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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
There is not the slightest doubt about the immense significance of Paul's Damascus experience. It changed Paul's life and turned a persecutor into a missionary. Jesus Christ became and remained the centre of Paul's existence.
It is another question, however, to what extent Paul's theology was conceived soon after the call experience.1 Was Paul's peculiar view of the law as found in Galatians or in Romans an immediate consequence of his Christophany? That is at least a very common view.2 Paul's call experience resulted, it is held, in his making immediately a sharp contrast between ‘works of righteousness’ and ‘righteousness by faith’. In his Damascus experience Paul perceived that Christ was the end of the law and God's judgment ‘upon all human accomplishment and boasting’3. It is also commonly held that that experience made Paul regard the law as a ‘spur to sin’, from which the death and resurrection of Christ had liberated the believers.
[1] No distinction will be made in this paper between ‘call’ and ‘conversion’, Of course Paul did not convert from one religion to another, but it is correct to speak of a ‘stress experience’ that led to a ‘reversal or transvaluation of values’ which is most conveniently referred to as ‘conversion’; cf. Gager, J. G., ‘Some Notes on Paul's Conversion’, NTS 27 (1981) 699–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Paul himself stresses the transvaluation aspect in Phil 3, whereas in Gal 1 he depicts the event more as a ‘call’. We will see that the call to a task more or less coincided with the conversion event.
[2] Cf. Kim, S., The Origin of Paul's Gospel (WUNT, 2. Reihe 4: Tübingen, 1984 2) 269 and the literature referred to in 269 n. 1Google Scholar; Stuhlmacher, P., Versöhnung, Gesetz und Gerechtigkeit (Göttingen, 1981) 89–91Google Scholar; Luck, U., ‘Die Bekehrung des Paulus und das paulinische Evangelium’, ZNW 76 (1985) 200–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dietzfelbmger, Chr., Die Berufung des Paulus als Ursprung seiner Theologie (WMANT 58: Neukirchen, 1985) 95–147.Google Scholar
[3] Bultmann, R., Theology of the New Testament (New York, 1951–1955) 188.Google Scholar
[4] Kim, , Origin, 53, 280–1.Google Scholar
[5] Enslin, M. S., The Ethics of Paul (New York/London, 1930) 11–12.Google Scholar
[6] Wrede, W., Paulus (Halle, 1904) 84Google Scholar; Strecker, G., Eschaton und Historie (Göttingen, 1979) 230–1Google Scholar; Schnelle, U., Gerechtigkeit und Christusgegenwart (GTA 24: Göttingen, 1986 2) 100 ff.Google Scholar; Schulz, S., ‘Der frühe und der späte Paulus’, ThZ 41 (1985) 230–1.Google Scholar
[7] See Räisänen, H., Paul and the Law (WUNT 29: Tübingen, 1983) 1–15.Google Scholar
[8] So even Kim, , Origin, 346.Google Scholar
[9] See Räisänen, , Paul, 3 f.Google Scholar with n. 29, with reference to Conzelmann, O'Neill, and Bring.
[10] Räisänen, , Paul, 203–28.Google Scholar
[11] Cf. Räisänen, , Paul, 253 f.Google Scholar
[12] Cf. Bultmann, , Theology, 187:Google Scholar Paul ‘was won to the Christian faith by the kerygma of the Hellenistic Church’. I do not understand why Gager, ‘Note’, 702 rejects Bultmann's statement, after having himself stressed (699) the significance of the ‘intense emotional bond … between the subject and the object of the anger’ (which Paul showed in his activities as a persecutor).
[13] Contra Strecker, Eschaton, 231Google Scholar; Schnelle, , Gerechtigkeit, 99–100.Google Scholar For my perception of the ‘Hellenists’ see ‘“The Hellenists” – a Bridge Between Jesus and Paul?’, in: Räisänen, H., The Torah and Christ (Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 45: Helsinki 1986) 242–306.Google Scholar This collection of articles is best available from the publisher (address: Neitsytpolku lb, 00140 Helsinki).
[14] In a polemical postscript Kim, Origin, 345 ff.Google Scholar calls me to task for not exegeting the ‘call’ passages in Paul and the Law. I hope that this paper will serve to fill that gap in my argument. For a fuller treatment which includes a detailed reply to Kim's allegations see my article ‘Paul's Call Experience and His Later View of the Law’, in: The Torah and Christ, 55–92.
