Paul, Scribe of Old and New: Intertextual Insights for the Jesus—Paul Debate 9780567669827, 9780567656810, 9780567671936, 9780567656827

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
A. Literature Survey
B. Methodology
Part I: Scriptures in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Chapter 1: Scriptures in the Community Rule
A. The Community Rule 5.13b-19a
B. The Community Rule 8.12b-16a
C. Summary
Chapter 2: Scriptures in the Damascus Document
A. The Damascus Document 1.13b-16a
B. The Damascus Document 3.21–4.2a
C. The Damascus Document 4.12b–5.1a
D. The Damascus Document 7.14b-21a
E. Summary
Part II: Paul’s Use of Authoritative Traditions
Chapter 3: Paul’s Use of Scriptures
A. Galatians 4.21-31
B. 1 Corinthians 9.3-14
C. 1 Corinthians 10.1-22
D. 2 Corinthians 3.7-18
E. Romans 10.5-8
F. Summary
Chapter 4: Paul’s Use of the Jesus Tradition
A. 1 Thessalonians 4.13-18
B. 1 Thessalonians 5.1-11
C. 1 Corinthians 7.8-16
D. Summary
Conclusion
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index of References
Index of Authors

Citation preview

LIBRARY OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES

512 Formerly Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series

Editor Chris Keith

Editorial Board Dale C. Allison, John M. G. Barclay, Lynn H. Cohick, R. Alan Culpepper, Craig A. Evans, Robert Fowler, Simon J. Gathercole, John S. Kloppenborg, Michael Labahn, Love L. Sechrest, Robert Wall, Steve Walton, Robert L. Webb, Catrin H. Williams

PAUL, SCRIBE OF OLD AND NEW

Intertextual Insights for the Jesus–Paul Debate

Yongbom Lee

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Imprint previously known as T&T Clark 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2015 Paperback edition first published 2016 © Yongbom Lee, 2015 Yongbom Lee has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-0-56765-681-0 PB: 978-0-56767-193-6 ePDF: 978-0-56765-682-7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Series: Library of New Testament Studies, volume 512 Typeset by Forthcoming Publications Ltd (www.forthpub.com) Printed and bound in Great Britain

For My Wife, Diana

CONTENTS Abbreviations Preface

ix xiii

INTRODUCTION A. Literature Survey B. Methodology

1 5 22

Part I SCRIPTURES IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS Chapter 1 SCRIPTURES IN THE COMMUNITY RULE A. The Community Rule 5.13b-19a B. The Community Rule 8.12b-16a C. Summary

35 36 39 40

Chapter 2 SCRIPTURES IN THE DAMASCUS DOCUMENT A. The Damascus Document 1.13b-16a B. The Damascus Document 3.21–4.2a C. The Damascus Document 4.12b–5.1a D. The Damascus Document 7.14b-21a E. Summary

42 43 45 47 50 54

Part II PAUL’S USE OF AUTHORITATIVE TRADITIONS Chapter 3 PAUL’S USE OF SCRIPTURES A. Galatians 4.21-31 B. 1 Corinthians 9.3-14 C. 1 Corinthians 10.1-22 D. 2 Corinthians 3.7-18 E. Romans 10.5-8 F. Summary 1

59 59 68 79 90 103 116

viii

Contents

Chapter 4 PAUL’S USE OF THE JESUS TRADITION A. 1 Thessalonians 4.13-18 B. 1 Thessalonians 5.1-11 C. 1 Corinthians 7.8-16 D. Summary

122 123 139 151 164

CONCLUSION

168

EPILOGUE

174

Bibliography

176

Index of References Index of Authors

189 201

1

ABBREVIATIONS AB ABib ABRL AGJU ANTC ASNU ATANT AYB BBR BDAG

BECNT BELT BhT Bib BIS BNTC BRS BSem BT BZAW BZNW CBNTS CBQ CGLP ChrM CIS CNTUOT COQG CQS DNTB

The Anchor Bible Analecta Biblica Anchor Bible Reference Library Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums Abingdon New Testament Commentaries Acta Seminarii Neotestamentici Upsaliensis Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments Anchor (Yale) Bible Commentaries Bulletin for Biblical Research W. Bauer, F. W. Danker, W. F. Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich, A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 3rd edn, 2000) Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensum Beiträge zur historischen Theologie Biblica Biblical Interpretation Series Black’s New Testament Commentaries Biblical Resource Series Biblical Seminar Bible Translator Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche Coniectanea Biblica New Testament Series Catholic Biblical Quarterly Coptic Gnostic Library Project Christianity in the Making Copenhagen International Seminar G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007) Christian Origins and the Question of God Companion to the Qumran Scrolls Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter (eds.), Dictionary of New Testament Background (IVPBDS; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000)

x DPL EKKNT ETSSS EÜ FRLANT GBS HALOT HGM HTR HUT IBCTP ICC IVPBDS JBL JCACS JETS JJS JSJSS JSNT JSNTSup JSOTSup JSPSup JTS Jud LCL LNTS LSJ LSTS LXX

MNTS MS MT

NCBC NETS

NICNT NICOT NIGTC NIV NJB

NovT NovTSup NRSV

NTG 1

Abbreviations G. F. Hawthorne and R. P. Martin (eds.), Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (IVPBDS; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993) Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament Evangelical Theologi cal Society Studies Series Einheitsübersetzung der Heiligen Schrift Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Guides to Biblical Scholarship L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, study edn, 2001) History of the Greek Mind Harvard Theological Review Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching International Critical Commentary InterVarsity Press Bible Dictionary Series Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of the Classical Association of Canada Supplements Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society Journal of Jewish Studies Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the New Testament Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series Journal of Theological Studies Judaica Loeb Classical Library Library of New Testament Studies H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, A Greek–English Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 9th edn, 1996) Library of Second Temple Studies Septuagint McMaster New Testament Series Milltown Studies Masoretic Text New Century Bible Commentary A. Pietersma and B. G. Wright (eds.), A New English Translation of the Septuagint (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) New International Commentary on the New Testament New International Commentary on the Old Testament The New International Greek Testament Commentary New International Version New Jerusalem Bible Novum Testamentum Novum Testamentum Supplements New Revised Standard Version New Testament Guides

Abbreviations NTL NTS NTSI NTT NTTS OTP Png PNTC PTSDSSP RB RBL RBS RevQ RILP SBL SBLMS SBLSS SBT SCM SNTSMS SP SSEJC STDJ TBN TeoSt THNT TNTC TRENT TQ TynBul TZ VT VTG VTSup WBC WJK WUNT ZECNT ZNW

1

New Testament Library New Testament Studies New Testament and the Scriptures of Israel New Testament Theology New Testament Tools and Studies James H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ABRL; 2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1983–85) Paulus neu gelesen Pillar New Testament Commentary Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project Revue Biblique Review of Biblical Literature Resources for Biblical Study Revue de Qumran Roehampton Institute London Papers Society of Biblical Literature Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series Studies in Biblical Theology Student Christian Movement Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Sacra Pagina Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Themes in Biblical Narrative Teologistke Studier Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament Tyndale New Testament Commentaries Traditions of the Rabbis from the Era of the New Testament Theologische Quartalschrift Tyndale Bulletin Theologische Zeitschrift Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum Graecum Vetus Testamentum Supplements Word Biblical Commentary Westminster John Knox Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche

xi

PREFACE I submitted my Ph.D. dissertation to the University of Bristol and Trinity College, Bristol, on August 15, 2010, entitled ‘The Son of Man as the Last Adam: The Early Church Tradition as a Source of Paul’s Adam Christology’. In Chapter 2 of my Ph.D. dissertation, I investigated extensively Paul’s creative use of authoritative traditions, particularly, the Scriptures and the Jesus tradition. Having recognized its importance and independent nature, I decided to publish this chapter in a separate monograph. I published my Ph.D. dissertation without Chapter 2 with Wipf & Stock Publishers—The Son of Man as the Last Adam: The Early Church Tradition as a Source of Paul’s Adam Christology (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012). In this current study, I revised and expanded Chapter 2 of my Ph.D. dissertation, adding two short chapters on the use of the Scriptures in the Community Rule (1QS) and the Damascus Document (CD). I am indebted to many people for this work. I ¿rst thank my doktorvater Reverend Professor John Nolland at Trinity College, Bristol, UK. Many students complain about their supervisors not getting back to them soon enough. That was not the case for me. Although Professor Nolland had many administrative duties as Academic Dean, he always gave me meticulous feedback on my work right away. In the ¿rst two years of my doctoral study, he often told me, ‘Yongbom, it is not so clear what you are trying to argue here’. I was discouraged at times, but his push for clarity of thought and logical argumentation helped me to become a critical and independent thinker and scholar. I also thank Reverend Dr. David Wenham, a New Testament lecturer at Trinity College, Bristol, for all his helpful comments and encouragement. His book Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) inspired me to pursue doctoral study on the topic of the relationship between Jesus and Paul. I also thank Professor Gordon Wenham for all his encouragement and his advice on my project. I thank Professor Steve Moyise (University of Chichester, UK) and Reverend Dr. Steve Finamore (Bristol Baptist College, UK) for all their insightful comments, as they examined my Ph.D. dissertation. I thank my dear friend Geoffrey

xiv

Preface

Sutton for his patient help with my German translations. I thank my parents—Reverend Dr. Heung Joo Lee and Dr. Yong Ja Kim—whose generous support made this study possible. Finally, I dedicate this book to my lovely wife, Diana, who supported my study and encouraged me throughout my research. As she is currently going through the same burden of producing a doctoral dissertation, I want to support and encourage her, as she did for me in Bristol. Riverside, CA, USA Valentine’s Day 2014

1

INTRODUCTION The back cover of Jesus and Paul Reconnected (2007) writes: ‘The six essays in this volume consider the relationship between Jesus and Paul from diverse angles, bringing fresh insights into an area of study that has long been dormant’.1 It seems to be the case that such an important topic has not received much attention among critical scholars even after the publication of Jesus and Paul Reconnected. Needless to say, one of the perplexing questions in the history of modern New Testament scholarship has been the relationship between Jesus and Paul. While no one questions Paul’s importance in the Jesus movement in the ¿rst century A.D., many interpreters have been struck by how little attention Paul pays to the earthly life and teaching of Jesus in his letters. 2 On the one hand, minimalists with regard to Paul’s knowledge of the Jesus tradition consider him to be the second founder of Christianity.3 On the other hand, other scholars emphasize the continuity between Jesus and Paul. For instance, David Wenham claims that, despite the scarcity of explicit references to Jesus’ earthly life, Paul’s letters show ‘massive’ theological overlap with Jesus’ teachings in the Synoptic Gospels and Paul modi¿ed Jesus’ kingdom preaching according to its spirit.4 Similarly, Seyoon Kim proposes that Jesus’ kingdom gospel had to be replaced or re-presented by Paul’s gospel of the death and resurrection of Christ for the postEaster church and his Hellenistic audience.5 1. Todd D. Still (ed.), Jesus and Paul Reconnected: Fresh Pathways into an Old Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007). 2. See Harm W. Hollander, ‘The Words of Jesus: From Oral Traditions to Written Record in Paul and Q’, NovT 42.4 (2000), pp.340–57 (340–2). 3. E.g. William Wrede, Paul (London: Green, 1907), p.179; Geza Vermes, Jesus and the World of Judaism (London: SCM, 1983), pp.56–7; Maurice Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God (Louisville: WJK, 1991), pp.97–120; Gerd Lüdemann, Paulus, der Gründer des Christentums (Lüneburg: Klampen, 2001), pp.199–216. 4. David Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), pp.377–80, 409. 5. Seyoon Kim, Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on the Origin of Paul’s Gospel (WUNT 1/140; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), pp.275–90.

