Did Paul found Christianity?…ask the rabbi
Q. Is it true that Christianity was founded by Paul after his break from Judaism?…ask the Rabbi.
PAUL & JUDAISM
Rabbi Raymond Apple
A. The general view is that Paul was a Jew who turned against his people, rejected Judaism and claimed that God had rejected the Jews.
Paul Johnson argues in his History of Christianity that Paul was “the first and greatest Christian personality”, who “moved right across the religious conspectus, from strict legalism to a complete repudiation of the law – the first Christian to do so”. Johnson adds that “Paul’s gospel… could be seen to be alien to traditional Jewish thinking of any tendency even though it contained Jewish elements.”
This makes Paul a former Jew now speaking of Judaism from without, who has become an enemy of Judaism and a harsh critic of Jewish law.
Another scholar, Hyman Maccoby, does not even concede that Paul was a former Jew. He believes that Paul, despite his own claims, was not a Pharisee, lacked an extensive knowledge of Judaism, may not even have been Jewish, and was probably “a Hellenistic adventurer, on the fringes of Judaism”.
Most scholars do not go so far, but, like Marvin Wilson, see in him both continuity and discontinuity with Judaism. Paul himself sometimes praises Judaism and says he delights in the Jewish law (Rom. 7:22), yet he also says a change has happened in his life and he is different from “when I was still a practising Jew” (Gal. 1:13). This is one of many inconsistencies which, added to Paul’s love of sweeping statements, is a problem for the scholar.
Paul quotes the Torah some eighty times. But the more he becomes a follower of Jesus, the more negative he is towards the law. He believes the commandments – whilst not in themselves sinful – have created sin: without the law against coveting one might never have known what it was to covet.
He thinks Jews observe the law not out of love of God but for the sake of a reward, to be “justified”, whatever that means, in the sight of the Almighty. Rather than Moses who brought the law to Israel, Paul prefers Abraham, who “had faith in the Lord” – though the verse about Abraham’s faith probably refers to the patriarch’s fidelity, not his faith in the theological sense.
Paul is an orator, not a teacher. He is addressing an audience. But which audience? Sometimes it is his fellow-Jews, and if he criticises them it is “in club”; he is a follower of Jesus but not an outsider.
Jewish scholarship, of course, rejects his criticisms and takes issue with him on many counts. Not for one moment can it accept his claim that through the Torah Jews try to bribe their way into God’s favour, nor agree that the law is a barrier to communion with the Divine.
Other speeches and letters are addressed to gentile audiences. But not all the Jesus group of the time agreed with him that gentiles could become Christians without being Jewish first. The Judaisers said the way to Christianity had to be through Judaism – circumcision, kashrut, etc.; but this view was not for Paul, and his negativity about circumcision not only reassured gentiles apprehensive about the operation but was also a retort to the Judaisers. He said that if gentiles adopted some commandments they had to adopt the whole Torah, and this might not overcome the human tendency to sin.
The parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity was not necessarily something Paul expected, even though he facilitated it. Nor would he necessarily have foreseen the anti-Judaism that became endemic in Christianity.
ONE CHILD RULE
Q. I hear that in China parents are punished if they have more than one child. Is there a Jewish view of this rule?
A. Decidedly. We would have not the slightest thought of introducing a similar law in a Jewish country or community. Admittedly, the Chinese have a major problem of over-population, which we do not have. Our problem as Jews is the opposite – under-population.
As far as we are concerned, the Torah clearly lays down the rule, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). The Talmud in Y’vamot (61) adds that this mitzvah applies both when a person is young and when they are old. Even someone who is divorced or widowed is duty-bound to marry again and hopefully to fulfil the commandment. When the Torah says, “It is not good for Adam to be alone” (Gen. 2:18), it does not only mean a young Adam but even a middle-aged or elderly one.
A Jew who says, “One child or no children for me”, is not fulfilling Jewish law and teaching. A Jew who says, “There are so many people in China or India, so why should I add to the world population?” has his own Jewish problems to solve. It is not his task to sort out the Chinese or Indians.
Rabbi Apple served for 32 years as the chief minister of the Great Synagogue, Sydney, Australia’s oldest and most prestigious congregation. He was Australia’s highest profile rabbi and held many public roles. He is now retired and lives in Jerusalem. Rabbi Apple blogs at http://www.oztorah.com
Nice to see some defense of Rabbi Sha’ul. Although I think it could be stronger. “The parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity was not necessarily something Paul expected, even though he facilitated it. Nor would he necessarily have foreseen the anti-Judaism that became endemic in Christianity.” Not sure that I agree he facilitated it. However, he did warn the gentiles not to Lord it over people and to remember that they were the wild olive branch grafted into Israel, that they didn’t support the root, rather the root supported them.
As with most of God’s warnings, for both Jew and Gentile, they tend to be ignored. Looking at Paul from a Hebraic perspective makes him thoroughly Jewish, his teaching consistent with Torah and very unChristian, no matter what the Christians may say. (From a gentile God fearer and ex Christian)
Perhaps Paul founded Christianity. But Augustine is generally considered the founder of the Church. While Paul rejected Judaic Law, Augustine with his “eternal witness” dictum, cast Jews into homeless, loathed pariahs which has dominated European politics, art, literature and anti Israelism to this day. This particular aspect of Augustine needs to be formally repudiated by the church if genuine inter faith dialogue is to progress. The seeds of Augustine are very much evident in the EU and its treatment of Israel, as the Jewish Homeland. . Hence Israel is treated as a pariah nation, the “eternal witness ” of the international community.
There is absolutely no historical evidence whatsoever, that the person called Jesus who appears in the book known as the New Testament, ever existed.
In fact of the 42 historians who lived at the time, none mention this so called “miracle worker”, “king of the Jews” and other descriptions attributed to him.
Philo, whose writings were in fact preserved by the early Christians, and who lived in Jerusalem during the period that Jesus was apparently operating, and who reported on every detail of significance that occurred in the city at that time, does not mention him.
Paul, Saul of Tarsis, made up a false faith based on falsehood. By his own admission, he neither knew or met Jesus.
However, having said all that, if one wishes to believe in the existence of Jesus, one need look no further than Mathew where Jesus in his sermon on the mount states that he has not come to change the law but to strengthen it.
That law was Torah law.
So if you believe in Jesus, you have to accept the Torah. If you accept Pauls teachings, then you are going against everything that Jesus believed in.