I was very recently challenged by a Jewish follower of Yeshua, who argues that Gentiles need to get circumcised and who believes the Apostle Paul was anti-Torah and a liar and should therefore be totally ignored.
I believe that the Apostle Paul was inspired and a committed follower of Yeshua and the God of Israel. However, I acknowledge that there are some serious corruptions of Paul’s epistles, which I believe were deliberate and designed to separate the religion of Paul from the proto-Judaism[1] of his day.
CEB Cranfield is a scholar held in such high regard that his Commentary on Romans is part of the International Critical Commentary series, which is perhaps one of the best complete commentaries available today. While the world has as many opinions as people I find this quote from him worth some consideration:
“Having seriously engaged with the Epistle to the Romans for more than a quarter of a century, I still find it always fresh and cannot read it without delight. It is my earnest hope that more and more people may become seriously engaged with it, and, hearing what it has to say, may find in the faithful, merciful, almighty God, with whom it is concerned, joy and hope and strength even in these dark and threatening and – for many - anguish-laden days, through which we are having to live” ‘Romans – A Shorter Commentary’ by CEB Cranfield (p viii)
In this brief comment I will not spend much time on the corruptions, except to highlight one or two and the problems they introduce.
The Apostle Paul was a Pharisee of a Pharisee; a student of the great Gamaliel I. In training then, Paul was much like Yeshua who according to one of the greatest experts on Yeshua, the late Prof. David Flusser, was in essentially a Pharisee himself.
D Flusser in his seminal book “Jesus” (2001) p36 “In the Pharisees, Jesus saw the contemporary heirs of Moses, and said that men should model their lives upon their teaching. This makes sense, for although Jesus was apparently indirectly influenced by Essenism, he was basically rooted in universal non-sectarian Judaism. The philosophy and practice of this Judaism was that of the Pharisees. It would not be wrong to describe Jesus as a Pharisee in the broad sense”
It is also quite probable that Yeshua like Paul was a student of Gamaliel. Yeshua quoted from both of the great teaching pair of Rabbi’s Hillel and Shamai. It is believed that Gamaliel was the grandson of Hillel. Yeshua quotes Hillel and Shammai as does the Apostle Paul.
For example, Yeshua’s statement in Matt 12:30 & Luke 11:23 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”[2] is a direct quote and his statement, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt 7:12) is also a modification of Hillel’s "That which is hateful to you do not unto your fellow man.".
Some have argued that the Apostle Paul was Hellenistic, though this appears to be based on their opinion that his epistles are anti-Torah. Paul though, like Yeshua quoted from many Jewish sources that were available to him as well as the Hebrew Bible. Two examples to help illustrate this are Paul's homily in Romans 12:9-13:7 is of Essene origin for example[3].
Paul was unquestionably zealous, both before his Damascus road experience and perhaps even more so after it. After Damascus, Paul no longer persecuted the followers of Yeshua but became one himself. While he clearly had an intimate experience with Yeshua and was awakened to a great many deeper truths, Paul remained a lover of Torah and an observant Jew.
The Apostle Paul after all had said:
• "Neither against the Jewish Torah, nor against the Temple, nor against Caesar have I offended in anything at all." (Acts 25:8)
• "I have done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers." (Acts 28:17)
• "...the Torah is holy and the commandment is holy and just and good." (Rom. 7:12)
• "Do we then nullify the Torah through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we maintain the Torah." (Rom. 3:31).
Paul was clearly an orthodox Jew as evidenced by the Acts 28:17 quote above; by the fact that his travels’ were always planned around the Feasts and Holy Days including the Sabbath; by his frequent use of pharisaic and other Jewish literature that was available to him and by his appreciation and agreement with the Jewish understanding of human nature. That is, the evil inclination and the good inclination; the 'Yetzer haRa' vs 'Yetzer haTov' which is expanded in Romans 7.
Part of the problem then is that the Apostle Paul needs to be understood from an Hebraic not Hellenistic perspective. Because the world has tended to see Paul as Hellenistic, he is certainly not popular amongst most orthodox Jewish Rabbis today. This is beginning to change, partly thanks to the ‘New Perspective’ on Paul – scholars like James Dunn; and also from some direct interaction with Christian scholars who have studied the Hebraic mindset. In this regard, I personally know of one orthodox Rabbi who now loves Paul, and who now considers him a fellow Rabbi.