2

Paul, Scribe of Old and New

There have been excellent overviews of the history of New Testament scholarship on the Jesus–Paul debate.6 I ¿nd three distinctive groups among numerous studies related to the Jesus tradition: (a) form-critical studies, (b) oral transmission studies, and (c) intercultural studies concerning oral media in ancient world. First, many traditional form-critical studies on the Jesus–Paul debate focus on deciding whether or not Paul refers to a speci¿c Jesus tradition reÀected in the Gospels. There is a wide range of views regarding where Paul refers to the Jesus tradition. Kim identi¿es thirty-one ‘possible echoes’ in addition to thirteen ‘certain or probable references’ to the Jesus tradition in Paul’s letters—1 Cor. 7.10-11; 9.14; 11.23-25; 1 Thess. 4.15-17; 5.1-7; Rom. 8.15 (cf. Gal. 4.6); 12.14-21 (cf. 1 Cor. 4.11-13); 13.8-10 (cf. Gal. 5.14); 13.7; 14.14.7 In contrast, Hollander considers only 1 Cor. 7.10-11; 9.14; 11.23-25 as ‘instances of an explicit reference to a saying of the Lord’.8 Even though more than 150 years have passed since F. C. Baur asked the reasons for Paul’s indifference to the life and teaching of the historical Jesus, there seems to be still no consensus today.9 Secondly, Birger Gerhardsson in Memory and Manuscript (1961) challenged the early form critics (Martin Dibelius and Rudolf Bultmann) with respect to their understanding of the origin of the Jesus tradition and freshly proposed that it should be viewed in the paradigm of the oral transmission of the Torah in rabbinic literature.10 These studies seem to discuss rather different sets of questions from those of the ¿rst group. Generally speaking, they are interested in constructing a framework through which the oral Jesus tradition is transmitted from the Early 6. See David E. Aune, ‘Jesus Tradition and the Pauline Letters’, in Werner H. Kelber and Samuel Byrskog (eds.), Jesus in Memory: Traditions in Oral and Scribal Perspectives (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009), pp.63–78; Andreas Lindemann, ‘Paulus und die Jesustradition’, in Rieuwerd Buitenwerf, Harm W. Hollander, and Johannes Tromp (eds.), Jesus, Paul and Early Christianity: Studies in Honour of Henk Jan de Jonge (NovTSup 130; Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp.282–8; Detlef Häusser, Christusbekenntnis und Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus (WUNT 2/210; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), pp.1–38; Stephen J. Patterson, ‘Paul and the Jesus Tradition: It is Time for Another Look’, HTR 84.1 (1991), pp.23–41 (23–9); Victor Paul Furnish, ‘The Jesus–Paul Debate: From Baur to Bultmann’, in A. J. M. Wedderburn (ed.), Paul and Jesus: Collected Essays (JSNTSup 37; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1989), pp.17–50. 7. Seyoon Kim, ‘Sayings of Jesus’, in DPL, pp.474–92. 8. Hollander, ‘Words of Jesus in Paul and Q’, p.349. 9. Ferdinand Christian Baur, Das Christentum und die christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte (Tübingen: Fues, 1853). 10. Birger Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity (trans. Eric J. Sharpe; ASNU 22; Lund: Gleerup, 1961). 1

Introduction

3

Church and ¿nding its support in Paul, rather than arguing for/against Paul’s reference to a speci¿c Jesus tradition reÀected in the Gospels. Gerhardsson’s groundbreaking study has opened up a whole new domain in New Testament scholarship that focuses on the oral transmission of the Jesus tradition.11 Thirdly, Werner H. Kelber in his pioneering study The Oral and Written Gospel (1983) fundamentally challenged the form-critical and text-critical basis of modern New Testament studies—which he calls ‘the Gutenberg Galaxy’—and called for a radical paradigm shift by paying careful attention to early Christian oral media working behind the New Testament.12 While recognizing Gerhardsson’s legacy, Kelber primarily bases his work on recent studies in cognate ¿elds such as classics, folkloristics, and anthropology.13 Due to what he calls ‘equiprimordiality’—‘each rendition [of an oral saying/story] was an original version, and in fact the original version’—Kelber argues that form critics’ search

11. E.g. Robert K. McIver, Memory, Jesus, and the Synoptic Gospels (RBS 59; Atlanta: SBL, 2011); Rafael Rodriguez, Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance and Text (LNTS 407; London: T&T Clark International, 2010); Ben Witherington III, What’s in the Word: Re-thinking the Socio-Rhetorical Character of the New Testament (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009); Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007); Loren T. Stuckenbruck, Stephen C. Barton, and Benjamin G. Wold (eds.), Memory in the Bible and Antiquity (WUNT 1/212; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007); Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospel as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006); James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (ChrM 1; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003); Samuel Byrskog, Story as History—History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History (WUNT 1/123; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000). 12. Werner H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul and Q (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), p.215. 13. E.g. Eric A. Havelock, Preface to Plato (HGM 1; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963); Milman Parry, The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Perry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971); Ruth Finnegan, Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Signi¿cance, and Social Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980); Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologing of the Word (New York: Methuen, 1982); Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (Munich: Beck, 1992); John Miles Foley, The Singer of Tales in Performance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995); Albert Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2nd edn, 2000). 1

4

Paul, Scribe of Old and New

for the ‘original’ (archetype) text is fundamentally mistaken.14 Kelber’s strong skepticism contrasts with Gerhardsson and his followers’ positive attitude toward the authenticity and reliability of the oral traditions behind the Gospels. Kelber seems to have gained over the years a signi¿cant group of followers who further developed his initial insights concerning the orality, performance, and memory of the Jesus tradition in the Early Church.15 The purpose of the present study is to revisit the currently stagnant Jesus–Paul debate in the light of the recent studies on Pauline intertextuality, pioneered by Richard B. Hays’ Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (1989).16 In this study, I intend to bring intertextual 14. Werner H. Kelber, ‘Jesus and Tradition: Words in Time, Words in Space’, in Joanna Dewey and Elizabeth Struthers Malbon (eds.), Orality and Textuality in Early Christian Literature (Semeia 65; Atlanta: SBL, 1995), pp.139–67 (151); idem, ‘The Oral–Scribal–Memorial Arts of Communication in Early Christianity’, in Tom Thatcher (ed.), Jesus, the Voice, and the Text: Beyond the Oral and the Written Gospel (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2008), pp.235–62 (245). 15. See Werner H. Kelber and Samuel Byrskog (eds.), Jesus in Memory: Traditions in Oral and Scribal Perspectives (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009); Thatcher (ed.), Jesus, the Voice, and the Text; Richard A. Horsley, Jonathan A. Draper, and John Miles Foley (eds.), Performing the Gospel: Orality, Memory, and Mark (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006); Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher (eds.), Memory, Tradition and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity (Semeia 52; Atlanta: SBL, 2005); Dewey and Struthers Malbon (eds.), Orality and Textuality in Early Christian Literature. 16. See Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders (eds.), Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals (JSNTSup 148; SSEJC 5; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1997); Steve Moyise (ed.), The Old Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of J. L. North (JSNTSup 189; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 2000); Francis Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London: T&T Clark International, 2004); Steve Moyise and Maarten J. J. Menken (eds.), The Psalms in the New Testament (NTSI; London: T&T Clark International, 2004); Steve Moyise and Maarten J. J. Menken (eds.), Isaiah in the New Testament (NTSI; London: T&T Clark International, 2005); Stanley E. Porter (ed.), Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament (MNTS; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006); Steve Moyise and Maarten J. J. Menken (eds.), Deuteronomy in the New Testament (London: T&T Clark International, 2007); John Strazicich, Joel’s Use of Scripture and the Scripture’s Use of Joel: Appropriation and Resigni¿cation in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity (BIS 82; Leiden: Brill, 2007); Steve Moyise, Evoking Scripture: Seeking the Old Testament in the New (London: T&T Clark International, 2008); Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Stanley (eds.), As It Is Written: Studying Paul’s Use of Scripture (SBLSS 50; Atlanta: SBL, 2008); Susan E. Docherty, The Use of the Old Testament in Hebrews: A Case Study in Early 1

