John, Jesus, Peter, Paul, and James--Sorting out the First Forty Years!

foreign [Music] podcast and today Professor James Tabor joins us once again last time he was with us he talked about the Waco tragedy I'll have the link to that video in the description below and to his YouTube channel and to the first interview that um that he did with me uh last year as well when we talked about his book The Jesus Dynasty today we're going to be talking about one of his other books Paul and Jesus he talks about how Paul the reasons that Paul broke from the Apostles showing that there's a sharp disagreement between Paul and the other Apostles of Jesus Christ some people try to say actually there's nothing to see here but he shows in this book yeah these guys Paul didn't really get along with these guys as much as some people think that he did you see you see things of like Paul confronting Keith is to his face or they are or the arguments he had with James or um such or things like that and then he when he goes into the Epistle of James in what what I find very interesting there is he shows that there's actually parallels between the epistle James and the Q document and I actually want to ask you about that um what led to your like how should I put it okay you've shown parallels between the epistle James and the teachings in the Q document the Jesus teachings of the Q document what do you think the relationship is there between those two texts and could that be involved in any way with Paul's disagreement with their theology well good to be with you Jacob um hold that a minute because I'll tell you what I want to do distribute to that is I want to um just say a few things about why I wrote this book um that are more you know kind of personal background actually in fact did my PhD dissertation on poll that was in the 80s so I've been studying Paul for 40 years and lots of New Testament Scholars or Scholars of I call myself more ancient Mediterranean religions really when I focus on second temple Judaism and what people call Christian Origins which I consider a subset of second temple Judaism that is Paul's Jewish Jesus is Jewish the basic followers of Jesus are Jewish and so I've been working on Paul for these four decades and that was my dissertation I republished that in a version that's now updated and so forth close Paul's is sent to paradise and we might do that in the future that's on Paul's spirituality is mysticism was the agnostic you know where is his religion coming from setting him in the context of what we call Hellenistic religions but this book is very much down the line of as you indicate talking about Paul and James and how people interpret uh the significance of Paul but if you're permitted uh here I'd like to start with reading you a couple paragraphs from the opening of the book the preface because I think it sets the stage for what I what is behind everything that I did in the book including your initial question about uh the queue document I said I have spent my now this was 10 years ago so I spent my 30-year career as a scholar of Christian Origins investigating the silence between two back-to-back statements of the Apostles Creed remember the Apostles Creed as one of the earliest Post New Testament Creeds we have some Creeds embedded maybe even in the letters of Paul but beyond that namely that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit born of the Virgin Mary crucified died and was buried and on the third day he rose again from the dead now what I said is I'm investigating the silence between born of the Virgin Mary crucified dead and buried and raised is it not striking that this oldest and most foundational Christian Creed jumps from Jesus birth to his death and Resurrection entirely skipping over his life hmm uh think about that you're this is the central confession of the earliest second century Christians and as they confess they don't really talk about the silence between he's born and he dies how did it happen that the way Jesus came into the world and how he left virgin birth Resurrection Ascent to Heaven Christmas and Easter came to Define Christianity here Catholics Protestants and evangelicals all agree to be a Christian you believe in the Virgin birth and resurrection of Christ and participate in the Salvation Christ brought to the world and what I go on to say is I think that kind of view of what it is to be a Christian or to follow Jesus birth and death is is essentially a creation of Paul now if you go to James you mentioned James or the collection of the sayings of Jesus that Scholars sometimes call Q This is a designation given in Germany about 150 years ago and I'll talk about that in just a minute um notice the Book of James doesn't mention Jesus birth and it alludes to his death perhaps in terms of the death of a righteous man a just one but remember James is called the just one and he dies and John the Baptist is uh considered uh in cue among those born of women there's none greater than John greater probably unrighteousness just insignificance and he was beheaded you know and so James it's not as though he's not aware of the death of Jesus but he doesn't say look your faith is essentially the Virgin birth and the death of Jesus and his blood on the cross and that's what seiji never mentions of Blood on the cross never mentions of the cross so the Book of James whether it came exactly from James or not like modern Scholars would not think that it's an autograph from James uh we're actually not sure where it comes from but it has his name on it it's in Greek and if there was maybe a Hebrew version of it it might have come from at least if you wanted to be you know more conservative at least than most Scholars uh from the circles of James or it's reflecting a way of being religious our way of following Jesus that is quite different from that appalled now contrasts that with what Paul says to the Corinthians for example who have all kinds of problems these Greeks he said I determine to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ in him crucified he does mention Jesus is born of a woman but essentially Paul's gospel is the gospel of the Cross of Christ no what would be James's gospel what what was the message or gospel is probably not the best term in English but you know the positive message the good news or the announcement what is it that James would think is is being announced you know uh by being part of this Messianic movement uh since he doesn't even mention the birth or death of Jesus or the cross if the book is supposed to represent that it uh that must not be so Central to him so that would be one of the differences not just like can we find them fighting in Galatians or are there hints that Paul might have questioned the authority of James and the other so-called pillars of the church by the way he's the one who uses that term the so-called pillars of the church those who seem to be pillars of the church as if he's over here looking at them and saying well they seem to think they're in charge but actually then he says what they are means nothing to me now I think there's a context to that he's not completely dissing them it's having no value whatsoever but the context is I got my message straight from Jesus and if even an angel comes and preaches anything different much less James or Peter an angel comes or even if I come and say you know what I used to tell you I learned some new things don't believe what I used to tell you he said you should tell me uh it's the word anathema and it really means what we would say