The “Domesticated Apostle”: The Invention of Anti-Jewish Paul

2015

This research aims to identify the guidelines that are opposed to Judaism in the body of the work Dialogue with Trypho of Justin Martyr, using the methodology engendered by Norbert Elias and John L. Scotson in their work, The Established and the Outsiders. As a result, our research intends to contribute to unveil another aspect of Justin’s work, considered by many scholars as a proselytistic tool; by taking it as a document builder of the Christian identity trough its dissociation from Judaism. For this reason, this thesis investigates and reviews the socio-cultural and political environment that gave rise to Roman Christianity, taking into consideration Christian internal conflicts and the resulting dichotomies within the Roman Christian community, as a result of its departure from its Jewish matrix.

From the Review of Biblical Literature (RBL), 09/2015

The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, 2019

Paul is interpreted by contemporary figures of continental European thought as a precursor for modern psychoanalysis. In Jacob Taubes’ and Slavoj Žižek’s reaffirmations of Paul as the ancient foundation of both Christian introspection and Freudian psychoanalysis, the boundaries between Christianity and Judaism are renegotiated in ways that are inescapably tied to certain legacies of anti-Judaism. The turn to Paul reproduces a common feature of European philosophy with regard to Judaism; the inability or unwillingness to recognize any rationality in Jewish lawfulness.

Ronald Charles, ed., Paul among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honour of Terence L. Donaldson (Bloomsbury, Library of NT Studies), 2020

In honour of Terry Donaldson's fundamental work on Paul, I have here expanded for publication my 2016 T. W. Manson Memorial Lecture in the University of Manchester. Hearty thanks to Prof. emer. George Brooke for hosting me. This is the AAM (author's accepted manuscript) or typescript of the chapter, likely to be in production for a while. As for content: this basically applies some long-developing themes of my research on Roman Judaea and Judaeans to Paul. Paul's relationship with Judaism has been among the most basic questions in research on this important figure in Christian origins. But what if 'Judaism' was not a thing, which he could have had a view of (or been in or out of)? The essay deals first with what it meant to be a Ioudaios, then separately inquires into Paul's relationship with his Judaean heritage, not a religion.

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?

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.