Introduction

5

insights—how Paul uses the Scriptures—into the Jesus–Paul debate, comparing the creative ways Paul uses the Scriptures with the creative ways he uses the Jesus tradition. I have selected ¿ve cases of Paul’s use of the Scriptures and contemporary Jewish exegetical traditions (Gal. 4.21-31; 1 Cor. 9.3-14; 10.1-22; 2 Cor. 3.7-18; Rom. 10.5-8) and three cases of his use of the Jesus tradition (1 Thess. 4.13-18; 5.1-11; 1 Cor. 7.8-16), in which his hermeneutical creativity is most evident. I will argue in this book that Paul uses the Scriptures and the Jesus tradition similarly in that he considers them as authoritative and cites them in a variety of ways and creatively applies them to the real-life situation (Sitz im Leben) of his readers for his rhetorical purposes. A. Literature Survey While the Jesus–Paul debate is not a hot topic in New Testament studies today, there have been a massive number of publications in the past on this subject since F. C. Baur’s Das Christentum und die christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte in 1853. Due to the extensive literature on the Jesus–Paul debate, I will introduce only a number of related works that have appeared in the past forty years. I will begin with David L. Dungan’s classic, The Sayings of Jesus in the Churches of Paul (1971).17 In Part I, Dungan examines the relationship between the Lord’s command concerning support for apostles in 1 Cor. 9.4-18 and the mission instructions in the Synoptic Gospels (Lk. 9.1-5; 10.1-12; Mt. 10.1-16; Mk 6.7-11). In Part II, Dungan investigates the relationship between the Lord’s command concerning divorce in 1 Corinthians 7 and the sayings on divorce in the Synoptic Gospels (Mt. 19.3-9; Mk 10.2-12). Observing Paul’s conservatism regarding the Synoptic tradition, Dungan concludes: Therefore, if Paul was a part of the larger pattern of Synoptic traditiontransmission as Gerhardsson argues, and represents an early stage of its interpretation and application, as we have for these two sayings shown to be the case, and if it is precisely Paul’s characteristic way to cite sayings of the Lord by doing so allusively, then the argument that Paul knew only a few sayings, because he only mentions a few openly, falls to the ground.18 Jewish Bible Interpretation (WUNT 2/260; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009); Jonathan D. H. Norton, Contours in the Text: Textual Variation in the Writings of Paul, Josephus and the Yahad (LNTS 430; London: T&T Clark International, 2011). 17. David L. Dungan, The Sayings of Jesus in the Church of Paul: The Use of the Synoptic Tradition in the Regulation of Early Church Life (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971). 18. Ibid., p.149. 1

6

Paul, Scribe of Old and New

Dungan demonstrates the continuity between Paul and the Synoptic traditions in the two cases and emphasizes the allusive characteristic in early Christian writers’ reference to the Jesus tradition. In Synoptic Tradition in 1 Corinthians (1974), Biörn Fjärstedt argues on the basis of clusters of theme words found in 1 Corinthians 1–4 and 9 and their parallels in the Synoptic Gospels: ‘Paul is fairly well acquainted with a type of tradition which has been preserved in the synoptic gospels’.19 Fjärstedt’s unconventional approach produces some interesting results. Many of what he considers as ‘theme words’, however, are too generic to show distinctive parallels between Paul and the Synoptic Gospels. If Fjärstedt’s analysis of 1 Corinthians 9 is correct, Paul is drawing 1 Cor. 9.1-3 from the tradition behind Jn 3.32-36, 1 Cor. 9.7 from the traditions behind Lk. 3.10-14; 17.7-10; 20.9-19, 1 Cor. 9.14 from the tradition behind Lk. 10.1-20 and 1 Cor. 9.19-27 from the tradition behind Mt. 25.14-30.20 Such a hodgepodge of sources makes his analysis doubtful. Fjärstedt brieÀy comments on Paul’s use of the Scriptures: Quotations and allusions to Old Testament passages and themes are no doubt common in Paul’s letters, although explicit quotations are perhaps not so common as one would have expected from a man with scribal training… One might think that pieces of a Jesus tradition could have been quoted or alluded to in the same way as signi¿cant Old Testament passages. It is not, however, that easy, either in Paul or in any Christian writer up to Justin.21

As Fjärstedt points out, the imbalance of the data—Paul’s frequent use of the Scriptures contra his rare use of the Jesus tradition—poses certain challenges and limits of comparing the two. As we will see later, however, such an enterprise turns out to be fruitful, bearing fresh insights into the presently idle Jesus–Paul debate. In ‘The Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels’ (1982), Dale C. Allison starts with the top-ten list of most frequently discussed topics concerning the Jesus–Paul debate.22 Allison criticizes Fjärstedt’s methodology, which searches for allusions to traditional material in 1 Corinthians 1–4 and 9 by identifying a collection of ‘theme words’, because 19. Biörn Fjärstedt, Synoptic Tradition in 1 Corinthians: Themes and Clusters of Theme Words in 1 Corinthians 1–4 and 9 (Uppsala: Teologiska Institutionen, 1974), p.169. 20. Ibid., pp.65–99. 21. Ibid., pp.37–8. 22. Dale C. Allison Jr., ‘The Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels: The Pattern of the Parallels’, NTS 28 (1982), pp.1–32.

1

Introduction

7

many of these so-called theme words are too common in Greek to indicate speci¿c links between Paul and the Synoptic traditions.23 However, Allison agrees that Fjärstedt presents at least one strong case with respect to the link between 1 Corinthians 9 and Luke 10: ‘Paul knows more than isolated sayings. He seems to know a block of material, a missionary speech.’24 Using the parallels between 1 Corinthians 9 and Luke 10 as a model case, Allison identi¿es eighteen cases of Paul’s reference to the Jesus tradition—Rom. 12.14, 17, 21; 13.7; 14.10-11, 13-14; 1 Cor. 4.14; 7.10; 8.13; 9.14; 11.23-27; 13.2; Col. 3.5; 1 Thess. 4.8; 5.2 (and 4), 13, 15. Allison notes: With the exception of 1 Cor. 11.23-26 and 15.1-7, his letters contain only free renderings of or allusions to individual sayings. But in his correspondence Paul merely refers to the Jesus tradition; he never hands it down. There is a fundamental difference. Tradition was something given during the period when the apostle himself was present with the community… The epistles, however, presuppose another Sitz im Leben. Their context is not initiation into tradition but subsequent affairs.25

In addition to the setting (Sitz im Leben) of Paul’s epistles, Allison attributes his scarce verbatim citation of the Jesus tradition to the fact that it was being orally transmitted with ‘some degree of Àuidity’ in his days.26 Citing two Talmudic references—b. Ab. Zar. 19a; b. Shab. 63a— Allison concludes, ‘these two quotations typify the attitude of rabbinic Judaism concerning tradition: the text is ¿rst memorized; only subsequently is it used or interpreted’.27 Allison continues, ‘Paul knew and probably passed on the Jesus tradition in collections which, to all appearances, were of and about the Jesus of history, not of and about the postEaster church’.28 While re-examining the Jesus–Paul debate and raising the interesting possibility that Paul could have known not isolated sayings of Jesus but certain blocks of the Jesus tradition-material, Allison does not take Paul’s use of the Scriptures into account in his investigation. If the Talmudic references teach us about Paul’s attitude toward the Jesus tradition, his use of the Scriptures certainly teaches us more.

23. Ibid., pp.6–7. 24. Ibid., pp.9–10; cf. Fjärstedt, Synoptic Traditions in 1 Corinthians, pp.66–77. 25. Allison, ‘Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels’, pp.21–2. 26. Ibid., p.23. 27. Ibid., p.24; cf. b. Ab. Zar. 19a—‘A person should study (/+) the Torah (¿rst) and then explain (!!) it’; b. Shab. 63a—‘Let a person ¿rst learn (:/) and afterward penetrate (:2) (that which has been learned)’ (Allison’s translations). 28. Ibid., p.24.

1

8

Paul, Scribe of Old and New

In ‘From Jesus to Paul’ (1984), S. G. Wilson demonstrates perhaps one of the most minimalist views in the last forty years. Wilson claims: The suggestion that Paul must have known more of Jesus’ teaching than he mentions, or that he assumes a common knowledge shared by himself and his readers, are arguments from silence which have never been convincing. Indeed, the few references to Jesus’ teaching we do ¿nd in Paul do not suggest that he had a more extensive knowledge of the synoptic tradition than he displays: 1 Cor. 11:23-26 is a liturgical snippet which Paul would have known from Eucharistic worship, and 1 Cor. 7:10 and 9:14 are probably both ‘community rules’, i.e., sayings of Jesus which had a wide and independent circulation because they had a direct bearing on the everyday lives of Christians.29

Wilson does not substantiate his view that Paul could not have known about the Last Supper recorded in the Synoptic Gospels apart from the ‘liturgical snippet’ cited in 1 Cor. 11.23-26. While 1 Cor. 7.10 and 9.14 may have been ‘community rules’ widely circulated among Christian believers, there is no strong reason to suppose someone arbitrarily created such ‘community rules’ out of nothing (ex nihilo), and the Early Church attributed them to the historical Jesus afterwards. Moisés Silva identi¿es ninety-two explicit citations of the Scriptures in the Pauline corpus (eighty-seven in Paul’s ‘undisputed’ letters).30 Amongst them, the following Old Testament books are not included: Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zechariah. No one has seriously argued that Paul could not have known these books, simply because he nowhere 29. S. G. Wilson, ‘From Jesus to Paul: Contours and Consequences’, in Peter Richardson and John C. Hurd (eds.), From Jesus to Paul: Studies of Honour of Francis Wright Beare (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1984), pp.1–21 (8). 30. Moisés Silva, ‘Old Testament in Paul’, in DPL, pp.630–42. Longenecker identi¿es eighty-three scriptural quotations from Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, and 1 and 2 Timothy; Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 1999), pp.92–5. In order to engage in broader scholarship, I follow in this study the widely accepted view among New Testament scholars, which considers 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans as Paul’s ‘undisputed (or authentic)’ letters but takes 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Letters (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) as ‘deutero-Pauline (or pseudepigraphal)’ writings. Even if Paul’s students may have written these so-called deutero-Pauline writings, I still consider them as valuable evidence for the development of Pauline theology. 1

Introduction

9

cites them explicitly. In particular, it is dif¿cult to imagine that Paul knew nothing about the book of Daniel (cf. 1 Cor. 6.2; Dan. 7.27).31 When we consider the creative ways in which Paul alludes to the Scriptures, as we will see later, Wilson’s rather extreme skepticism concerning Paul’s knowledge of the Jesus tradition becomes doubtful.32 Frans Neirynck in ‘Paul and the Sayings of Jesus’ (1986) critically responds to Allison’s claim of Paul’s substantial knowledge of the Jesus tradition, on the basis of his scrupulous form-critical analysis. Neirynck concludes: In the Pauline epistles there are two instances of an explicit reference to a command of the Lord, in 1 Cor 7,10-11 and 9,14, but there is no ‘quotation’ of the saying. Paul produces in his own formation ‘a halakah based on such a saying’… Elsewhere in the Pauline letters there is no certain trace of a conscious use of sayings of Jesus. Possible allusions to gospel sayings can be noted on the basis of similarity of form and context but a direct use of a gospel saying in the form it has been preserved in the synoptic gospels is hardly provable.33

