Who was Paul of Tarsus? Jewish Biography as History Dr. Henry Abramson

okay all right welcome everyone we have a  controversial and a difficult lecture tonight so   hope no one's gonna ask any very hard questions I  want to give I'm really pleased I was surprised at   how well received the Philo lecture was because I  thought it was it was pitched very high and it was   a complicated topic and not necessarily a tasteful  topic but everyone seemed to enjoy it so I decided   I would dig a little deeper today we're also going  to talk about a difficult and controversial topic   one that I don't think is typically discussed  in in young Israel's around this country but I   think you might find it interesting nevertheless I  want to give a shout out to the west coast to dr.   David Lemberg and Laura who contacted me this week  over the internet because they enjoyed some of the   lectures and they're watching it not live but in  spirit and I've decided I can't hold back I will   start with a joke because I heard a great joke on  Shabbos from rabbi Ailey Smith the only problem is   I've told this joke over now Robert Smith told  it amazingly well and I've told it over four   times and I have stumbled over the punchline every  time so I still have not got the punchline exactly   right I'm sure that after the lecture you'll help  me out with it so the joke goes like this it's   set in Helm which is a small village in Israel  in sorry in Polish Lithuania that is in Jewish   parlance it's kind of like the place where all  Jews of less than average intelligence dwell and   there's so many jokes about Helmer hidden just  like in Canada you know people would say these   jokes about the people from Newfoundland they  call them newfies and so on so anyways the joke   goes like this there's a horse thief in film and  he goes into a barn late one night a couple of   beautiful horses there so he steals one of them  takes it out of the barn and goes out into the   forest ties it up to a tree goes back into the  barn steal the second horse while he's in there   however he trips over a barrel and makes a bit  of a commotion this wakes up the farmer and the   farmer comes out into the barn to see what's going  on the thief doesn't have anywhere to run he can't   get away so he goes into the empty stall and  he gets down on his hands and knees the farmer   goes into the barn he's looking around he looks  in the stall and he sees the thief there and he   says who are you and the thief thinking fast says  I'm your horse I'm your horse yes many many years   ago I was a human being and I did a terrible  terrible of a I did a horrible sin and I was   transformed into a horse and and to pay off my  debt I had to go through this kind of Gil Ghul   as a horse for many years and I guess I've paid  off my debt and and I'm human again and my name is   Yong Koh and I can't wait to start my life again  so the farmer is really impressed he thinks that's   amazing and he he invites him into his house and  he gives him something to eat and he realizes he   has some money so he gives him a few rubles and he  says whoops what happened here we lost the screen   mr. Rodriguez that's your fault right okay let's  see if we can get this back on Thank You ELISA   for noting that oops okay we got it back so back  to the joke Gizem a few rubles sets him on his   way the next day the farmer realizes he has to  go replace his horse so he goes into the horse   market and he's walking around looking at the  the various horses and he sees one that looks   suspiciously familiar and he walks up to it and  he looks in its eyes and he looks at its teeth   and he looks under the left year.the where there  was a little scratch and in fact there it is and   he he looks at the horse and he says yong-chol it  was only a few hours did you do it again okay all   right so it's only been a few our few good days  since our last class and I hope that we'll be able   to get back to where we are tonight's lecture is  on paul of tarsus also known as st. paul certainly   the most important of the apostles and of course  Jewish by origin and Jewish by complexity and by   complexion during his lifetime he dealt with all  things Jewish but he was and he was I should say   probably one of the 10 most influential Jews  in world history clearly highly responsible for   the spread of Christianity one might argue even  more than Jesus himself Paul was responsible for   Christianity becoming as popular as it was so it's  a little bit of a controversial topic to discuss   in a history class like this in the young Israel  but I think that we're all very broad-minded   people and I think it's an important thing for  us to understand this strange if aberrant part   of the Jewish history that we all celebrate let  me mention first of all thanks to Aaron and Susan   Weinberg who are sponsoring tonight's lecture and  give a big hand for our sponsors just having your   presence here is a tremendous sponsorship I'm very  grateful to have all of you here but it is really   nice to acknowledge the young Israel that does  so much for this class pays a small stipend to   our wonderful greeter and for our technical help  and makes it possible to put these things on the   web light and heat and so on and the cookies of  course so we invite sponsorships the $200 for a   lecture and it goes directly to the synagogue  particularly towards the we're hoping to build   a new facility just across the street so that  involves a lot of costs and hopefully we'll have   a wonderful lecture hall