Paul the Apostle and Jewish Christianity

[2][3][4][5] This brought him into conflict with the Judaizers, a faction of the Jewish Christians who believed Mosaic Law did require circumcision for Gentile converts.

[2][3][4][5][6] Eventually, adherents of Paul's view became more numerous, and this among other related developments led to the creation of Christianity as distinct from Judaism.

[8][9][10][web 1][note 1] Paul draws on several interpretative frames to solve this problem, but most importantly, his own experience and understanding.

[21][3][18][19][20] Paul objected strongly to the insistence on keeping all of the Jewish commandments,[3] considering it a great threat to his doctrine of salvation through faith in Jesus.

[web 4] According to Larry Hurtado, "Paul saw himself as what Munck called a salvation-historical figure in his own right", who was "personally and singularly deputized by God to bring about the predicted ingathering (the "fullness") of the nations (Romans 11:25).

Hurtado notes that Paul valued the linkage with "Jewish Christian circles in Roman Judea", which makes it likely that his Christology was in line with, and indebted to, their views.

Wright notes the apparent discrepancy between Romans and Galatians, the former being much more positive about the continuing covenantal relationship between God and his ancient people than the latter.

[31] The Book of Acts contains an account of Paul's travels and deeds, his conflicts with Greeks and Jews during the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and his interactions with the original Apostles of Jesus.

They believe that it was written from a perspective of reconciliation between Pauline Christianity and its opponents, so portrays Paul as a Law-abiding Jew and omits his dispute with Peter, only briefly mentioning the split with Barnabas.

Paul was from a devout Jewish family based in the city of Tarsus,[33] one of the largest trade centers on the Mediterranean coast.

[42] Paul referred to himself as an observant Jew in the letter to the Philippians: If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.While he was still fairly young, he was sent to Jerusalem to receive rabbinical education at the school of Gamaliel,[43][44][45] one of the most noted rabbis in history.

[52] Hellenistic Judaism was a movement which existed in the Jewish diaspora and the Holy Land that sought to establish a Hebraic-Jewish religious tradition within the culture and language of Hellenism.

Recently, Talmudic scholar Daniel Boyarin has argued that Paul's theology of the spirit is more deeply rooted in Hellenistic Judaism than generally believed.

In A Radical Jew, Boyarin argues that Paul the Apostle combined the life of Jesus with Greek philosophy to reinterpret the Hebrew Bible in terms of the Platonic opposition between the ideal (which is real) and the material (which is false).

I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.Galatians 1:15–17 says that after God "called me...so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles", he "did not confer with any human being".

[citation needed] Several passages in Acts describe Paul's missions to Asia Minor and the encounters he had with Diaspora Jews and with local gentile populations.

In the case of Timothy, whose mother was a Jewish Christian but whose father was a Greek, Paul personally circumcised him "because of the Jews" that were in town.

"[84] The division between the Jews who followed the Mosaic Law and were circumcised and the Gentiles who were uncircumcised was highlighted in his Epistle to the Galatians: On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles), and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.The Judaizers were a faction of the Jewish Christians, both of Jewish and non-Jewish origins, who regarded the Levitical laws of the Old Testament as still binding on all Christians.

[3][4][5][6] They tried to enforce Jewish circumcision upon the Gentile converts to early Christianity and were strenuously opposed and criticized for their behavior by the Apostle Paul, which employed many of his epistles to refute their doctrinal errors.

[87] This Apostolic Decree, still observed by the Eastern Orthodox Church, is similar to that adopted by Rabbinic Judaism, which teaches that Gentiles need only follow the Noachide Laws to be assured of a place in the World to Come (see also Noahidism and Dual-covenant theology).

9:20–23 He does not engage in a dispute with those Corinthians who apparently feel quite free to eat anything offered to idols, never appealing or even mentioning the Jerusalem council.

Paul claims he "went up again to Jerusalem" (i.e., not the first time) with Barnabas and Titus "in response to a revelation", in order to "lay before them the gospel proclaimed among the Gentiles",Gal.

John might have served as such a figure of the center holding together the extremes, but if the writings linked with his name are at all indicative of his own stance he was too much of an individualist to provide such a rallying point.

But none of them, including the rest of the twelve, seem to have played any role of continuing significance for the whole sweep of Christianity—though James the brother of John might have proved an exception had he been spared."

"[94] In contrast, L. Michael White's From Jesus to Christianity states: "The blowup with Peter was a total failure of political bravado, and Paul soon left Antioch as persona non grata, never again to return.

Teaching them to forsake idolatry for Noahidism, he insisted in his Epistle to the Romans on the positive value of the Law (see also Pauline passages opposing antinomianism) in its divine form.

The term is generally considered a pejorative by some who believe it carries the implication that Christianity as it is known is a corruption of the original teachings of Jesus, as in the doctrine of the Great Apostasy.

Arguably, he is absent from the Talmud and rabbinical literature, although he makes an appearance in some variants of the medieval polemic Toledot Yeshu (as a spy for the rabbis).

He has featured as the key to building barriers (e.g. Heinrich Graetz and Martin Buber) or bridges (e.g. Isaac Mayer Wise and Claude G. Montefiore) in interfaith relations,[100] as part of an intra-Jewish debate about what constitutes Jewish authenticity (e.g. Joseph Klausner and Hans Joachim Schoeps),[101] and, on occasion, as a dialogical partner (e.g. Richard L. Rubenstein and Daniel Boyarin).

[102] He features in an oratorio (by Felix Mendelssohn), a painting (by Ludwig Meidner) and a play (by Franz Werfel),[103] and there have been several novels about Paul (by Shalom Asch and Samuel Sandmel).