While Neirynck’s determination to identify Paul’s reference to the sayings of Jesus with certainty and precision is commendable, his approach is too rigid and narrow to discern Paul’s hermeneutical creativity 31. Although Paul uses the word ÄÍÊÌŢÉÀÇÅ only in 1 Cor. 2.1, 7; 4.1; 15.51, he alludes to the Danielic mystery-motif throughout 1 Corinthians. Gladd notes, ‘Paul uses [Danielic] apocalyptic wisdom as a remedy to ¿x the problem with factional behavior. In other words, understanding the nature of the cross leads to a transformed lifestyle, engendering unity within the church body’; see Benjamin L. Gladd, Revealing the Mysterion: The Use of Mystery in Daniel and Second Temple Judaism with Its Bearing on First Corinthians (BZNW 160; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008), p.266. In another interesting intertextual study, Waaler persuasively argues that Paul echoes the Shema (Deut. 5.7-8; 6.4-5) in 1 Cor. 8.1-6 despite his lack of an explicit citation; Erik Waaler, The Shema and the First Commandment in First Corinthians (WUNT 2/253; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), pp.440–6. 32. Wilson’s skepticism seems to be largely based on his Bultmannian premise that there is hardly any link between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith; Wilson, ‘From Jesus to Paul’, pp.19–20. 33. Frans Neirynck, ‘Paul and the Sayings of Jesus’, in A. Vanhoye (ed.), L’Apôtre Paul (BETL 73; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1986), pp.265–321 (320–1). Neirynck denies Paul’s knowledge of the Jesus tradition behind Mk 14.2225; Mt. 26.26-29; Lk. 22.19-20 in 1 Cor. 11.23-25 and claims that it is ‘a quotation of a liturgical tradition’; ibid., p.277. Paul’s knowledge of such liturgical tradition rather suggests his knowledge of the story behind it. It is dif¿cult to suppose that early Christians (including Paul) knew nothing about the story of the Last Supper, apart from the liturgical formula, as if they had mechanically memorized it without much thought. 1

10

Paul, Scribe of Old and New

in relation to his use of various authoritative traditions for his argument. If we consider the creative ways Paul adapts the Scriptures and contemporary Jewish exegetical traditions for his rhetorical purposes, as we will see in this study, there is no strong reason to doubt that he could have used other authoritative traditions such as the Jesus tradition in similar ways. In ‘Paul and the Early Christian Jesus-Tradition’ (1989), Nikolaus Walter offers a thorough multifaceted examination of the relationship between Paul and the Jesus tradition with minimalist orientation. Walter only brieÀy comments on comparing Paul’s use of the Scriptures with his use of the Jesus tradition: Yet we may compare the way in which Paul deals with texts from the ‘scriptures’ (of the Old Testament)… Here too a distinction should be drawn between (1) explicit quotations with quotation formulae, which are meant to be verbatim quotations, then (2) references to particular Old Testament texts even though they are not ‘quoted’ in the strict sense, and ¿nally (3) the non-speci¿c use of Old Testament phrases and ways of speaking without any speci¿c or intentional reference to a particular text; in this last case the exegete can yet demonstrate that this passage or that is echoed; this is not being unfair to Paul, but at the same time it cannot be assumed that Paul himself had precisely this passage in mind. So, where there is no explicit reference to a saying of the Lord, one can neither exclude a priori a deliberate reference to a saying of Jesus, nor on the other hand can one assume such a reference to be self-evident without giving more precise reasons for the assumption.34

When assuming Paul’s allusion to the Jesus tradition in a certain passage, as Walter points out, we have to be able to provide precise reasons for such an assumption. Despite these challenges, however, we cannot rule out the possibility that Paul could have used the Jesus tradition in a way similar to the Scriptures. Before comparing the ways Paul uses the Scriptures and the ways he uses the Jesus tradition in this study, I will provide ¿rst the precise reasons for my assumption of Paul’s allusion to the Jesus tradition. In ‘Paul and the Oral Gospel Tradition’ (1991), Traugott Holtz discusses Paul’s explicit references to the Jesus tradition (1 Cor. 7.10-11; 9.14; 11.23-25) and his allusions to the Jesus tradition (Rom. 12.14; 13.7; 14.14; 1 Cor. 4.12-13). Between these two sections, Holtz devotes a separate section to 1 Thess. 4.13–5.11 that he considers as the best example of Paul’s creative use of the Jesus tradition, which teaches us 34. Nikolaus Walter, ‘Paul and the Early Christian Jesus-Tradition’, in Wedderburn (ed.), Paul and Jesus, pp.51–80 (55). 1

Introduction

11

that ‘consequently we must assume that a whole series of uses of the Jesus tradition in particular contexts in Paul remains unrecognizable to us’.35 Commenting on Paul’s use of the Jesus tradition in 1 Thess. 4.1318, Holtz points out, ‘The manner in which the proof is conducted corresponds to Jewish rabbinic exegesis. The handling of the wording has parallels in Paul’s treatment of the Old Testament’.36 Apart from this brief note, however, Holtz does not discuss how precisely Paul’s handling of the wording of the Jesus tradition parallels that of the Scriptures. Holtz concludes: The treatment of the Jesus tradition in Paul is normally sharply distinguished from that of the Synoptic Gospels, which explicitly reproduce the words of Jesus. But the body of tradition of sayings of the Lord received by Paul is not basically of a different kind; rather it is essentially of the same kind as that presented in the Gospels. But the early period obviously possessed the freedom to put the sayings of Jesus known to it into its own words addressed to the present time, and in this way lend the words such forceful authority.37

Obviously, it is dif¿cult to know how Àuid or ¿xed the Jesus tradition was when Paul was writing his letters. Even if we assume that the Jesus tradition was circulated in relatively ¿xed forms in Paul’s days, as we will see in this study, he could have creatively adapted and applied it to the situation of his readers for his rhetorical purposes, in parallel with his creative use of the Scriptures and contemporary Jewish exegetical traditions. In ‘Paul and the Jesus Tradition’ (1991), Stephen J. Patterson provides a concise but helpful overview of the current status of the Jesus–Paul debate.38 On the basis of his observation of Paul’s allusion to only a few synoptic sayings in his letters (1 Cor. 7.10-11; 9.14; 11.23-26), Patterson claims, ‘the approach that simply tallies the number of synoptic sayings used or alluded to by Paul has its limitations’.39 Patterson suggests an alternative approach as a way forward, that is, to examine the relationship between Paul and the Gospel of Thomas, which, according to him, most scholars consider to contain some authentic Jesus-tradition materials

35. Traugott Holtz, ‘Paul and the Oral Gospel Tradition’, in Henry Wansbrough (ed.), Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition (JSNTSup 64; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1991), pp.380–93 (390). 36. Ibid., p.386. 37. Ibid., p.393. 38. Patterson, ‘Paul and the Jesus Tradition’, pp.23–9. 39. Ibid., p.29. 1

12

Paul, Scribe of Old and New

independent of the canonical Gospels.40 The dif¿culty of dating the Gospel of Thomas and verifying its genuine Jesus-tradition materials,41 however, should raise caution against holding too much con¿dence in Patterson’s unconventional approach.42 In Clothed with Christ (1991), Michael B. Thompson provides a seminal methodological contribution to the Jesus–Paul debate.43 In Part I, Thompson discusses ‘The Meaning and Detection of Allusions’ (Chapter 1), ‘Early Epistolary Usage of Jesus Tradition Outside Paul’ (Chapter 2), and ‘Paul and Jesus Tradition: Knowledge and Attitude’ (Chapter 3). In Part II, Thompson discusses various allusions to the Jesus tradition in Rom. 12.1–15.13. Thompson’s discussion of various criteria for evaluating allusions and echoes to the Jesus tradition are particularly insightful.44 Also, Thompson’s observation of other early Christian writers’ usage of the Jesus tradition (which he abbreviates to ‘JT’) is enlightening.45 Thompson concludes his study: 40. Ibid., p.30. 41. Bauckham and Porter point out, ‘Some sayings of clearly gnostic origin had entered the tradition, and the editor of Thomas selected from the tradition sayings that were compatible with his gnostic theology. The apostle Thomas has become the authority for an esoteric interpretation of the tradition of the sayings of Jesus (cf. Gos. Thom. 1.13)’; Richard J. Bauckham and Stanley E. Porter, ‘Apocryphal Gospels’, in DNTB, pp.69–78 (73). 42. Patterson’s conclusion displays the complications of relying on the Gospel of Thomas in determining the relationship between Paul and the Jesus tradition. Patterson concludes that ‘Paul may have come to reject the tradition of Jesus’ sayings because, in the form in which he later encountered it among other missionaries to the West [“Thomas Christians”], its theological tendencies turned out to be unacceptable to him’; Patterson, ‘Paul and the Jesus Tradition’, p.40. As Patterson admits, there is no ¿rm evidence in 1 Corinthians that Paul rejects the Jesus tradition that those hypothetical [Thomas-Christian] Christians promoted at Corinth. Before investigating the relationship between Paul and the Gospel of Thomas, we must examine the relationship between Paul and the Scriptures ¿rst. 43. Michael B. Thompson, Clothed with Christ: The Example and Teaching of Jesus in Romans 12.1–15.13 (JSNTSup 59; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1991). 44. Cf. (a) verbal agreement, (b) conceptual agreement, (c) formal agreement, (d) place of the Gospel saying in the tradition, (e) common motivation, rationale, (f) dissimilarity to Graeco-Roman and Jewish traditions, (g) presence of dominical indicators, (h) presence of tradition indicators, (i) presence of other dominical echoes or word/concept clusters in the immediate context, (j) likelihood the author knew the saying, and (k) exegetical value; ibid., pp.30–6. 45. Thompson points out: ‘The general lack of appeal to JT in early Christian writings is no secret, but surprisingly few have been seen its signi¿cance for the Jesus–Paul debate; minimalists who emphasize the apostle’s silence seem oblivious to the data. A few have taken the evidence to prove that all of the early writers of 1

