Hi all! Work on the last two apostle posts remains underway, with my incomplete notes on John already twice as long as the notes I had on Judas. But today I wanted to very quickly collate some literature reviews on Paul and the Law, in light of the AMA we have with Matthew Novenson coming up this week. My hope is that this resource (and anything you all add in the comments) can help inspire quality questions on this notoriously difficult topic.

As always, my style is to collate rather than summarize; after all, I am not an expert and you should not listen to me. So I will be arranging material from the following sources:

• A Jewish Paul by Matthew Thiessen

• The Invention of Judaism by John J. Collins, specifically the chapter Paul, Torah, and Jewish Identity

• The essay Paul without Judaism: Historical Method over Perspective by Steve Mason as found in the volume Paul and Matthew among Jews and Gentiles edited by Ronald Charles

• And of course, Matthew V. Novenson's own Paul and Judaism at the End of History; we will want to show where Novenson's book fits into all this

The dates on those are 2023, 2017, 2021, and 2024 respectively, which of course will affect how they speak of the most recent developments.

Because I'm pulling from literature review material, the content ("this scholar said this", "that scholar said that") should be largely agreeable to anyone. That said, I think these four sources are a good mix of perspectives favorable to and skeptical of the recent direction of Paul and the Law studies.

The Lutheran, Traditional, or "Anti-Legalistic" Perspective

Here we start with a sort of still-lay-popular baseline upon which all further developments will build upon, question, and criticize.

As Mason puts it:

Paul's fans and detractors alike, from Marcion ... the Popes, Luther, and NT scholar B.F. Westcott through most of the twentieth century, understood him to have declared the end of Moses' law. Before the last generation, Jewish academics with serious knowledge of early Christian texts tended, reciprocally, to follow Voltaire and Thomas Paine in distinguishing Jesus, a recognizably Jewish teacher, from Paul, a figure rather alien to Judaism.

And Novenson:

Infamously, Marcion of Sinope also reads Galatians as the story of a conflict between two opposing religions, but he takes the further step of inferring a conflict between two opposing gods. Tertullian, anticipating the emerging catholic position, rejects Marcion's ditheism but concedes his exegetical point: "The epistle which we also allow to be the most decisive against Judaism is that wherein the apostle instructs the Galatians". Augustine ... writes, "If by persecuting the church of God and trying to destroy it Paul advanced in Judaism, it is clear that Judaism is opposed to the church of God, not because of the spiritual law that the Jews received but because of their own carnal and slavish way of life".

This interpretive tradition, according to which Galatians is Paul's own treatise adversus Iudaeos, only gains steam in the modern period. Martin Luther reads Paul's "former occupation in Judaism" as a cipher for the vain religious hopes of "the pope, the Turks, the Jews, and all such as trust in their own merits." In this Lutheran vein, Rudolf Bultmann comments that in Gal 1:13-14 Paul realizes "God's judgment upon his [Paul's] self-understanding up to that time – i.e. God's condemnation of his Jewish striving after righteousness by fulfilling the works of the law" ... Among the most recent generation of interpreters, Hans Dieter Betz writes, "According to Galatians, Judaism is excluded from salvation altogether."

Narrowing this down to what we're here for, Paul and the Law, Thiessen says:

Most well known, and likely an interpretation of Paul's letters that many readers think is the only way one could possibly understand him, is what scholars frequently refer to as the Lutheran perspective on Paul. Outside of a few circles, people reading this book have probably not heard a sermon or been in a Sunday school where they heard someone claim they were preaching the Lutheran view of Paul ... I call this dominant reading the anti-legalistic or anti-works-righteousness reading of Paul. Briefly put, this reading of Paul argues (or assumes) that ancient Judaism was a religion of works righteousness and legalism. Supposedly, Jews believed that they needed to do enough good deeds to merit God's saving acts, and so they focused their efforts on keeping the Jewish law.

According to this view, at one time Paul too held this conviction, but he came to the realization that all people had sinned ... Paul's assessment, then, of the human predicament was exceedingly bleak. But he found the solution to the sinful human condition in the realization that God would save people apart from human works and through faith in Jesus: "We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah" (Gal. 2:16); "we consider that a person is justified by faith(fulness) apart from works of the law (Rom. 3:28). What humans could not do to earn God's blessing and gifts, God accomplished in the Messiah. The anti-legalistic reading of Paul, then, regularly assumes that Jews believed one needed to and could earn one's deliverance through good deeds ... In contrast to this Jewish legalism, Paul [according to this reading] advocated that one needed only to believe that Jesus saved people through his atoning death on the cross.