[15] Hübner, H., Das Gesetz bei Paulus (FRLANT 119: Göttingen, 1980 2)Google Scholar; Wilckens, U., ‘Zur Entwicklung des paulinischen Gesetzesverständnisses’, NTS 28 (1982) 154–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jewett, R., ‘The Law and the Coexistence of Jews and Gentiles in Romans’, Interpretation 39 (1985) 342.Google Scholar
[16] See Räisänen, H., ‘Römer 9–11, Analyse eines geistigen Ringens’, in: Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 11, 25, 4 (forthcoming in 1987).Google Scholar
[17] Cf. e.g. Walter, N., ‘Zur Interpretation von Römer 9–11’, ZThK 81 (1984) 176.Google Scholar
[18] Cf. Noack, B., ‘Current and Backwater in the Epistle to the Romans’, Studia Theologica 19 (1965) 165–6.Google Scholar
[19] The thesis of Lüdemann, G., Paulus, der Heidenapostel I (FRLANT 123: Göttingen, 1980)Google Scholar; Schnelle, , Gerechtigkeit, 255 n. 33.Google Scholar
[20] Strecker, , Eschaton, 235.Google Scholar
[21] Contra Duncan, G. S., The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians (MNTC: London, 1944) 28Google Scholar; Oepke, A., Der Brief des Paulus an die Galater (ThHK 9: Berlin, 1979 4) 61.Google ScholarDupont, J., ‘The Conversion of Paul, and its Influence on his Understanding of Salvation by Faith’, in: Apostolic History and the Gospel (Fs. F. F. Bruce, Grand Rapids, 1970) 193Google Scholar, also denies that the injunction to evangelize the Gentiles was given to Paul ‘explicitly’ at the time of his conversion experience; he is followed by Gager, art. cit. 698. But Dupont adds that Paul was ‘none the less convinced that his call to the apostleship of the Gentiles was bound up with the experience of Damascus’ which implied more than the recognition that Jesus was the Messiah.
[22] See the discussion of Gal 5. 11, 6. 12; 1 Thess 2. 16; 2 Cor 11. 24 in Sanders, E. P., Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia, 1983) 190 f.Google Scholar It would seem that the same kind of laxity with regard to the ‘ritual’ Torah in the context of the Gentile mission later brought on Paul himself the punishment of thirty-nine stripes which, then, does not prove that Paul's critique of the law followed immediately from his Damascus experience; contra Stuhlmacher, , Versöhnung, 91.Google Scholar
[23] Cf. Strecker, , Eschaton, 235–6.Google Scholar
[24] The significance of the Antiochian incident is underlined by Dunn, J. D. G., ‘The New Perspective on Paul’, BJRL 65 (1983) 103–18.Google Scholar Some of Dunn's conclusions are adventurous, however; cf. Räisänen, H., ‘Galatians 2.16 and Paul's Break with Judaism’, NTS 31 (1985) 543–53 = The Torah and Christ (n. 13) 168–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[25] Contra Kim, Origin (n. 2) 352.Google Scholar
[26] Cf. Dunn, J. D. G., ‘Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law (Galatians 3. 10–14)’, NTS 31 (1985) 537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[27] Watson, F., Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles (SNTS MS: Cambridge, 1986), 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, maintains that Gal 1. 16 ‘cannot be safely used as evidence for Paul's self-understanding at the time of his conversion’. ‘All we know of Paul's conversion is how he chose to understand it in polemical contexts many years later.’ I will suggest below (cf. n. 33) that this caveat is more pertinent to Phil 3.