today go to hell just go to hell with that you know it's very it's very strong that's in Galatians if we are an angel from heaven preach any other gospel other than this cross message so I want to start with that in answering your question because it really has to do with isn't it interesting how it hooks into the very opening page of the book that Christianity came to be this cradle confession of the death burial resurrection of Jesus Christmas and Easter two main holidays and yet we find in the Book of James or the letter of James uh that's not the emphasis so what is the emphasis it's literally approved it's a prophetic or let me put it this way not prophetic uh in in the agitival sense but is the view of true religion based upon the Hebrew Prophets it basically is the question what does God really require of humans it's a universal question you know Micah I'm talking about Micah Amos uh Hosea these ringing prophets that talk about Justice and righteousness so what does James end up talking about uh pay your wages to your workers right be just give them a fair wage here's the guy talking about what we would call today minimum wage should somebody work 40 hours a week and take their measly paycheck home and they can't even pay their rent or you know their basic necessities of food and utilities you say well that's not really I mean everybody would consider it sort of part of Christianity but James mentions it uh he talks about all kinds of ethical things that remind you of what most people probably call The Sermon on the Mount that's just in their head you know love your enemies turn the other cheek uh when you pray don't do it to be seen of other people you've got this whole body of material several hundred sayings of Jesus that are now found in two virgins Matthew and Luke not the they're not in Mart the definition of q the formal definition is the sayings material of Jesus that is parallel in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark so you can actually just pull it out and look at it and when you look at it what do you find it's primarily like in Luke chapter 6 and 7 in Matthew 5 6 7 and then it's some scattered throughout it's primarily these uh ethical teachings of the kind of spirituality that you would find reflected in the Hebrew Prophets you know what is God really looking at uh things like God looks at the internal not the external now that's found in other places outside of Q for example Mark tells a story uh about a widow in the temple and she's got three strikes against her in that culture she's a woman she's a widow without a marriage or a man because her husband's died and she doesn't have any money I call it the three M's the man you know the she's not a man she's not male she's not married and she doesn't have money so what is she in that culture zero absolutely not you know just supposed to take care of widows that's about it but in mark this is in Mark 12 I believe Jesus says uh did you guys notice that woman who put in the two famous you know copper coins called the lepton I've actually found those at archaeological digs that I've done interesting it's a small coin about it's about the fourth the size of a penny and uh Jesus says uh she gave more than all of these people and right before that he had told uh a scribe of probably a Pharisee uh the great command of it is to love God and love your neighbors yourself well what do we find in the prophets and what do we find in the Book of James you know love God heroism the Lord our God is one and love your fellow human as yourself and if you remember in Mark the guy that hears it says yes if you did that we wouldn't even need this Temple all these sacrifices and then right after that he talks about the Widow so what you're getting here is this emphasis not on buildings not on temples not on external things like praying loud prayers so that people will hear them and so forth but internal things and it runs all the way through Q it runs through the Gospels now I think Paul buys into some of that but if you ask him what is your message you know what is your core what's the gospel he would say it's that Jesus died for your sins and was raised and through faith in him you're forgiven of your sins so it's just a kind of a different emphasis Apostles Creed Paul q and James on the other side and so the book has a lot to do with that sort of thing it questions uh I wrote down we can talk about any of these but they're they're kind of five claims that the book makes one is that Paul never met Jesus you might have seen him once he's in Jerusalem and Jesus dies he might have seen him from a distance being crucified for all I know but he's not there's no record of him ever saying yeah I saw Jesus and we had a conversation already either either liked him or hated him or whatever so his sole claim to Authority is his Clairvoyant Visionary experience today we call it apparitions he had Visions now when I wrote this book I didn't want it to be a Paul bashing book or a poem lauding book because my goal is to get Paul right and you know what I found conservative believing Christians more what we would call Evangelical even funimalists for the most part they love this book and also people that don't like Paul very much or they just don't identify with Paul in terms of their own Christian faith if they are Christian they also like this book so how could this be true maybe because I got it right and others on that first point if you're kind of critical of Paul you'd say no wait a minute never even met Jesus shouldn't we go more by what Jesus taught and what people that knew Jesus taught like James's own brother or Peter who was with him cephas circaphis rather than the Visionary experience of somebody who never actually met him and how do we know how to credit that Visionary experience that's one of the problems you see the second is from a historical point of view and this goes to this whole creedal thing this has been suggested by many people but I think I buy into this if you understand Christianity as the apostles created in the Nicene Creed and the Creeds of the Christian church and Paul's the founder of Christianity not Jesus because Jesus he doesn't give you an example and this is uh in Luke Jesus talks about two men who went up to the temple to pray one was a Pharisee and he said I thank God that I'm not like other men I pray I fast he's naming all these things he does not like this sinner over here and the other man is a tax collector remember and he won't even lift his head he feels very unworthy and he strikes his breast and he says God be merciful to me a sinner no no cross no blood of Christ no Christianity of course it was before that but the point is Jesus says which one went up Justified before God Justified declared forgiven and it was very clear that it was the one who humbled himself so get these kind of things whereas Christianity became creedal like if you don't confess the right doctrines then you're not a Christian and this Christian group is ostracizing this group so the first big controversy was the Aryans who said Jesus was not eternally existent but a created being and the trinitarians are nicean people who said no he's Eternal with the father and so forth so there's a sense of which Paul could be called the founder of Christianity if you understand Christianity is this critical confessional Christianity see but what if you understand Christianity is trying to revive and internalized New Covenant understanding of the Torah as James did as I Think Jesus did then would that really be