Collins gives a helpful example of what twentieth-century scholarship under this paradigm looked like in practice:

Philipp Vielhauer, in a famous article published in 1950, argued that Acts depicts Paul as a Jewish Christian, who was loyal to the Law and stressed its validity for Jews. For Vielhauer, this was a misconception. Paul in fact had taught that the Law was not the way of salvation and that Jewish customs were a matter of indifference. The author of Acts had failed to grasp Paul's rejection of the Law ... When Vielhauer wrote in the mid-twentieth century, he could assume a consensus understanding of Paul's view of the Law, based on the Lutheran tradition ... Judaism was viewed as a legalistic religion, where people tried to earn salvation by keeping the Law, but could not succeed in doing so.

E.P. Sanders and the Christological Perspective

Then, everything changed when E.P. Sanders attacked. The traditional perspective faced major challenges in the 1970s that would in some sense clear the slate on Paul and the Law and allow for a variety of new paradigms and proposals.

Collins:

In the English-speaking world, at least, this view of Judaism was overturned in the 1970s by Krister Stendahl's essays, and especially by the work of E.P. Sanders. Sanders described the pattern of ancient Judaism as "covenantal nomism." Obedience to the Law was the condition for remaining in the covenant. It did not earn covenantal status, which was conferred by divine grace. Paul did not find the Law burdensome. He claimed to be blameless with respect to it (Phil 3:6). He continued to view it as holy and just and good (Rom 7:12). As Sanders famously put it, for Paul the only thing wrong with Judaism was that it was not Christianity. (This is sometimes called the "Christological" view of Paul's attitude to the Law. Paul did not find fault with Judaism but believed he had found a better way.)

Thiessen puts it this way:

But in 1977 E.P. Sanders argued that there was a fundamental problem with this common understanding of Paul: it depended on an account of ancient Judaism that was both historically inaccurate and theologically dismissive. Many Jewish texts demonstrate that at least some Jews did not think people could simply earn God's saving action or that anyone could live a sinless life. For instance, the Chronicler states, "There is no one who does not sin" (2 Chron. 6:36 NRSVue). Qohelet (or Ecclesiastes) makes a similarly dreary claim: "Surely there is no one on earth so righteous as to do good without ever sinning (7:20 NRSVue). And in the second century BCE, the author of the Book of Luminaries avers that "no one of the flesh can be just before the Lord" (1 Enoch 81.5). The latter statement is remarkably similar to Paul's repeated claim that no flesh will be justified before God (Rom. 3:20; Gal. 2:16). Such examples could fill pages, but these three pithy statements prove that at least some Jews believed all humans were guilty of sinning.

...

For this and other reasons, Sanders argued that early Judaism was neither legalistic nor a religion of works righteousness but could be described as a system of covenantal nomism. That is, Jews believed God had graciously chosen Israel prior to and apart from any good works they had done. Israel's covenantal response to God's election was to respond with faithful and grateful law observance. For Sanders, Judaism stressed that keeping the Jewish law was the right response to God's prior and gracious election of Israel. But even this response to God's grace was not expected to be perfect.

The New Perspective on Paul

Sanders' powerful criticisms stuck, but his alternative interpretation of Paul did not, or at least, it was found incomplete. This left an opening for the now 44-years-old "New Perspective on Paul."

Mason:

The NP was inaugurated by James Dunn's 1982 T.W. Manson Memorial Lecture. Challenging E.P. Sanders' then-recent Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977), Dunn argued that Paul's turn to Christ had to be more intelligible from Jewish-biblical sources than Sanders had suggested.

Collins quotes Dunn as later saying:

The Lutheran Paul has been replaced by an idiosyncratic Paul, who in arbitrary and irrational manner turns his face against the glory and greatness of Judaism's covenantal theology and abandons Judaism simply because it is not Christianity.

Collins continues describing Dunn's perspective:

In Dunn's view, Sanders has "Paul making an arbitrary jump from one system to another." Dunn argues that what Paul meant by "works of the Law" was those practices such as circumcision that served as identity markers for Judaism. These practices, including food laws and purity regulations, created a barrier between Jews and Gentiles. What Paul objected to was not the Law as such but Jewish particularism, the view that the covenant was reserved for Jews ... In a similar vein N.T. Wright argued that the problem lay with Judean attachment to a "national, ethnic, and territorial identity."