The Apostle Paul was Hebrew, most of the NT was first written in Hebrew and can only be properly understood from a Hebrew perspective. Unfortunately, most scholars have not adopted this approach.
Regardless of his past sins before Damascus and regardless of the distortions that have occurred through the redacting of his epistles, Paul was clearly one of the greatest men who ever lived and certainly a great Rabbi as well. His words such as the Corinthians love chapter, his Ephesians exhortation on marriage and the brilliant description in Romans 9-11 of how Gentiles can be grafted into the cultivated olive tree of Israel are amongst the most beautiful words ever written and continue to be amongst the most quoted words in history. His summation of the commandments of God in Gal 5:14 is also brilliant, even though just a rewording of some of Leviticus 19.
Paul's life was incredibly sacrificial, that is, it was a life devoted to God, to His Feasts, His Sabbath and His new High Priest and Anointed One, Yeshua. Paul turned his back on much because of meeting the Prophet and Messiah that Moses had spoken of (see Deut 18 for example).
I believe that those of us who are Gentiles should feel incredibly indebted to Paul - I doubt that many Gentiles would have even known about the Creator of the Universe, the God of Israel, the One True God without his influence. Paul also warned us to turn from gentile ways in Eph 4:17: “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds”. This also is typically Hebraic, as the Rabbi’s believed that one could only be wise if one knew and lived Torah. Thus, if Gentiles did not know Torah, then clearly they were not wise and could even be called foolish or having ‘futile minds’.
Partly perhaps because of the pogroms, many Jewish people are still traumatised and unwilling to fully embrace the concept of being 'lights to the Nations' as they are called to be. This is very understandable, and was probably not too different in the first century of the Common Era. This makes Paul's efforts even more remarkable.
I suspect that much of the success and prosperity of the Western world can be traced to his influence in helping Gentiles turn to HaShem, the God of Israel. Only through being obedient to the Moral Code of the Universe (the 10 Words) can real prosperity grow - the desolation that follows Islam is to some degree a counter-example that proves this point.
I attended a significant Jewish/Christian conference in Jerusalem recently[5] and met some Rabbi's and Jewish professors as well as some Christian theologians who also respect Paul, and respect him as pro-Torah. For some of them the real issues that divide Judaism and Christianity are not the Apostle Paul (and his supposedly anti-Torah teaching) but the Trinity and the Sabbath.
Christianity has a great deal of error - an earnest effort to properly understand Paul and to remove where possible the obvious distortions of his words, would greatly help Christianity get closer to being the true graft that it should be.
To help with this improved understanding of Paul, I believe that the late Prof. Flusser’s approach to the Synoptics would be most beneficial here. Flusser has, I believe, shown to a fair degree what is and isn’t original in the Synoptics.
His approach: “… the key to understanding many of the difficult or even apparently unintelligible passages in the gospels is to be found not primarily in a better understanding of Greek, but in retroversion to and translation of the Hebrew behind the Greek (made possible by the often transparently literalistic translation methods of the Greek translators).”
When this is done the errors tend to be obvious – of course this is only to scholars with the incredible breadth of knowledge of the Qumran Scrolls, etc., that Flusser had.
Even without the wisdom of a Flusser though, there are still a number of corruptions that are fairly easily identified. I will briefly touch on a few:
Galatians 3:16
Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He doesn’t say, “To seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “To your seed,” which is Christ. (ESV)
Genesis is being quoted and referred to here. In fact Genesis 17:7-9 “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your seed after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your seed after you. I will give to you, and to your seed after you, the land where you are traveling, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. I will be their God.” God said to Abraham, “As for you, you will keep my covenant, you and your seed after you throughout their generations.”
The word ‘seed’ in the original Hebrew is indeed a singular word (zerah) meaning seed and is not plural. However, in the context it is quite clear that a plural meaning is inferred in the same way that a farmer might say ‘I am off to buy some more seed’.
Therefore, and this is very significant, that the scripture we have in Galatians is wrong! Moses does say ‘”to seeds” in the sense that he is referring to many NOT just one seed or one person. This is not to say that one person can not be a secondary meaning in this passage, but it is clearly not the primary meaning and ALL the versions we have of Galatians 3:16 have accepted this clear error. This error is used to argue for a significant Christian doctrine. Apparently, this error is not in the earliest Greek versions.