Christianity in the sense of a new religion or would it be an attempt to get Jews and Gentiles to emphasize following the god of Israel the third point in the book is you should read the New Testament backwards I know you know this you just shows on it all the time yeah but people start reading Matthew because it's first and then they get to Mark and they think they've already read it because they think oh this is just a short version of Nancy which absolutely is not I know you had a show on the priority of Matthew I'd be glad to come and talk about that sure because I completely disagree with the gentleman you interviewed Jonathan Sheffield yeah I believe absolutely Mark is prior and I agree it can easily be shown that Matthew always edits and read backs and generally shortens and truncates his version of Mark but anyway my point is most people read that and maybe they make it through Luke which is quite a slog because it's from 28 chapters and then they get to John and if they're Pious Christians they kind of like John because he talks about light and darkness and believing and faith and it seems familiar to them it's more creedal but you should read it the other way the first letter the first book you should read if you want to study Christianity it's first Thessalonians it's the earliest document not saying you have to read the New Testament chronologically but at least recognize that by the time you get to the gospels they're heavily influenced by Paul right so if there's a version of Christianity already preserved in like James and the Q source which is prior to the formation of the gospels this collection of the sayings of Jesus I don't care if people call it cutie your people today argue like well I don't believe in Q This Q theory is crazy then don't call it Q would you agree that Matthew and Luke have a set of about 250 sings of Jesus in common that are not in mark you'd have to agree with that because they do so why do you need to don't name it anything just say the collection of sayings that Matthew and Luke have in common that's not in Mark but I can then read those things and what is the content of those things it's it's not the heart and soul of false gospel it's more like how to live and how to pray and how to give and we have other sayings that fit in with that you're familiar with the data k very important uh document that has finally been discovered in the 19th century in a monastery in Greece and I'm glad we have it because we had it was mentioned in various Church fathers and now we have several manuscripts of the dedicate and even there you find in the opening chapters the dedicate some sayings of Jesus that are not in the New Testament but as soon as you hear them they have this kind of ring that reminds you of the way Jesus talks and the accused the cue verses let's call them or the Q Source or whatever the con the the saying Source let's call it the saying source for example one of my favorite is uh let your if you're gonna give money to God you know like a contribution picture somebody sitting in church or whatever uh going up to the temple giving an offering let your money sweat in your hands until you know to who you give it I love it it's just it's a great little thing it parallels don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing see how similar it is it's the idea I want to give something instead of announcing it or flapping the hundred dollar bill around like a big tip like I'm gonna get it let just hold it in your hand and and how long should I hold it hold it till it sweats meaning you need to be thinking who are you giving it to what is it really for why are you giving it this is just I'm not preaching to you here I'm I mean I like this stuff actually but all I'm really saying is look how that coheres with the kind of thing that you find in the gospels and in James there's this body of teaching now Paul has some of that Paul has ethics uh he has some very moving passages about loving enemies and uh suffering for others and considering other people I'm not putting him out the door in terms of being an ethical teacher but when people come to formulate Christianity you need to realize that Paul wrote first that all those doctrines got set you know what is the gospel how are you saved how does a people uh how does a person obtain justification which means a right standing with God and you're going to find that the answer Paul gives is different than the answer you find in James and in the gospels where you simply turn to God like in the prophets and you you repent and pray and ask God to forgive you and so I have a chapter called reading the New Testament backwards just to remind people that when they read the Gospels they might be reading uh outside of the older material in the gospel they might be reading as much of Paul as they are of Jesus and I also make the point that Paul's may be the most influential person in history I know that is usually going to go to Jesus or Moses or the Buddha probably if you judge influence just by sheer you know numbers or whatever it would be Jesus but if the Jesus you're getting is primarily filtered through Paul then maybe Paul is the most influential person in history but we don't have to take a vote on that and finally this is big all the way through the book and we can talk about it all you want Paul is radically apocalyptic there's no way to get around it [Music] that the what he calls the form of the cosmos the schema schema means the the way things are operating in the creation the physical creation is passing away right now and then he also has a phrase this is First Corinthians 7 the appointed time has grown very short and then he begins to tell people look uh all the normal relationships that you expect to have like marriage and maybe you're going to go into business or maybe uh economic and social relationships male female slave free all of that matters nothing because it's all going to be transformed very soon and I think he would add and and you will live to see it most likely he certainly thought he was going to live to see it and he's probably 50 years old or so when he's writing these things judging just from the chronology we can reconstruct and he thinks he's going to live to see it so unless you see Paul and I would say Jesus too but Paul we've got his letters at least the seven letters that most of us think are pretty not interpolated you know they're pretty much from the pound Pole you can't understand those unless you keep in mind that it is like 11 55 before midnight and midnight is the coming of Christ the judgment at the end of the age and so forth and Paul resurrection of the dead and he believes that so what swites are called interim ethics how do you live five minutes before the end of history and I'm just using the clock as an analogy you know five minutes before midnight meaning you're gonna see it come and it is going to strike midnight it's really quick so you don't have a lot of time to get your Affairs in order that's that's also a big factor in Paul so a lot of people a lot of what people draw from all and quote uh you're gonna find uh is it needs to be contextualized by the fact that he thought it was the end of the age you know you could ask things like I don't want to go too far straight here but we'll get back up to your questions uh sure that's fine did Paul condone slavery say well yeah he does tell slaves if you're a slave just be a Slave well if it's five minutes till midnight I yeah I can be a slave and he says you know you're free in Christ but what he expects