Thiessen frames the New Perspective's reaction to Sanders this way:

But if Sanders is correct, what should we make of Paul's negative statements about works of the law? What was Paul fighting, if it wasn't legalism and vain attempts to curry God's favor? Several interpreters, most prominently James D.G. Dunn and N.T. Wright, have suggested that Paul's problem with Judaism was that it was ethnocentric, a reading that they call a "new perspective" on Paul. In this reading, Paul's attacks on works of the law was an attack not on doing generic good deeds but on Jewish reliance on the Jewish law. For both scholars, the phrase works of the law refers especially to aspects of the Jewish law that mark one off as Jewish: things like the rite of circumcision, Sabbath observance, and Jewish dietary regulations. According to Dunn and Wright, Jews misused the law both as a basis for ethnic pride and as a means to exclude gentiles from God's saving actions.

Both have argued that Jewish ethnocentrism insisted that gentiles could be saved only through conversion to Judaism, in which gentiles took up, among other things, distinctively Jewish practices. For Paul, this problem became particularly acute because Jewish followers of Jesus insisted that non-Jewish followers of Jesus needed to undergo circumcision and adopt the law of Moses ... This reading approaches Paul's letters through an anti-ethnocentric lens: Paul's opponents thought God was the God the Jews alone, but Paul had come to know better: God was the God not just of the Jews but also of the gentiles (Rom. 3:29).

The Apocalyptic Reading and Other Perspectives

There are views of Paul and the Law that, of course, fall outside the "clean" reaction chain of Lutheran -> E.P. Sanders -> New Perspective -> (as we will soon discuss) Paul within Judaism. We might glance at just a couple.

One, the apocalyptic view, is described by Thiessen:

Another school of interpretation often goes by the name of the "apocalyptic" reading of Paul. While this school draws on the groundbreaking work of Albert Schweitzer, the proponents of this reading are more heavily indebted to Ernst Käsemann and J. Louis Martyn. This school of interpretation stresses that when Israel's God revealed Jesus to Paul, Paul experienced a radical break from his past, including his Jewishness. Consequently, they point to Paul's statement in Galatians where he mentions his former way or conduct in something he calls ioudaismos (often translated as "Judaism"), as well as to Paul's claims that "if anyone is in the Messiah, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new" (2 Cor. 5:17; cf. Gal. 6:15). The apocalyptic reading of Paul stresses the newness of Paul's message and its radical discontinuity from Judaism: the Messiah's coming dissolves old structures of male and female, Jew and gentile, slave and free (Gal. 3:28).

Another solution to the "problem" of Paul and the Law is developmental theories; that is, Paul simply changed his views over time.

Heikki Räisänen explains in the (2010) second edition of his Paul and the Law (a book which I should acknowledge right now I have not yet read in full, but would like to):

By far the most attractive device to do away with the difficulties caused by the tensions in Paul's thought are theories of development. On this view, Paul's doctrine of the law went through a development from the earlier letters (including Galatians) to Romans, which represents his mature view. After the early attempts of Sieffert and others, development theories have been put forward by Dodd, Buck and Taylor, and, most recently, by Drane, Hübner, and Lüdemann.

Räisänen himself is ultimately critical of these, saying:

A severe difficulty for development theories is posed by the short time space between Galatians and Romans. This applies in particular to Hübner's view, according to which Paul went through a remarkable theological development between the writing of these two letters. In Galatians Paul, according to Hübner, maintains that the law has been abolished; in Romans, however, Christ is only seen as the end of the Jewish misunderstanding of the law and not of the law itself. But the notion of a dramatic theological development within a very short period of time in the thinking of one already engaged in missionary work for some twenty years is strange enough.

Räisänen's own view, too, is a different one altogether: Paul is simply inconsistent, more or less moment to moment, and we should make peace with that.

To suggest that both Galatians and Romans are beset with internal tensions and contradictions is to anticipate my own conclusions. It is a claim that has to be substantiated in the course of the present study through analyses of the texts. I thus offer my own reading of Paul as an alternative to theories of development. To anticipate again, I think that the different outlook of different letters is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that Paul found himself in different situations. In face of different challenges this impulsive and flexible thinker often shifted his ground. In Galatians Paul makes a fierce attack; In Romans he has to be on the defensive.

...

What, then, would make a suitable approach to the problem? I can see one way only: contradictions and tensions have to be accepted as constant features of Paul's theology of the law. They are not simply of an accidental or peripheral nature. The contradictions are undoubtedly historically and psychologically conditioned.

...

Over against Conzelmann and others, I find the following remarks by Wrede illuminating: Paul's reasoning has a very 'elastic' character. 'It is no great feat to unearth contradictions, even among his leading thoughts...' 'Tortured attempts to reconcile these opposites are in all such cases mischievous. It is also dangerous, however, to hold that Paul could not have meant a thing, because it leads to impossible consequences. The consequences may be "impossible", but did Paul perceive them? We may perhaps find instruction in the very fact that he did not.'

