[1] See Walter, N., ‘Paulus and die urchristliche Jesustradition’, NTS 31 (1985) 498–522CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Räisänen, H., ‘The “Hellenists” – a Bridge between Jesus and Paul?’ in Torah and Christ: Essays in German and English on the Problem of the Law in Early Christianity (Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 45, Helsinki, 1986) 242–306 (an expanded version of the Trondheim paper).Google Scholar

[2] Dr Walter had started with the ‘minimal hypothesis’ that ‘Paul knew only that Jesus-traditionor not significantly more – which he reveals to us in his extant letters’ (499). He ends with the conclusion that passages where allusions to Jesus-traditions have been detected do not show whether Paul was conscious, in writing them, of referring to sayings of Jesus (516; cf. 501–3); the alternative, as he puts it with reference to Rom 14. 14a, is that Paul was basing himself upon what he knew as the Christian gospel. (Cf. Räisänen, H., ‘Zur Herkunft von Mk 7.15’, in [ed.] Delobel, J., Logic: les paroles de Jésus, BEThL 59, Leuven: Peeters & Univ., 1982, 477–84Google Scholar [= Torah 209–18], here 480–4.) A week later Neirynck, F. was to reach broadly similar conclusions at the Biblical Colloquium in Leuven: apart from 1 Cor 7. 10–11Google Scholar and 9. 14, ‘there is no trace … in the Pauline letters of a conscious use of a saying of Jesus. Possible allusions to such sayings … also show significant differences, and a direct use of a gospel saying in the form it has been preserved in the synoptic gospels is hardly provable …. Because of the paucity and the anonymity of the possible allusions and reminiscences and their presence in paraenetical sections … it remains doubtful whether Paul was using them as sayings of Jesus’ (‘Paul and the Sayings of Jesus’, in [ed.] Vanhoye, A., L'apôtre Paul: personnalité, style et conception du ministère, BEThL 73, Leuven: University & Peeters, 1986, 265–321, here 320)Google Scholar. The poverty of express references to Jesus' teaching by Paul is a problem, both for our understanding of the transmission of that teaching and as regards the role that Paul did or did not give it in his own instruction of, and arguments with, his churches: did he really know so little and why did he not appeal more often to the teaching of Jesus? After all he does enter into controversies over the observance of certain days (Gal 4. 10; Rom 14. 5 f.); he has no ‘command of the Lord’ for the ‘virgins’ of 1 Cor 7. 25–28 (cf. Matt, 19. 10–12Google Scholar?); his teaching in Rom 13. 1–7 makes no express reference to any teaching of Jesus on the subject; when the question of what a Christian may or may not eat arises there is no clear evidence that he even knew of texts like Mk 7. 15, 18–19 or Lk 10. 7–8, although such a reference has been seen in 1 Cor 10. 27 (Bruce, F. F., ‘Paul and the Historical Jesus’, BJRL 56, 1974, 317–35, here 329–30Google Scholar; Räisänen, , ‘ “Hellenists”’ [n. 1] notes that a text like Mk 7. 15 is not even used in the conflict with Peter in Gal 2. 11 ff.; cf. his ‘Jesus and the Food Laws: Reflections on Mark 7. 15’, JSNT 16 [1982], 79–100Google Scholar [= Torah 219–41], here 87–8 – nor, he comments, did Peter know it in Acts 10 -, and ‘Herkunft’ 479–80); he gives no hint that he knows of a parable like that of the workers in the vineyard (Matt, 20. 1–16Google Scholar) which might aid him in his arguments over whether one is saved by grace or because it is owed to one (cf. Rom 4. 4). All this, Räisänen argues (257), following Müller, U. B., ‘Zur Rezeption gesetzeskritischer Jesusüberlieferung im frühen Christentum’, NTS 27 (1980–1981), 158–85, here 159–60 (cf. 167)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is evidence that the Hellenists whom Paul met did not communicate to him the Law-critical Jesus-tradition.

Yet this problem need not perhaps trouble us too greatly: Walter, , after all, questions ‘the assumption that the continuity between the message of Jesus and that of Paul (Sachkontinuität) is only preserved if the widest possible continuity of tradition (Traditionskontinuität) between the two is demonstrated’Google Scholar (Ibid. 499; cf. 517). Simply to reproduce traditional material is no guarantee that the content of Paul's message is in continuity with that of Jesus, and conversely the two may be in harmony (Übereinstimmung) even if the tradition that connects them is far more indirect and complex (518). Thus he invites us to seek this harmony or agreement at another level and by other means than that of Paul's use of traditions of Jesus' teachings.

