Matthew Thiessen

Studies on the Apostle Paul and his theology are and have been legion. The discipline of Pauline studies is often disorienting. Many different perspectives abound.

Matthew Thiessen seeks to provide an introduction to Paul in A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles (galley received as part of an early review program).

I went into reading this book with high hopes. I follow Thiessen on Twitter and appreciate his presence and voice there. I just finished N.T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God and, as reviewed below, his Paul: A Biography. I know of criticism of Wright in terms of his understanding of Second Temple Judaism and knew Thiessen was going to make some arguments against him. I was ready to hear it all.

Thiessen begins with an overview of Pauline studies, the main schools of thought, and helpful warnings about being overly influenced by our own context and its questions when trying to understand someone who lived in a very different time and maintained very different perspectives. He identifies himself within the “Paul within Judaism” reading, recognizing the great diversity of thought within Second Temple Judaism and attempting to understand Paul within and not against the Jewish world of his time.

There are many aspects of A Jewish Paul which are beneficial and insightful. I appreciated how Thiessen maintained a perspective of Paul within Judaism without going as far as many these days have gone in suggesting Paul did not presume Jewish people needed to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. His exegesis of the matter of circumcision, in which the issue is less about Jewish people maintaining circumcision and more how as an “add-on” it cannot help a Gentile and in fact works against the salvation of Gentiles in Christ, is useful. Many of his attempts to situate Paul as a Jewish man thinking in Jewish terms and understanding Jesus and the faith in those terms are helpful.

Unfortunately, however, I overall walked away from this book disappointed.

The specific targeting of N.T. Wright seemed a bit much, especially if we grant Theissen’s original comments about the variety of perspectives on Paul. Perhaps Wright has made more “ethnocentric” comments in other works, but at least in PFG, I don’t see the basis for Theissen’s characterizations.

There are a few false binaries in this work. Are there really only two options when it comes to Paul and the Law, as completely faithfully observant in all times and circumstances, or he is a liar? Or is it possible how Paul saw in Jesus a fulfillment of the aims and purposes of Torah and understood how he could still maintain honor for many of the Mosaic traditions but not all, and in every context worked to not cause offense and worked with people where they were? Paul recognized all foods as clean in Romans 14:13-15, consistent with Mark’s portrayal of Jesus in Mark 7; the tension this would create with a perspective of continual observance of the Law is never addressed by Thiessen. The way in which Paul handled matters in 1 Corinthians 8-10 is also at variance with such an either/or proposition.

Thiessen is very much committed to the principle that Paul insisted on Jewish people maintaining their observance of Jewish customs (and, ostensibly, the Law). I would be interested in how he makes sense of Romans 7:1-4 in light of this commitment.

The major challenge, however, comes with the perspective on pneuma and resurrection. Theissen “has been convinced by scholars” regarding the use of Stoic definitions and understanding of pneuma, and this leads him to interpret understandings of the resurrection in like terms.

This is certainly a perspective, yet it seems to be quite ironic, for A Jewish Paul at this point seems to now argue for A Stoic Paul. It becomes almost unimaginable when Theissen begins to cast aspersions about how concretely the hope of 2 Maccabees and restoration of flesh would have been maintained. Thiessen is very convinced humans cannot live in the heavenly realm, and he denies the continued human existence of Jesus.

Let’s grant the variety inherent in Second Temple Judaism and recognize there might well have been many Jewish people who felt as Theissen described. Yet would not there be many other Second Temple Jewish people who would read Genesis 5 about Enoch and 1 Kings 2 about Elijah and accept such statements for what they say: Enoch and Elijah never died, and were taken up? The author of 2 Maccabees, and those who took hope in the text, understood what anastasis meant; a truly Jewish Paul and Jewish people like him would have maintained hope in a bodily resurrection. Thiessen would deny 1 Timothy 2:5 as being Pauline but would have to admit it is from someone in Pauline circles, and that affirms the present human existence of Jesus ca. 63. Nothing is said or made of Philippians 3:21 in which Paul (by common confession) expects the body of humiliation to be glorified to become like Jesus’ body. By denying Jesus’ continued humanity in the ascension, Thiessen undermines Paul’s claims to being a witness to the resurrected Jesus: a glorified, de-humanized Jesus according to Thiessen, not at all the same Jesus which Peter and the others saw for forty days.

Should we conclude, as Thiessen is willing to conclude, that since the Stoics have known definitions of pneuma, and we don’t have any many other such constructs, therefore, Paul and everyone else use the Stoic framework? All of this seems flagrantly against Colossians 2:8 in which Paul - or someone close to Paul as Thiessen would argue - is very concerned about Christians falling prey to philosophies making much of the stoichieia - the very emphasis on earth, air, water, and fire which Thiessen has allowed himself to be convinced are what are really at work here.

I fear Thiessen has fallen prey to the same temptation as Tertullian. Tertullian, he of the “what hath Athens to do with Jerusalem” fame, yet in his treatise de Anima speaks of the soul almost entirely in the prism and framework of Greek philosophical contstructs. Tertullian himself may never have been aware of the irony or the contradiction. Perhaps neither is Thiessen.

I readily admit that I am not a first century Second Temple Jewish person; it is inarguable that Second Temple Judaism was forever changed after its engagement with Hellenism, and many Hellenistic concepts and frameworks were accepted and were grappled with throughout this period. It might well be that everyone just prima facie understood pneuma, etc. as the Stoics did.

But that is not the only option. It is quite possible - in fact, I would say quite likely - that plenty of Second Temple Jewish people very much did not agree with Stoic conceptions of the pneuma and did not makintain their framework. We don’t know what we don’t know.

I understand the frustration: I have done word studies of psyche and pneuma and have walked away convinced we cannot make systematically clear delineations between the two. I walk away convinced there is no coherent framework, and things are being revealed to us in glimpses which neither they nor we can fully comprehend. I understand the temptation of seeing a contemporary holistic framework and saying, “aha! here it is!”. But there’s too much held at variance between what the New Testament authors are saying about pneuma and the Stoic framework of it. It’s also hard to understand what the Stoics might find objectionable about Paul speaking about anastasis and the pneuma if he is using Stoic definitions throughout.

And for good reason small-o orthodox Christianity has always maintained confidence in Jesus’ bodily resurrection and the continued maintenance of that body to this day, for Jesus to remain fully God and fully human even in His ascension and lordship. The whole “Son of Man” bit depends on it.

Ultimately A Jewish Paul ends up looking like A Jewish Paul According to the Views of Late Twentieth Century and the Early Twenty First Century and Inescapably Influenced by the Stoics. Thiessen is well in his rights to believe in such a person; such a one could still exist in a Second Temple Jewish framework. But he’s not the Paul we meet in the New Testament; Thiessen’s scholarly commitments make sure of that. So take this for what you will.… (lisätietoja)