with great lighting and  stuff like that in the future so please contact   the young Israel of Bal Harbour if you want to  give online and let's go straight to the lecture   then okay so speaking about Paul as I mentioned  he is a hugely influential Jewish apostle meaning   he was one of the principle followers of Jesus  in his lifetime and shortly thereafter arguably   the most important of all the apostles certainly  within the arguments that were held between the   various apostles Paul's position on the future  of Christianity was regnant and it was ultimately   his decision on how to portray Christianity that  made it so popular with the non-jewish world and   took it from being a small sect involving a you  know an obscure group of Jews in Jerusalem a very   provincial place and made it part of the world  stage when we look at the sheer volume of work   that he's responsible for about 14 of 27 books  of the Christian New Testament are attributed   to Paul a likely seven of them are authentic and  others may have been attributed later in his life   still a very significant proportion of them and  during his entire let you know well I won't go   into that joke now during his life although he was  obsessed and completely occupied with the spread   of Christianity he was also engaged in a very  difficult internal dialogue that he was quite   open about in the text of his various writings  with the Torah trying to understand what is the   role of the Torah in this new movement following  Jesus now we're gonna spend a lot of time in the   next 45 odd minutes exploring various aspects of  this but maybe I'll just say it in one sentence   now before we return to it basically there was  a huge debate among the Apostles as to whether   Jesus wanted his thought to be interpreted as a  variety of Judaism meaning that all Christians   should be following the Torah just as regular  Jews were that the Torah retains its validity   and that all of the commandments are completely  binding on every follower of Jesus or as Paul   argued that there was a new covenant that somehow  replaced the Old Covenant at least for non-jews   meaning if your typical Greek or Roman wanted to  come within the you know the realm of Christian   teaching did they have to also adopt all kinds of  Jewish behaviors such as circumcision and kashrut   or were they free to ignore those Commandments  and somehow create a different kind of faith to   articulate some different sort of religion and so  he was occupied all the time with this question of   what is the meaning of Torah for the Christian  world it's also important to note that the term   used for Torah in itself says something about his  relationship with it and also had a huge impact on   you know the way the world as a whole views the  Torah and it's somewhat limiting in its scope   the word used in Paul's writings at least as we  have them today in Greek is know most which means   basically law standard rule decree these kinds  of things it means like these are the rules of   behavior the word Torah of course is much larger  than that it comes from the root word hora which   means instruction teaching Direction guidance  which is far more you know wide and broad than the   idea of a narrow law there's like a moral world  a moral kind of scope to things which cannot be   bounded in a single you know specific do this or  don't do that but nevertheless the use of the word   know most translated as law says something about  how people viewed the Torah through the lens of   the Greek language and of course flowing from  that is the fact that if Paul had a difficult   time with the Torah he certainly had a difficult  time dealing with his Jewish origins what was he   him set himself supposed to be what kind of our  identity as a Christian was he supposed to adopt   how was he supposed to portray that how was he  especially supposed to portray it to non-jews he   is known as the apostle to the Gentiles because  unlike the other apostles who basically wanted   to keep it in the family that Christianity was  a Jewish affair only for us or only for us Paul   argued that in fact Jesus message was much larger  and should be taken out side of the family to the   larger world okay so that's the quick introduction  of Paul let's go on to the next slide here he was   born in Tarsus we can see over here is roughly in  modern-day Turkey and Asia Minor a fairly wealthy   family he received a very strong classical  a Hellenistic education fluent in Greek and   most likely in Koyna the vernacular as well as  in Hebrew he went by his Hebrew name Schaal or   saw and in fact it appears that he did not like  change his name from shah to paul he used these   simultaneously there are several references in  the Christian Bible things like Paul the one who   is called Saul or you know the term seemed to  be fairly interchangeable although on the whole   the word the name Paul is prominent so I think  it's a lot like what it is today for example my   Hebrew name is Hillel and my what I like to call  my slave name is Henry right and I used both of   those interchangeably depending on the context  who I'm talking to and things like that and it   appears that paul of tarsus all known known as  Saul or Shah of Tarsus used these identities   simultaneously and could flip between the two of  them his family as I mentioned were wealthy and   he held Roman citizenship by birth but he never  disavowed his Jewish origins he never like for   example the socialist Jewish socialists of the  early twentieth century