When we were studying the Book of Acts one thing that just didn't make sense is how violently the Jewish leaders reacted to Paul's message. The standard explanation is that they didn't like him saying that the Messiah had already come in the form of Jesus. But Jewish history is full of would-be messiahs and they didn't arouse that kind of reaction. So it had to be something more.
Yesterday as we were reading Galatians it struck me. Right in the middle of Chapter 4 Paul lobs a grenade at the heart of Judaism. I'd never really noticed it before even though I've read it hundreds of times, and I bet most non-Jewish readers would too. But when he says that Hagar and her offspring represent the Covenant made at Sinai, he is saying one of the most insulting things he could possibly say. He is saying that the Law, the heart and soul of Judaism, is illegitimate. A mamzer. No Jew of his time could have possibly failed to catch his meaning. And Paul, as a former Pharisee who allegedly studied at the feet of Rabbi Gamaliel, knew exactly what he was saying and how it would be received.
No wonder they wanted to kill him! What he did was the equivalent (in America) of taking the American Flag and using it as toilet paper. The equivalent of mocking Muhammad to Muslims. Did his Gentile readers understand what he was saying?
This goes far beyond the idea that a Jewish peasant who was crucified by the Romans was actually the Messiah. James, the brother of Jesus, who was the leader of the Jerusalem Christians, was widely respected by both Jews and Christians as a holy man or tzaddik. So just believing that Jesus was Messiah was not automatic grounds for hostility. Something more was going on and that something was Paul. He had an axe to grind and did he ever.
There was an early group of Christians called the Ebionites who did not consider Paul's doctrine to be legitimate. Today they are a footnote in history like so many other groups at that time, but they may have been the people he was complaining about in Galatians. I do not know off-hand whether Galatians was written before or after his second letter to the Corinthians but it is very interesting to compare his attitude between the two letters. Second Corinthians has a more or less live and let live attitude that is completely absent from Galatians. Something happened. Either Paul became more liberal or more likely he became more hardened the more he received opposition to his message.
Anyway, next Sunday we start Chapter 5, the Circumcision chapter. That ought to be a doozy. Especially as I think it is a safe bet that 99% of the men in the congregation are circumcised. We've also had some male babies born over the past few months and I'm willing to bet they were likewise circumcised. Obviously I'm not going around asking. But I wonder what Paul would make of the near-universal practice of circumcision in the USA considering what he said to the Galatians on the subject. At least that is something that I as a female have been happily exempt from (thank God if he exists that I was born an American and not in Africa or the Middle East). I always thought it odd that God would create a piece of flesh that had to be removed from little boys as if there was something wrong with the way they were made.
Yesterday as we were reading Galatians it struck me. Right in the middle of Chapter 4 Paul lobs a grenade at the heart of Judaism. I'd never really noticed it before even though I've read it hundreds of times, and I bet most non-Jewish readers would too. But when he says that Hagar and her offspring represent the Covenant made at Sinai, he is saying one of the most insulting things he could possibly say. He is saying that the Law, the heart and soul of Judaism, is illegitimate. A mamzer. No Jew of his time could have possibly failed to catch his meaning. And Paul, as a former Pharisee who allegedly studied at the feet of Rabbi Gamaliel, knew exactly what he was saying and how it would be received.
No wonder they wanted to kill him! What he did was the equivalent (in America) of taking the American Flag and using it as toilet paper. The equivalent of mocking Muhammad to Muslims. Did his Gentile readers understand what he was saying?
This goes far beyond the idea that a Jewish peasant who was crucified by the Romans was actually the Messiah. James, the brother of Jesus, who was the leader of the Jerusalem Christians, was widely respected by both Jews and Christians as a holy man or tzaddik. So just believing that Jesus was Messiah was not automatic grounds for hostility. Something more was going on and that something was Paul. He had an axe to grind and did he ever.
There was an early group of Christians called the Ebionites who did not consider Paul's doctrine to be legitimate. Today they are a footnote in history like so many other groups at that time, but they may have been the people he was complaining about in Galatians. I do not know off-hand whether Galatians was written before or after his second letter to the Corinthians but it is very interesting to compare his attitude between the two letters. Second Corinthians has a more or less live and let live attitude that is completely absent from Galatians. Something happened. Either Paul became more liberal or more likely he became more hardened the more he received opposition to his message.
Anyway, next Sunday we start Chapter 5, the Circumcision chapter. That ought to be a doozy. Especially as I think it is a safe bet that 99% of the men in the congregation are circumcised. We've also had some male babies born over the past few months and I'm willing to bet they were likewise circumcised. Obviously I'm not going around asking. But I wonder what Paul would make of the near-universal practice of circumcision in the USA considering what he said to the Galatians on the subject. At least that is something that I as a female have been happily exempt from (thank God if he exists that I was born an American and not in Africa or the Middle East). I always thought it odd that God would create a piece of flesh that had to be removed from little boys as if there was something wrong with the way they were made.
