[Oe List ...] 11/05/09, Spong: The Origins of the New Testament, Part V: Interpreting the Life of Paul

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Eternal Life: A New Vision Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell
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Thursday November 05, 2009 


The Origins of the New Testament
Part V: Interpreting the Life of Paul


The first person to crack the silence and write anything that we still possess about Jesus of Nazareth was the man known as Saul of Tarsus, who later changed his name to Paul. His conversion to being a believer in and a disciple of Jesus occurred, according to the work of the 20th century church historian Adolf Harnack, between one and six years after Jesus' crucifixion. If we adopt the generally accepted date of 30 CE for the crucifixion, then Paul's conversion would be located between the years 31 and 36. The story of that conversion, with which most people are familiar, is hardly history, since it was written by the author of the book of Acts more than thirty years after Paul's death and perhaps sixty years after his conversion. I doubt if Paul would have recognized any of those details. In his own authentic writings Paul never refers to a life-changing experience on the road to Damascus. He never mentions the bright light that supposedly rendered him temporarily blind, or the vision he was supposed to have had, which involved a conversation with Jesus, or his baptism at the hands of Ananias. I suspect that the narrative in Acts was a fantasy created by Luke to give content to what Paul does say about his pre-Christian life. In his Epistle to the Galatians, written in the early 50's, Paul writes, "You have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God violently and tried to destroy it." Perhaps the closest Paul ever comes to describing his conversion experience occurred when writing to the church in Corinth: "I know a man in Christ," he said, "who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven — whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise… and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter." Whenever there is a conflict between an account of Paul's activity as recorded in the book of Acts and the authentic writings of Paul himself, the weight of scholarship always comes down on the side of Paul's own work. 
>From autobiographical notes found in his Epistles we get the picture of Paul as a religiously zealous student, devoted to the Torah and proud of his Jewish heritage. He calls himself "a Hebrew of the Hebrews" and a "son of Abraham." It was into this Jewish faith tradition that he was born and from which in his mind he never left since he saw Jesus as the fulfillment of both the law and the prophets. Paul says of himself, I was "circumcised on the eighth day." He identifies himself as "a member of the tribe of Benjamin" and as "a Pharisee." He calls himself "blameless under the law," and claims that he actually advanced far beyond his peers in the pursuit of holiness. He presents himself as the star pupil in the rabbinical school, so it should surprise no one that he came to understand Jesus by applying familiar Jewish symbols to him. By studying Paul carefully we can begin to regain the perspective that Paul had, namely that Jesus was a Jew, as were his disciples and all of the writers of the books that now constitute the New Testament. The followers of Jesus were at the time of Paul regular worshipers in the synagogue. That is indeed, as I have suggested in a previous column, the setting in which the oral tradition developed. Christianity did not become a religion separate from Judaism until the latter years of the ninth decade, by which time we need to understand that at least the gospels of Mark and Matthew were written, and perhaps even Luke. John is thus the only gospel clearly written after the synagogue and the church had split. So during the years in which Paul was writing, the disciples of Jesus, known then as the "Followers of the Way," were still members of the synagogue. Paul can thus only be properly understood when we hear his words in this Jewish context.
In the epistle that we today call I Corinthians, Paul suggests that the two principle events in the life of Jesus, namely the crucifixion and the resurrection, happened "in accordance with the scriptures." The only scriptures that existed at that time and thus the only thing to which he could have been referring were the books of what we now call the Old Testament. Paul had obviously used the Jewish sacred writings to help him interpret Jesus. The first layer of interpretation that was laid on the memory of Jesus was to see him as the fulfillment of these scriptures. The earliest interpreters of the meaning of Jesus were Jewish people who saw him as their expected messiah who would bring about the Kingdom of God. That was why they wrapped the images