Review of "The Messiah: A Comparative Study of the Enochic Son of Man and the Pauline Kyrios," by James McGrath of Butler University (original) (raw)
Related papers
Recently I prepared my first college-level course on Paul. In so doing, I returned to a letter I had not read in quite some time: 1 Thessalonians. Upon rereading it, I perceived with existential clarity a question that I had heretofore only known abstractly. In possibly his earliest extant writing, the apostle speaks not of the Galilean prophet who figures so prominently in the Gospels. Instead, he proclaims a savior from heaven, descending earthward with angelic trumpets to raise the dead, deliver the righteous, and execute the Day of the Lord. With furrowed brow I wondered, What accounts for this arresting presentation so soon after Jesus' life? James Waddell has an answer: Enochic Judaism. In The Messiah: A Comparative Study of the Enochic Son of Man and the Pauline Kyrios, originally a dissertation written under Gabriele Boccaccini at the University of Michigan, Waddell attempts to establish whether, and if so, to what extent the heavenly figure known from 1 En. 37-71 influenced Paul's understanding of Jesus as the cosmic lord. His conclusions are yes and a lot. These results, he hopes, will not only specify the relation between Paul and an important antecedent portrayal of the Messiah but also further the project of situating early Christianity within the Second Temple period, viewing it as one variation among many diverse types of Judaism (or, Judaisms).
The Messiah in the Parables of Enoch and the Letters of Paul: A Comparative Analysis
""In the first century CE Jewish identity was defined in a context of significant religious diversity. This presents those who read Paul’s Letters with a problem: how to locate Paul’s thought within the complicated matrix of Jewish intellectual traditions of this period. A comparative analysis of the Messiah in the Book of the Parables of Enoch and the Letters of Paul, this study locates one aspect of Paul’s thought, his christology, in the context of Jewish intellectual traditions of the first century CE. Conceptual elements of messianic traditions are identified in these documents by examining the nature and functions of the divine figure and the nature and functions of the messiah figure. This has implications for understanding divine and human agency and the relationships between mediatorial figures and the one God in Jewish literature from the Second Temple period. The literature demonstrates a complex variety of expressions for describing interactions between the divine figure and all other created beings. Comparative analysis demonstrates that the Book of the Parables and the Letters of Paul share specific conceptual elements of messianic traditions. The combination of shared elements is so striking as to preclude the possibility that the Book of the Parables and the Letters of Paul constituted independent, parallel developments. It cannot be claimed, however, that Paul was familiar with the text of the Book of the Parables; there are no direct quotes of the Book of the Parables anywhere in Paul’s Letters. We can say, however, that Paul was familiar with the conceptual elements of the Enochic messiah, and that Paul developed his concept of the Kyrios out of the Son of Man traditions in the Book of the Parables of Enoch. This study argues that at least one facet of Paul’s thought, his christology, was heavily influenced by Enochic Son of Man traditions.""
The Messiah: A Comparative Study of the Enochic Son of Man and the Pauline Kyrios
In the first century CE Jewish identity was defined in a context of significant religious diversity. This presents those who read Paul’s Letters with a problem: how to locate Paul’s thought within the complicated matrices of Jewish intellectual traditions of this period. This study locates Paul within the matrix of Jewish messianic thought between the second century BCE and the first ccentury CE by comparing conceptual elements of messianic traditions in the Parables of Enoch and the undisputed Letters of Paul. Comparative analysis of the nature and functions of the messiah figures in the Parables and the Letters of Paul demonstrates a remarkable combination of shared elements, indicating that Paul was familiar with the Enochic messiah traditions. The extraordinary combination of shared elements is so striking as to preclude the possibility that the Parables and Paul constituted independent developments. The evidence indicates that Paul developed his concept of the Kyrios out of the Enochic Son of Man traditions, or that Paul was at least influenced by these traditions.
The Enochic Son of Man and Pauline Christology
"The Enochic Son of Man and Pauline Christology" A comparative analysis of the Messiah in the Book of the Parables of Enoch and the Letters of Paul, this study locates one aspect of Paul’s thought, his christology, in the context of Jewish intellectual traditions of the first century BCE and the first century CE. Conceptual elements of messianic traditions are identified in these documents by examining the nature and functions of the divine figure and the nature and functions of the messiah figure. This has implications for understanding divine and human agency and the relationships between mediatorial figures and the one God in Jewish literature from the Second Temple period. Comparative analysis demonstrates that the Book of the Parables and the Letters of Paul share specific conceptual elements of messianic traditions. The combination of shared elements is so striking as to preclude the possibility that the Book of the Parables and the Letters of Paul constituted independent, parallel developments. The evidence indicates that Paul was familiar with the conceptual elements of the Enochic messiah, and that Paul developed his concept of Jesus as the Kyrios out of the Son of Man traditions in the Book of the Parables of Enoch. This study argues that at least one facet of Paul’s thought, his christology, was heavily influenced by Enochic Son of Man traditions.