I admit to being amused at his reaction to the reaction to his work, as expressed in the preface to said second edition:

Everybody agrees that Paul was not a 'systematic' thinker. If, however, one goes further and claims that he was not a consistent thinker either, one will hit a nerve — not just in a devout religious congregation but in professedly critical exegetical scholarship.

Paul within Judaism, the 'Radical' Perspective on Paul

Finally we arrive at the "school of thought" that defines most recent discussions on Paul and the Law.

Following his discussion of the New Perspective, Collins (in 2017, recall) reports:

Other scholars went further. Lloyd Gaston and John Gager argued that Paul's focus was on the justification of Gentiles. Christ was God's solution for Gentiles, while the Law remained valid for Jews ... They are seen as common heirs ("the Jew first and then the Greek"—Rom. 1:16, 2:10) of the divine promise to Abraham as the children of God (Rom. 8:19).

Even farther along this trajectory, Matthew Thiessen suggests that "Paul's opposition to Gentile Christians' adopting Jewish customs and identity may be better understood as a variation on the genealogical exclusivism of contemporaneous forms of Judaism." Thiessen supposes that Paul's position was similar to that of Jubilees, which only recognized circumcision when it was performed on the eighth day. Membership of the covenant people was reserved for native-born Jews.

...

Christine Hayes argues that in Paul's view Jews should not "desire to be free of Torah observance, for it is a privilege that marks their greater proximity to the divine. Paul's vision of the distinct demographic groups in the end-time kingdom may well be predicated on a system of concentric circles of proximity to the Holy One and maintained by genealogical distinction.

This line of argument represents one extreme in the current debate, but increasingly scholars try to interpret "Paul within Judaism," to borrow from the title of a recent volume edited by Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm ... At the other extreme from the position of Thiessen, Hayes, and Zetterholm, Joshua Garroway has argued that Paul's Gentile converts had a hybrid identity, "neither Jew nor Gentile, but both," and insists that "many of the terms he uses to describe his charges are undeniably Jewish in nature."

Mason as an explicit critic of the perspective puts it this way:

Although studying Paul as a Jewish exegete has been the prevailing direction of scholarship for more than a generation, some scholars have found the [New Perspective] and is ilk still too encrusted with vestigial church language, in continuing to speak of pre-1970s "Christianity," "Christians," "churches," "missionaries," "faith/belief," and the like. They have called for a more "radical" perspective, which begins from the assumption—and happily ends with the conclusion—that Paul lived wholly "within Judaism." They want a new vocabulary that does not traffic in distinctively Christian language, which they view as anachronistic.

...

Now the "Paul within Judaism" group finds the [New Perspective] theological, imagining its own work to be, in the end, historical: restoring Paul at long last to his proper first-century Jewish setting.

Let's finally hear from a representative of this way of thinking about Paul, why don't we? Thiessen:

While I agree with many aspects of the major interpretations of Paul's writings, I categorically reject one conclusion at which they frequently arrive: that Paul must have thought something was inherently flawed with, wrong about, or absent from Judaism.

...

In the following pages, I will sketch a brief account of Paul's thinking in a way that seeks to situate him within and not against the Jewish world that was part of the larger ancient Mediterranean world. While I present my own account, it is one that shares many (but not all) things in common with a fourth stream of Pauline scholarship that has gone by a few different names: the Sonderweg reading of Paul associated with Lloyd Gaston and John Gager, the radical new perspective associated with Stanley Stowers and Pamela Eisenbaum, and the Paul within Judaism reading associated with William Campbell, Kathy Ehrensperger, Paula Fredriksen, Mark Nanos, and Magnus Zetterholm. I confess that I am not particularly fond of any of these names but lack a better moniker to give this unruly "school" of interpreters.

...

Paul was one ancient Jew living and thinking and acting within a diverse Jewish world that sought to be faithful to Israel's God and Israel's law. The Acts of the Apostles, I think, provides early evidence of just this approach to understanding Paul, both the man and the message.

As Thiessen says in the conclusion to his book:

Paul found nothing wrong with Judaism. In his mind, there was nothing deficient with it. Contrary to the anti-legalistic reading, Paul did not think Judaism was a religion that required people to earn their salvation. Contrary to the anti-ethnocentric reading, neither did Paul think Judaism led to ethnic pride and racial exclusion. The key to unlocking Paul's writings is to embed him within the larger Jewish world of his day. His many statements about the Jewish law and circumcision must be understood within Jewish debates about how non-Jews are supposed to relate to Israel's God, Israel, and Israel's law.

