This is the second of three posts examining the possible relationship between Paul of Tarsus and the historical Jesus.
The previous post broadly outlined the problem of the historical Jesus and his relationship to Paul the apostle. I noted Paul’s apparent indifference toward Jesus’ message, the conceptual dissimilarity between Paul’s doctrine of justification and Jesus’ kingdom of God (to recall one example), and most importantly, the requirement of historical Jesus studies to separate Jesus’ words from later confessions about Jesus. Consequently, many have construed the relationship between Jesus and Paul in antithetical terms – one may choose either Paul or Jesus, but not both. So how have others tried to fix this problem? And how is their answer helpful or unhelpful?
When faced with Wilhelm Wrede’s alternatives of Paul or Jesus, Johannes Weiss tried to establish a historical connection between Paul and Jesus, such that Paul’s mission becomes a direct extension of Jesus’ ministry. On the basis of 2 Cor. 5:17, Weiss believes that Paul had a personal knowledge of Jesus and was actually present in Jerusalem during Jesus’ final days. He likely heard Jesus preach, and may have even witnessed Jesus’ Passion and crucifixion. Paul was also convinced of the narratives of Jesus told by the original 12 disciples. So for Weiss, the problem of Jesus and Paul is not a historical problem, since Paul’s message is derived from and even sanctioned by the historical Jesus. This solution is unsatisfactory on several levels. Though Jesus appeared to Paul on the Damascus road, 2 Cor. 5:17 doesn’t imply any kind of personal acquaintance. But even acknowledging such a direct historical connection between Jesus and Paul doesn’t account for the theological differences that emerge from historical study. If Paul was an adopted disciple of the historical Jesus, he doesn’t seem to be a very good one.
Another notable attempt to bring Jesus and Paul closer together was made in the 1950’s by Ernst Käsemann. In response to the popular consensus founded by Wrede and codified by his teacher Rudolf Bultmann, Käsemann sought to show that, even after the portrait of Jesus has been thoroughly stripped of later Christian confessional statements, there is still a striking congruence between what is left of Jesus‘ teaching/actions and the Pauline gospel. (It should be said here that PZ wrote a compelling book following Käsemann’s line of inquiry). For Käsemann, unlike any contemporary rabbi the historical Jesus demonstrated a claim of authority to rival Moses (Matthew 5:21-48), lived in freedom from the law itself, and inaugurated a kingdom which forgave sins and freed this world from the dominion of evil. To mix metaphors, these pillars of the historical Jesus’ teaching provide the keystones of Pauline theology: Paul taught what Jesus did. The strength of Käsemann’s proposal is that it highlights genuine features of the Jesus tradition which are congruous with Pauline theology – especially in his instance of Jesus as an ‘evangelist’ rather than a preacher of law. But Käsemann’s portrait of Jesus is susceptible to the same radical historical criticism he employs. The extent that this historical Jesus sounds like a Pauline Christian may itself be the invention of later Christianity. Additionally, the persuasiveness of Käsemann’s argument is undermined by the scant, bare bones nature of his historical reconstruction.
More recently, the most prominent proponent of a unified Jesus and Paul has been Tom Wright, though his portrait of Jesus and Paul differs sharply from that of Käsemann. Jesus and Paul are united by their common belief in their belief in the restoration of Israel’s kingdom. Jesus understood himself to be Israel’s royal Messiah who proclaims the kingdom of God. Paul, now on the other side of Jesus’ resurrection, confesses this to be so while standing in a new social context defending Gentile inclusion. This congruence between Jesus and Paul presented by Wright is partially an effect of his somewhat circular historical methodology. According to Wright’s ‘critical realism’, material about Jesus is held to be authentic when it plausibly fits within 1st century Jewish/Christian historical context, a reconstructed historical context which is concerned with the restoration of Israel’s kingdom and the coming Messiah. Wright offers an impressive paradigm for historical Jesus study which could in theory bring Jesus and Paul closer together, yet in practice Wright’s reconstruction fails to do this. Like Weiss before him, there is a (self-fulfilling) historical reductionism at work and a disregard for the theological shaping of the Jesus tradition. Rather than freeing himself from the constraints of 19th century liberalism, Wright ironically has little regard for the church confessional statements about Jesus. The church’s gospels, as windows to the historical Jesus, disappear entirely, thereby effectively severing the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith.
This brief tour through Jesus/Paul studies has highlighted several attempts to navigate between Jesus and Paul, to create a unified Christianity. Though their solutions each have their problems, their common concern to find common ground is nevertheless quite laudable.
Next week, I will finally offer my own thoughts on bridging the divide between Jesus and Paul. Though it will not solve every problem, perhaps it will re-cast the debate toward more fruitful possibilities.
Click here to read the final part of this series!
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5 responses to “False Starts in the Problem of Jesus and Paul, Pt 2”
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Mark 2: Jesus said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 6 Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 7 “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” … 16 And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
See Paul Zahl, Jesus the First Christian. Even though I agree with Machen that Jesus was not a Christian (needing forgiveness), I do agree with Zahl that Jesus is more than His jewish background. Great discontinuities….
Stan Hauerwas hates the gospel of grace apart from works. Much like NT Wright, Stan thinks the content of the faith of Abraham is the promise that there will always be Jews. Instead of grace, his hope is that Jesus is a Jew. Hauerwas rejects the discontinuity of what he calls “replacement theology” and puts his trust in the doctrine of the “real presence” of Christ’s body in the sacrament.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRsWMIaNvnc
Hey Mark, Thanks for commenting – and sharing the Hauerwas video! I know the question of Jesus’ Jewishness or Christian-ness was a big deal in the Bultmann/Kaesmann debate, but that’s not quite what I’m getting at. To try and compare Jesus with Paul isn’t to say that Jesus is less Jewish and more Christian – as if these are mutually exclusive categories. Paul in Acts (23?) seems quite capable of claiming that he was *still* a Pharisee, and believes that the unconditional promise was first given to Abraham, etc.
If you read the Zahl book carefully, you will see that Paul is in no way denying the Jewishness of Jesus. But he’s also insisting that Jesus transcends that, is more than that, and that there is a discontinuity between the conditional promises of the Mosaic economy and the new covenant gospel.
There’a problem with talking about “the promise” to Abraham. First, there is more than one problem to Abraham. Stan is correct to notice that one promise is that Abraham will have many children. Second, some of the promises are conditional and others are unconditional. I know that last statement is controversial, not only among those who say there is only one covenant, but also among those who say that all of God’s promises are in some ways conditioned on the sinner. Third, one great discontinuity between the old covenants (including the Abrahamic) and the new is that those in the new covenant don’t need to be fathers or mothers and have children. We can be single like Jesus was, and if we do have children, they are not “in the covenant” by natural birth.