some of whom would say   things like I am NOT a Jew I am a communist  right or I am NOT a Jew I am a Soviet citizen   that's not the kind of approach that Paul took he  definitely acknowledged his Jewish roots and he   refers to himself throughout the Bible in places  like a Pharisee son of a Pharisee you'll recall   the Pharisees that Bruce shim we spoke about them  a couple weeks ago in terms of Jewish sectarianism   basically the rabbi's he refers to him as of  the stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin   Shaw who was a common name among Binyam at nights  because of King Shaw will he of the Hebrews so he   clearly places the locus of his identity within  the sphere of the Judaism his family made their   living through tent making which sounds kind of  obscure to us today I guess I don't know anyone   who was a tent maker today even though it is  in the Nita needle trade or you know like my   father would say the schemata business but back  then I guess tent making was probably something   like being a contractor or being a developer  right gonna say I can we can put 20 tents out   here you know we have a lot of people coming  about be Levittown or yeah not very funny okay   in terms of the his relationship with the rest  of his family we only know little scattered bits   about his family and many of those bits come from  later unreliable sources so it's not clear however   he in his own writings refers to some of his  cousins who apparently were also in the family   business and also became Christian before him so  there's kind of like an extended phenomenon going   on with his family now we should understand early  Christianity in its Jewish context just here just   by way of kind of diversion the top here is one  of Rembrandt's paintings of Jesus and the bottom   picture here is one of his paintings of Jesus  and the top is his model for Jesus one of the   interesting things about Rembrandt is that he felt  that you know rather than looking at classical   Greek and Roman art for the models for you know  biblical figures he looked to contemporary Jews   living in Amsterdam in the 17th century so he  went out and he found a young Sephardic Jew   this is called by Rembrandt portrait of a young  Sephardic Jew and it's clear that he took his   faces boy that guy looks just like Jesus and then  he may model Jesus right on him the reason why I   put these two pictures here is to show that  we have to understand Christianity is really   deeply a Jewish phenomenon in the first century  really bleeding into the second century it's an   overwhelmingly Jewish phenomenon everybody's  Jewish Jesus is Jewish the apostles of Jewish   people who argue with them are Jewish everyone is  Jewish and Christianity presents in one sense the   earliest and wildly successful breakaway minion  of all time I know you're probably familiar with   that term breakaway minion it's when you know you  have a very successful shul and it's so successful   that someone has to complain about something and  so they get together ten guys and they go they   start another shul down the road kind of like  amoebas you know replicating and things like   that so the early Christianity is in its origins  though it's just a breakaway minion it's like a   group of Jews who have a slightly different sheet  a slightly different opinion about what the the   figure of Jesus means and they decided to branch  off on their own but as we shall see that branch   grew dramatically wider over time it did not heal  as many of these breakaway minions will as Shores   will coalesce and come back together based on  social economic reasons this breakaway minion   really took off and went in a different direction  and I hope to explore some of the reasons for that   over the course of the next half-hour so we should  have our place Jesus within his context and this   is a little bit more difficult but if you recall  there are four basic socio-political religious   orientations of Jews in the first century you had  the Sadducees who were essentially capitulating to   Rome they tended to be the establishment the man  right Caiaphas the high priest and the Christian   texture the Testament you had the Pharisees who  are the rabbis who were largely dispossessed of   formal power structures but had a great deal of  popularity on the ground you know charismatic   local leaders and so on then you had the zealots  who are kind of you know you know angry and and   just looking for an opportunity to try and fight  against Rome and against other Jews who disagree   with their position and you had the Essenes  and various groups like them who sought you   know radical departure from society living in  the the caves and things like that so placing   Jesus within that you kind of you know four  quadrants it appears very clear that he is a   rebellious Pharisee meaning his whole world view  is very Pharisee akin nature his his teachings   are heavily dependent on rabbinic teachings in  particular that of Hillel there's no question   that he has a particular bent when he looks at  pharisaic teachings tends to be very pacifistic   tends to be very you know turn the other cheek  all of the the most famous of Jesus's sayings are   really taken from earlier Jewish sayings either in  the written Torah or in the oral torah yet he was   rebellious meaning he was not a Pharisee who kind  of duly noted the teachings of his rabbis and you   know went along with them and things like that  he fought against many of the teachings of the   rabbis and he felt