
Totalizing knowledge
Complicated genealogy between apocalyptic and prophecy
Space imagined, alternative spaces (heavenly and physical location, imagined [Eden] or
significant[Jerusalem]).
Abstract concept of time- conceptualized as an independent element in itself
Vin diagrams –

Goff- Florida State University

Less stress on genre and categorization
Apocalypticism rather than Apocalyptic
Totalizing systems of knowledge by which the world can be understood (symbolic universe-
peter berger) symbolic totality, including past, present, and future.
Appeals to revelation
Jubilees claims writing and astrology originally started with Enoch
Legitimacy derived from restricted knowledge

Ben-Dov
How Jewish is apocalyptic
Active cultural memory about the past
Jewish temple in Jerusalem
Monotheistic (sort of… many divine beings in the heavenly realms)
Knowledge as a highly sought after commodity
Philo Biblios
History unfolds stage by stage, but now we live on the threshold of the new age
Complex system where time plays a significant role
Known past to unknown future- the present is a thick dimension of possibility
Gadamer and time.

Wallace stevens poem

Portier-Young
What does it mean to apprehend as the woman who sang by the sea in Wallace Stevens poem?
We have thought of apocalyptic as only Hellenistic Judaism, which has its own bag of
dichotomizing problems.
Juncture and disjuncture
Parolellomania
Michael Stone article
Crisis and resistence as creating shifts for interpreting the world
Critical Space theory (3rd space – Homi Bhabha)
Access to knowledge in the context of power, status, and favor
Creates an alternative 3rd space, who controls and has access to space, real or imagined
Exploring the ideas of religious experience within the claims of revelation and knowledge access
Knowledge as commodity, in which one controls access (economies of knowledge) – what did it
mean to commodify knowledge, who is excluded and included in knowledge production, access,
and usage and dissemination…

John Collins

Etic rather than emic

Intended to focus discussion
Definition are artificial (synthesizing some information and cutting other)

Michael Stone (lists of revealed things), define phenomena by picking out one aspect that
appealed to them, and make it normative.
A cultural politics of knowledge
There is a limit to what is revealed.
Apocalyptic cannot be made about one group, one setting, or one culture
Space and time- Henry lefevre
Conception of history in apocalyptic- (Martin Buber , Paul Hanson) – the Whole of history to see
the present in perspective – Daniel or Revelation
Richard Horsley – bluring the lines between

No dreams or visitions, teacher transmits knowledge

Symbols drawn from ancient myths

How does Paul relate to categories present for him?

The Law and the Knowledge of Sin

Paul’s interlocutor in Romans 7 – the law is holy righteous and good
Rom 3:20 (perhaps an allusion to 142:2), because by works of the law no flesh will be justified
before him.
The function of the law as marking them out in their ethnic distinctiveness – Dunn

Deeds done in obedience to the law – Fitzmeyer

Speaker assumes Fitzmeyer’s position

“Not every flesh will be justified” is the plain reading

“The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation” Sceneca

11/19 Gospel of Luke

(next year- text critical followed by intertextuality)
Adam as God’s offspring
Jesus’ genealogy as the son of Adam and the son of Luke
Jesus as God’s Son as Roman self-representation in the Augustan Age
Empire without end
Luke presents Jesus as fulfilling 2 Sam 7 but also the Aeneid
The form of Luke is reminiscent of Hellenistic/Roman epic
Luke 1:35 “he will be called Son of God”
Read Suetonius Div Aug 94:4 – Augustus was conceived when a snake (Apollo) visited his
mother (a la son of a god).
How else is Jesus connected to the divine in Luke’s gospel?
The genealogy, jesus is connected to Adam and to God
In the same way, Augustus is connected to Aeneas, who is the son of Venus/Aphrodite
However, Augustus was adopted by Julius Caesar into the Julio-Claudian line in the same way
Joseph adopted Jesus into the Davidic line.
“If Joseph had no part in his betrothed’s pregnancy, then all this stress on Jesus’ Davidic
ancestry would make little sense.” – Andrew T. Lincoln
It makes little sense apart from an Augustan adoption framework
Tucker Ferda
Who has authority over the world? Temptation narrative and Daniel
Luke has expanded Matthew’s (Q) tradition
Richard Hays Echoes of Scripture in the Gospel
Readers take Satan at his word since the 19th century (not as a liar like in the garden of Eden
“you shall not die”).
Dominic Rudman Daniels court stories demonstrate that God delegates authority to his
servants within creation (a la Nebuchadnezzar).
“The kingdoms”
Gabrielle already occurs
Luke uses Son of Man references more than any other gospel
Luke 21 (dan 8-9)- in the parable of the wicked tenents and the stone of Daniel