當代猶太學者的保羅觀

Recent Jewish Perspectives on Paul

WONG Fook Kong

This article explores three contemporary Jewish scholars’ view on Paul.

Using sociological methodology, Segal argues that Paul, the Pharisee, was converted to Christianity. Segal maintains that to Paul it was absorption into the risen Christ, not observance of the Law, which matters. When Paul was a Pharisee, he believed the messiah would defeat their national enemies and usher in a period of tranquility; there was no possibility of a crucified messiah in this view. However, this contradicted with his personal, visionary experience of a crucified and risen Christ. Christ’s resurrection was the answer because it annuls the curse of the Torah for Gentiles, thus making it irrelevant for them to observe it. Segal argues that Paul’s use of justification language was not so much meant to define a new theology as to define a new apocalyptic community. Thus, baptism did not mark the beginning of a life of keeping the Torah like in Judaism but the beginning of a life not based on fleshly observances.

Boyarin agrees with Segal that Paul was converted to Christianity from Pharisaic Judaism. He argues that the seed of discontent that finally drove Paul to Christianity was the tension between the universalism of the Torah’s content and the particular ethnicity of its form. The dual nature of Christ, a son of David according to the flesh but the son of God according to the Spirit, became a hermeneutical key for Paul. The birth of Christ as a human and a Jew corresponds to the physical and legal reality (i.e. the Torah given for Jews alone). Christ’s resurrection as spiritual and universal reality corresponds to the spiritual and universal teachings of the Torah for all humanity. All particularities of race, gender, and social status are erased when the believer joins the spiritual body of Christ via baptism.

Levine’s work concentrates on the broader picture rather than detailed analyses. Paul, being a Pharisee, believed Jesus’ resurrection was the inauguration of the messianic age and general resurrection of the dead as well. However, for Paul, Jesus’ death and resurrection meant more than the beginning of the messianic age, and he was more than a true prophet or a righteous martyr. Paul concluded that Jesus’ death paid for the penalty of all human sins (Rom. 5:6), reconciling humanity to God. By his death, Christ defeated the powers of sin and death and provided humanity with both reconciliation with God and access to eternal life. Thus, Paul proclaimed full membership in the people of God minus the requirements of circumcision and Jewish dietary laws. This emphasis ultimately transformed Jesus’ Jewish faith into Gentile Christianity.