[28] Kim, , Origin, 58f.Google Scholar
[29] See e.g. Beare, F. W., The Epistle to the Philippians (BNTC: London, 1959) 106Google Scholar; Ernst, J., Der Brief an die Philipper (RNT: Regensburg, 1974) 98.Google Scholar
[30] Kim, , Origin, 352.Google Scholar
[31] Cf. Strecker, , Eschaton, 237Google Scholar; Schnelle, , Gerechtigkeit, 98.Google Scholar
[32] Cf. Strecker, , Eschato:l, 237Google Scholar; Schnelle, , Gerechtigkeit, 98.Google Scholar
[33] Cf. Strecker, , Eschaton, 237.Google Scholar On the likelihood that, in general, conversion accounts tend to describe the convert's present ‘which he legitimates through his retrospective creation of a past and a self’, see the interesting article by Fredriksen, Paula, ‘Paul and Augustine: Conversion Narratives, Orthodox Traditions and the Retrospective Self’, JThS 37 (1986) 3–34Google Scholar, esp. the conclusion 33–4. A comparison of Augustine's account of his own conversion in the Confessions with descriptions of it in his earlier works unmasks that well-known account as ‘a theological reinterpretation of a past event’, as ‘a disguised description of where he stands in the present as much as an ostensible description of what occurred in the past’ (24).
[34] Watson, , Paul, 78.Google Scholar
[35] Hübner, H., Gottes Ich und Israel (FRLANT 136: Göttingen 1984), 15–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, shows that Rom 9. 6–13 implies that the ethnic Israel was never elected.
[36] Walter, , ‘Zur Interpretation’, 173, 176.Google Scholar
[37] This is an aspect of Paul's ‘problem of conflicting convictions which can be better asserted than explained: salvation is by faith; God's promise to Israel is irrevocable’. Sanders, Law, 198.
[38] See Räisänen, Paul (n. 7) 162–91, but also the refinements in Torah. (n. 13) 77–85.
[39] Kim alleges that I display an ‘overconfidence’ in Sanders', E. P. work on Judaism (Origin, 348–9).Google Scholar As he appeals to J. Neusner's critique of Sanders in HR 18 (1978) 177–91, it is perhaps worth repeating that Neusner explicitly admits that Sanders' perception of Judaism as ‘covenantal nomism’ is ‘wholly sound’ (177–8, cf. 180). See now also Neusner, J., Major Trends in Formative Judaism III (Brown Judaic Studies 99, Providence 1985) 31–2.Google Scholar
[40] 1 have never claimed that I know ‘the Judaism of Paul's day better than Paul himself’ (Kim, Origin, 347) nor attributed to Paul ‘schlichte Unkenntnis des jüdischen Glaubens’; contra Weder, H., ‘Gesetz und Sünde: Gedanken zu einem qualitativen Sprung im Denken des Paulus’, NTS 31 (1985) 359, 372 n. 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[41] Sanders, E. P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London, 1977) 551–2Google Scholar; Paul, the Law and the Jewish People (n. 22) 46–7Google Scholar; Watson, , Paul, 78.Google Scholar
[42] Cf. Räisänen, , Torah 82 where my discussion in Paul and the Law 171–2 is slightly modified.Google Scholar
[43] Watson, , Paul, 140.Google Scholar
[44] Räisänen, , Paul 191–8.Google Scholar
[45] Thus e.g. Kim, , Origin, 274Google Scholar; Stuhlmacher, , Versöhnung, 182, 185, 194–6Google Scholar; Beker, , Paul the Apostle (Philadelphia, 1984 2) 185–6, 261Google Scholar; Dietzfelbinger, , Berufung, 96 ff.Google Scholar; Luck, , ‘Bekehrung’, 200, 202.Google Scholar
[46] It is too rash to conclude that Jesus' manner of death alone would have conveyed to Paul the Pharisee the message that Jesus must have been cursed by the law. To be sure, the statement about ‘a hanged man’ (Deut 21. 23) was generally applied to victims of crucifixion in Paul's time. But it was not a standard Pharisaic doctrine that those crucified must be cursed by God. Too many Jews, including Pharisees, had been crucified because of their dedication to the people of Israel, to the temple and the law. A crucified Messiah was an offence – not, however, because he was cursed, but because he was weak (1 Cor 1. 22 f.). See the detailed discussion in Friedrich, G., Die Verkündigung des Todes Jesu im Neuen Testament (BThS 6: Neukirchen, 1982) 122 ff.Google Scholar; cf. also Fredriksen, , ‘Paul’ 11–13.Google Scholar