is there's not going to be any slavery very soon right and the same thing with marriage if you get married what have you bought into you bought into an obsolete Arrangement between genders and there's not even going to be any genders there's neither male nor female in Christ and yet people are sitting there say well I'm female I'm male what are you talking about he's talking about the transformation is so near and you know and um in uh chapter 20 I think going back to Jesus he says something very similar when people ask him about divorce and remarriage and a woman might uh if she had a husband and then another husband another husband who's going to be your husband in the resurrection he says you don't have any I'm paraphrasing he says you don't have any idea what Resurrection is that male or female there's not marriage is completely transformed so he tells people not to get married or try extending that for 2 000 years you know are all Christians followers of Jesus supposed to be celibate so you have to always read Paul in the context of the form of this world is presently right now present tense in Greek passing away I think it's already shifting he believed that the creation of Genesis 1 was going to be fundamentally transformed and altered very soon and that his generation would live to see it so the book those are some of the premises that everything in the book is that are based on now why do people love people who love Paul like the book and people who don't like Paul maybe even hateful like the book because they would say yeah Paul never met Jesus he had Visions from Jesus and I believe they were true visions and therefore I'm fine with that you see whereas someone else would say Paul never met Jesus so what he was saying how do we know if it's even from Jesus how would you possibly believe or verify when people are talking about Visionary experience like I went up to heaven and I heard things unutterable what she says what if you were just having a diluted uh Apparition of some type why whereas James or Peter would say well I spent countless hours with Jesus face to face you know touching him knowing him and I'm telling you that he's this way in this way and Paul said well I actually never met him but I do talk to him uh he actually says that he hears a voice and it's Jesus he identified it he says I he has some kind of physical ailment we think and because it is Thorn In the Flesh he calls it a messenger of Satan and he says I asked I asked the Lord the Lord is Jesus I asked the Lord three times if he would help me and he said three times he answered and he quotes the answer like a quote we call that Clairvoyance when you're actually hearing from the spirit being you know you claim you are uh so it just has to be recognized that there's a difference there some people would uh affirm that and others would say well you know that makes me have some second thoughts about Paul so if Paul is right in what he says then you probably will like my book and if you don't think he's right then you'll probably like my book if I get Paul Wright I think I get him right I mean I certainly try to I'm trying to tell you what Paul says not whether I think it's right or not or even whether you should think it's right or not but what does he say so yes you asked me does he call Peter cephas and James does he say uh I went up to Jerusalem and I met with the so-called pillars of the church what they are means nothing to me yeah he says that so I want to point that out uh those who trust Paul's Visionary experience would say yeah of course because Paul actually has something later than any of the Apostles because they only knew Jesus as Paul says in the flesh they knew the human Jesus but Paul would say I know the Divine Jesus right so that is a long preface to your to getting at the issues that you talk about and of course the big question then is does he actually break with them you know does he make a definitive break with these uh it was kind of like in First Corinthians uh chapter one when he says those people there are those that follow me or also fellow kethus or John or Christ and I find it interesting that he says Christ at the end there like if those that follow Christ and my does that mean they're followers of Christ they're not followers of Paul and I think that fits in what what you're saying that Paul follows the Visionary Jesus the Heavenly Jesus and these guys are following the physical Jesus in that sense at least that's and I think it's reflected again we go back to the Book of James whoever wrote it and however we got it it is what it is and Jesus is you can take out the word Jesus it's in the first verse and then it's uh he also has he mentions Jesus once more when he talks about the synagogue synagogue Jewish synagogue uh messianics I mean I don't mean that in the modern sense of Messianic synagogue it's like Jews for Jesus but uh Believers in Jesus that are meeting together they call it a synagogue and he says uh don't hold the faith of Our Lord of God and our lord Jesus in vain he just mentions but if you take out those two references to Jesus everything in James stands and reads perfectly well without Jesus isn't that amazing try taking Jesus out of any letter of Paul will it read perfectly okay it won't even make any sense I rest my case so you can take you you see the point two verses you say well why would you remove Jesus from James I'm not removing it I'm just making the point of course he knows his brother and honors his brother but uh he doesn't develop a whole religion around his brother and the person of his brother but rather I take it what he learned or also taught that would be like his brother in other words ethical teachings of what people usually call the Hebrew Prophets you know uh you see it in Jeremiah you see it in Micah particularly Amos the the question I started with what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly before God uh what about believing in Jesus and being baptized and taking the Lord's Supper well that comes later you see the idea not making fun of it I'm just saying the Q material it's not very christological and that Pauline sense now there is talk about a son of man but that's a huge subject that we probably shouldn't get into today but some other time we could talk about you know christology how does it develop christology is like the different views of Jesus but to go back to quote from First Corinthians some say I follow Paul I follow Apollos I follow cephas I follow Christ could be that the Christ faction is like the James faction saying we follow the original Jesus although some Scholars have suggested they might be the most arrogant of the group thinking that their visions of Christ are their guide because as he goes into First Corinthians he he begins to talk about these spiritual gifts and how the that group is going crazy with all kinds of things where people are ecstatically uttering things in the spirit claiming that Christ says this and Christ says that so he could even be referring to the what we call the charismatic members of the group as they tend to be called you know who are who are kind of saying oh you follow Peter Well I follow Christ because I just talked to him this morning you know that kind of idea so they could I mean that's been suggested by a lot of new testament Scholars that they might be more that sounds good you said I follow Christ so that must be good but what if they're uh making up their own visions and Revelations you see so but definitely you have different uh versions of the