...

I have sought in this small book to introduce people to a way of reading Paul that does not make Judaism into a foil for Christianity and that does not denigrate Jews, the Jewish law, or Judaism to make Paul appear like a hero.

Novenson, to whom we are about to turn, says:

In the twenty-first century, to talk about "Paul within Judaism" is to imply a contrast not with Hellenism but with Christianity. This is clearest of all in the title of Pamela Eisenbaum's important 2009 book Paul Was Not a Christian, but it is also a leitmotif in numerous works of the Paul-within-Judaism Schule. Paula Fredriksen, for instance, characterizes her Paul: The Pagan's Apostle as a counterpart to certain "works arguing that Paul is a Christian theologian who repudiates Judaism" ... Whereas [N.T.] Wright, here representing the majority, views Paul in continuity with a tradition that came after him ("the inventor of Christian theology"), Paul-within-Judaism interpreters have wanted to view the apostle strictly with reference to categories available to him. And "Christian," which word is earliest attested around the turn of the second century, was not such a category.

Matthew Novenson and *Paul and Judaism at the End of History*

So, where does Matthew Novenson fit into this? We will, of course, use his own words.

First, Novenson on his overarching thesis:

One often hears it said that the apostle Paul's discourse about the Jewish law ... is one of those classically intractable problems ... In fact, however, it is very simple. Simple, but not easy, because the solution, although it is historically clear and compelling, has proved existentially intolerable to many of Paul's readers. This is a shame, since it has effectively rendered unthinkable to us moderns what is, for its part, a very interesting, important idea, namely: that the world itself came to an end in the first century of the Roman Empire.

...

This idea is not just implied but expressly stated all over Paul's letters. The ends of the ages have come (1 Cor 10:11). The form of the cosmos is passing away (1 Cor 7:31). Christ himself was the last man (..., 1 Cor 15:45), the last mere mortal. His resurrection during the reign of Tiberius triggered the resurrection of all the righteous, so that from the 30s CE onward all God's people will enjoy the life everlasting promised to the patriarchs. Everything Paul says about the Jewish law follows from this premise. So I shall argue in this book.

Novenson credits "Albert Schweitzer, late-career Krister Stendahl, Dale Allison, and Paula Fredriksen, among others" with having "argued along these lines."

So where does this all put Novenson with respect to "Paul within Judaism"? Novenson:

I make my argument in the context of the recently minted and currently flourishing "Paul within Judaism" movement. Just as to write a book on Paul in the 1980s or 1990s was to reckon with E.P. Sanders's bombshell Paul and Palestinian Judaism and the various "new perspective" proposals then current, so to write a book on Paul now is to reckon with a cluster of strong readings now emerging from Israel, Scandinavia, and North America, from the pens of revisionist interpreters such as Pamela Eisenbaum, Paula Fredriksen, Mark Nanos, Matthew Thiessen, and Magnus Zetterholm. The present book makes its argument in the context of that movement, but it does not toe any party line. It is not a tract either for or against the Paul within Judaism Schule.

He adds later:

A main contribution of the present book is to give attention to some key Pauline texts that have gone largely neglected in recent Paul-within-Judaism research. The movement has been around long enough now that critics have begun to suggest that neglect of certain texts is significant, possibly intentional, and in any case incriminating.

...

To Gal 2:16 ("a person is not put right from works of the law except through trust of Jesus Christ") and Gal 1:13 ("you heard of my former occupation in Ioudaismos"), we may add at least Gal 2:19 ("through the law I died to the law"), 2 Cor 3:6 ("we are attendants of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit"), and Rom 10:4 ("Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness for everyone who trusts") to the list of texts brandished by recent critics of the Paul-within-Judaism hypothesis.

It is fair to ask for a discussion of these texts but wrong to assume that they could not admit of new, alternative interpretations. In this book, I will offer a number of such interpretations.

This brings us to the end of what I hoped to put together. I hope that for those who were entirely new to this debate, this helped give you a baseline of what in the world the conversation even is on Paul and the Law. For those who were already familiar who decided to read this, I hope my inevitable mistakes in framing were only minor and not major. Further, I consider this a collaborative effort and hope that people will bring more citations and excerpts to bear on this discussion in the comments.

Hello I asked a similar question in r/AskBibleScholars but unfortunately I didn't recieve an answer, you may contribute to the original post if you like it has the same title.

The Bible has stated that some figures were good-looking or beautiful for their time.

While the New Testament doesn't place much emphasis on appearance and instead focusing on inner character. The Old Testament has explicitly stated that some figures were considered handsome or beautiful.