[3] Torah (n. 1) 243: ‘my interest will focus solely on the question of the law’; cf. too Schneider, G., Die Apostelgeschichte 1 (HThK 5.1, Freiburg: Herder, 1980) 416Google Scholar. It had been the view of Walter, ‘Paulus’ (n. 1) 513–14, that Paul had originally been in immediate contact with that group which he had persecuted, a group more clearly subversive of the foundations of Judaism than Peter and his fellows had been; these relativized the importance of Torah and Temple and treated Gentiles more and more as equal members in the church with Christian Jews; they had contact with Jesus-traditions, but would above all have treasured those which implied a criticism of Torah or Temple. They and, following them, Paul would have ‘cultivated’ material helpful for their Law-free gospel.

[4] Appealing to Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism (London: SCM, 1985)Google Scholar; cf. too Harvey, A. E., Jesus and the Constraints of History (London: Duckworth, 1982) chap. 2Google Scholar. Müller, ‘Rezeption’ (n. 2) seems simply to assume that Jesus criticized the Law, yet refers on 167 to Paul persecuting Christians because of their freedom from the Law which is in his eyes something different (see n. 15).

[5] Yet, against both Räisänen and E. P. Sanders, Ibid. 301–5, it must be noted that prophesying the Temple's destruction brought Jesus b. Ananias, at an even tenser period of Jewish history, only floggings and the verdict that he was mad, not death – Jos., Bell. 6.5.3 §§301–5. It is, however, true that Jesus of Nazareth acted and did not just speak, and that he was accompanied by a following, rather than being a solitary figure.

[6] Torah (n. 1) 282 is; cf. also 251, and Dietzfelbinger, C., Die Berufung des Paulus als Ursprung seiner Threologie (WMANT 58, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1985) 144–5Google Scholar. In Torah 285, Räisänen quotes with approval Kraft, H., Die Entstehung des Christentums (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981) 260–1Google Scholar: the story of Philip's conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch belongs to the period before the Hellenists were driven out of Jerusalem; this would be a sign that uncircumcised God-fearers had been baptized by Hellenists at a very early stage indeed.

[7] Räisänen, Ibid.; cf. Sanders, , Jesus 282Google Scholar; Beker, J. C., Paul the Apostle: the Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Edinburgh: Clark, 1980) 185Google Scholar, sees Paul's persecution as motivated by the Christian preaching of a crucified Messiah who must be by definition an impostor; yet if Deut 21. 23 were so important for him did he consider the Pharisees crucified by Alexander Jannaeus (Jos, ., Bell. 1.4.6 §97–8Google Scholar; Ant. 13.14.2 §§380–3) as also similarly accursed because of the manner of their death? This is also a problem for a central element in the argument of Dietzfelbinger, , Berufung (n. 6) esp. 33–9Google Scholar; how one came to terms with the curse thought to be implicit in crucifixion depended upon one's prior evaluation of the characters of the crucifier and the crucified, and thus the suggestion that the Messiah had been crucified would not have been intrinsically more outrageous than the fact that righteous people had been crucified (as they were); a different evaluation became possible, and necessary, because the righteousness of the claimed Messiah had been questioned on other grounds; that made possible an evaluation of his crucifixion different to the interpretation of the crucifixion of those whom the Pharissees regarded as righteous. And the likeliest ground for the rejection of Jesus' righteousness would be those aspects of his conduct (and teaching) which Paul's fellow-Pharisees had found offensive, and unrighteous, during Jesus' ministry.

[8] Ibid. 286.

[9] Ibid. 287; cf. 300; in 288–95 he follows up a suggestion made by Professor G. Sellin in response to his Trondheim paper, that these exegetical traditions of the Diaspora left their mark at a number of places in Paul's exegesis.

[10] WUNT 29 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1983); cf. Müller, , ‘Rezeption’ (n. 2 above) 167–8.Google Scholar

[11] This is surely compatible with, indeed a likely corollary of, Strecker's, G. contention that in the earliest phase of Paul's mission, and indeed in the early church in general, the Law was treated as an ‘Adiaphoron’: ‘Befreiung and Rechtfertigung: zur Stellung der Rechtfertigungslehre in der Theologie des Paulus’, in Eschatologie and Historie: Aufsätze (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979) 229–59Google Scholar, here 230; but we 231.

[12] Quoting Wilson, S. G., The Gentiles and the Gentile Mission M Luke-Acts (MSSNTS 23, Cambridge Univ., 1973) 152CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the phrase of Jervell, J., Luke and the People of God (Minneapolis MI: Augsburg, 1972) 136Google Scholar: ‘action preceded theology’; cf. his ‘Jesus’ (n. 2) 88.

[13] A further reason might well be the rise of nationalist feelings in Judaea, making it increasingly uncomfortable, even dangerous, to appear disloyal to the traditions of Judaism; Cf. Jewett, R., ‘The Agitators and the Galatian Congregation’, NTS 17 (1970–1971), 198–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 205–6.

[14] Torah (n. 1) 300.