Introduction

13

Paul is free in his use of JT, but it is a freedom within limits. On a formal level, he shows great liberty in (unconsciously?) adapting the language to ¿t into the Àow of his exhortation and shows no constraint to quote the tradition in a wooden fashion. This, and his freedom to qualify the application of dominical teachings reÀect his profound awareness of having the indwelling Spirit of Jesus. On the other hand, the essence of Jesus’ teachings had evident authority for Paul, and he plainly does not feel to ‘create’ JT (cf. 1 Cor. 7.25).46

As we will see later, the ¿ndings of this study support Thompson’s conclusion. However, Thompson does not pay close attention to Paul’s use of the Scriptures in his study. In ‘Jesus Tradition in Paul’ (1994), James D. G. Dunn begins with what he calls ‘a priori plausibilities’: ‘It must surely be considered highly likely that the ¿rst Christian communities were interested in, not to say highly fascinated by the ¿gure of Jesus’.47 Dunn discusses ‘echoes of Jesus’ teaching in Paul’ and ‘allusions to Jesus as example in Paul’.48 Dunn rightly criticizes Walter and Neirynck for their narrow and onesided approaches and emphasizes that, in the time of Paul’s writing, the Jesus tradition was ‘living tradition, tradition which was evidently adaptable to different needs and diverse texts’.49 Dunn only brieÀy mentions the relevance and bene¿t of studying Paul’s use of the Scriptures for the Jesus–Paul debate: We are not entirely in the dark on this matter, for we know how Paul used and how his thinking was inÀuenced by his other great source of authority—the Old Testament, or to be more precise, the scriptures of his ancestral faith and earlier training. Here too an obvious parallel (inÀuences of scripture, inÀuences of Jesus tradition) has been often neglected

Epistles were ignorant of the traditions, but this view has not commended itself to most scholars… The absence of direct quotation of Jesus in works attributed to people who knew him well (1 Peter, James, Jude) and the rarity of direct citations in writings composed long after our Gospels were written obviate the force of the speci¿c argument that Paul’s practice shows he did not know or was not interested in sayings of Jesus, but this is not one of them. Claims about speci¿c places where an author “should” have quoted Jesus to bolster the case do not prove ignorance or lack of interest’; ibid., pp.62–3. 46. Ibid., p.240. 47. James D. G. Dunn, ‘Jesus Tradition in Paul’, in Bruce Chilton and C. A. Evans (eds.), Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluation of the State of Current Research (NTTS 19; Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp.155–78 (156–7). 48. Ibid., pp.159–73. 49. Ibid., p.174; similarly, Allison, ‘Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels’, p.23. 1

14

Paul, Scribe of Old and New because of an issue focused too narrowly or approached only from one side. Of course the parallel is not exact, because Paul makes so many explicit citations from his scriptures. On the other hand, we should note that Paul shows the same freedom in his handling of the scriptures as he does in his explicit references to the Jesus tradition (1 Cor 7:10-11; 9:14).50

While Richard Hays’ Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (1989) brought much scholarly attention to Paul’s creative use of the Scriptures, there seems to have been no book-length treatment since Dunn’s article, which compares Paul’s use of the Scriptures and that of the Jesus tradition. Such an interesting and important subject deserves a far more substantial treatment than a brief passing comment. In Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (1995), David Wenham simpli¿es Thompson’s methodology and classi¿es Paul’s allusions to the Jesus tradition into three categories—‘Tradition indicators’, verbal and formal similarity, and similarity of thought.51 Wenham carefully examines various probable and possible parallels between Paul and the Jesus tradition in seven different themes: (1) The Kingdom of God, (2) Christology, (3) Cruci¿xion, (4) Jesus and the Community, (5) Ethics, (6) Eschatology, and (7) Jesus’ Life and Ministry. Although Wenham’s work provides an important milestone for the modern Jesus–Paul debate, it does not pay particular attention to the ways Paul uses the Scriptures and compare them with the ways he uses the Jesus tradition. In ‘The Sayings of Jesus in 1 Corinthians’ (1996), Frans Neirynck reaf¿rms his previous statement that there are only two explicit references (1 Cor. 7.10-11; 9.14) to the Jesus tradition in the entire Pauline corpus and discredits Paul’s echoes and allusions elsewhere. Neirynck concludes: The analogy of Paul’s use of the Old Testament in echoes and allusions is not very helpful given the proportion of explicit scriptural citations… It is with special emphasis that Paul in 1 Cor 7,10 refers to Jesus’ prohibition of divorce, and I have tried to show that this command of the Lord is still on Paul’s mind when he formulates his own instructions on mixed marriages. The possibility of divorce is envisaged by Paul (v. 11a) without giving up the inspiration of the dominical logion.52

50. Dunn, ‘Jesus Tradition in Paul’, p.175. 51. Wenham, Paul, pp.25–31. 52. Frans Neirynck, ‘The Sayings of Jesus in 1 Corinthians’, in R. Bieringer (ed.), The Corinthian Correspondence (BETL 125; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1996), pp.141–76 (176). 1

Introduction

15

I need to make a few comments on Neirynck’s conclusion. First, there are certainly more than two explicit references to the Jesus tradition in Paul’s letters (cf. 1 Cor. 11.23-25; 1 Thess. 4.15-17a; 5.2, 4). Secondly, a limited number of explicit references do not necessitate a limited number of allusions. As Thompson points out, Neirynck and other minimalists ignore the fact that other early Christian writers also rarely appeal to the Jesus tradition.53 Thirdly, Neirynck does not explain in detail why ‘the analogy of Paul’s use of the Old Testament in echoes and allusions is not very helpful’. While it is true that Paul cites the Scriptures explicitly far more often than the Jesus tradition, he frequently echoes or alludes to the Scriptures. In fact, in 1 Corinthians, in which Paul refers to the Scriptures most frequently beside Romans, he explicitly cites the Scriptures only nineteen times.54 As we will see later, Paul alludes to the Scriptures in a variety of creative ways. If Paul uses the Scriptures and contemporary Jewish exegetical traditions in a variety of creative ways, we can expect him to use other authoritative traditions (such as the Jesus tradition) in similar ways. Fourthly, Neirynck’s own illustration of Paul’s halachic application of the Lord’s command in 1 Cor. 7.10 af¿rms the validity of comparing Paul’s use of the Scriptures and that of the Jesus tradition. In ‘The Words of Jesus’ (2000), Harm W. Hollander examines the parallels between the sayings of Jesus in Paul and those in Q. Hollander concludes that any attempt to identify ‘the ipsissima verba of the historical Jesus’ is futile and ‘the transition toward textuality’ has nothing to do with preservation of oral tradition but something to do with the early Christians’ need for (behavioral) codes for new converts.55 Hollander displays extreme skepticism concerning Paul’s knowledge of the Jesus tradition. In contrast to Wilson and Neirynck, however, Hollander has keen interest in the link between the historical Jesus and the Jesus tradition. While calling any attempt to search such link ‘a dead end’, Hollander admits:

53. Thompson, Clothed with Christ, p.62. 54. Isa. 29.14 in 1 Cor. 1.19; Jer. 9.23/1 Sam. 2.10 in 1 Cor. 1.31; Isa. 64.4 in 1 Cor. 2.9; Isa. 40.13 in 1 Cor. 2.16; Job 5.13 in 1 Cor. 3.19; Ps. 94.11 in 1 Cor. 3.20; Deut. 13.5 in 1 Cor. 5.13; Gen. 2.24 in 1 Cor. 6.16; Deut. 25.4 in 1 Cor. 9.9; Exod. 32.6 in 1 Cor. 10.7; Ps. 24.1 in 1 Cor. 10.26; Isa. 28.11-12 in 1 Cor. 14.21; Ps. 110.1 in 1 Cor. 15.25; Ps. 8.6 in 1 Cor. 15.27; Isa. 22.13 in 1 Cor. 15.32; Prov. 22.24-25 in 1 Cor. 15.33; Gen. 2.7 in 1 Cor. 15.45; Isa. 25.8 in 1 Cor. 15.54; Hos. 13.14 in 1 Cor. 15.55. I cannot list here numerous echoes of the Scriptures in 1 Corinthians; see Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, ‘1 Corinthians’, in Beale and Carson (eds.), New Testament Use of the Old Testament, pp.695–752. 55. Hollander, ‘The Words of Jesus’, pp.340–57 (354–7). 1

16

Paul, Scribe of Old and New Nevertheless, it seems obvious that the apostle was familiar with some sayings, notions, or ideas which were transmitted orally and perhaps also in a textual form in the early Church as authoritative sayings of the historical Jesus… Even more important is the fact that the three Pauline references to sayings of Jesus are found in ethical contexts [1 Cor. 11.2325; 7.10-11; 9.14].56

While I seek to examine the relationship between Paul and the Jesus tradition, I do not attempt to make a direct link between Paul and the historical Jesus, or reconstruct the ipsissima verba of the historical Jesus in this study. While various issues related to the historical Jesus are important, they are beyond the scope of this study. Hollander’s conclusion that early Christians with emendable, variable, and adaptable oral Jesus tradition felt the need ‘to standardize these instructions for their (newly converted) members’ demands some comments here. First, if ‘sayings of Jesus could be transmitted orally… long after (most of) the so called eyewitnesses had died’ and early Christians ‘certainly’ did not start writing down the oral teachings of Jesus because the eyewitnesses were about to die, as Hollander claims, we must wonder why the timing of documentation roughly coincides with that of the deaths of the ¿rst-generation followers of Jesus.57 From the beginning of the Jesus movement, it must have had the same need to standardize ‘sayings of Jesus with directions for his followers as to how to live in a new age’.58 Secondly, if Paul wrote his letters to create (behavioral) codes for new converts, as Hollander claims, we would expect him to make more explicit references to the sayings of Jesus in order to regulate effectively the behavior of new converts, which is not the case. Paul rarely refers to the Jesus tradition in his letters and his goal could not have been to codify the sayings of Jesus as rules for new converts. As we will see later, Paul’s creative hermeneutics of the Jesus tradition and the ad hoc nature of his letters do not allow Hollander’s thesis to stand, that is, the Jesus tradition was written because ‘early Christianity needed codes which contained the instructions ascribed to their founder, Jesus Christ’.59 In Faith in Jesus and Paul (2002), Maureen W. Yeung follows David Wenham’s thematic approach and examines the relationship between the mountain-removing faith in 1 Cor. 13.2 and Jesus’ saying ‘your faith has

1

56. 57. 58. 59.

