¹ Sanders, E. P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 434–42.Google Scholar

² , H. Hübner, ‘Pauli Theologiae Proprium’, NTS 26 (1980) 445–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ The clearest recent presentation of the centrality of the Cross in Paul is Weder, H., Das Kreuz Jesu bei Paulus: Ein Versuch, über den Geschichtsbezug des christlichen Glaubens nachzudenken (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ Betz, H. D., Galatians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 117 (Gal 1. 1, 4; 2. 20; 1, 13; 4. 4–6), which is the same as ‘being in Christ’ (Gal 2. 19–21; 3. 26–8; 5. 5–6, 24; 6. 14); cf. Rom 4. 24–5.Google Scholar

⁵ Lyons, G. (Pauline Autobiography: Toward a New Understanding [SBLDS 73; Atlanta: Scholars, 1985]), shows that Paul's autobiographical statements, analogous to those in the ancient philosophical lives, are closely linked to his vocation and ‘philosophy’ and not merely reluctant responses to the need to defend himself.Google ScholarDietzfelbinger, C., Die Berufung des Paulus als Ursprung seiner Theologie (WMANT 58; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1985), reviewed by B. Gaventa (JBL 107 [1988] 142–4) makes Paul's conversion central to his theology.Google ScholarCf. Stuhlmacher, P., Versöhnung, Gesetz, und Gerechtigkeit: Aufsätze zur biblischen Theologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1981);Google ScholarKim, S., The Origin of Paul's Gospel (WUNT 4; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1981).Google ScholarWe do not find Räisänen's, H. argument convincing (‘Paul's Conversion and the Development of His View of the Law’, NTS 33 [1987[ 404–19CrossRefGoogle Scholarand ‘Legalism and Salvation by the Law: Paul's portrayal of the Jewish religion as a historical and theological problem’, Die Paulinische Literatur und Theologie [ed. Pedersen, S.; Arhus: Forlaget Åros, and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1980] 63–84) that his negative attitude to the law developed gradually as he met Judaizing opposition.Google ScholarCf. Gaventa, B., From Darkness to Light: Aspects of Conversion in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) 17–51;Google Scholaridem, ‘Galatians 1 and 2. Autobiography as Paradigm’, NovT 28 (1986) 309–26; and Lategan, B., ‘Is Paul Defending his Apostleship in Galatians?’ NTS 34 (1988) 311–430. We prefer to call Paul's experience a conversion rather than a call because it did entail a shift out of Judaism.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶ The eschatological age had begun for Paul and with it the whole panoply of Jewish expectation could have been activated. One should be cautious, however, in interpreting Paul by means of extra-textual material when there is a satisfactory intra-textual interpretation available. For instance, his attitude to the law was probably affected much more by his conversion experience than by the theoretical question of the place of the law in the time of the Messiah (Davies, W. D., ‘Paul and the People of Israel’, NTS 24 [1977] 4–39, 4–6).CrossRefGoogle Scholaror by the question of the relationship of the Gentiles to the Law in second temple Judaism (Gaston, L., Paul and the Torah [Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1987] 23). These are by no means irrelevant questions but the background of the argument must not be allowed to dwarf the foreground.Google Scholar

⁷ Although it is fashionable, ever since Kümmel, W., Römer 7 und die Bekehrung des Paulus (UzNT 17, Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1929), to read the claim in Phil 3. 6 to be ‘blameless’ as a psychologically accurate statement, such a reading makes it impossible to make sense out of Rom 7. 14–25.Google ScholarRäisänen, H., Paul and the Law (WUNT 29; Tübingen: Mohr, 1983) 133, is nearer the truth when, with reference to Gal 3. 19, as representing Paul's ‘deepest feelings’ about the law, he writes: ‘The verses in question seem to express a latent resentment towards the law of which Paul was not normally conscious.’Google Scholar

⁸ The positive aspects are indicated by the references to seeing the risen Christ in 1 Cor 9. 1; 15. 8; to receiving a revelation in Gal 1. 16; and to exchanging loss for gain in Phil 3. 8.Google Scholar