[15] I.e. ‘gesetzesfrei’ rather than ‘gesetzeskritisch’, to use Müller's distinction: ‘Rezeption’ (n. 2) 158 n. la; yet how consistent is he in observing it? He seems rather just to shift his focus from the latter to the former in the course of the article. But the question then arises why, if they possessed ‘Law-critical’ Jesus-tradition (cf. 183), they only practised freedom from the Law and did not go further and criticize it. Moreover where are these ‘Law-critical’ traditions if the ones investigated for evidence of them point merely to freedom from the Law (cf. 184)? Dietzfelbinger, Berufung (n. 6), and Suhl, A., Paulus and seine Briefe: ein Beitrag zur paulinischen Chronologie (StNT 11, Gütersloh: Mohn, 1975) 30–5Google Scholar, also regard the Hellenists as critical of the Law, and Schrage, W., ‘“Ekklesia” und “Synagoge”’, ZThK 60 (1963), 178–202Google Scholar, here 197–200, slides from a ‘Law-free Gentile mission’ to criticism of the Law; but a neglect of the Law would be enough to explain their preference for έκκλησία rather than συναγωγή (Schrage's point). For Hultgren, A., ‘Paul's Pre-Christian Persecutions of the Church: Their Purpose, Locale and Nature’, JBL 95 (1976), 97–111Google Scholar, the earliest Hellenists did not ‘set themselves against the law’, and he distinguishes this from a later stage when ‘a Christianity free from the law’ came into being at Antioch (98–9). But how sound is Acts’ picture of the development here?

[16] Cf. my ‘Paul and the Law’, SJTh 38 (1985), 613–22, here 621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[17] Cf. Weiser, A., Die Apostelgeschichte (Ökumenischer Taschenbuchkomm. zum NT 5.1, Gütersloh: Mohn/Würzburg: Echter, 1981) 168Google Scholar. That surely is enough to show that the explanation of the persecution as provoked by the proclamation of Jesus as Messiah is inadequate despite the arguments of Dietzfelbinger, , Berufung (n. 6) 40–1Google Scholar, to explain this; the same difficulty confronts Hultgren's account – ‘Persecutions’ (n. 15), and that of Strecker, ‘Befreiung’ (n. 11), esp. 234; cf. Sanders, , Jesus (n. 4) 283Google Scholar; Schrage and Suhl as in n. 15.

[18] Thus I question whether it is only ‘wandering missionaries’ who would be likely to meet Gentiles as suggested by Räisänen, , Torah (n. 1) 284Google Scholar; those who remained in their place might well find Gentiles making their way to them. Räisänen, Ibid. 249, is inclined to doubt whether persecution took place in Jerusalem; and yet, if Stephen was killed for speaking against the Temple (e.g. 275), then the likeliest place for this to happen was in Jerusalem; thus Räisänen grants (250) that at least Stephen was killed in Jerusalem; is it so unlikely that Paul was in Jerusalem at the time and sympathized with those who took this action against Stephen, even if his role at this point was a minor one? (See too n. 28 below.) But is it not then rather unsatisfactory to say that the Hellenists then left Jerusalem because it was ‘increasingly inconvenient’ (Räisänen, Ibid.) to continue their activities there? Is it not far more convincing if these activities were liable at any point to provoke a fate like Stephen's? That surely implies that Stephen was not so ‘singular’ (Räisänen 286).

[19] Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles: a Sociological Approach (MSSNTS 56, Cambridge Univ., 1986) chap. 2Google Scholar, ‘The Origins of Paul's View of the Law’. He starts from the premise that the origins of Paul's statements about the Law are to be found in the origins of the Gentile mission (23). He adopts a highly sceptical attitude towards Acts’ account of the latter: he doubts ‘whether the Cornelius narrative is of any historical value’ (24). at many hold to be an alternative explanation of the origins of the Gentile mission, the activity of the Hellenists, is equally doubtful: it must be questioned whether ‘there ever were two groups in the Jerusalem church, the Hellenists and the Hebrews’ (26). The attribution of the Gentile mission in 11. 20–21 to members of the former group driven out of Jerusalem by persecution reveals Luke's ‘tendency to emphasize the centrality of Jerusalem at every point’ (Ibid.); pace Acts Paul cannot have persecuted Christians in Jerusalem, for that cannot be reconciled with Gal 1. 22–23. The Hellenists of Acts 6 are for Luke Diaspora Jews now residing in Jerusalem; their joining the church is described in Acts 2, but that account ‘is manifestly unhistorical’ (25).