faith that's one of the great results of the last hundred years of New Testament studies and particularly last 50 years is that many many hundreds of us have been working on aspects of this body of material that we have from the first century now mostly in the New Testament a few things like the dedicated that are early maybe the Gospel of Thomas but very few sources outside the New Testament and we poured over it in probably the biggest conclusion is the movement is extremely diverse within 20 30 40 years it's already branching out into these different ways and Paul would be our earliest witness to that so uh if you think of it as ways of being religious now what happens Jacob is that a guy we don't know his name he's called traditionally Luke but the guy who wrote Luke X he is very interesting but because when he comes to the second volume of his work and it is anonymous he never gives his name even though traditionally he's called Luke so let's just call it the writer of it's kind of the writer of what we now call Luke X whatever his name was he uh he gets in chapter one he mentions the 11 Apostles Judas is dead and then they elect a new one to replace Judas name is Matthias so they got 12 and then he says uh and Mary and Jesus brothers were there too when they did this Mary and Jesus Brothers huh that's interesting that's yeah this that's the Jesus family right we talked about that now then you go back in Luke chapter four where Mark names the brothers in order James Joseph Simon and Jude and guess what Luke doesn't name the brothers he just says the family and he doesn't name the brothers in chapter one so then we get to chapter 15 which is the most critical point in the history of the movement according to the book of Acts it's all going to fall apart if they don't get agreement on what to do with the non-judes are we going to accept non-jews into the Jewish Messianic movement called the nazarenes uh probably is the best name for them and they decide they will but notice in Acts 15 Peter stands up and speaks yes we should accept them Paul stands up yes we should accept them they don't take a vote James first time his name is mentioned James stands up and what does he say I picture him going like this okay we've heard it all and I have made my decision this is what we're gonna do you go away who are you Paul's talking to Jesus Peter was with Jesus and you're deciding what we're going to do who are you Now isn't it funny he doesn't say James the brother of Jesus I don't know what he wanted his readers to think a hundred years from after he wrote when they wouldn't even know Jesus had brothers because Mary is going to become a Perpetual virgin so he can't have any brothers so who's this James well then finally we get down to Acts chapter 21 Paul goes up to Jerusalem again and he meets first thing he goes in and sees James doesn't say the brother it's James why would he go see James who's this James well we can put it all together it's Jesus brother and he's in charge of the whole movement and so Paul James says to Paul uh people are saying you don't keep the Torah you're a Jew and remember we decided Gentiles don't have to take up the Yoke of the tour it's called the Yoke of the Torah it's like what what Jews would say today Bar Mitzvah about mitzvah like you don't have to do that as a gentile you do not have to become Jewish you do not have to convert to Judaism you can live the life of what was called a god-fear a righteous Gentile prophets say the same thing the righteous and the rabbis say it for the righteous of all Nations have a place in the world to come that's a quote from the mishnah the righteous of all Nations have a place in the world to come uh so all through the prophets is the teaching that the whole world will be judged by the one God who's the creator so anyway uh James says uh we've heard that Paul you're you're you're a Jew but we've just heard of rumors that you may not be keeping the Torah yourself even though you're Jewish and obviously if you're Jewish you you absolutely must keep the Torah because you know you're Jewish and we we're not talking about Gentiles you're not a gentile and in order that everybody would know this isn't true this rumor we need you to do this this and this it had to do with some very uh very ritualistic activities in the temple the rhodium Temple where you pay for some men who have taken what's called a Nazarite well nothing to do with Nazarene they have zero right it's this vowel separation where you grow your hair along and you don't drink any wine and you can't go to a funeral and so forth and you set a certain time like I'm going to do this for a year I'm going to do this for five years John the Baptist is is one person who who had this valve apparently and we know Samuel had it in the book of Samuel that's where you first read about it's in the Torah so he says you go in the temple and you pay for these guys and people will then see you in the temple and then they'll know oh well that can't be true that Paul doesn't keep the law because here he is like supporting some gentlemen that are offering sacrifices and keeping the laws and so forth so what Luke asks does what acts does the book we call X is it doesn't really let you know much about who this James is right and he's really in charge even though he has step minis in church he's honest enough with the story he has to admit he's in church because he goes my decision is that's James okay but he implies there's complete Harmony Paul's an army with James and Peter is in harmony with Paul and they all met together and everybody agreed and then we read Paul's letter of Galatians and he gives his own version of that story and he does say they gave me the right hand of Fellowship but whether Paul agreed with them in terms of what Jews must do is very questionable in other words what James is saying we know Paul that you would not as a Jew disregarded the Torah and uh Paul just goes according to the account I don't know what happened historically but it's like if I said to you Jacob somebody said you did this this and this and I know you didn't do that and you're thinking yeah I did and I go but I know you didn't so would you go do this so that people know you don't do that and you go yeah I'll do it uh people went along with it he didn't didn't want to rock the boat what's possible that that has some historical truth here as Paul himself says in First Corinthians 9 to the Jew I become as a Jew very interesting language what do you mean you become as a Jew you are a Jew how could you say become president and then he says to those under the law that would be the Jewish uh those that are Jewish they're quote under the jurisdiction of the Torah they're supposed to keep the Commandments of the Torah right he says I become as if I'm under the Torah what do you mean as if you're under the Torah you're a Jew you're under the Torah you just that but what he's saying it it I don't I've heard people say oh he's a hypocrite no I don't that's I wouldn't use that word he believes that this is all passing away very quickly it's not even going to be a Torah it's going to be a new age a new spiritual age half the laws have to do with eating and drinking and male and female and bodily things that won't even apply in any way in the world to come because there's going to be this transformed Cosmos that's going to be spiritual and eternal right and so he uh just a second can you pause it or just um okay so I I don't really like the word you know Paul's being hypocritical and then he goes on