that you know more should  be done to change the status quo things like   his tendency be a great populist like he used to  hang out with the you know less desirable members   of society prostitutes criminals thieves and so  on that was something that maybe the Pharisees   were not doing quite as much and he occupied that  kind of margin of acceptability in the Pharisaic   community we don't know really very much about  what Jesus would have thought of Paul's you know   carrying forward of his mission at least that is  unless we want to take the Gospels at face value   which would not really be appropriate in a history  lecture nor in a young Israel I think but the you   know it's very difficult for us to know what Jesus  would have made of all this he may have wanted to   keep it entirely in the family forever but that  was not to be the most significant thing the   next intersection with with Jews that is very  important for the history of jewish-christian   relations is of course the passion that is the  trial and crucifixion of Jesus which if you only   take the Gospel accounts if you only take the  the biblical accounts themselves basically he   was betrayed by one of his own followers to the  Romans the Sadducees were very happy to see this   happen and may have played a role colluding with  them to make this happen the role I felt that he   was you know disrupting the social order but as  it were on the holiday of Passover as I think I   mentioned another lecture so I'm not going  to go in detail Pontius Pilate the governor   offered to allow one prisoner to go free either  Jesus or Barabbas a thief and the Jews gathered   there again we have no other source for this  but the Jews gathered there said they wanted   Barabbas to be released and that Jesus could be  crucified and when Pontius Pilate asked for a   confirmation they said very important passage in  the Gospel according to Matthew his blood be on us   and upon our children which for centuries has been  interpreted by no friends of the Jews to mean that   all Jews for all time accepted responsibility  for the death of Jesus his blood be on us and   on our children most scholars believe that this  phrase was actually written shortly after the   destruction of the temple and it was written in  a sense that it was proving the reason for the   destruction of the temple was the rejection of  Jesus and that the author did not mean I mean   all Jews like meaning us included within that  statement but nevertheless it's an open-ended   statement that has been so interpreted the kind of  Mel Gibson take on the passion with Jews very much   involved in the torturing and in the the whipping  and things like that none of that is present in   the Gospels whatsoever most of that comes from  much later mystical meditations of nuns and monks   who have recorded they're kind of like thought  experiments sort of imagining what it must have   been like for Jesus and unfortunately the Jews  have not come off very well in these accounts   and the the passion plays that have been enacted  for centuries in many European cities always tend   to portray Jews in a distinctly negative light  but at any rate sorry Stephen it was treated as   gospel right so we keep that way know that what's  happening though is after the passion what happens   is okay so Jesus is gone now what's to happen  with this new new snow movement and we have to   explore basically two ideas one is what is the  church supposed to do it's not a church yet it's   still a shul it's still a group of Jews what are  they supposed to do with the growing number of   non-jews who are being attracted to this movement  what role do they have isn't this a Jewish thing   are we supposed to keep them in the shul what  do we do with them and secondly what should   the Jewish synagogue the traditionalists how  should they deal with this movement that does   not show any signs of slowing down so one thing  in particular before we move on away from this   slide ultimately from the rabbinical perspective  the rabbi's said probably around the Year 100   they said in Yiddish shunga note which of course  they didn't speak Yiddish back then but they said   enough already and they instituted a formal  ban on believing Christians in the synagogue   meaning if you were a Jew and you believe that  Jesus was Messiah and I shouldn't mention by   the way there were at least half a dozen people  who were competing for that title in the first   century reasonable competitors that had lots of  followers only Jesus's movement really took off   but if you were a Jew who believed that Jesus was  Messiah and you kept coming to shul at one point   the rabbi said that's it we do not regard this as  acceptable you know ideology within the synagogue   and you're no longer welcome here how did they  enforce this they instituted a blessing in the   shamone s ray in the central prayer the Amidah  fishman s ray of course it the word means 18 and   there are 18 blessings in the shmoo necessary  but if you count them today you'll see there   are in fact 19 and what is the 19th blessing  it is the blessing that Reidsville emulsion 'm   and for the informers in some very early textual  variants that even says Villa Notes rim and for   the Christians meaning is quite explicit and it  says anyone who does these things let there be   no hope them that they be you know nullified and  so on and so forth we can read the actual text   of it if you want and the way that it would be  implemented is oops that's because I was not I   was just