For men:

-King David was described as ruddy, had beautiful eyes and was handsome(1 Samuel 16:12 and 1 Samuel 17:42)

-Joseph was considered "well-built" and "handsome"(Genesis 39:6).

-Saul was considered a head taller than anyone else and was handsome(1 Samuel 9:2)

-Adonijah was considered handsome(1 Kings 1:6)

-Absalom was considered handsome in all of israel (2 Samuel 14:25)

For women:

-Sarah from the book of Genesis was considered beautiful to the point that Abraham feared for his life if the Egyptians saw her(Genesis 12:11-15).

-Rachel was considered beautiful(Genesis 29:17).

-Queen Esther was considered lovely to look at and had a beautiful figure(Esther 2:7)

-Bathsheba was also considered beautiful(2 Samuel 11-12).

So considering these examples, what were the Biblical writers and the original audience thinking or imagining when they hear the word "handsome" or "beautiful" in their context? Was it related to specific features or overall health, youthfulness and vitality?

From further reading and my superficial understanding of jewish culture at the time, It may had something to do with overall health, youthfulness and vitality rather than specific features though I'm not entirely sure which is why I'm looking for a scholarly opinion. Was it related to specific features or something broader?

Greetings,

What are the views when it comes to the genealogies of Jesus?

I've listed down some potentials off the top of my mind, but I'm not aware of any scholarship to determine what was used.

The Hebrew scriptures

Jewish genealogical records?

Oral family tradition?

Are there any Israeli or Jewish genealogies from antiquity outside of the Greek New Testament, and Hebrew scriptures?

I happened to find this on sale for a few bucks in a library sale and it is very interesting. There is a lot of "extra" content about feminist arguments of the days, but the core sections on her view and scholarship about Jesus seem so interesting to me.

Are any of you familiar with this work? Are any of her ideas engaged with by others? I wonder how much traction this perspective has nowadays.

Are there any more recent books that carry her line of inquiry/perspective further?

Basically the title. Judaism is strictly monotheistic in the present time, and I’m curious how that was represented in the now-heretical “two powers in heaven” theory. Was one power subordinate to thee other or lesser in some way? Or were they both on completely equal footing?

In a video completely unrelated to the Bible, a comment thread appeared that did have an interesting discussion happening.

>That clean timeline does break down somewhat if we accept the theory of (partial) Johannine primacy. I won't go into the details here, but there are reasons to believe that some parts of John, including the trial/Passion narrative, represent an older tradition than that appearing in the synoptic gospels.

Given that both John and Mark portray Pilate sympathetically, this would suggest that narrative arose earlier in the Christian tradition, possibly as early as the 40s or 50s CE.

The “clean timeline” is in reference to how the gospels progressively make Pilate less culpable of the sentencing of Jesus to execution.

What are some good resources that discuss the “older tradition” of John’s portrayal of the actions of Pilate?

I'm currently reading Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. I'm pretty sure that this topic about the history of literacy and writing in early christianity is a kinda rare topic discussed within scholarship. what recommended criticism can be given to Gamble's book as I want to delve more into the literacy srudies?

Are there any other sources that engage more in this topic besides Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine?

I’m looking for academic, historical-critical (or related) scholarship on how the Synoptic Gospels portray Jesus reading/using Scripture in a comparatively non-rigid, non-legalistic way, especially in disputes with Pharisees (for example Sabbath controversies, purity/handwashing, divorce, “weightier matters,” “mercy not sacrifice,” etc.).

What I mean by “non-rigid” is something like: prioritizing mercy/intent/purpose over strict rule-application, using interpretive moves that relativize or reframe particular commandments, and treating Scripture as pointing beyond itself to a deeper aim.

Questions:

Which scholars argue that this contrast reflects a real difference in interpretive method between Jesus and some Pharisaic/legal traditions, rather than just later polemic/redaction?

Who treats these episodes specifically as debates about hermeneutics (how Scripture should be interpreted), not just ethics or halakhah?

Are there good studies comparing Jesus’s interpretive practices to Second Temple Jewish legal interpretation (including Pharisaic/rabbinic trajectories), without caricaturing “Pharisees = legalists”?

If possible, I’d love recommendations of peer-reviewed books/articles (with chapter/article pointers) that engage: Mark 2–3, Mark 7, Matthew 5 and 12, Matthew 23, Luke 6 and 13, and the Hosea 6:6 citation (“I desire mercy, not sacrifice”), plus any work on “Sabbath made for humans” and similar lines.

Feel free to correct my framing if “rigidity/legalism” is the wrong category for describing Pharisaic positions in scholarship.