to say in First Corinthians and to the those the Gentiles those who aren't under the law I become as one not under the law well what does that mean would he eat uh food that was forbidden for juice to eat possibly he tells his Gentile followers that that in Romans 14 and so forth you know just eats what's set before you don't ask questions I mean it says I sent several places in in his letters so I don't see it as hypocritical as much as Paul thinks it's all irrelevant but you have to not rock the boat in the present situation as he says give no offense neither to Jews or Gentiles or the Church of God those are the three spectrums that he deals with so don't offend you and tell us you know try to accommodate them and deal with them don't offend Jews that aren't in the movement you know if you're Jewish you you're in a Jewish Home you go by Jewish rules and Jewish laws you don't just flaunt your freedom as he calls it right in their face and offend them you know and if you're in the Church of God which he is he tries to go along with things it's a real principle that runs Jake Paul's letters a sort of accommodating uh for the needs of the people that you're dealing with now I don't know any way that James would agree with that you know can you picture James or somebody like James saying I'm Jewish but you know when I'm around non-jews I it's like I'm not really under the law anymore because I want to relate to them so my guess is that Paul thinks that most of these things uh particularly as he says in Galatians if they have to do with food and drink festivals Newmans the Sabbath he says these are all bodily you know these are all things that have to do with our living in the world right now he's not particularly interested in those but he doesn't want to thin people that might have Scruples about these things so uh now that book that becomes his I would call it a uh strategic way of dealing with people rather than hypocritical it's his strategy and if he had to defend it he would say look I want the good of everybody and I'm not going to offend people and turn them away from what he thought was the Gospel by uh by flouting in their face something that they wouldn't understand so he he's he's situational what people later call situational ethics so if I uh a perfect example is in Corinthians uh what if I go to the ma Kellon that's the Greek word for the market and by the way in Corinth and I've excavated it Corinth a little bit not a lot mostly in Israel and Jordan but years ago I I spent some time in Corinth Excavating and I didn't find this this was long before I was there they found a the plaque that went over the meat market you can read part of the letters it's fascinating to look at says Michael you know like Michael on so Paul refers to the meat market every city has a meat market where you by your meat and he says uh so anyway he said he says uh okay you know somebody goes to the meat market and buys a meat and takes it home they they do eat meat and then somebody says well you know this morning that meat was Sanctified and slaughtered at the Temple of Athena upon the Acropolis I do not feel we should eat that meat because not only are we supporting the meat business you know of the sacrificial business but we are maybe partaking of idolatry because it was dedicated to Athena Paul's idea is like yeah you got a point I'm not I I'm not gonna eat it if that's how you feel but if you feel you know who cares a thing is nothing he says Idol's nothing if you feel it an idol is nothing I don't care who they do it they devote they devoted it to Athena Athena doesn't even exist Athena is a mythological idea of Greek culture so it was really dedicated to nothing so what's wrong with it eat it doesn't matter you see how he's situational no strict Jews are not going to go in a gentile City and buy meat from a gentile Market that's been you know dedicated to a pagan deity they're just not going to do that yeah that's the kind of thing that you see Paul operating with uh there's a method to his uh I think there's usually a consistency in what he does but what he does will not always be the same thing it depends on the situation so we call that situational ethics it depends and uh I think probably we can find versions of that in the teachings of Jesus where he is Accused by the Pharisees of his disciples were pulling some grain off the stock so they were walking one day on the Sabbath and just popping in their mouth no Heating and this is in Mark chapter two and the Pharisees would definitely consider that a violation of the Sabbath and also the Dead Sea scroll group it's actually mentioned in the ditzy Scrolls that you must prepare your food before the Sabbath they didn't prepare their food before the Sabbath so they're violating the Sabbath that's a command and Jesus ends up by saying uh at the end he has an answer which I'll talk about in a minute but at the end he says if you had understood what this means I desire Mercy not sacrifice you wouldn't have condemned the Guiltless now how are they Guiltless technically they're not Guiltless because they prepared their food by grabbing the Grain and eating on the seventh but in Mark Jesus doesn't just try to say oh it's okay if they want to pick a little grain and eat it he doesn't say that he goes well look at King David in the Hebrew Bible he and his men are hungry they're starving they've been out in the desert and they come to the tent of meeting which is the version of the Tabernacle before they built the building and they tell the priest get the bread out of the inside of the temple for tent it's called the bread of the presents it's these 12 loaves of bread that only the priests can eat according to the Torah nobody else can eat it just priests it's it's holy bread it's like to Christians it'd be like the communion Wafers you know that are stored in the back of the church you know for Holy Communion you know it's good get those communion Wafers I'm hungry you like you can have that that's like not for that and uh and the priests you know David once said they're probably afraid to say no so they go get it and it to paraphrase basically what Jesus is saying so you think my disciples are breaking the law right picking the screen on the Sabbath well guess what David broke the law so maybe we are breaking the law but you know what the Sabbath is made for people not people for the Sabbath so what is he doing there he's saying you got to judge it according to human needs so Paul has that same kind of idea he's situational what is the human context in which you make a decision same so people have you know people have rigid views you know this is the command and you got to do this and there's no veering to the right or left and then there are others who would say well it just depends on the circumstance I mean the famous story of the rabbis always tell is uh modern rabbis about uh the Nazis looking for Anne Frank and Amsterdam and they knock on the door and they're going house to house we hear that some Jews are hiding in attics and they're being sheltered and we want to search your house and do you have any you know you need to tell us now because if we find your line you're going to get arrested as well do you have any Jews in your attic and that family was asked that this is actually true and they go no no no we don't have anybody they got a whole family up in their Attic So they lied so well lying is forbidden you shall not bear false witness that is one of the Ten Commandments and everybody I think would say I mean it's just common