⁹ ‘Participationist soteriology’ is the way R. Hays describes the force of the argument in 3. 1–4. 7, as cited by Donaldson, T., ‘The Curse of the Law and the Inclusion of the Gentiles. Galatians 3. 13–14’, NTS 32 (1986) 94–112, 101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰ Dunn, J., ‘The Incident at Antioch (Gal 2. 11–18)’, JSNT 18 (1983) 3–57;Google ScholarHoltz, T., ‘Der antiochenische Zwischenfall (Galater 2. 11–14)’, NTS 32 (1986) 344–61;CrossRefGoogle ScholarLambrecht, J., ‘The Line of Thought in Gal 2.14b–21’, NTS 24 (1977/1978) 484–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹ We read δωρεάν as ‘making no sense’ or ‘random, just one of those things’ on the basis of the context. It is also a perfectly good lexicographical meaning.Google Scholar

¹² 1 Thess 2. 13–16 is not a later interpolation; cf. Donfried, K., ‘Paul and Judaism: 1 Thessalonians 2. 13–16 as a Test Case’, INT 38 (1984) 242–53;Google ScholarDavies, W. D., ‘Paul and the People of Israel’, NTS 24 (1977) 4–39, 6–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarA recent argument for interpolation that reports the literature to that time is Schmidt, D., ‘1 Thess 2. 13–16. Linguistic Evidence for Interpolation’, JBL 102 (1983) 269–79. The stylistic argument against its authenticity is answered by the fact that Paul is using traditional material from the theme of the persecution of the prophets; the apparent contradiction between the implication that the persecutors in Thessalonica were Gentiles and the denunciation of the Jews is resolved when we read the reference to ‘your own countrymen’ (2. 14) to refer to the ‘wicked fellows from the agora’ in Acts 17. 5 whom the Jews enlisted to do their dirty work for them. The Jews were in any case behind the Thessalonian persecution and so are properly the target of the vehement denunciation. ‘Your own countrymen’, ‘is to be read in a local rather than a racial sense’ (Donfried, 248). The argument that Paul could not have been so bitterly anti-Jewish simply begs the question.Google Scholar

¹³ Girard, R., Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins, 1965);Google Scholaridem, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins, 1977); idem, The Scapegoat (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins, 1986); idem, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, with Jean-Michel Ourgoulian and Guy Lefort (Stanford, Ca.: Stanford, 1987); Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Social Formation (ed. Hamerton-Kelly, Robert, with an Introduction by Burton Mack and a Commentary by Renato Rosaldo; Stanford, Ca.: Stanford, 1987);Google ScholarViolence and Truth: On the Work of René Girard (ed. Dumouchel, Paul; Stanford, Ca.: Stanford, 1988).Google Scholar

¹⁴ If the model is exalted above me there is less likelihood of his/her becoming my rival than if we are of the same status. In the latter case he/she soon becomes both a model and an obstacle.Google Scholar

¹⁵ This is a summary of the Pauline kerygma; Betz, Galatians, 132; 1 Cor 1. 23; 2. 2; cf. 1 Cor 1.13,17,18; 2. 8; 2 Cor 13. 4; Gal 5.11, 24; 6.12,14,17; Phil 2. 8; 3.18.Google Scholar

¹⁶ We take the second occurrence of ζηλόω in 4. 17 in the sense of ‘emulate’; Paul is playing on two meanings of the word.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Kim, S., Origin, 47. ‘Paul must have judged the Christian proclamation of the crucified Jesus as Messiah to be a blasphemy against God… So Paul, the ‘zealot’ for God's honour, was compelled to persecute the Christians. Deut 21. 23 must have been a catch-phrase of Paul when he went about persecuting the Christians.’Google Scholar