found in the Old Testament around him. Separating the person of history named Jesus from the interpretations applied to him by zealous followers based on the scriptures is not now and never has been easy. The death of Jesus was given purpose primarily under the influence of the writings of a prophet we call II Isaiah (Is. 40-55). This unnamed person, whose words were attached to the scroll of Isaiah, thus giving us his name II Isaiah, wrote after the devastation of the Babylonian Exile, to paint a new vocation for the people of Israel in their defeat. They could no longer aspire to greatness. II Isaiah thus drew a portrait of one he called the "Servant" and called the Jews to emulate this figure. The "Servant" found the meaning of his life not in victory or glory, but by absorbing the world's pain, bearing the world's hostility and even by enduring death handed out by the world and transforming it into life-giving love. It was the "Servant" vocation to draw negativity from the people of the world and to leave them whole. This understanding of the crucifixion to which Paul was alluding wh en he said that Jesus died "in accordance with the scriptures" was destined to grow and to find an even fuller expression by the time the gospels were written.
It was not just the scriptures but the worship life of the synagogue that also shaped Paul's understanding and interpretation of the life of Jesus. When Paul said that Jesus "died for our sins," he was quoting directly from the liturgical day in the Jewish liturgical year known as Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. In synagogue worship on that once-a-year holy day an innocent lamb, chosen for its physical perfection, was sacrificed "to atone for the sins of the people." The blood of the animal would then be smeared on the mercy seat of God in the Holy of Holies, that part of the Temple where God was believed to live. The blood of the sacrificed animal was supposed to make it possible for the people to enter God's presence for they traveled "through the blood of the Lamb" and thus had their sins covered by the lamb's innocence. So far as we know from the available written records it was with Paul that the death of Jesus came to be viewed through the lens of the sacrifice of Yom Kippur. When Catholic Christians say today that in the Eucharist "the sacrifice of the mass" is reenacted, or when Protestant Christians say, "Jesus died for my sins," they are both reflecting in a literalized form this early identification of Jesus with the sacrificial lamb of the Day of Atonement. Paul has clearly made this identification in his epistles.
By the time the gospels are composed, well after Paul's death, the crucifixion has also become located inside another Jewish liturgical celebration that we call the Passover. Mark, Matthew and Luke have identified the Last Supper as a Passover meal. That was a post-Pauline development of which Paul was certainly not aware. Paul dates the institution of the Last Supper only with the words that it occurred on "the night in which he was handed over." Later in I Corinthians (5:7) Paul calls Jesus the "new paschal lamb." The gospels exploited that identification to locate the crucifixion in the season of Passover.
Paul saw in the death of the Passover lamb as well as in the death of Jesus an action in which the power of death itself was broken. Recall that, according to the book of Exodus, it was when the people of Israel placed the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts of their homes that the angel of death "passed over" and death was banished from their households. Paul was suggesting that long before the crucifixion story was identified with the Passover, in the death of Jesus the cross had become the doorpost of the world and the blood of the new paschal lamb on that cross also broke the power of death for all who came to God through the life of this Jesus.
So in the writings of Paul we get the sense that the memory of Jesus was interpreted through the Jewish Scriptures and related to the synagogue's liturgical cycle with its holy days like Yom Kippur and Passover. That identification will expand greatly by the time the gospels are written. Paul is thus the first window into this Jewish interpretative clue, but it will grow and develop as the New Testament and the Christian creeds come into being, well after Paul's death.
There is one other detail in Paul that we need to examine before we begin to look at his writings in more detail. It is found in his constant denigration of himself found throughout his epistles. I refer to such words as "O, wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death (Rom, 7:24)," or "I am carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate (Rom. 7:14-15)." "I can will what is right but I cannot do it (Rom. 7:18)."
Do these words fit a pattern? If so, what do they reveal? We will look at that next week.