sense and they're like they lie to protect those people yes of course and it's actually in the Bible there's a famous story in the Bible where Rahab The Prostitute is hiding these spies in Jericho and when the city men come to they hear that they're at her house and they break down the door and they run upstairs and they go were those guys here were they here where are they were they and she goes yeah they were here but they already left and she's got them hidden actually but she's like they went that way just to get them to leave so she's lying and she's actually uh mentioned in the gospel of Matthew as one of the ancestors of Jesus you know through the davidic line her her ancestry leads down to Boaz and down to uh Jesse and down to King David so it's interesting um I've got that delivery I see a delivery person can you pause it again and will you be thinking of where we want to go because this is okay you go ahead okay we're on so whatever um that essentially would make the points that I was making so I'm gonna throw it back to you with some of the things you were wanting to ask sure why do you think that Paul avoids ever mentioning the people that are directly responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus that is the Romans he always says oh it's the rulers of the age and Well on one Thessalonians he he blames the Jews for Jesus's death but in first second Corinthians it's the rulers of the age or Satan who is behind the rulers of the age because there are people out there I'm asking another reason I'm asking this question is that there are people out there that are often the same people that say the Q document don't exist ironically they're the same people that that think they go as far as saying Jesus didn't exist mythicists and no say oh look at these Epistles it's all happening in heaven it's not it's not on Earth Paul doesn't know an earth about Earthly Jesus so what do you think about that um he clearly has this perspective that as he puts it Satan is the god of the world the lower realm yes this is actually covered quite a bit in here because here I deal with Paul's Cosmos and uh what he thinks is there are these level this is very typical of the Hellenistic World there are these levels of Heaven of the heavens and there's seven of them that the planetary spheres and these planetary spheres are populated by what are translated in English the principalities and the powers uh you talk about Heights and depths depths is the lower world the world of the Dead Heights is all the way up to the seventh heaven now God in the Angels The Messengers of God they dwell Beyond even the seventh heaven uh they're out of this lower material world it's it's quasiagnostic actually but it's typical Hellenistic cosmology so the Romans down below who actually had Jesus crucified uh he alludes to as you say uh in First Corinthians you know the powers of the age and so forth they're just puns in the game and I think he does tend to blame uh at least some people think it's an interpolation but uh in first Thessalonians he talks about the Jews who oppose him and oppose his followers and he says and they kill the Lord Jesus Christ so the famous deocide charge you know the Jewish people killed Jesus in the gospels particularly Matthew Matthew is the strongest on this but all of them say it it's the Jewish crowds even though pilate punches pilate the governor or the uh ruler uh procurator of Judea delivers him over I wouldn't go go with the idea of so much that he doesn't think Jesus was literally crucified or anything like that he's Heavenly in the sense that he thinks the Earthly which he accepts the reality of I think politically and socially is being completely run and manipulated by higher forces and in the traditions of ascending to Heaven which is again what my book is about Paul's is sent to Paradise it's very dangerous to do this uh you can get zapped really easy you have no idea what you're dealing with uh we have the great magical papyri the particularly What's called the mithras liturgy which is from the great Paris magical Papyrus and I translated in this book and talk about it and you got to be prepared both in terms of your knowledge and your negotiating power to deal with these principalities and Powers so Paul believes that Christ has ascended up through all of these fears and it's the first one to make it through and it's and achieve the glorification of God beyond all the heavens and that his spirit and power is now enabling his followers to resist the devil and so forth but he's really just saturated with the idea that anything that happens is caused by these forces for example I mentioned earlier is quote Thorn In the Flesh okay he uses that term thrown in the flesh like something physical bothering him but he says a angel of Satan he calls it an angel of Satan a messenger of Satan like Satan is doing this one time he's talking about making a trip to the Corinthians I believe it is he says I plan to come you know I had all my travel plans but Satan hindered me what do you mean Satan entered it maybe the boat like that you had booked it got delayed or there was a storm or anything that happens he would attribute it to these forces and Powers when he there was a guy living and with his father's wife sexually I don't think it's his mother doesn't make sense in the context that it's his mother probably could be the father is either divorced or widowed uh let's say he's widowed uh the father let's say the the father is dead and now the woman is a little I should say the woman and the son marries the woman that was his stepmother Paul is just appalled by this says it's ancestrous it should never be even he says even pagans don't do that and but but what I'm leading up to is not that and why he would make that judgment but rather he says deliver him to Satan he says assemble together and when you are all assembled together and then he says something very and my spirit is present and the spirit of the Lord Jesus he actually believes I'm going to project my spirit and your spirit and the Jesus spirit will be there and you're going to formally deliver him to Satan so they had some kind of thing like probably some pronouncement like we now uh cast you out of our group and you're not to eat or talk to anyone or and he says don't even eat with a person don't don't give them any kind of uh recognition ostracizing them later Christians call it disfellowshipping but this is very severe but he says to Satan so he thinks of this fear of the community as kind of protected from these powers but if you are put out your Satan could just take you and like drown you in the next storm or something you know he can get you and he wouldn't have the protection of God anymore it's very scary the way he presents it and so to him the world is so thickly infested and populated with these forces so I personally don't think that he's a Roman agent or he secretly likes Rome or anything of that sort um I think it's it's that he thinks all the human forces that are against what he considers to be God and the message he preaches in Christ they they are all being manipulated by the guy he calls him the God of this world and then in Romans 16 he has a statement right at the end he says the God God will shortly come and Crush Satan under his foot again this idea of he's got a crush so Satan's causing everything it's a very serious version of the devil made me do it uh and then when he's struggling with his own moral struggles sexual or otherwise because he's trying to live some of it and he says