talking too much right so it'll come back  in a second the way it would be implemented is   if they suspected someone of harboring Christian  beliefs they would say - Hamish LOI me why don't   you davon from the omlet why don't you lead the  prayers today and he would have to go up there   and he will have to publicly repeat the Amidah  and when he got to that particular blessing he   had a choice either he could pronounce it and  his blessing was really a curse upon himself   so if you were to say that blessing that meant  okay I'm in like flint with the Jews I reject my   Christian leanings but he refused to say it then  he would be forcibly ejected from the synagogue   many scholars believe that the the Apostle John  st. John was one of these Jews and in fact his   treatment of the Jews and the Gospels is perhaps  the nastiest of them all there is even within the   Talmud a line of criticism thinking that maybe we  were too harsh about this arguing that perhaps we   pushed away the early Christians with two hands  please tell me did I tell you the story about   Jesus in the hotel it's not a joke it's okay so  I'll tell you the story here that describes this   from the Talmudic perspective and then we really  got to move on the Talmud describes a fascinating   interchange between Jesus who appears you know  maybe 20 times in the Torah and the Talmud and his   rebbe reb Yeshua and propia there's some questions  about whether it's the right Rebbe and so on but   the story goes like this the Talmud precedes this  description with a little bit of warning it says   a teacher should always draw close with the right  hand and push away with the left hand meaning the   role of a teacher psychologically pedagogically is  that you have to make your students feel welcomed   draw them close right like the right hand is  just a little bit stronger but at the same time   you have to maintain your distance if you start  drawing your students close with both hands you   know you could be up for a lawsuit that's not  okay you don't draw them close with both hands   the same time you should not push them away with  both hands that's also wrong you have to have this   kind of dual relationship and the Talmud says  not like rubbish Obon rakia who was the rabbi   of Jesus story goes like this they were coming  back from Egypt to it to Jerusalem they stopped   in a hotel while they were in this hotel there was  a very nice innkeeper who treated them very very   nicely a female innkeeper they gave her gave them  nice room to sleep in and beautiful food and so   on and so Reb Yeshua band practice said to his  student he said , na Ayesha zou which the word   not can be translated a little bit differently it  can be translated as how beautiful is this woman   or how pleasant is this woman like Naima awed we  say in modern Hebrew very pleasant to meet you so   Jesus as the story goes in the Talmud thought that  his rabbi was saying how beautiful is this woman   and so he offers his opinion and he says no you  know her eyes are a little too round right like   she could lose a few pounds you know he like said  something like physical about her and the rabbi   is so upset he says is that what you're thinking  about and he pulls out 400 shofars Rashi says this   is clearly a hyperbolic statement of Guzman but  he pulls out 400 shofars and he puts Jesus into   Charon he excommunicates him so Jesus comes back  several times asking to be forgiven please take   me back and every time the rabbi sends him away  until one day Jesus comes back and the Rebbe is   in the middle of the Shema prayer which is it  forbidden to interrupt and so the Rebbe thinks   to himself you know what all right the kids had  enough I'm going to bring him back but since he's   in the middle of the Shema he can't interrupt so  he holds up one of his hands like this as if to   say wait a minute and I'll be with you but once  again they have a terrible misinterpretation of   communication and Jesus thought he meant get  away and so Jesus says that's it okay fine I'm   starting my own religion in a way it went now  when you go back to the beginning of that term   wooded passage it's very clear that the Talmudic  text which is not necessarily trying to teach us   a historical fact it's saying something about the  relationship between the early church and Judaism   that you know it's a little bit of self critical  maybe we pushed with both hands and if we were   a little bit less you know severe perhaps things  would have turned out differently but interesting   story let's go vite her because we have to talk  about Paul some more so his great conversion Airy   experience has become proverbial in English  culture English literature while travelling   on the road to Damascus he receives a vision of  Jesus by the way up until this point he was a   fanatical self-described fanatical persecutor of  Christians and that at every turn he was you know   enforcing bans and trying very hard to get them  to change their ways it is quite ironic to note   that of all the Apostles Paul was clearly the  most influential and he was the only one never   to meet Jesus alive so the only encounter he had  with Jesus was here on the road to Damascus Jesus   appears to him in a vision if I'm not mistaken I  don't know my new Testament that well I think was   after Jesus was already crucified I guess it was  so he's not only not there he's not alive either   but he has this amazing encounter with Jesus he is  blinded for three days he can't see gropes his way   into Damascus