– John Shelby Spong
 




Question and Answer 
With John Shelby Spong



Randy, via the Internet, writes:
I am a 50-year-old man born and raised in Texas. As a child I went to a traditional Baptist church. It seemed to me at the time that the people who spoke one way on Sunday did not act that way Monday through Saturday, and I lost interest as I got older. I felt a strong spiritual connection through my young adult years that I could never quite express or understand. In 2002 my wife and I sought out a hypnotist to stop smoking. It turned out (coincidence or Divine appointment — my thinking is Divine appointment) that she was a gifted spiritual teacher. After working on some other lifestyle and family issues with her, we really liked the personal accountability for creating our own lives through our thoughts and actions we found with her. In seeking out other like-minded individuals, she introduced us to the Unity Church. We have been involved in Unity studies since and I also play guitar every Sunday in the band at Unity Dallas now. Unity is how I first heard of you and subscribed to your newsletter several years ago and really enjoy it. I have read your praise of the Unity movement several times as a progressive way to look at Christianity and spirituality. You also do not seem to subscribe to much "magical" thinking, such as the virgin birth, physically raised from the dead, etc. Some of my favorite current authors are Deepak Chopra, Gregg Braden, Neale Donald Walsh, Eckhart Tolle and Abraham-Hicks, to name a few. So my question is: How do you see the possibilities of the unseen and unknown, such as mysticism and non-physical entities? Most of the people around the Unity Movement seem to embrace an unseen world and the possibility of miracles yet believe in science, evolution, etc.
Randy, via the Internet, writes:
I am a 50-year-old man born and raised in Texas. As a child I went to a traditional Baptist church. It seemed to me at the time that the people who spoke one way on Sunday did not act that way Monday through Saturday, and I lost interest as I got older. I felt a strong spiritual connection through my young adult years that I could never quite express or understand. In 2002 my wife and I sought out a hypnotist to stop smoking. It turned out (coincidence or Divine appointment — my thinking is Divine appointment) that she was a gifted spiritual teacher. After working on some other lifestyle and family issues with her, we really liked the personal accountability for creating our own lives through our thoughts and actions we found with her. In seeking out other like-minded individuals, she introduced us to the Unity Church. We have been involved in Unity studies since and I also play guitar every Sunday in the band at Unity Dallas now. Unity is how I first heard of you and subscribed to your newsletter several years ago and really enjoy it. I have read your praise of the Unity movement several times as a progressive way to look at Christianity and spirituality. You also do not seem to subscribe to much "magical" thinking, such as the virgin birth, physically raised from the dead, etc. Some of my favorite current authors are Deepak Chopra, Gregg Braden, Neale Donald Walsh, Eckhart Tolle and Abraham-Hicks, to name a few. So my question is: How do you see the possibilities of the unseen and unknown, such as mysticism and non-physical entities? Most of the people around the Unity Movement seem to embrace an unseen world and the possibility of miracles yet believe in science, evolution, etc.




Dear Randy,
Mysticism is a powerful movement, which fascinates and attracts me. I do not, however, believe everything that goes under the general banner of mysticism. There is sometimes a fine line drawn between what some people call "spiritual experiences" and what others might call "mental illness." The claim that one can "channel for another," gain a pathway into the future or even to receive a concrete answer from the realm of the dead is to me bizarre to say the least.
I am attracted to the Unity Movement on many levels and have found wholeness of both body and mind in their congregations. Their quest for knowledge is impressive. Their joy in life aids wholeness. Their concentration on what Matthew Fox called "original blessing" rather than on original sin is a welcome relief. I think their emphasis on the enhancement of life rather than the denigration of life must be found in the Christianity of the future. I call Unity my second spiritual home. So I am delighted that you have found a place within that tradition.
Unity is just now beginning to deal with issues of biblical scholarship and it has not yet begun to look at the meaning of the sacraments. Both of those things will, I believe come with time. My sense is that Unity often reaches those who have been hurt by or wounded in traditional Christian churches, so I am grateful for the ministry they do for all of us. They offer love and healing with no strings attached. That is a terrific gift. My life has been deeply enriched by Unity and I treasure my relationship with them.

– John Shelby Spong








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