Our primary source, Paul's letters, presents a different picture: (1) Paul began his Christian career as a missionary to Jews. 2 Cor 11. 24 refers to this earlier period when Paul was under the discipline of the synagogue; 1 Cor 9. 20–21 refers not to a constant switching from obedience to the Law to a Gentile way of life and back again, but to being as a Jew and then subsequently becoming as one outside the Law. There is thus no hint of tension between Paul and the Jerusalem church in Gal 1. 18–24; the question of Gentiles and the Law had not yet surfaced. Gal 5. 11 (‘still') implies that Paul had once preached circumcision and ‘κηρύσσεω is a technical term for Christian proclamation’’ (30). Gal 1. 16 reflects Paul's thinking about his conversion about seventeen years later, and one should not therefore read his calling to preach to the Gentiles back into it. (This point is point is taken up by Räisänen, , Torah [n. 1] 251 n. 2Google Scholar: could Paul have thus reinterpreted his original commission in the polemical context of Galatians where his claims were liable to be repudiated? [He cites Kim, S., The Origin of Paul's Gospel, WUNT 4, Tübingen: Mohr, 1984 ², 59.]Google Scholar He tells us little of those seventeen years of Jewish mission because he is now engaged in mission to Gentiles.)

(2) ‘Paul (and others) first preached to Gentiles as a response to the failure of their preaching among the Jews’ (31), as Romans 11 shows; this chapter contains Paul's reflections on a decisive step that could be legitimated by saying that ‘God had hardened the Jews so as to save Gentiles in their place’ (Ibid.), a step that had been ‘initiated as a communal venture by the Jewish Christian congregation at Antioch, in response to the failure of its preaching among the Jews’ (32). (But cf. now the arguments of Dietzfelbinger, Berufung [n. 6] 142–4, that Paul took up his ministry to the Gentiles immediately following his Damascus road experience).

(3) They ‘did not require full submission to the law from their Gentile converts’ (33), implying perhaps ‘a relaxed attitude towards the law on the part of the Antiochene Jewish Christians, rather than a complete renunciation of the law’ (Ibid.), while Gentile Christians there were exempted from Jewish food-laws, Sabbaths and festivals as well as circumcision.

(4) This relaxation was in order to make it easier for Gentiles to become Christians, and in-creased the success of the Gentile mission by removing those aspects of the Jewish faith which were most offensive to Gentiles (cf. 1 Cor 9. 19–21; 10. 32–3); originally this was ‘not a matter of theological principle but of practical expediency’ (36).

(5) This however separated the church from the synagogue.

This is not the place to go through Watson's arguments in detail, but besides the arguments above, many of the texts which he cites allow another interpretation and sometimes are not so amenable to his reconstruction: (1) 2 Cor 11. 24 could as easily be interpreted against the background of Acts' account of the Gentile missionary Paul preaching in the synagogues of the Dispersion until driven out. Would his earlier message of a Christianity subservient to the Law, such as Watson postulates, have merited such chastisement?

(2) 1 Cor 9. 20–21 is problematic for his view: to insist as he does on the aorist έγενόμην as opposed to the present, so that v. 21 refers to Paul's ‘irrevocable break with the Jewish way of life when he began to think of himself as “apostle to the Gentiles”’ (29), is difficult since the aorist verb is understood from v. 20; does it then in v. 20 refer to an ‘irrevocable break’? Obviously not, since there was no question of Paul ‘becoming’ a Jew earlier. Or is ‘Jew’ to be understood in the pregnant sense of a ‘Jewish Christian missionary to the Jews’? But then he goes on to say that he became a one under the Law to win those under the Law, ‘although not being myself under the Law’, when Watson's thesis should entail that in fact he did still then reckon himself to be ‘under the Law’.

(3) The ‘still’ of Gal 5. 11 could refer to Paul's previous career as a Pharisee; even if ‘preach’ is ‘a technical term for Christian proclamation’, Paul is quite capable of using terms appropriate in a Christian context to describe Judaism: e.g. 1 Cor 10. 2.

Despite granting extensive editorial work by Luke, Räisänen, , Torah 244–52Google Scholar, upholds the view that the Hellenists existed and were persecuted by Paul and established a ‘liberal’ church in Antioch; otherwise one would have to duplicate them with yet other like-minded Christians. It is unlikely that Stephen's arrest and death is Luke's, invention (Torah 260Google Scholar).

[20] Räisänen's conclusions (Ibid. 301).

[21] Cf. Hengel, M., Acts and the History of Earliest Christianity (London: SCM, 1979) esp. chap. 5.Google Scholar

[22] Cf. Harvey, , Jesus (n. 4) 132Google Scholar; Sanders, , Jesus (n. 4) 66–7, 221Google Scholar; Trautman, M., Zeichenhafte Handlungen Jesu: ein Beitrag zur Frage nach dem geschichtlichen Jesu (Forschung zur Bibel 37, Würzburg: Echter, 1980) 87–90Google Scholar; Walter, , ‘Paulus’ (n. 1) 519 n. 13 and lit. cited thereGoogle Scholar. It may be that the attribution of this quotation to Jesus is occasioned by earlier Hellenist use of it rather than that Jesus' use of it led the Hellenists to take it up. The thrust of this paper will indeed be that it was Jesus' conduct and openness towards outsiders in general that encouraged this attitude on the part of the Hellenist Christians rather than reflection upon any proof text. In the same way the sort of conviction expressed by Paul in Rom 14. 14 may have influenced the formulation of Mark 7 rather than vice versa; cf. Klauck, H. J., Allegorie und Allegorese in synoptischen Gleichnistexten (NIA NF 13, Münster: Aschendorff, 1978) 269Google Scholar; Räisänen, , ‘Jesus' (n. 2) 88–90, and ‘Herkunft’ (n. 2) 480–4.Google ScholarBut cf. Borg, M. J., Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 5, New York/Toronto: Mellon, 1984) 171–7.Google Scholar