¹⁸ This zeal seems to characterize his opponents in Corinth as well as in Galatia. 2 Cor 11. 2 is strongly reminiscent of Galatians 1. 6–10 with its insistence that there is no other gospel. It seems that when he thinks of ‘another gospel’ he also thinks of ‘zeal’; the two ideas are linked in his mind.Google Scholar

¹⁹ In Romans it occurs only in the reference to ignorant zeal in 10. 2, and in a list of vices (13. 13) that is probably taken over from tradition.Google Scholar

²⁰ On the identity of the opponents see the recent summary by Furnish, V. P., II Corinthians (The Anchor Bible; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1984) 48–54. Furnish concludes that they were Hellenistic Jews who did not Judaize, in the sense of trying to impose Jewish ritual observance on the Corinthians, but merely denigrated Paul because he was deficient in religious experiences of an ecstatic kind and failed to measure up to certain other Hellenistic religious standards. We prefer C. K. Barrett's identification of them as Judaizers.Google ScholarHe writes, ‘A main theme of 2 Cor XI is that Paul is as good a Jew as any of his opponents; they must have been Jews and Jews who insisted on their Jewishness;’ A Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (New York: Harper & Row, 1973) 30.Google ScholarCf. Mearns, C., ‘The Identity of Paul's Opponents at Philippi’, NTS 33 (1987) 194–204;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBaumbach, G., ‘Die Frage nach den Irrlehren in Philippi’, Kairos 13 (1971) 252–66 gives a tabular presentation of the current theories concerning Paul's opponents.Google Scholar

²¹ Jewett, Robert (‘The Agitators and the Galatian Congregation’, NTS 17 [1971] 198–212) suggested that ‘Jewish Christians in Judea were stimulated by Zealotic pressure into a nomistic campaign among their fellow Christians in the late forties and early fifties. Their goal was to avert suspicion that they were in communion with lawless Gentiles’ (205). The strategy of the Judaizing missionaries was not to introduce the Gentile converts to the whole Torah but rather to secure prompt observance of the law of circumcision and observance of the festivals, so that they, the Judaizers, might not suffer persecution for the sake of the cross of Christ (6. 12).CrossRefGoogle ScholarBorg, Marcus (‘A New Context for Romans 13’, NTS 19 [1973] 205–18) places Rom 12.14–13. 7 in the context of the ‘zealot’ movement, and gives evidence for zealot activities in Rome.CrossRefGoogle ScholarCf. Haacker, K., ‘Paulus und das Judentum im Galaterbrief’, Gottes Augenapfel (ed. Broche, E. and Seim, J.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1986) 95–111. (I owe the last reference to W. D. Davies).Google Scholar

²² We put ‘zealot’ in quotation marks to show that we are aware of the inappropriateness, strictly speaking, of lumping together all the activist resistance movements of the preseventy period by this name. Nevertheless, it is the general term used in scholarship.Google Scholar

²³ Rhoads, David M. (Israel in Revolution, 6–74 C.E. A Political History Based on the Writings of Josephus [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976] 82–7) warns against assuming that ‘zealot’ automatically means ‘revolutionary’. There were at least four types of zeal in the fifties and sixties of the common era. Zeal was not an exclusive characteristic of any one group; it is widely attested in the literature, and directed against a variety of activities, like intercourse with foreign women, idolatry, the presence of the uncircumcised in the land, defilement of the sanctuary, profanation of the divine name, and offences against the legal traditions (86).Google ScholarHorsley, R. (Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987] 121–9) argues that zealotry was not widespread in the second temple period. Such as it was, it ‘… focused on the internal affairs of the Jewish community … obsessed with sin and sinners … Saul the Pharisee, intensely zealous like Phineas, ‘burning’ with zeal, persecuted fellow Jews for breaking the Law’ (128).Google Scholar

²⁴ Cf. 1 Mace 2. 45 where we are told that Mattathias and his friends forcibly circumcised the uncircumcised boys they found within the borders of Israel.Google Scholar