and there he is healed and his life  is like completely dramatically changed on that   road to Damascus and he begins proselytizing  for the church for Christianity he goes into   synagogues where he'll get his most receptive  audience he thinks this is a Jewish thing we'll   go to Jews we'll tell them what stood suck and  Jews are not buying it and Jews are rejecting   him and giving him really a lot of grief over his  message kicking him out of the synagogue something   that would happen to him over and over and over  again during as a career nevertheless he is not   perturbed by that initial repudiate by the Jewish  community and he goes on a massive campaign to   spread Christianity it looks like this you can  see that from his origins here here's his first   ministry out here in Damascus he's travelling  all over the western half of the the Roman   Empire so the eastern half of the Roman Empire  he's going through all through his home region   there in modern Turkey he's going up into Greece  he's going throughout Israel never quite makes it   down into Egypt but he also goes all the way up  to Rome so and you think about in the context of   the ancient world these are massive and you know  ventures to travel such distances and he's going   everywhere spreading the gospel and clearly he is  going from Jewish community to Jewish community   but his audience is increasingly Gentile that  is non-jewish and that's changing a lot of the   message that he has to deliver so we're at the  halfway point and I've been talking pretty much   a blue streak so maybe I should pause and take  some questions yes he was so that something that   happened that he couldn't explain could change  is blowing so dramatically it's just it does   seem strange I think so I think absolutely he was  sincere sincere before and sincere after there is   this concept of the zeal of a convert you know  like all that spiritual energy is all you know   all jammed up and if it's if it's not going in  one direction very well and it gets turned into   another direction it becomes tremendous over there  as well I mean Judaism is replete with examples of   phenomenal individuals who changed the course  of Jewish history when they converted in like   for example Sh'ma aft alley on just off the top  of my head and unfortunately it's replete with   individuals who have been tremendous villains when  they converted out like Nicholas Donen who will   speak about later this year it's funny I remember  when I was living in Binghamton New York where we   often had difficulty getting a minyan you know and  it was it was touch-and-go especially Friday night   you didn't know would you have a minion or not  and so it was one Friday night and I look around   the room and I say rabbi look at this we have a  minion let's start right but as we're about to   start a man walks up to the Bema and he says  rabbi you can't start you know I'm a convert   and the rabbi looks to him and says in or out  you know because he was converting in we don't   have a minion converting out no problem okay  sorry did I see another question yeah oh it's   most likely that Jesus existed oh yes you're  absolutely right so the it's quite likely I   think farm the historical evidence although  we don't have any direct you know documents   from the period that Jesus did exist there's  simply too much evidence to suggest he didn't   did he say exactly those things that are in the  Christian Testament that's difficult and was he   the same Jesus that's mentioned in the Talmud  that's a huge question and actually we'll talk   about that later this year when we look at naman  ADIZ because one of naman ADIZ most brilliant   defenses when he was charged in a dispute ation  that the talmud defamed jesus he said what that   jesus that's a different Jesus altogether you  know and and it's true because Yeshua banned   propia lived too early to have been at teaching  in the first century so that's more of a problem   of what does the Talmud mean when it says Jesus  or the various euphemisms oh so ha each that man   for example but the historical Jesus most likely  did live and it's very pop astute observation yes so they sometimes call Jesus and we have  to realize that the Talmud was very heavily   edited by the church from the 13th century on and  even more importantly self edited self censored   by Jewish printers who wanted to kind of slip it  past the church censor so we'll get published so   the texts that we have today are very corrupted  we often have to look at Yemenite texts to try   and reconstruct because the Yemenites didn't  have the same church censorship they were under   the the arabs and the month you know the muslim  faith did not persecute the Tom in the same way   so sometimes he's referred to as yesh oh I believe  yahushua in one place or another and sometimes by   euphemism like oh so ha ish or oh so hot talmud if  i remember correctly that man or that student and   you just you have to know what it's talking about  i don't know what to make of that there are lots   of interesting Talmudic legends about jesus but i  don't know how to evaluate those so i kind of skip   over them all so we got to talk about paul anyways  talking about jesus is a little too controversial   i think paul is controversial enough so what about  this issue of Paul and the Torah so I've mentioned   already that he has this it's always translated as  no most as the law so when he's talking tour he's   talking the law and it sounds like the rules that  rules I really gotta figure out