It seems striking that, despite widespread agreement on the historicity and the symbolic nature of this action by Jesus, there is less agreement on what was symbolized by it; there is far more agreement that the interpretations suggested by the scriptural verses cited as explanations are secondary. Nor does it seem to be a readily intelligible way of symbolizing the destruction of the Temple (pace Sanders, Ibid.), unless one also follows Trautmann in seeing here the original setting of a prophecy of the Temple's destruction as suggested by In 2. 19 (Ibid. 122–7) and perhaps not even then; as an attack on the Temple cult it could more readily be understood, but does not seem to have been so understood by those Christians who remained devoted to the Temple during the following decades (pace Trautmann, Ibid. 120–1, 129); if its purpose was the clearing away of encumbrances and distractions to the worship of God, a symbolic act of ‘Temple reform and renewal … associated with the inauguration of a new era, and … as preparatory to the Messianic Age’ (Hiers, R. H., ‘Purification of the Temple: Preparation for the Kingdom of God’, JBL 90 (1971), 82–90, here 86)Google Scholar, then its spirit would be caught quite appositely by the quotation of Isa 56. 7 (cf. Hahn, F., Mission in the New Testament [SBTh 47, London: SCM, 1965] 38 n. 2)Google Scholar, but more by the ‘house of prayer’ (but not ‘prayer’ as opposed to sacrifice) than by the ‘for all the nations’ (and possibly also by the allusion to Zech 14. 21 detected by some behind Jn 2. 16 – cf. Hiers, Ibid. 86–7; Lindars, B., New Testament Apologetics: the Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament [London: SCM, 1961] 70).Google Scholar

[23] See Pesch, R., Das Markusevangelium 2 (HThK 2.2, Freiburg: Herder, 1977) 199Google Scholar; cf. Lindars, Ibid. 107: ‘Jesus is staking a claim … for the inclusion of the Gentiles in its [the Temple's] worship’; also Davies, W. D., The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doctrine (Berkeley, etc.: Univ. of California, 1974) 351 n. 46Google Scholar: that Jesus' action took place in the Court of the Gentiles shows that Jesus was ‘concerned with the right of, and the hopes of Judaism for, the Gentiles as with the Temple itself. Jesus acted both to judge the community that had slighted the rights of Gentiles in its supreme sanctuary … and to point forward to a better, larger community.’’ But, while the early church was interested in the place of the Gentiles, was Jesus?

[24] Räisänen, , Torah (n. 1) 275Google Scholar, argues that Stephen's speech generally is more positive about the Temple than is widely supposed, or at least abstains from the sort of critique that 17. 25 might lead us to expect.

[25] Müller, , ‘Rezeption’ (n. 2) 164Google Scholar, fails to note this future tense: ‘the charge traces the Law-critical attitude of the “Hellenists” back to the preaching of Jesus (Acts 6.14)'. Räisänen, Ibid. 266, rightly doubts whether a prediction that the Messiah would give a new interpretation of the Law or even change it in the future would be sufficient grounds for killing the one who predicted it.

[26] Cf. Borg, , Conflict (n. 22) 56.Google Scholar

[27] Cf. Borg, Ibid. 42–4; Schürer, E., The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.-A.D. 135) 1 (Edinburgh: Clark, 1973 ²), 383–7Google Scholar; Smallwood, E. M., The Jews under Roman Rule: from Pompey to Diocletian (SJLA 20, Leiden: Brill, 1976) 160–74Google Scholar. On most chronologies the persecution of Stephen would still fall under Pilate's rule.

[28] The clash between Gal 1. 22 and Acts is perhaps best resolved by postulating that Acts has exaggerated Paul's persecuting role in Jerusalem; it may not even have amounted to that of a ‘cloakroom attendant’ to those stoning Stephen (Acts 7. 58); cf. Dietzfelbinger, , Berufung (n. 6) 21–2Google Scholar. But it seems unnecessary to deny that he had been in Jerusalem; it is intrinsically plausible that he would have attended the synagogue there frequented by those from Cilicia (6. 9), where opposition to Stephen first arose. On the other hand Beker's account in Paul (n. 7) 185 seems to imply that Paul alone was chiefly responsible for stirring up opposition to the Hellenists; Gal 1. 22 is then very difficult.

[29] Jesus (n. 4) 283.