Ibid., pp.349, 354. Ibid., p.356. Ibid., p.351. Ibid., p.357.

Introduction

17

healed/saved you’, attested in the Synoptic Gospels (Mk 5.24-34 and its parallels; Mk 10.46-52 and its parallels; Lk. 7.36-50; 17.11-19).60 Having introduced the Jesus–Paul debate and her methodology (Part I), Yeung argues for the historical continuity between Jesus and Paul (Part II) and the theological continuity between them (Part III). In order to isolate the inÀuence of Jesus on Paul, Yeung operates a series of what she calls ‘controls’.61 This study differs from Yeung’s work in that it does not attempt to link Paul directly with the historical Jesus. Despite Yeung’s extensive investigation of the historical background of the word ÈţÊÌÀË, one reviewer considers her background search as ‘incomplete’, which shows the challenges of the historical Jesus inquiries.62 In ‘The Jesus Tradition in 1 Thess 4.13–5.11’ (2002), Seyoon Kim argues that Paul in 1 Thess. 4.13–5.11 corrects the misunderstanding of the Thessalonians of the eschatological sayings of Jesus (Mt. 24.3031/Mk 13.26-27; Mt. 24.43-44/Lk. 12.39-40; Mt. 24.45-51/Lk. 12.36-38, 41-48; 21.34-36) in order to relieve them of their grief over the dead believers and their anxiety concerning the date of the Parousia.63 Kim concludes: Therefore, Paul refers to the ‘word of the Lord’ that has given rise to their grief, and expounds its full implications, emphasizing that one of them is the resurrection of the dead prior to ingathering. He brings this implication out of the ‘word of the Lord’ by interpreting it in the light of the fundamental kerygma of Christ’s death and resurrection (4.14).64

Kim does not discuss the typical ways Paul expounds the implications of the Scriptures in the situation of his readers, which resonate with his use of the Jesus tradition in 1 Thess. 4.13–5.11.

60. Maureen W. Yeung, Faith in Jesus and Paul: A Comparison with Special Reference to ‘Faith That Can Remove Mountains’ and ‘Your Faith Has Healed/ Saved You’ (WUNT 2/147; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002). 61. (1) Elimination of false parallels, (2) the authenticity of the sayings of Jesus, (3) the Hellenistic and Jewish backgrounds, (4) early Christian tradition, (5) the distinctiveness in Jesus’ teaching (that is also found in Paul), and (6) the distinctiveness in Paul’s teaching (that is also found in Jesus); ibid., pp.12–14. 62. Erik M. Heen, ‘Faith in Jesus and Paul: A Comparison with Special Reference to “Faith That Can Remove Mountains” and “Your Faith Has Healed/Saved You”’, RBL (23 April 2005). Online: http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail .asp?TitleId=4747&CodePage=4747 (accessed 27 April 2011). 63. Seyoon Kim, ‘The Tradition in 1 Thess. 4.13–5.11’, NTS 48 (2002), pp.225– 42. 64. Ibid., p.241; Kim’s italicization. 1

18

Paul, Scribe of Old and New

In Christusbekenntnis und Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus (2006), Detlef Häusser discusses in depth the relationship between Paul and the Jesus tradition in the four passages that he considers as pre-Pauline: 1 Cor. 15.3-8; Rom. 1.3-4; Phil. 2.6-11; Gal. 4.4-5. In contrast to most prior studies on the Jesus–Paul debate, which focus on Paul’s allusion to the Jesus tradition, Häusser focuses on Paul’s knowledge of the historical Jesus, evident in the four passages. According to Häusser, Paul certainly (mit Sicherheit) knew about the Last Supper (1 Cor. 11.23-25), Jesus’ ransom saying (Mk 10.45 and parallels), his self-designation as Son of Man, his cruci¿xion, his burial, the discovery of the empty tomb, and his resurrection appearances.65 Paul probably (wahrscheinlich) knew the saying of Jesus about humiliation and exaltation (cf. Lk. 14.11), the ‘I have come’ and ‘I was sent’ sayings, particularly the sending formula, his temptation, the controversy regarding the son of God and the son of David, the trial of Jesus including his Sanhedrin confession (Mk 14.61-62), and his address of God as father (cf. the Lord’s Prayer and the Gethsemane prayer).66 Paul possibly (möglich) knew about the announcement of the birth of Jesus (Lk. 1.30-35) and the presentation of Jesus in the temple (Lk. 2.21-51), the Passion predictions, the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Mk 12.1-12), and the appearance of Jesus in Nazareth (Lk. 4.18-30). Häusser concludes: We have to assume that Paul’s knowledge of the Jesus tradition was substantially more comprehensive than one often thought due to only sparse citations in his letters… On the whole, we can hardly deny that Paul knew at least a brief outline of the biography of Jesus and that he was familiar with many details of the life of Jesus. Paul could have presented a more comprehensive story of Jesus and not just numerous separate traditions.67

As we will see later, while the ¿ndings of this study support Häusser’s conclusion, it limits itself to the relationship between Paul and the Jesus tradition, in contrast to Häusser’s work that focuses on the relationship between Paul and the historical Jesus. Häusser does not pay particular attention to the ways Paul uses the Scriptures, which is the focus of this study. 65. Häusser, Christusbekenntnis, p.351. 66. Ibid., pp.351–2. 67. My translation of ‘Es ist anzunehmen, dass die paulinische Kenntnis der Jesusüberlieferung wesentlich umfassender war, als man aufgrund der nur spärlichen Zitate in seinen Briefen oft gemeint hat... Insgesamt lässt sich kaum bestreiten, dass Paulus zumindest einen kurzen Abriss der Biogra¿e Jesu kannte und dass er mit vielen Details des Lebens Jesu vertraut war. Paulus kann eine (umfassendere) Jesusgeschichte vorgelegen haben und nicht nur zahlreiche Einzeltraditionen’; ibid., p.352. 1

Introduction

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In ‘Jesus and the Canon’ (2006), Jens Schröter discusses the early oral Jesus traditions in the context of the origins of the New Testament canon. On the basis of the diversity in early Gospel manuscripts and the secondcentury writers’ references to the Jesus tradition, Schröter concludes, ‘The Jesus tradition is thus, from the time of its earliest attestation, a free and living tradition, and therefore the idea of a ¿xed, authoritative form of that tradition must be abandoned’.68 Despite the form-critical and textcritical premise of this study, as we will see later, its ¿ndings support Schröter’s conclusion that the Jesus tradition was a free and living tradition. In contrast to Kelber’s strong skepticism of any search for the ‘original’ sayings of Jesus, Schröter makes a more balanced statement, ‘What is in question is not the correctness, in principle, of such an undertaking, but the claim that such images of Jesus would come closer to the person of Jesus than the early texts themselves’.69 As I will explain shortly, I accept Two-Source Theory as one of my methodological presuppositions for this study. I presuppose that there existed one hypothetical original saying of Jesus which was transmitted through early Christian oral media with both Àuidity and stability. I consider that early Christian teachers passed on the Jesus tradition ‘freely’ and ‘lively’ out of (eyewitness) traditions (ex traditionibus) rather than out of nothing (ex nihilo). Unlike this study, Schröter does not pay attention to Paul’s use of the Scriptures when considering the Jesus tradition. In his 2007 article, ‘“I Received from the Lord…”: Paul, Jesus, and the Last Supper’, Francis Watson challenges the consensus that 1 Cor. 11.23-25 refers to the Jesus tradition (cf. Mk 14.22-24; Mt. 26.26-28; Lk. 22.17-20) and argues that it does not refer to any (human) tradition but to the revelation that he received personally, directly, and exclusively ‘from the Lord’.70 Watson lists four reasons to support his argument: First, the emphatic ëºŪ implies a special connection between Paul and this particular tradition. Second, his statement seems to imply a distinction between receiving a tradition from the Lord and from Paul himself; human mediation is explicitly acknowledged in the one case but not in the other… Third, the observation that ‘I received from the Lord’ refers to a narration of what Jesus did and said on the night of the arrest… If transmission takes the form of narration, then the Lord’s handing on of this

68. Jens Schröter, ‘Jesus and the Canon: The Early Jesus Traditions in the Context of the Origins of the New Testament Canon’, in Draper, Foley, and Horsley (eds.), Performing the Gospel, p.116. 69. Ibid., p.121. 70. Francis Watson, ‘“I Received from the Lord…”: Paul, Jesus, and the Last Supper’, in Still (ed.), Jesus and Paul Reconnected, pp.103–24 (105). 1

20

Paul, Scribe of Old and New narration does not occur at the Last Supper itself but might have occurred through a visionary appearance to Paul. Fourth… In the absence of the Twelve, the tradition is his tradition.71

Watson’s argument is unconvincing for the following reasons. First, while Paul’s use of ëºŪ can imply ‘a special connection’ between Paul and the tradition in 1 Cor. 11.23-25, it does not necessitate Paul’s visionary/revelatory experience. Nothing in 1 Cor. 11.23-25 triggers any visionary or revelatory experience, as the phrase ¼ĊË ĚÈ̸Êţ¸Ë Á¸Ė ÒÈÇÁ¸ÂŧмÀË ÁÍÉţÇÍ does in 2 Cor. 12.1. Furthermore, Paul nowhere in his letters uses the verb ȸɸ»ţ»ÑÄÀ in association with his visionary or revelatory experience. Secondly, the fact that Paul adapts in 1 Cor. 11.23-25 the vocabulary of tradition—cf. the semi-technical terms ȸɸ¸ĹŠÅÑ equivalent to +9, ȸɸ»ţ»ÑÄÀ equivalent to :2/—undermines Watson’s claim that Paul refers to his own revelation (or ‘tradition’) directly from the Lord.72 Thirdly, it seems easier to suppose the oral transmission of the Jesus tradition concerning the Last Supper in the Early Church than Paul’s exposure of his dramatic visionary experience from the Lord (cf. 2 Cor. 12.6-7). Fourthly, Watson’s presupposition that any authentic Jesus tradition should contain a reference to ‘the Twelve’ is unwarranted. Virtually no scholar—even minimalists such as Wilson, Neirynck, Walter, and Hollander—has claimed that there is no reference to the Jesus tradition in 1 Cor. 11.23-25, simply because there is no reference to ‘the Twelve’. While Watson’s attempt to establish the continuity between Jesus and Paul in his own terms is noteworthy, his argument that Paul himself came up with the Words of Institution in 1 Cor. 11.23-25 out of his visionary or revelatory experience is unconvincing. When we consider Paul’s use of the authority of the Jesus tradition in support of his argument in 1 Cor. 7.8-16; 1 Thess. 4.13–5.11, as we will see later, he most likely refers to the Jesus tradition in 1 Cor. 11.23-25 in support of his teaching in 1 Cor. 11.17-34. In ‘Paulus und die Jesustradition’ (2008), Andreas Lindemann summarizes the history of research on the Jesus–Paul debate and discusses the Words of the Lord (Herrenworte) and the narrative Jesus tradition (Erzählende Jesusüberlieferung) in Paul. Then, Lindemann discusses ‘possible ways from Jesus to Paul’ (Mögliche Wege von Jesus zu Paulus), dealing with some important historical questions related to Paul

71. Ibid., pp.107–8. 72. Cf. Thompson, Clothed with Christ, p.69; similarly, Allison, ‘Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels’, p.3; if Paul received a direct revelation from the Lord, Watson’s use of the term ‘tradition’ (ȸɊ»ÇÊÀË) is not appropriate.