New Understandings of Paul and His Jewish Heritage: A Select Bibliography
Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, 2011
In the SCJR call for papers focusing on the significance of Paul and Pauline studies for Christian-Jewish relations, the journal's editors acknowledge that while biblical scholars "have usually viewed Paul as rejecting 'the Law' in favor of the Gospel, thus providing the basis for the persistent Christian supersessionist approach to Jews and Judaism," there are contemporary scholars who "question whether Paul was anti-Jewish and suggest that recovering the historical context of his letters and understanding his rhetorical techniques can provide a new perspective on Paul as a resource for improved Christian-Jewish relations." This bibliography lists works that, in a variety of ways, reflect this new perspective on Paul. David Bolton and Emmanuel Nathan, the scholars who compiled this bibliography, are doctoral candidates in biblical studies at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. Together they are engaged in KUL's "New Perspectives on Paul and the Jews" project, which is "a critical investigation into the significance of the Letters of Paul in light of the historical parting of the ways between Christianity and Judaism" (http://theo.kuleuven.be/page/projects/419). This bibliography was originally compiled at the request of John T. Pawlikowski for the International Council of Christian and Jews in its effort to provide materials in connection with the Catholic Bishops Synod in Rome in October 2008. The SCJR editors are grateful to Dr. Pawlikowski for recommending publication of this bibliography and to David Bolton and Emmanuel Nathan for their permission to publish it.
Paul and His Jewish Identity: An Overview
Spes Christiana , 2012
Paul was a Jew from the Diaspora who never ceased to affirm his deep connection with the people, land and traditions of Israel. Even after his conversion/call, Paul was persuaded to be a godly Jew living out true Juda-ism. What he was and did before is in continuity with what he became af-ter his dramatic encounter with the risen Christ. Jesus did not obliterate Paul’s past; rather he helped him to bring it to the appointed (by God) completion. This paper offers an overview of how scholars understand texts such as 1 Corinthians 9:20–21, 2 Corinthians 11:22, Philippians 3:4–6, Galatians 1:13–14, and Romans 11:1 to be indicative of the fact that Paul always considered himself to be (though in fieri) an Israelite, a Ben-jaminite, a Hebrew, a Jew, a Pharisee, and a zealot for God and His plan as revealed in Christ.
This new collection of essays from Michael Bird includes three chapters previously published and two lengthy chapters written for this volume. A lengthy thirty-page introduction explains what Bird means by “an anomalous Jew” (aside from the play on John Meier’s work on the Historical Jesus, A Marginal Jew or Daniel Boyarin’s Paul: A Radical Jew). Although it is commonplace in contemporary scholarship to acknowledge Paul’s Jewish roots, Bird points out Paul says things that no other Torah-affirming Jew would say and he was opposed violently by Torah-affirming Jews. Paul’s view of what God is doing in the present age through Jesus Christ led to his “decentering of the Torah” (7). So if Paul is a Jewish thinker, how should he be situated in what we know about Second Temple period Judaism?
The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel's Scripture. By Richard B. Hays
Modern Theology, 2007
w ith a further series of exegetical studies. The earlier book set out a thorough, careful case for the prem ise that Pauline scriptural allusions should be recognized not simply w here Paul explicitly adduces Old Testament w arrants for his argum ents, b u t more generally w here Paul echoes a passage from Scripture w ithout explicitly citing it (the trope of metalepsis, or transumptio, applied to literary allusion). Hays makes a pow erful case that Paul's evocation of Scripture includes not only the verses that he cites, but m aterial from the surrounding context-indeed, sometimes the point of Paul's prose depends on verses that he does not cite. H ays's Echoes has proved widely influential in the field; even the m ost fastidious scholars of Pauline quotations probably cast their nets m ore w idely than before, and m any scholars have received H ays's thesis enthusiastically, identifying echoes in portions of the N ew Testament canon beyond Paul's letters. This volum e advances the cause of metaleptic reading by clarifying H ays's original proposal, applying this approach to further texts, and describing the interpretive practices by w hich contem porary readers can legitimately propound Pauline interpretations of the Old Testament. The essays that com prise this book have all (apart from the introduction) been published before, over a period of tw enty years; thus, it comes as no surprise that Hays has revised some for this publication. They do not read as disjointed miscellanea, though, and only occasionally do later chapters repeat points m ade earlier in the collection. Hays has pursued his thesis w ith a continuity whose explanatory pow er binds these essays together into a convincing unity. The introduction helps this, providing as it does an overview of his argum ent in Echoes, and an explanation of how the essays in this book com plem ent and advance the case that Echoes initiates. Since Hays recognizes the perils of argum ents from silence, and from theses that lack critical checks, the earlier w ork offered a catena of criteria for evaluating the pertinence of proposed echoes; the preface sum m arizes his criteria and refines his explanations of their scope. A fter sum m arizing each of the chapters, Hays proposes four com plem entary them es to the work: first, Paul's "pastoral, com m unity-form ing" interpretive style (p. xv); second, Paul's poetic theological sensibility; third, Paul's reading of Scripture as the expression of a narrative of election, judgm ent, and redem ption; fourth, the nonpareil im portance of Jesus as the unexpected Messiah for Paul's understanding of Scripture; and fifth, Paul's trust in Scripture as the foundation of his herm eneutics. The chapters interweave these elements w ith varying emphases, b u t cumulatively they present a pow erful case for reading Paul's interpretive practice along the lines that Hays proposes.