the good that I would I do not and he sang it as a Christian I get I take it I mean it's present it's the good that I would I do not and the evil that I would not that I do and if I do that what I which I would not then is not I that do it but my flesh uh the flesh the that Satan is able to manipulate uh and he might be talking about sexual desires that seems the most likely because he uses the word coveting or lusting and he says I try but I can't do it and then he ends it by saying oh Wretched Man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death so you're in a body of death you're buffeted by Satan all the angels of Satan are aligned against you but you can be protected in this realm of the spirit and then God is going to overthrow this so I think that might be why he's not so uh specific and talking about the human agents that killed Jesus um and of course according to x he's a Roman citizen he never says that but in the book of Acts he is it maybe whether it is or not I don't think he would particularly like the Romans or certainly not approve of the activities of Caligula who's a pretty horrible emperor Claudius is usually build Claudius is the emperor during most of Paul's activities that we know about is usually built as a good Emperor but you need to read suetonius and some of the historians there are no good Emperors ever I mean if you're talking about murdering people confiscating their property torturing people arresting people without due process they all did that it's just that Nero and Caligula were the worst but Tiberius is horrible he you know these people uh Augustus has a reputation for being a little bit more uh statesmanlike in this way but uh Rome the Roman Imperial cultist does whatever it wants and numerous during the reign of Tiberius so Janus is really in charge people don't even know the name look up sagena studies to Janus he is head of the praetorian Guard he increases the numbers many fold that's the palace guard it reminds me kind of of the of Iran today where you have the Ayatollah like an emperor and then you have the Revolutionary guard guarding him and it's thousands of thousands of people and they're just like or Hitler who had his SS troops those are sworn to special loyalty just to you know to protect the emperor protect the Ayatollah protect Adolf Hitler and they'll do anything and they're you know that's their oath in saginas required that of the praetorian Guard and he's able to basically Tiberius is living on Caprice so nobody really cares he doesn't even when his mother Olivia dies he doesn't even come to her funeral he he's playing with his his he's a pedophile and he has little boys that he likes that swim in his pool on the island of Capri uh but um sojanus is running the empire and uh he's he's later taken out but I guess what I'm trying to say is Paul was Paul had his his sensitivities and his ethics you know he he writes very moving things he says the the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace long suffering kindness Mercy you know he writes that those would be the characteristics that Rome would not consider to be the main virtues those most of those would be weak you know you certainly can't run an Empire with some of the virtues that Paul the tender-hearted forgive one another put others before yourself and so forth so I I think uh maybe he doesn't mention the Romans crucifying Jesus because he thinks uh there are ultimately puns in the game you know that that would be my sense of it so so we can uh I don't know we probably don't want to go too much over an hour but just not to Tire your viewers out too much but are there any other we can always revisit this in other ways but any other you want me to maybe close I would say with the most controversial thing in the book how about that yeah let's do that that sounds great okay it was controlled the most controversial thing in the book and if you get the book don't go read this chapter first but it's called The Battle of the Apostles you alluded to it in your first question that I stand with Ferdinand Christian Bauer okay there are a lot of Bowers in German theology but this is FC Bauer 1800s early 1800s 19th century who argued that Paul and James Paul in the Jerusalem Church were split in the lifetime of Paul that they that toward the end of his life he broke with the apostles and went his own way and this was a view that some held and some were persuaded by Bower I mean we're going back way over a hundred years almost 200 years now as we get into you know the 20 20th century 21st century I mean so uh so it's very common today I know a lot of reviewers of my book have said can you believe Tabor doesn't even know that FC bar was completely refuted years ago how could he not have learned that in Graduate School of course I learned it in graduate school and then I made the mistake of actually reading FC Power and being convinced by his arguments which I guarantee you none of these people have done they've just been told oh yeah they were he was wrong and that the opponents of Paul with some sort of gnosticizing judaizers but certainly not representing the Jerusalem Church and I think in parts of second Corinthians where Paul begins to talk about are they Hebrews so am I are the apostles so am I and I'm a better one and so forth you know this really sharp language that he is talking about the Jerusalem establishment and that he for whatever reason and we don't know all the reasons decides to go his own independent way and he does indicate that nobody came to his Aid when he was arrested you know and when he was taken to Rome that's not the story we get an X in Acts we get oh he has all this support from the Jewish community and the all of the Jewish believers they come and help them and so forth but he says uh in Philippians and other places that nobody stood with me you know I'm alone and also talks about people deserting him so I think at the end he he was lonely but absolutely convinced that he and Christ had this Bond and he was being faithful to Christ and I think that accounts for some of the very strong statements that he makes even as early as Galatians which is much earlier where he says not much earlier but you know a few years earlier I watch those that trouble you would uh slip with the knife of circumcision which is a you know kind of a vulgar image there uh he says things like that or let them be damned you know let them be accursed Anatomy uh he he he's capable of really drawing the line between what he's come to believe is the message he got from Jesus and what others are saying and so uh I think there was this break which I call the battle of the Apostles but very few people agree some people agree but most don't but you know in New Testament studies as you know from interviewing so many people we hardly ever agree on much of anything um although there are General agreements on some things I think the apocalypticism is agreed upon by more and more people yeah you know in the field I see that not universally not universally um but we get along for the most part I think pretty well so maybe we can take up more things later but I think this is a good chunk of uh dealing with Poland Jesus you've got you've got to think I enjoyed being with you and we're having you on thank you good let's do this again sometime soon thanks Jacob take care [Music] thank you [Music] foreign

Channel: James Tabor

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Id: JcrCpQGURBA

Length: 79min 56sec (4796 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023