²⁵ Hahn, F., ‘Das Gesetzesverständnis im Römer- und Galaterbrief’, ZNW 67 (1976) 29–63, 53 n. 76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁶ On the ‘zealot’ love of freedom see Ant 18. 23–5 and Hengel, M., Die Zeloten: Untersuchungen zur jüdischen Freiheitsbewegung in der Zeit von Herodes 1 bis 70 n. chr. (A.G.S.U. 1; Leiden/Koln: E. J. Brill, 1961) who calls their movement the ‘Jewish Liberation Movement’.Google Scholar

²⁷ The relationship between Gal 3. 13–14 and Paul's conversion experience has recently been discussed by C. Dietzfelbinger, Berufung; see above p. 99, n. 5.Google Scholar

²⁸ 1 Mace 2. 24, 27, 54.Google Scholar

²⁹ On a Girardian reading the plague is a sign of violence erasing differences, and the killing and hanging of the transgressors represents the sacrificial violence which restores order.Google Scholar

³⁰ Hengel, M., Die Zeloten, 151–234.Google Scholar

³¹ Callan, T. (‘Pauline Midrash. The Exegetical Background of Gal 3. 19b’, JBL 99 [1980] 549–67, 550) refers to N. A. Dahl's demonstration that the compressed and elliptical style of Gal 3. 1–4. 7 is due to allusions to midrashim that Paul and his opponents all knew. Callan interprets vs. 19b against the background of the golden calf episode in Exod 32 on the basis of the phrase ‘by the hand of’ in Exod 34. 29.Google Scholar

³² Ps 106 was well known to Paul. Amongst the 28 psalms he quotes or alludes to in the genuine letters only 4 are referred to more than once (94 x 3; 106 x 2; 116 x 2; 142 x 2). Ps 106 is, therefore, one of the few psalms to which Paul returns. Vs. 20 is alluded to in Rom 1. 23 and Vs. 37, in 1 Cor 10. 20 (according to the Nestlé text). Both of these passages are indictments of idolatry, possibly drawn from existing Hellenistic Jewish midrashim. The Phineas psalm is an appropriate weapon against idolatry. 4 Mace 18. 12 shows that Phineas was honoured amongst the Diaspora Jews. For the phrase ‘it was reckoned to him as righteousness’ cf. Gen 15. 6; 1 Mace 2. 52; Rom 4. 3.Google Scholar

³³ Cf. John 8. 33, where the Jewish Christians link descent from Abraham with freedom. This suggests that a ‘zealotic’ interpretation of Abraham was current in the Johannine church.Google Scholar

³⁴ Deut 21. 23 is the legal formulation of a custom that comes from the ideology of the holy war and, more remotely, is rooted in the surrogate victim mechanism. Cf. the accounts of the hanging of the kings in Josh 8. 24–29 and 10. 22–27 and their burial under piles of stones. Of these piles it is said that they exist ‘to this day’ (8. 29; 10. 27), showing that they were there in the time of the writer as sacred places in Ai and Makkedah respectively that played a role in the social organization of those communities. The association with the pyramids is obvious, as with the Girardian themes of the sacred kings who live and die as sacrificial victims, the power of whose deaths to found the community is signified by these monuments.Google ScholarOn the holy war see Gottwald, N., The Tribes of Yahweh (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1979) 543–54. Deut 21. 23 and Num 25. 1–5 are linked in the Palestinian Targum.Google ScholarHanson, A. T. (Studies in Paul's Technique and Theology [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974] 6) quotes the Targum as follows: ‘And the people of the house of Israel joined themselves to Baal Peor, like the nail in the wood, which is not separated but by breaking up the wood. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And the Lord said to Moshe, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and appoint them for judges, and let them give judgement to put to death the people who have gone astray after Peor, and hang them before the word of the Lord upon the wood over against the morning sun, and at the departure of the sun take them down and bury them, and turn away the strong anger of the Lord against Israel.”’ The mention of the wood on which they are hanged and the command to take them down at sunset links the incident with Deut 21. 23. Cf. Col 2. 14–15. It is, therefore, possible that Num 25. 1–5 was in the mind of Paul and the Pauline school.Google ScholarCf. Bruce, F. F., ‘The Curse of the Law’, Paul and Paulinism: Essays in Honour of C. K. Barrett (ed. Hooker, M. D. and Wilson, S. G.; London: SPCK, 1982) 35 n. 12.Google Scholar