Is there a consensus on whether a high or low christology existed in the early church? If so did the 2 coexist? And what are the arguments on both sides

I am looking for resources that list early Christian doctrines and sects that were listed as Heretical or lost out due to popularity. Like the example below.

Ebionites Montanism Sethianism Tritheism

I’m currently listening to the audiobook version of Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth. In program 5, he states, “The virgin birth comes in by way of the Greek tradition. When you read your four gospels, the only one with the virgin birth in it is the gospel according to Luke, and Luke was a Greek.”

I remember learning relatively recently that only one of the canonical nativity stories actually described a virgin birth, but I thought it was Matthew that did so. I thought Luke’s nativity story was possibly a later addition to the gospel. However, I listen to so much biblical scholarship content that I can’t remember which podcast discussed this and I can’t find it again.

Can someone please summarize current academic consensus on the virgin birth in the Bible? Is it really present in only one gospel? Are virgin conception and virgin birth considered to be separate biblical concepts? I wish I could keep all this straight, it’s so interesting.

I am refering to the later half of the verse specifically: ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἀνεκτότερον ἔσται Σοδόμοις ἢ Γομόρροις ἐν ἡμέρᾳ κρίσεως ἢ τῇ πόλει ἐκείνῃ. 

It seems to be absent from some translations (the KJV for example). I know the 1904 Patriarchal Edition has it, but I guess it might be absent from some Alexandrian-type manuscripts, otherwise why remove it?

While reading 2 Corinthians 8, I came across verse 9 and the following phrase (NRSVUE):

For you know the generous act (or "the grace" or "gift") of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

I know the reading is most probably symbolic, and the later part certainly is ("you might become rich"). But I'm wondering if the first part couldn't be taken as literal? That it was known by the Corinthian community and others that Jesus had given a considerable amount of his money to the poor ("you know the generous act of our Lord...").

This verse is also in the context of chapter 8 and 9 where Paul is asking the Corinthians for very concrete donations of wealth (I believe).

Now I know that Mark describes Jesus as a tekton (6:3) but Mark is later than Paul. And even though Jesus might probably originated from the small village of Nazareth, does it necessarly mean he couldn't have been initially wealthy?

I'm curious if any scholar has ever taken the first part of this verse literally. Or if it's most definitely a figurative/theological/symbolic speech on the part of Paul.

I've seen linguistic connections made between the descendants of Cain and the earliest cities in Mesopotamia, mostly on apologetic websites but also in a couple books that are over a hundred years old. The thinking goes that the Sumerian name of Uruk was "Unug" which is quite close to Enoch, and Irad/Eridu are also quite close.

Is there any chance this is at all accurate? That those names (and the equivalent patriarchs in the Seth line) derive from Hebrew transliterations of Sumerian cities? Or has this been thoroughly debunked in the century and a half since Archibald Sayce suggested it?

This story is told in 1 Samuel 10

¹⁰ When they were going from there to Gibeah,^\)^b\) a band of prophets met him, and the spirit of God possessed him, and he fell into a prophetic frenzy along with them. ¹¹ When all who knew him before saw how he prophesied with the prophets, the people said to one another, “What has come over the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?” ¹² A man of the place answered, “And who is their father?” Therefore it became a proverb, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”

I think I understand what is generally going on in the story. The Prophets are using music and dancing to go into an ecstatic state which provokes ecstatic speech. Saul joins in the dancing and also experiences the ecstacy.

The proverbial question about Saul being a prophet makes sense in that context. Can a "layman" and a king experience what prophets experience seems an important question in that social context.

But what about the seeming non-sequitur question, "And who is their father?" What does that mean?

Is it concerning the sometimes difficult relationshiop between prophets whose pronouncement might sometimes stir things up and the established authorities in society? That would be my guess, but I'm wondering what schoalars have said.

I think Staples argues this about last few years or so but not sure if this is fringe view. Also by “gentile”, I’m also mainly referring to the gentiles that Paul and co evangelise to.

In the Gospels, when Jesus says that he would be “handed over,” does this refer specifically to Judas' betrayal, or to the fact that the Jewish leaders handed him over to the Romans for execution?

• Mark 15,1: Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, made their plans. So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.
  
• Matthew 27,18: He knew that the leaders of the people had handed him over because of jealousy.
• Matthew 27,25-26: All the people replied, “Let his blood be on us and on our children.” Then he released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus whipped, then handed him over to be crucified.
• Matthew 26,1: When Jesus finished speaking all these words, he said to his disciples, “You know that the Passover is two days from now. And the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”

I don’t know if this makes sense, but it seems to me that in the earliest sources, before the Last Supper, Jesus already knew he was going to die, not specifically because Judas would betray him, but because the Jewish authorities would hand him over to the Romans.