Romans 3:10-18 and especially v10-11:
“As it is written, ‘There is no one righteous; no, not one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God’.”
I will only touch briefly on this vital passage, as its impact is very significant and deserves a lot more time and space. Frank Selch is preparing a proper analysis of the huge error here, so I will leave it to him to expand upon it.
Briefly then, when we look to see what scripture is being quoted here, it appears to be a number of different passages. Verse 10 though, (see above) either comes from Psalm 14:1-2: “The fool says in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.
The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.” or Psalm 143:2 “Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.”
If you look closely at Ps 14 you should note that David is speaking here about Gentiles, about those who do not know the God of Israel and this is further accented in v5 where he says “There they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous.” where we learn that there are indeed a whole generation of righteous and in Habukuk 2:4 where it states that: “…but the just (or righteous) shall live by his faith (better perhaps is faithfulness, as it implies an action, not just a belief/thought… “.
The Ps 143 reference should also, on closer inspection, show that our righteousness is being compared with the Almighty’s and in that sense we can see we fall far short. Also we see further down that the Psalmist anticipates that he can be righteous before the Almighty when he states: “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!” (v10).
The whole tenor of the TaNaK, through to the very words of Yeshua, when he states ‘repent, for the Kingdom of God is near’, and his statement that Zaccheus and his family had received salvation because of his repentance, indicate that it is possible to do good and be righteous before the Almighty. Clearly there is some serious misuse and distortion occurring here.
The issue of the misuse of the Apostles Paul’s writings are not just with clear corruptions of the text but also with clearly false interpretations that have been generally accepted by many. A good example of this problem in the use of Col 2:16-17 to argue against observing the Biblical Feasts and the Sabbath. The context indicates that such a conclusion is diagrammatically the opposite of Paul’s intention (see my article on Colossians 2 and the Sabbath for details on this).
Of course the problem of NT textual corruption extends beyond the letters of the Apostle Paul. To cite just one example for now, let us consider Heb 10:5-7. In the middle of the quote from the TaNaK are the words “… Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me;” (v5).
However, the correct words here are : “Sacrifices and grain offerings you don't want; burnt offerings and sin offerings you don't demand. Instead, you have given me open ears;”.(see JPS Tanakh, 1917 edition. Check this out in your favourite version of the Bible – in most, if not all, you will find the corrupted version in Hebrews and something very similar to the Tanakh (taken from the Masoretic Hebrew text) version above in your ‘Old Testament’ section[6].
So in summary, the conclusion that the Apostle Paul was Hellenistic comes from both corrupt translations and the failure to view Paul from an Hebraic perspective. The very opposite conclusion that Paul was a liar and not an Apostle, is in a sense an alternative derivation from the same approach, but by those who clearly appreciate that the Almighty has never abolished His Torah or His call to repentance and obedience that this entails.
Instead, it is our contention that the Apostle Paul was indeed one of the greatest men of God who ever lived and was a most faithful and effective follower of Yeshua. We instead accept the many brilliant Torah based instructions he gave, but seek always to see that they are consistent with the clear message of the TaNaK. If not, we then look for textual corruption or for some Hebraic perspective that may not be obvious to our gentile (read Greek) trained minds.
Another issue that this all raises then is the sensitive issue of circumcision. See Part 2 for this discussion.
Paul Herring
April 2011
[1] Prof. Flusser uses this term the religion that Yeshua practiced as this was before the establishment of Rabbinic Judaism.
[2] Judiasm and the Origins of Christianity, Flusser p17
[3] "A Jewish Source for the Approach of the Early Church to the State," Jewish Sources in Early Christianity, Sifriat Poalim, 1982, pp. 397-401 (in Hebrew).
[6] You might ask, where did the text ‘but a body you prepared for me’ come from? It appears that some versions of the Septuagint have this rendition. Here perhaps, you may start to see part of the problem that scholars like Prof. Flusser have so effectively illustrated. The Septuagint we have today has seen some serious redacting as well, and it appears that these changes have been made to support doctrinal positions of mostly Christian theologians. In fact, Flusser argues that the Septuagint was NOT the primary version of the Tanakh used in the NT – many other scholars are now coming to a similar conclusion.
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