³⁵ Compare Rom 4. 16, ‘He is the father of us all’ with 1 Mace 2. 54, ‘Phineas our father, because he was deeply zealous, received the covenant of everlasting priesthood.’Google Scholar

³⁶ Dunn, J., ‘Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law (Galatians 3. 10–14)’, NTS 31 (1985) 523–42, 536.CrossRefGoogle ScholarRäisänen, H. (‘Galatians 2. 16 and Paul's Break with Judaism’, NTS 31 [1985] 543–53) correctly points out that Paul's rejection of the law was more thorough than Dunn allows, and that we must speak of his break with Judaism.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁷ Schwartz, D., ‘Two Pauline Allusions to the Redemptive Mechanism of the Crucifixion’, JBL 102 (1983) 259–68.Google Scholar

³⁸ On Rom 3. 24–6 see Stuhlmacher, P., ‘Zur neueren Exegese von Rom 3, 24–26’, Versöhnung, Gesetz, und Gerechtigkeit, 117–207;Google ScholarTheobald, M., ‘Das Gottesbild des Paulus nach Rom 3,21–31’, SNTU 6–7 (1981–1982) 131–68;Google ScholarMeyer, B., ‘The Pre-Pauline Formula in Rom. 3.25–26a’, NTS 29 (1983) 198–208;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPiper, J., ‘The Demonstration of the Righteousness of God in Rom 3:25,26’, JSNT 7 (1980) 2–32;Google ScholarHübner, H., ‘Sühne und Versöhnung’, KD 29 (1983) 284–305. The anti-sacrificial adaptation of the Atonement ideas may have been the work of Jewish Christianity if the Pseudo-Clementines can be taken to indicate the Jewish Christian attitude.Google ScholarCf. H III 26.3 (Hennecke-Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha 2 [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965] 116), ‘(The true prophet) hates sacrifices, bloodshed and sprinklings, he loves pious, pure and holy men, he puts out the altar fire,…’ See also, H II 16.7, and H II 44.1; (Hennecke-Schneemelcher, 120–1). Paul probably inherited the general tendency to redefine sacrifice from Jewish Christianity but responded to it more radically. While they were content to argue as the Epistle to the Hebrews that Christ's death is the perfect sacrifice that renders the system passé, he argues that Christ's death shows the system always to have been a grotesque error that in fact caused the death of Christ.Google Scholar

³⁹ Manson, T. W. (‘ίλαστήριον’, JTS 46 [1945] 1–10) showed that the Atonement ritual is in mind. We cannot, however, agree with his interpretation of ίλαστήριον as the mercy seat.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁰ Thompson, R. W. (‘How is the Law Fulfilled in Us?’, LS 11 [1986] 31–11) referring to Rom 8. 4; 13. 8–10, and Gal 5. 13–16, argues that δικστήριον refers primarily to the love of neighbour as the ‘just requirement’ of the law.Google ScholarCf. Stuhlmacher, P., Versöhnung, 188 n. 46.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Lull, D. J. (‘“The Law was our Pedagogue”. A Study in Galatians 3. 19–25’, JBL 105 [1986] 481–98) shows convincingly that this is the point of the argument.Google Scholar

⁴² See Callan, T., ‘Pauline Midrash’.Google Scholar

⁴³ Donaldson, T. (‘The “Curse of the Law” and the Inclusion of the Gentiles’, NTS 32 [1986] 94–112, 104) writes: ‘Israel, the people of the law, thus functions as a kind of representative sample of the whole of humankind, but through the operation of the law in their situation that plight is thrown into sharp relief.’CrossRefGoogle Scholar