[30] ‘The Doctrine of Justification: Its Social Function and Implications’ in Studies in-Paul: Theology for the Early Christian Mission (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1977) 95–120, here 115.Google Scholar

[31] It was only with difficulty that the early church could find scattered instances of Jesus' contact with non-Jews, and his restriction of his activity largely to rural Galilee meant that his contact with Gentiles would be severely limited.

[32] Müller, , ‘Rezeption’ (n. 2) 165–6Google Scholar, rightly questions how far the Hellenists appealed to particular sayings of Jesus in their Law-critical (or Law-free?) stance. But is it not easier to we how they could be influenced by Jesus-tradition without resort to particular teaching if what they were following was not primarily the words of Jesus but his actions (not towards the ‘people of the land’ [so 166], but more especially towards ‘sinners’)? He argues, too, that the prominence of ‘sinners’ in Mk 2. 15–17 (n.b. esp. 2. 16) is evidence that this story of Jesus' table-fellowship with tax-collectors has its setting amidst the later church's arguments over ‘table-fellowship with (former) Gentiles’ (169); one can, however, perhaps leave out the ‘former’: the problem is those who remain Gentiles, even after becoming Christians; Cf. Dunn, J. D. G., ‘Mark 2. 1–3. 6: a Bridge between Jesus and Paul on the Question of the Law’, NTS 30 (1984) 395–415, here 404–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[33] Cf. Abrahams, I., ‘Publicans and Sinners’, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels: First Series (Cambridge Univ., 1917) 54–61, here 55Google Scholar: ‘persons of immoral life, men of proved dishonesty or followers of suspected and degrading occupations’; Cf. Jeremias, J., ‘Zöllner and Sünder’, ZNW 30 (1931), 293–300, here 295CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Borg, M. J. has attempted to offer a more precise definition of the possible meanings of the term (Conflict [n. 22] 84)Google Scholar:

(a) those practising one of seven trades which deprived them de jure of all civil rights, and thus rendered them ‘as a Gentile’ (gamblers with dice, usurers, organizers of games of chance, dealers in produce of the sabbatical year [m. Sanh. 3.3 = m. Ros. Has. 1.8] are ineligible as witnesses; b. Sanh. 25b adds shepherds, tax-collectors and publicani; cf. Jeremias, J., Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus: an Investigation into Economic and Social Conditions during the New Testament Period [London: SCM, 1969] 304–5, 310Google Scholar, and ‘Zöllner’, esp. 299 – the list of b. Sanh. 25b is linked by the common theme of cheating. M. Ros. Has. 1.8 adds ‘and slaves’ which Jeremias [Jerusalem 311] interprets as Gentile slaves; is this the basis of Borg's phrase ‘as a Gentile’? See also b. Erub. 36b where ‘foreigner’ can be interpreted to mean ‘tax-collector’) or those involved in one of that wider group of trades thought to be immoral and depriving them of those rights de facto (transport workers, herdsmen, shopkeepers, physicians, butchers, goldsmiths, flaxcombers, etc.: b. Qidd. 82a; cf. m. Qidd. 4. 14 – one reason given is ‘their craft is the craft of robbers’ [tr. Danby, H., The Mishnah, Oxford Univ., 1933])Google Scholar;

(b) those guilty of flagrant immorality;

(c) those who did not observe the Torah according to the Pharisaic understanding of it (the majority of Israel); this is an understanding of the term which Sanders rightly questions (Jesus [n. 4] 176–7 [cf. 385–6 n. 15]; he challenges the view of Jeremias, J., that the people of the land were identifiable with ‘sinners’: New Testament Theology 1: The Proclamation of Jesus [London: SCM, 1971] 108–13Google Scholar; cf. also ‘Zöllner’ 294 – but there it is clear that ‘sinners’ in the Gospels are sinners in the eyes of the people and not just of the Pharisees. However it is true that the very phrase, ‘the people of the land’, has a deprecatory ring about it if it echoes not only the OT designation of the common people of Israel but also the phrase, ‘the peoples of the land(s)’ found in Ezra and Nehemiah and used there of non-Jews living in Palestine; for reff. see Schürer, , History [n. 27] 2 [1979 ²] 398 n. 59Google Scholar. How close this attitude could come to regarding them as ‘sinners’ is perhaps indicated by John 7. 49, where on the one hand it is said that the crowd do not know the Law [and so presumably cannot sin deliberately] but at the same time are ‘accursed');

(d) Gentiles – cf. Gal 2. 15; Mk 14. 41 in its immediate context seems to apply to Jews (v. 43), but out of this context might refer to Gentiles; cf. also Rengstorf, K. H., TDNT 1, 325–6Google Scholar. (Cf. n. 31 above on the paucity of reff. to Jesus' contact with Gentiles.)

