Paul The Pharisee

These are the notes for the next in the series of studies on the Apostle Paul a group of seniors in Glen Abbey United Church, Oakville, Ontario, Canada   is working through with considerable diligence. These notes are also posted on the website of the congregation: glenabbeyunitedchurch.com . They may be used with attribution by anyone who so desires.

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In Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism (Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013) James D.G. Dunn, of Durham University, England, reviewed the timeline of Paul’s life and ministry – “subject to some dispute,” as he said. Probably no subject is still more uncertain than this.

·         Born in Tarsus, Cilicia                   c. 1 BCE – 2 CE

·         Education in Jerusalem                     c. 12 – 26 CE

·         Persecution of Hellenists                           31-32 CE

·         Conversion                                                    32 CE

·         Flight from Damascus to Jerusalem         34/35 CE

·         Missionary of the church of Antioch        34 – 35 CE

·                                                                  and 47/48 CE

·         Jerusalem Council, incident at Antioch     47-48 CE

·         Mission in Corinth [wrote 1 & 2 (?) Thessalonians,              

·                                                         Galatians]

·         Third visit to Jerusalem and Antioch        51/52 CE

·         Mission in Ephesus                           52/53 – 55 CE

·                   [wrote 1 & 2 Corinthians]

·         Corinth [wrote Romans]                            56/57 CE

·         Final trip to Jerusalem and arrest                  57 CE

·         Detention in Jerusalem and Caesarea       57-59 CE

·         Attempt to sail to Rome                                  59 CE

·         Arrival in Rome                                              60 CE

·         House arrest in Rome                                60-62 CE

·                [wrote Philemon, Philippians, Colossians (?)]

·         Execution                                                   62 CE (?)

Another major scholarly debate surrounds the question of how much change Paul brought to the early church during his thirty year ministry. Unlike his master, Gamaliel I, the leading Pharisee rabbi of his era, Paul at first adamantly rejected the idea that Jesus was the Messiah. Yet the earliest believers were able to make this claim “without serious opposition,” Dunn asserts, “for almost all of the 35 years following Jesus’ crucifixion.”

Dunn further says that the Hellenists (Greek-speaking Jews in Jerusalem) supported Stephen who suffered martyrdom for his irreverence toward the temple and preaching that Jesus was the true Messiah. (Acts 6:8-8:1) As a Diaspora Jew with Pharisaic passion, Paul would have been horrified, thus explaining his anger and violence toward the Hellenists.

His zealous persecution of these messianic followers of Jesus came from his desire “to defend and preserve Israel’s holiness and set-apartness.” It was not surprising, therefore, that his conversion was a stunning event for the earliest Christians as for Paul himself.

James D. Tabor goes further in discussing Paul’s effect on the Jesus’ movement. (Paul and Jesus: How The Apostle Transformed Christianity. New York: Simon & Shuster, 2012.) Tabor argues that Paul was the true founder of Christianity as we know it today. James, Peter and the other apostles “held to a Jewish version of the Christian faith that faded away and was forgotten due to the total triumph of Paul`s version of Christianity.”

In his Paul and Palestinian Judaism. (SCM Press, 1977) E.P. Sanders pointed out that the religious system of the Jews depended on the covenant law set forth in the Torah while Paul proposed that it depended on faith that Jesus is the Messiah/Christ who gives new life to all believers. A new book Paul and the Faithfulness of God by N.T. Wright, (Fortress Press, 2013) may offer some promising new data on the tradition.