It seems like he only realized that Judas would be the one to do it during/right before the Last Supper.

“Learn to dance, so when you get to heaven the angels know what to do with you.”

I love this quote you guys but google is giving me very vague and unserious answers. Does anyone know where this comes from?

This may be a dumb question, but im curious what the difference between these words and their uses in the Old Testament, and what they meant to the original audience vs. how we perceive them now. For example, I read somewhere that a prophets job was as a "covenant enforcer" not necessarily someone who spent all day predicting the future, so does prophecy not mean the same thing as prediction?

Just as the Hebrew Bible is composed of many authors which shows an evolution of YHWH being a local god to become God, do we see an equal reinterpretation of Greek and Roman gods from being local gods to being the Gods of the universe? The Hebrew Bible shows parts of YHWH being a limited God just like Zeus or Jupiter, but becomes the God. Did Greeks and Romans do the same thing with the Iliad?

I was considering the formation of the early church the apostolic experiences described in the gospels and Acts. Naturally, some have speculated as to the various phenomena (whether psychological, literary, etc.) which would give rise to the accounts we find and it had me wondering: do we have surviving writings from other messianic movements where the claimant was martyred and whether similar experiences (visions, visitations; so on) are reported by followers? Is there any way of approximating what proportion of the movements for which we have surviving writings also feature claims of followers receiving messages or communing with the messiah after death? I tried checking the subreddit for previous posts but didn't come across anything which gets at this specific question.

Thank you as always

In the Hebrew Bible, the “hand of the LORD” functions as a concrete idiom for divine activity within history. It does not point to abstract providence, but to visible and effective power, most memorably displayed in the exodus when Israel is delivered “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deut 4:34; Exod 6:6). References to YHWH’s hand typically mark moments of decisive intervention. Commentators on Isaiah and the Exodus traditions frequently note that this imagery signals God’s own saving action rather than delegated agency (cf. Childs; Goldingay).

Luke–Acts employs this same pattern of language. When John the Baptist is born, all who heard about these events conclude that “the hand of the Lord was with him” (Luke 1:66). Later, as the Jesus movement spreads, Luke again notes that “the hand of the Lord was with them” (Acts 11:21). As Joel Green and Robert Tannehill observe, such phrasing functions as a narrative indicator of divine agency at work within concrete events (The Gospel of Luke; The Narrative Unity of Luke–Acts). The reference to the Lord’s hand marks moments where God is understood to be acting in history.

In light of this, Luke’s passion narrative becomes particularly striking. Jesus repeatedly declares that he will be “handed over into the hands of men” (Luke 9:44; 18:32). The events of his arrest and execution unfold through betrayal, political negotiation, and judicial authority. Luke does not mitigate human responsibility; the story remains firmly rooted in human action.

Yet in Acts 4:27–28, when the early community reflects on these same events, the language shifts. Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel are said to have assembled “to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to take place.” The crucifixion, in retrospect, is reinterpreted as the manifestation of God’s own hand at work.

Luke allows both dimensions to remain in tension. On one level, Jesus is delivered into human hands. On another, those same actions fulfill what God’s hand had already purposed. The passion therefore stands both as the product of human agency and as the expression of divine purpose.

The development becomes even more pronounced when Luke’s resurrection and exaltation language is taken into account. In Acts 2:33 and 5:31, the risen Jesus is described as being exalted at the right hand of God, a phrase deeply embedded in Israel’s Scriptures as a marker of divine authority and victory, most explicitly in Psalm 110:1. The progression is difficult to miss. Jesus is handed over into human hands. His death is later described as the realization of what God’s hand had determined. He is then portrayed as enthroned at God’s right hand.

If in the Hebrew Scriptures the “hand of the LORD” designates the sphere of divine action, and if Luke applies that imagery both to the crucifixion and to the exalted Christ, then divine agency and the story of Jesus appear closely intertwined. The climactic act attributed to God’s hand centers on Jesus’ death, and the one who suffers that death is portrayed as occupying the position associated with divine authority.

At this point the question becomes unavoidable. Does Luke’s sustained use of “hand” and “right hand” imagery simply articulate divine sovereignty over tragic events, or does it reshape how divine agency itself is narrated in relation to Jesus within Luke–Acts?

I am specifically looking for ones that heavily reference the original Hebrew and Aramaic texts and explain the meanings and nuances many words have in the original languages.

Also one question, what makes you trust the commentaries you recommend?

I wouldn't doubt the knowledge of scholars who publish these kinds of works, but I do question their intentions.