Borg does not choose between (a), (b) or (c); to consort with the third group and to eat with them might have been incompatible with being a strict Pharisee; the offence would certainly have been far greater if members of the first two groups had been amongst the company which Jesus kept, and in fact the Gospels tell of him as the companion of members of those groups (frequently with tax-collectors or toll-collectors, one of the seven trades in Borg's group (a); also with a sinful woman – his group (b): Lk 7. 36–50; cf. Matt 21. 31–2; the wife of Herod's steward might well be classed with these too – Lk 8. 3; cf. also John 4. 18: 8. 1–11).

[34] So Donahue, J. R., ‘Tax Collectors and Sinners: an Attempt at Identification’, CBQ 33 (1971), 39–61, e.g. 45, 50Google Scholar: the τελναι of the Gospels are toll-collectors, who were, if anything, even more unpopular because of their rapacity and dishonesty (53, citing Goldschmid, L., ‘Les impôts et droits de douane en Judée sous les Romains’, REJ 34 [1897], 192–217, esp. 215–7).Google Scholar

[35] Cf. Perrin, N., Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus(London: SCM, 1967) 93Google Scholar. Yet does that hold good if those operating in Galilee were in fact working for Herod Antipas? – we esp. Donahue, ‘Tax Collectors’ 45–7, 51, 53; cf. Sherwin-White, A. N., Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963) 125–6Google Scholar: ‘Except at Jerusalem and perhaps Jericho the tax-farmers must be collecting either for the Tetrarch or for the municipality. But it is very questionable whether there were any municipal taxes in Jewish lands except at the very few cities which had been given Hellenistic city organization by the Herods’; also Hoehner, H., Herod Antipas (MSSNTS 17, Cambridge Univ., 1972) 73–9Google Scholar; Schürer, , History 1 (n. 27), 375Google Scholar. It is, nevertheless, true that Antipas was a non-Jew and regarded as a foreigner, and that he owed his position to the Romans; Borg argues that tax-collectors, even if not directly serving the Romans, had ‘daily commercial intercourse with Gentile inhabitants and traders’ (Conflict [n. 22] 85Google Scholar), and this would be even more true of toll-collectors; they were thus no better than non-Jews themselves (cf. Matt, 18. 17Google Scholar which reflects this Jewish attitude to toll-collectors).

[36] In TDNT 8, 101Google Scholar (although he also adds the reason that they had many contacts with Gentiles; that may be implied by the ref. to Gentiles in m. Tohar. 7.6: there they seem to be regarded as even more unclean than thieves: ‘If taxgatherers entered a house [all that is within it] becomes unclean; even if a gentile was with them they may be believed if they say (‘We did not enter’’, but they may not be believed if they say) ‘We entered but we touched naught’. If thieves enter a house, only that part is unclean that was trodden by the feet of the thieves’ (tr. Danby, H.; he notes that some texts omit the words in rounded brackets – ed. [n. 33] 726Google Scholar); cf. m. Ned. 3.4; m. B. Qam. 10. 1–2; b. Sebu. 39a; Der. Er. Rab. 2.11Google Scholar; Donahue, Ibid. 50–3; Hoehner, Ibid. 78; Schürer, Ibid. 376 and n. 108); cf. Jeremias, , Theology (n. 33) 109, 111.Google Scholar

[37] Cf. Abrahams, , ‘Publicans’ (n. 33) 58.Google Scholar

[38] Cf. Sanders, , Jesus (n. 4) 217–18; cf. 214 on Sib. Or. 3.489–808.Google Scholar

[39] Sanders, Ibid. 220, points to Matt 10. 5–6 as possible evidence of opposition to a Gentile mission at some stage, even if it is for Matthew countermanded, at least for the post-resurrection era, by 28. 19–20.

[40] ‘Mission’ may be the wrong term to use here of this stage, if it implies an active going out in pursuit of converts; as with the expansion of many cults and religions in the ancient world it was at this stage as much a matter of holding its meetings and rites and letting outsiders come in. In the earliest days what public preaching there was was likely to have been directed to the first disciples’ fellow-Jews, just as the message of Jesus had been; with regard to the Gentiles the decision initially was not one whether to go out and bring them in, but whether to accept them when they came; the former decision may indeed not have been made expressly until the Jerusalem meeting of Gal 2. 1–10 and what is perhaps its likely sequel, the decision of the Antioch church to carry the gospel to Cyprus and southern Asia Minor – Acts 13. 1–3; for some of the assumptions about chronology behind this see my ‘Some Recent Pauline Chronologies’, ET 92 (1980–1981), 103–8, esp. 106–7Google Scholar; cf. also Hahn, F., Mission (n. 22) 82.Google Scholar

[41] See most recently Martyn, J. L., ‘A Law-Observant Mission to Gentiles: the Background of Galatians’, SJT 38 (1985), 307–24, here 318–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Barrett, C. K., ‘The Allegory of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar in the Argument of Galatians’, in (ed.) Friedrich, J., Pöhlmann, W., Stuhlmacher, P., Rechtfertigung (FS E. Käsemann, Tübingen: Mohr/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976) 1–16, here 6–10.Google Scholar

