Paula Fredriksen and the Reductio ad Judaeum applied to Paul

[Giuseppe]

The Kingdom of God, Paul proclaimed, was at hand. His firm belief that he lived and worked in history’s final hour is absolutely foundational, shaping everything else that Paul says and does.
Paul lived his life entirely within Judaism. Later traditions, basing themselves on his letters, will displace him from his context. Through the retrospect of history, Paul will be transformed into a convert, an ex- or even anti-Jew; indeed, into the founder of gentile Christianity.
But Paul did not know and could not know what these later generations, looking backward, did know: that his mission would end without the return of the messiah. That shortly after his lifetime, Rome would destroy his god’s temple and his city, Jerusalem. That new gentile movements independent of and hostile to Judaism would crystallize around his letters, claiming their theologies as Paul’s own.
But Paul lived his life – as we all must live our lives – innocent of the future. As historians, we conjure that innocence as a disciplined act of imagination, through appeals to our ancient evidence. Only in so doing can we begin to see Paul as Paul saw himself: as God’s prophetic messenger, formed in the womb to carry the good news of impending salvation to the nations, racing on the edge of the End of time.

(Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle, Yale University Press, 2017, my bold)

Why so much certainty about the Jewishness of Paul by the academics?

I know: the case for an anti-Jew (=dualist) Paul is not so strong as the case for a mythical Jesus. The irony is that it is more easy, decisively more easy, to decide on the historicity of Jesus in the negative sense, rather than to know if Paul was really so a pious Jew (=monotheist) as Fredriksen describes him.

But what is strange, again and again, is that the obsessive insistence on the Jewishness of Paul and of Jesus is shown by Fredriksen as a kind of veiled and indirect confirmation of the historicity of the latter. It seems that the academics do a competition to see who, among them, is more sure about the Jewishness of Paul and Jesus.

But Paul lived his life – as we all must live our lives – innocent of the future.

But is the authoress of these words as well innocent of the past by her propagandized?

[Giuseppe]

I wonder if there is some sort of tipically western anti-Semitic hypocrisy behind the insistence on Jesus ''the Jew'' or on Paul ''the Jew'' and the relation of all this with the mere ''historical'' humanity of Jesus. It is assumed someway implicitly that ''being fully Jew'' is synonymous with the belonging to a ''lower'' humanity, ''therefore'' - as the hypocrisy goes - if Jesus is Jew, then he is surely a mere human being, since no mythological ''perfect'' being - not even an angel - can be Jewish. Jewishness would be eo ipso synonymous of human imperfection and, in the case of Jesus, a 100% sufficient evidence of the his historicity.

The implicit corollary of all this hypocrisy is that the Jews of the real History would be sub-humans, if Jesus is reduced from the status of god to a human status only in virtue of the his Jewishness. Do the proportions.

The ebionites were considered ''poors'' (=sub-umans?) in virtue of their low Christology.

[StephenGoranson]

This--implying Prof. Fredricksen is antisemitic--is absurd, nonsense, shameful, and slander. She is an excellent scholar and Jewish.

[Secret Alias]

Hee hee hee. You can't scare away crazy that way Stephen. You just have to sit and endure it at this forum. I go one step further of course and frequently lose my cool. But the amazing thing engaging people like this at the forum is what you learn about psychology. Giuseppe has an idee fixe. He is clearly not adverse to doing 'hard work' in support of this presupposition that a massive conspiracy caused Christianity to 'flip' from being hostile to 'the Jewish god' to being a 'Jewish' religion. No amount of reasoning can dissuade him from that understanding. It's not that he doesn't occasionally initiate worthwhile paths of inquiry (usually by accident). It's just that no amount of exposing how unreasonable a non-Jewish 'anti-Jewish' religion - i.e. a cult set up in opposition to the 'Jewish god' - makes a dent in this fixation on his part. If Christianity really was 'extra-Jewish' then it would have continued to be non-Jewish throughout its development. The reason why scriptures and Jewish names and Jewish figures are cited as early as any information we have about Christianity is because it was always a Jewish or at least 'Hebrew' (i.e. Israelite) sect. Giuseppe has to accept this simple fact and move on to develop interesting lines of inquiry from that unmovable and unshakable fact if he wants to be productive in this field before he dies. He is a hard worker though, you must admit.

[Giuseppe]

This--implying Prof. Fredricksen is antisemitic--is absurd, nonsense, shameful, and slander. She is an excellent scholar and Jewish.

I have talked in more general terms, obviously, investing in my criticism all this modern tendency to see everyone, even Paul in his more controversial passages (controversial as possibly imbued with gnostic dualism), as someone who is only and always a monotheist and not a dualist.

Frankly, if there were not all these 'ideological' implications about questioning the Jewishness of Paul, Jesus, etc, the discourse would be more free.

[Giuseppe]

For example, why does the consensus accept as unique interpolation (at least) in Paul the passage in 1 Tess 2:14-16 about the deicide Jews (surely a proto-catholic interpolation) but the same consensus doesn't realize not even one -- only one, I say! - gnostic/marcionite interpolation in Paul?

Geza Vermes was more honest when he declared gnostic/docetic - and therefore (I will know never why) from II Century - the Philippians Hymn.

[perseusomega9]

Hee hee hee. You can't scare away crazy that way Stephen. You just have to sit and endure it at this forum. I go one step further of course and frequently lose my cool. But the amazing thing engaging people like this at the forum is what you learn about psychology. Giuseppe has an idee fixe. He is clearly not adverse to doing 'hard work' in support of this presupposition that a massive conspiracy caused Christianity to 'flip' from being hostile to 'the Jewish god' to being a 'Jewish' religion. No amount of reasoning can dissuade him from that understanding. It's not that he doesn't occasionally initiate worthwhile paths of inquiry (usually by accident). It's just that no amount of exposing how unreasonable a non-Jewish 'anti-Jewish' religion - i.e. a cult set up in opposition to the 'Jewish god' - makes a dent in this fixation on his part. If Christianity really was 'extra-Jewish' then it would have continued to be non-Jewish throughout its development. The reason why scriptures and Jewish names and Jewish figures are cited as early as any information we have about Christianity is because it was always a Jewish or at least 'Hebrew' (i.e. Israelite) sect. Giuseppe has to accept this simple fact and move on to develop interesting lines of inquiry from that unmovable and unshakable fact if he wants to be productive in this field before he dies. He is a hard worker though, you must admit.

If he could be limited to just one new post a day would be an improvement.