1

Introduction

21

and the Jesus tradition.73 Historical questions concerning the relationship between Paul and the historical Jesus are obviously important but they are beyond the scope of this study. It is limited to comparison between the creative ways Paul uses the Scriptures and the creative ways he uses the Jesus tradition, which Lindemann does not address. In ‘Divorce Halakah in Paul and the Jesus Tradition’ (2010), Peter J. Tomson observes different interpretations of Deut. 24.1-4 concerning divorce in early Judaism. Tomson contrasts the Shammaite School’s restrictive attitude with the Hillelite School’s permissive attitude towards divorce, attested in m. Gittin 9.10.74 As Tomson demonstrates, both Paul and the Jesus tradition with respect to the issue of divorce manifest their orientation towards the Shammaite position rather than the Hillelite position. While correctly identifying Paul’s halachic treatment of the command of the Lord in 1 Cor. 7.10-11, Tomson does not discuss it in detail in order to identify the typical ways he uses the Jesus tradition.75 As I have surveyed so far, there seems to have been no book-length study in recent years that has carefully compared Paul’s use of the Scriptures and that of the Jesus tradition. Most studies on the Jesus–Paul debate have been occupied with evaluating speci¿c parallels between the Synoptic Gospels and Paul’s letters on form-critical basis. Several scholars (e.g. Holland, Yeung, and Häusser) seek to examine the historical and theological continuity between Paul and Jesus. In contrast, this study focuses on the relationship between Paul and the Jesus tradition (originated from the Early Church) rather than the direct link between Paul and the historical Jesus. While a few scholars (e.g. Fjärstedt, Walter, Holtz, Dunn, and Tomson) brieÀy mention the usefulness of comparing Paul’s use of the Scriptures and that of the Jesus tradition, none of them has made any serious effort.

73. Lindemann, ‘Paulus und die Jesustradition’, pp.313–14. 74. Peter J. Tomson, ‘Divorce Halakhah in Paul and the Jesus Tradition’, in Reimud Bieringer, Florentino García Marínez, Di dier Pollefeyt, and Peter J. Tomson (eds.), The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature (JSJSS 136; Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp.289–332 (311); cf. m. Gittin 9.10 (‘The school of Shammai say: One is not to divorce his wife except when he found indecency in her, as it is said: if he found in her an indecent… The school of Hillel say: Even if she spoilt his dish… R. Aqiba says: Even if he found another more beautiful than her, as it is said: and if she does not ¿nd grace in his eyes, etc.’; Tomson’s translation and italicization). 75. Ibid., pp.317–20. 1

22

Paul, Scribe of Old and New

B. Methodology It is useful at this point to offer a de¿nition of a number of terms featuring in this study. ‘The Early Church’ refers to the earliest Jewish congregations of the followers of Jesus in Palestine, independent of Paul and later Hellenistic development of the Church. ‘The Jesus tradition’ refers to the oral (or written) traditions passed down from the Early Church concerning the life and teaching of Jesus’. While ‘quotation’ is an explicit and verbatim citation of an archetext with or without an introductory formula, ‘allusion’ or ‘echo’ is an implicit and elusive citation of an archetext without quotation.76 ‘Eschaton’ means the end of time as the culmination of God’s decisive intervention in human history.77 I have to clarify what I mean by ‘rhetorical’ in this study. I am using the term ‘rhetorical’ in a general sense of the word (‘expressed in terms intended to persuade or impress’) without any particular association with Aristotle’s and Quintilian’s ideas about rhetoric—cf. Aristotle, Rhetorica 1.15; 2.21; Quintilian, Instutio Oratoria 1.8; 5.36-44. While valuing the insights from what Ben Witherington III and others call ‘socio-rhetorical criticism’, this study does not engage with them directly.78 As Dennis L. Stamps points out, ‘Further work needs to be done to determine if ancient Greco-Roman rhetorical theory sheds any further light on the use of quotations. But a quali¿cation is necessary: the generic differences between the NT and the Greco-Roman rhetorical writings need to be kept in view.’79 Christopher D. Stanley emphasizes 76. Porter distinguishes these two terms: ‘Allusion is concerned to bring an external person, place, or literary work into the contemporary text, whereas echo does not have the speci¿city of allusion but is reserved for language that is thematically related to a more general notion or concept’; Stanley E. Porter, ‘Allusions and Echoes’, in Porter and Stanley (eds.), As It Is Written, pp.29–40 (40). 77. This is the general sense of the word that I use in this study. This is not a study on New Testament eschatology per se. Since the word ‘eschatology’ is one of the most widely used words in New Testament studies, it is dif¿cult to provide its precise meaning out of its context. See the many de¿nitions of the word in N. T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God (COQG 2; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), p.208. 78. See Witherington, What’s in the Word, pp.1–17; John D. Harvey, Listening to the Text: Oral Patterning in Paul’s Letters (ETSSS 1; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), pp.1–35; Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (HUT 28; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), pp.1–64. 79. Dennis L. Stamps, ‘The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament as a Rhetorical Device: A Methodological Proposal’, in Porter (ed.), Hearing the Old Testament, pp.9–37 (33). 1

Introduction

23

the need to consider the rhetorical aspect of biblical quotation in early Judaism and Christianity.80 Claiming that ‘the subject is customarily treated rather brieÀy (if at all)’ in ancient literature, Stanley turns to what Eriksson calls ‘etic’ approaches that adapt modern categories and methods ‘to provide the best scienti¿c explanation of the persuasive strategies in the text’.81 While appreciating Stanley’s insights from modern linguistic studies of quotations, this study’s approach to Paul’s rhetorical use of quotations remains more basic than his sophisticated interdisciplinary approaches.82 I need to clarify two presuppositions for this study in order to limit its scope and present more focused discussion. First, I presuppose that, when Paul cites the Scriptures in Gal. 4.21-31; 1 Cor. 9.3-14; 10.1-22; 2 Cor. 3.7-18; Rom. 10.5-8, he refers to the Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures, not completely different from the critical editions of the Septuagint (such as Cambridge, Göttingen, and Rahlfs).83 In Chapter 3, along with Paul’s use of the Scriptures, I will discuss his use of what I consider to be contemporary Jewish exegetical traditions. These traditions are not attested in the Scriptures but represent some Jewish interpretive traditions of the Scriptures in Paul’s days. Since the forms of these traditions are unknown, my discussion inevitably will focus on Paul’s use of the Scriptures. I need to make a few preliminary notes on the term ‘the Septuagint’. As Stamps notes, ‘Historically, the canonical boundaries of the OT were not ¿xed at the time the NT authors were writing. While a concept of sacred writings was well established and the term “the Law and Prophets” was commonly used to designate such, the precise extent of this corpus was not established’.84 R. Timothy McLay also points out that the 80. Christopher D. Stanley, ‘The Rhetoric of Quotations: An Essay on Method’, in Evans and Sanders (eds.), Early Christian Interpretation, p.58. 81. Christopher D. Stanley, Arguing with Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of Paul (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), p.12; cf. Anders Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof: Pauline Argumentation in 1 Corinthians (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1998), p.21. 82. Cf. ‘The Dramaturgical Theory’, ‘The Proteus Principle’, ‘The Demonstration Theory’, and ‘The Parodic Approach’; Stanley, Arguing with Scripture, pp.22– 37. 83. Unless indicated otherwise, in this study I use NETS as the primary English translation of the LXX, and the NRSV as the primary English translation of the MT, the New Testament, and the Apocrypha. 84. Stamps, ‘Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament as a Rhetorical Device’, p.11. R. T. Beckwith af¿rms that the New Testament writers did not quote any of the Apocryphal or Pseudepigraphal writings as Scripture or Canon, even 1