[47] Sanders, , Law, 25Google Scholar; cf. Friedrich, , Verkündigung, 130Google Scholar; Dupont, , ‘Conversion’, 188.Google Scholar P. Stuhlmacher objects that the setting of the argument about Deut 21. 23 in the Galatian conflict does not rule out an early Jerusalemite origin. He refers to Acts 5. 30, 10. 39, and concludes that Deut 21. 22 f. was quite early applied to the death of Christ; already the earliest congregation had to meet the Jewish allegation that the Crucified one was accursed. ‘Sühne oder Versöhnung’, in: Die Mitte des Neuen Testaments (Fs. Schweizer, E., Göttingen, 1983) 305–6.Google Scholar Even if this be granted (although I have some hesitatior about taking Luke's allusions to Deut 21. 22 as a clear testimony on the contents of the earliest preaching) it does not follow that this use of Deut 21 would automatically lead to the notion of the abrogation of the law. Certainly there is no hint to that effect in Acts 5. 30; 10. 39. But if Paul did get Gal 3. 13 as a ready-made reply to a Jewish charge, the point is that ‘the Christians who developed the argument probably did not themselves reject the law’: see Sanders, , Law, 25–6.Google Scholar If Paul, before his conversion, held to the view that, as a victim of crucifixion, Jesus was accursed, then he must have learnt in his Damascus road experience that this happened for a divine purpose. The idea of abrogatio legis does not automatically follow. If, however, Paul drew that conclusion, one would expect him to make the connection clear in an explicit way. If that argument truly stood behind his rejection of the law, ‘he has concealed the fact’ (Sanders, Law, 26).
[48] Sanders, , Law, 25–6Google Scholar; Dunn, , ‘Works’ 537 agrees.Google Scholar
[49] Wrede, , Paulus, 83.Google Scholar
[50] Thus e.g. Kim, , Origin, 280 f., 287, 345–6Google Scholar; for a critique see Räisänen, Torah, 85–7.
[51] Sanders, , Law, 65–91 (see p. 85 for a summary).Google Scholar
[52] For a fuller treatment see Räisänen, Torah, 288–95.Google Scholar
[53] E.g. Hengel, M., Between Jesus and Paul (London, 1983) 29.Google Scholar
[54] Räisänen, , Torah, 213–5, 234–5, 254–7.Google Scholar
[55] See Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism (London, 1985) 245–69.Google Scholar
[56] On ‘Jesus and the Temple’ see Sanders, Jesus, 61–76.
[57] G. Klein, Review of Haenchcn, E., Die Apostelgeschichte, ZKG 68 (1957) 368Google Scholar; Wedderburn, A. J. M., ‘Paul and the Law’, SJTh 38 (1985) 621.Google Scholar
[58] Jervell, J., Luke and the People of God (Minneapolis, 1972) 136Google Scholar; cf. Wilson, S. G., The Gentiles and the Gentile Mission in Luke-Acts (MS SNTS 23, Cambridge, 1973) 152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[59] Phio, Migr. Abr. 89–93; cf. Räisänen, Paul, 35.
[60] For the centrality of the έν χριστῷ-conception and its pre-Pauline baptismal setting see Schnelle, Gerechtigkeit, 106 ff.
[61] Philo, Spec. leg. 1, 54–57, 316; cf. Heinemann, I., Philons griechische und jüdische Bildung (Breslau, 1932) 223 ff.Google Scholar
[62] G. Sellin, ‘Ergänzende Antwort auf: H. Räisänen, The “Hellenists” – a Bridge Between Jesus and Paul?’, presented to the ‘Jesus and Paul’ seminar group in the SNTS Meeting in Trondheim, August 1985 (manuscript).
[63] Bultmann, R., Theology, 75, 85, 100, 115 f., 118.Google Scholar
[64] Contrast U. Wilckens' talk of the immediate ‘antinomian consequences’ of Paul's gospel: ‘Die Bekehrung des Paulusals religionsgeschichtliches Problem’, ZThK 56 (1959) 276 f., 279 f.Google Scholar See now, however, Wilckens, U., ‘Christologie und Anthropologie im Zusammenhang der paulinischen Rechtfertigungslehre’, ZNW 67 (1976) 68–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[65] Wrede, , Paulus, 79Google Scholar; approvingly quoted by Schnelle, op. cit. (n. 6), 173 n. 159, 222 n. 618.
[66] Wrede, , Paulus, 84:Google Scholar ‘Die Praxis war hier die Mutter der Theorie, nicht umgekehrt, wenn auch die Praxis bereits eine Entwertung der Satzungen voraussetzt.’