[42] There is much that I find congenial here in the argument of Williams, S. K., ‘The “Righteous ness of God” in Romans’, JBL 99 (1980), 241–90Google Scholar: ‘Paul is at pains to show that God has not abandoned his Law, his people or his historical plan; nor does his grace mean that he tolerates sin’ (248). I would suggest that, had he done any of these, his righteousness would be open to question. Williams is right to we the question of God's fidelity to his promises as central in Rom (e.g. 268, 289), but perhaps he has failed to do justice to the ‘elasticity’ of meaning of ‘God's righteousness’ to which I refer in my ‘Paul and Jesus: the Problem of Continuity’, SJTh 38 (1985), 189–203, esp. 194CrossRefGoogle Scholar: it embraces both God's nature and what this nature causes him to do and the results of that activity.

[43] See particularly Bultmann, R., Jüngel, E., and even Walter's, N. formulation of the problem in ‘Paulus’ (n. 1) 498; cf. my ‘Paul’ 192–5.Google Scholar

[44] Räisänen, , Torah (n. 1) 269Google Scholar, argues that, although ‘pneumatic experiences were probably something which united “Hebrews” and “Hellenists”’ (and so cannot by themselves explain the latter's distinctive views), they may have had different effects, may have been given a different significance by the two groups. My thesis is rather different: the two groups evidently drew different conclusions from observing similar experiences in the lives of non-Jews (and because of their contacts the Hellenists would be in a far better position to observe these experiences in the first place); the importance of this Räisänen recognizes (286), and he also sees hints of this in Gal 2. 8 (cf. his ‘Jesus’ [n. 5] 88).

[45] Trautmann, , Handlungen (n. 22) 161, tellingly cites for the idea of table-fellowship as a symbol of reconciliation 2 Kgs 25. 27–30; Jos., Ant. 19.7.1, §321Google Scholar; cf. Jeremias, , Theology (n. 33) 115.Google Scholar

[46] Conflict (n. 22) 93.

[47] Trautmann, , Handlungen (n. 22) 399; cf. 162.Google Scholar

[48] Jeremias, , Theology (n. 33) 115.Google Scholar

[49] Sanders, , Jesus (n. 4) 208–9Google Scholar; Trautmann, , Handlungen (n. 22) 161Google Scholar; cf. also Hengel, M., The Charismatic Leader and His Followers (Edinburgh: Clark, 1981) 67–8Google Scholar; Perrin, , Rediscovering (n. 35) 106.Google Scholar

[50] Cf. Bultmann, R., Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (FRLANT 29, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970 ⁸) 192Google Scholar: ‘an application (of the preceding parable) … whose Ursprünglichkeit perhaps need not be questioned’. Pesch, R., ‘Das Zöllnergastmahl (Mk 2. 15–17)’ in (ed.) Descamps, A., Halleux, A. de, Mélanges bibliques (FS B. Rigaux, Gembloux: Duculot, 1970) 63–87Google Scholar, here 79–80, argues that the καλέσαι of Mk 2. 17 points to Jesus' role as God's eschatological messenger inviting sinners to God's great feast.

[51] He also compares the power of a Christian Spouse to make a non-Christian partner holy in 1 Cor 7. 12–14. Whether this sense of ‘holiness’ as an ‘infection’ is apt here is doubtful; one is surely correct to see here an echo of the language of the Jewish marriage ceremonial.

[52] Cf. my ‘Paul’ (n. 42) 196Google Scholar, citing Jeremias, , Theology (n. 33) 102Google Scholar; also Borg, , Conflict (n. 22) 254;Google ScholarChilton, B. D., ‘Regnum Dei Deus est’, SJTh 31 (1977–1978), 261–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; God in Strength: Jesus’ Announcement of the Kingdom (Studien zum Neuen Testament and seiner Umwelt, serie B 1, Freistadt: Plöchl, 1979) esp. 284–8Google Scholar; and The Glory of Israel: the Theology and Provenience of the Isaiah Targum (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 23, Sheffield, 1983) 77–81Google Scholar. (Dalman, G.), The Words of Jesus Considered in the Light of Post-Biblical Jewish Writings and the Aramaic Language [Edinburgh: Clark, 1902] 101Google Scholar, had already observed that in the Targumim ‘kingdom of God’ was used ‘to avoid the thought that God in person should appear on earth’; Cf. Koch, K., ‘Offenbaren wird sich das Reich Gottes’, NTS 25 (1978–1979), 158–65, here 161CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chilton documents further this use of the phrase to speak of God's action; besides the Targumim one can also point to the parallelism of, e.g., 1QM 12.7 f.: ‘you … in the glory of your kingdom … the King of glory’.

[53] Handlungen (n. 22) 400–1.Google Scholar

[54] Cf. my ‘Paul’ (n. 42), esp. 197–9.Google Scholar