24

Paul, Scribe of Old and New

‘pluriformity of the Scriptures’ better characterizes the transmission of the Old Testament texts than the uniformity of the Scriptures.85 As Stanley E. Porter comments, ‘There is, in fact, no evidence that there was anywhere a collection of Greek manuscripts spanning the entire Old Testament in Paul’s days. More than likely, people thought of the Greek text in terms of individual books and their respective scroll(s)—“the LXX” did not exist as a single volume until the propagation of the codex in the second century C.E.’.86 McLay addresses ‘a terminological dif¿culty’ related to various readings and printed editions of the LXX and refers to the LXX as ‘the general body of Greek Scriptures that existed in the NT period’ for the sake of convenience.87 Despite the fact that we cannot identify the precise text-types of Greek Scriptures, which Paul refers to in his letters, there is a general consensus that he primarily used the LXX (as the body of Greek Scriptures).88 At least in Paul’s use of the though there is ‘an occasional correspondence of thoughts which suggests a knowledge of some of them’; R. T. Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Background in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), p.387. Lee Martin McDonald in his seminal contribution to the Biblical Canon debate disagrees with Beckwith and claims, ‘Conversely, there are many allusions or references to noncanonical writings in the NT’; Lee Martin McDonald, The Biblical Canon (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2008), p.191. McDonald lists 549 allusions to Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal writings in the New Testament (Appendix D); McDonald, Biblical Canon, pp.452–64. While basing his claim on 549 allusions in his appendix to non-canonical writings, McDonald does not discuss any of the presumed links between the New Testament and non-canonical writings. The surprisingly high number of allusions to non-canonical writings in the New Testament seems suspicious and requires a careful case-by-case investigation. 85. McLay shows this in the case of the citation of Deut. 32.43 in Heb. 1.6—cf. 4QDeutq [1Q44]; Old Greek; Masoretic Text; R. Timothy McLay, ‘Biblical Texts and the Scriptures for the New Testament Church’, in Porter (ed.), Hearing the Old Testament, pp.38–58 (58). Note, similarly, Stamps, ‘Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament as a Rhetorical Device’, p.12; Timothy H. Lim, Holy Scripture in the Qumran Commentaries and Pauline Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p.160. 86. Stanley E. Porter, ‘Paul and His Bible: His Education and Access to the Scriptures of Israel’, in Porter and Stanley (eds.), As It Is Written, pp.97–124 (120– 1); similarly, Christopher D. Stanley, ‘“Pearls before Swine”: Did Paul’s Audience Understand His Biblical Quotations?’, NovT 41 (1999), pp.124–44 (127). 87. R. Timothy McLay, The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), pp.6–7. 88. As Stanley points out, ‘A careful study of the textual af¿nities of Paul’s assured quotations shows agreements with a wide variety of manuscripts and texttypes of the Greek Jewish Scriptures. Though his primary text is clearly that Greek translation known today as the “Septuagint” (LXX), a number of Paul’s quotations 1

Introduction

25

Scriptures in the ¿ve passages (Gal. 4.21-31; 1 Cor. 9.3-14; 10.1-22; 2 Cor. 3.7-18; Rom. 10.5-13), as we will see in Chapter 3, we can see how and why Paul could have modi¿ed Greek texts similar to the versions of the LXX known to us. Timothy H. Lim rightly warns, ‘Greater caution must be exercised in describing biblical quotations in the Pauline letters as a whole to be Septuagintal, since such a textual characterization assumes that the citations agree with the Septuagint over and against the MT, Samaritan, and all other text-types and recensions’.89 I will take Lim’s warning seriously and have in mind all text-types relevant to my discussion. Without negating the textual diversity of Greek Scriptures, however, I will follow McLay’s pragmatic convention of calling the general body of Greek Scriptures available to Paul ‘the LXX’ for the sake of convenience. Jonathan D. H. Norton recently (2011) criticized previous text-critical studies of Paul’s use of the Scriptures and argued that ‘the exegetical use of alternative forms of the same passage can be discussed in terms of “sense contours”, which are distinct semantic properties of alternative forms of the same passage’.90 Norton states: I have proposed a shift in our approach to the question of Paul’s awareness of textual plurality. This entails a broader methodological adjustment. Expedients of text-critical enquiry must not be allowed arbitrarily to constrict historical efforts to understand Paul’s attitudes, and the awareness and uses of texts by ancient people at large… I have therefore argued that understanding Paul’s awareness and use of textual plurality entails location of his references to scripture within the semantic framework of ancient exegetes.91

I cannot discuss Norton’s work in detail here, but a brief comment in relation to this study is necessary. While Norton’s proposal that, with respect to Paul’s use of the Scriptures, we must shift gears from a textcritical investigation to a sense-critical investigation should be taken agree with readings preserved in only a minority traditions within the text-history of the LXX’; Christopher D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature (SNTSMS 74; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p.254; similarly, Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon (trans. Mark E. Biddle; London: T&T Clark International, 2004), p.22; Lim, Holy Scripture in the Qumran Commentaries and Pauline Letters, p.142. 89. Ibid., pp.140–1. 90. Jonathan D. H. Norton, Contours in the Text: Textual Variation in the Writings of Paul, Josephus and the YaÜad (LNTS 430; London: T&T Clark International, 2011), p.179. 91. Ibid., pp.180–1. 1

26

Paul, Scribe of Old and New

seriously, it does not affect substantially the ¿ndings of this study. Regardless of the precise text-types of the Scriptures Paul had in mind in the ¿ve cases, as we will see later, how and why he would have modi¿ed them to the present forms seem relatively clear. In fact, despite my textcritical presupposition, my investigation in this study will turn out to be thoroughly sense-critical as it focuses on Paul’s ad hoc rhetorical purposes in using the Scriptures. In addition to my presupposition of Paul’s use of the LXX, I accept a modi¿ed version of the so-called Two-Source Theory with regards to the Synoptic Problem, presupposing that Matthew and Luke depended on the Gospel of Mark and (oral) Q and wrote independently of each other.92 I consider my view as a modi¿ed version because I seriously consider the possibility that certain materials in M or L may have been derived from the Early Church traditions (ex traditionibus) and not created by the Evangelists out of nothing (ex nihilo).93 Many interesting alternative theories concerning the Synoptic Problem have emerged in recent years but I will not interact with them in this study.94 As I have mentioned earlier, Kelber severely criticizes the form-critical premise of many modern New Testament studies. Observing that ‘there is no room in this 92. We can never be sure whether a hypothetical source such as Q independently existed as a text or not, despite the enthusiasm in recent Q research; cf. J. M. Robinson, P. Hoffmann, and J. S. Kloppenborg (eds.), The Critical Edition of Q (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), p.xv. The question of the independent existence of Q or its form does not seriously affect my discussion in this study, as much as the fact that Matthew and Luke shared certain sources with each other. 93. Similarly, Armin D. Baum, Der mündliche Faktor und seine Bedeutung für die synoptische Frage: Analogien aus der antiken Literatur, der Experimentalpsychologie, der Oral Poetry-Forschung und dem rabbinischen Traditionswesen (Tübingen: Francke, 2008), pp.415–17. I am critical of Tuckett’s implicit assumption that all material unique to Matthew (M) or Luke (L) is inevitably the Evangelist’s creation, simply because it is not attested in Mark or Q; Christopher M. Tuckett, ‘Synoptic Tradition in 1 Thessalonians?’, in Raymond F. Collins (ed.), The Thessalonian Correspondence (BETL 87; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1990), pp.160–82 (176–82). 94. E.g. Delbert Burkett, Rethinking the Gospel Sources: From Proto-Mark to Mark (NTG; London: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp.133–42; Mark Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem: A Way through the Maze (BSem 80; London: Shef¿eld Academic Press, 2001), pp.162–6; William R. Farmer, ‘The Case for the TwoGospel Hypothesis’, in David Alan Black and David R. Beck (eds.), Rethinking the Synoptic Problem (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), pp.97–135; Michael Goulder, Luke: A New Paradigm, vol. 2 (JSNTSup 20; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1989), pp.22–3; cf. Tuckett’s criticism of the Griesbach hypothesis in Christopher M. Tuckett, The Revival of the Griesbach Hypothesis: An Analysis and Appraisal (SNTSMS 44; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 1

Introduction

27

model [Two-Source Theory] for orality, for memorial process, for social engagement, for mental compositional activities, and extratextual sensibilities of any kind’, Kelber concludes that it ‘is inadequate at best and seriously misleading at most’.95 I can only make here a few preliminary remarks on the approaches taken by Kelber and his followers. First, while accepting Kelber’s call for a paradigm shift concerning the early Christian oral media, I do not ¿nd his reconstruction of the history of the early Jesus movement very persuasive. Beyond the novelty of the call that we need to take seriously the oral dimension of early Christian media, the fact that all we have is textual evidence remains unchanged. Reconstructing the history of early Christian media with insights from various modern cultural studies has its limits along with bene¿ts. Secondly, Kelber’s strong negativism toward the ‘original’ Jesus tradition—which resonates with that of Bultmann and his followers—is unwarranted. Robert K. McIver in a recent study persuasively has shown that ‘there are strict limits to innovations that can be introduced into the collective memory that any group has for its founder. Any newly introduced materials must be consistent with what is remembered of the founder’s doings and sayings’.96 Kenneth E. Bailey in his cultural study also has demonstrated that oral media in the Middle East shows surprising stability concerning its contents.97 Contrary to Kelber’s one-sided emphasis on the pluformity of the Hebrew Scriptures, the fact that corrupt manuscripts were stored in a genizah—as in the case of Old Cairo Genizah—to be annihilated later indicates that textual Àuidity in ancient Judaism had its limits.98 Thirdly, Kelber in his discussion does not seem to differentiate the contents of oral communication. It is dif¿cult to imagine that ancient Jews would have had the same attitude toward the Torah as to Homeric epics. I hope to engage in in-depth dialogue with Kelber and his followers in a subsequent publication and relate the ¿ndings and implications of this study to their contributions to the orality, performance, and memory of the Jesus tradition. On the one hand, it goes beyond the scope of this study to defend Two-Source 95. Werner H. Kelber, ‘The Works of Memory: Christian Origins and Mnemohistory—A Response’, in Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher (eds.), Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity (Semeia 52; Atlanta: SBL, 2005), pp.240–1. 96. McIver, Memory, Jesus, and the Synoptic Gospels, p.186. 97. Kenneth E. Bailey, Poet and Peasant and through Peasant Eyes: A LiteraryCultural Approach to the Parables in Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), pp.27– 43. 98. Cf. Kelber, ‘The Oral–Scribal–Memorial Arts of Communication in Early Christianity’, pp.255–6. 1

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Paul, Scribe of Old and New

Theory or its form-critical premise. On the other hand, however, unless we accept Kelber’s extremely agnostic view concerning the form of the Jesus tradition, as we will see later, comparing Paul’s use of the Scriptures and his use of what appears to be the Jesus tradition illuminates the fundamental orientation of his hermeneutics in relation to authoritative traditions. The principal approach of this study is historical-grammatical criticism. In addition, form criticism, source criticism, and redaction criticism will be applied in parts whenever needed. While this study does not concern canonical criticism per se, its methodology is similar to James A. Sanders’ methodology called ‘comparative midrash’—a principal tool for his approach to canonical criticism. Sanders de¿nes ‘comparative midrash’ as follows: ‘the discipline by which to trace the Nachleben of Scripture through early Jewish literature into the Christian and rabbinic periods is comparative midrash—the comparative study of each instance the same passage or ¿gure was “drashed” [