about the rules   are the rules important to me and it's not clear  exactly what Paul's position is on it there's no   question he's obsessed with it recent calculation  indicated that 60% of the references to the word   Torah or law in the Christian scripture are  from Paul and that's the over 200 references   he's really talking about it a lot but he seems  to be up two minds as to what exactly to do with   it he never says you know throw it out the window  he never says observe it completely and he seems   to have you know a conflicted attitude about not  only what should Gentiles do but what should Jews   do Jewish Christians so for example there was  the so-called incident incident at kkeok where   he had a really you know a knock-down drag-out  fight with one other apostle peter over kashrut   because peter was and we only have Paul's account  we only have his side of the story we don't know   what what Peter would have to say about the  argument but Peter was apparently according   to Paul's account he was not happy about sharing  a meal with Gentile Christians because they didn't   keep kosher so you know what does that mean it  appears that Paul was saying to Peter hey if   you're in you're in whole hog so to speak I guess  you say if you're if you're gonna go with this new   teaching of Jesus in which the commandments are  not binding at least on Gentiles then certainly   you should go have chicken parmesan at your  Christian Gentile member everything is very   much predicated on is Christianity an ethnic  faith kind of like Judaism has a biological   component to it or is Christianity a Creed based  faith that is regardless of ethnicity and they're   still working this out for about two hundred years  they're still struggling with who is a Christian   you can't be Christian if you're not Jewish  according to some thinking so he criticized   Peter for wanting to keep kosher you know and but  at the other time he's also spending a lot of his   writing emphasizing that the only way to get  to heaven is through the following of Jesus's   teachings salvation through Jesus and not through  the observance of the myths vote which is a very   Jewish approach right the Jewish approach is  you've got these tasks before you and you do your   best to follow these tasks and that's how you'll  be evaluated the criteria is in the Torah these   are the mitzvahs and he seems to indicate that  that's not at all what is relevant so he seems to   be as a whole rather conflicted about what to do  with the law perhaps more significantly than this   or what this leads to is a question of what do we  do with all of those passages in the Jewish Bible   which refer to the so-called election of Israel  the term election is a technical term meaning that   the the Jews somehow get most favored nation  status right that's a useful way most favored   nation status they're called the the chosen people  the amsa gula the mom knocketh corneum things like   this these are like positive terms and what does  that mean if now this Judaic idea through Jesus   is somehow spread to the larger world as a whole  what happens to that election of Israel and it's   a question that not only bothered Paul it bothered  his would-be followers who were saying well what   role do we have to play in this eschatological  vision that you're playing out here well where   what are we supposed to do where do we fit in  ah ms Abramson ready for a brilliant question excellent question it is in fact brilliant the  the you know what are is issues with the law and   I'll paraphrase tell me if I get it right is it  only for Gentiles or is also for Jews and what   did he himself do did he observe the law or not so  the first two questions are exactly the question   and we don't have an answer for it there's  contradictory information and regards his own   observance we simply don't know I mean we don't  know he he doesn't give us you know any indication   about whether he holds with the peshitta so Casa  de ikita or not we don't know what his opinion is   about you know does he hold with the eruv which  reminds me of a joke did you hear it's it's   actually a very funny joke it may be a little  bit technical but it's kind of funny so let's   see if I can remember exactly how it goes there  are two have ruses who are sitting and learning   Talmud and one of them says to the other I gotta  make sure I get the punchline right in my head   oh yeah I have to back this up everyone in this  room is aware of these things but there are people   on the internet so I have to give a little bit of  background information so one of the 39 categories   are forbidden labor on Shabbat is carrying in a  public domain right so if you're not allowed for   example to carry your keys in your pocket in the  street I'm talking to the internet now you're not   allowed to carry your keys in the pocket when  you're walking in the street because you're not   allowed to carry things over a distance of six  feet or you know allowed to take from a house   into the street or from the street into the house  it's called hot saw or carrying however there is   a way to construct a kind of you know environment  where there's a way to construct a device called   an eruv which surrounds a community and declares  it essentially one big courtyard as it were and   with this device called an eruv then people do  carry and it's very useful you know if you're a   young woman with a baby stroller for example it's  the only way you can do it and you can come to   shore you can carry your tallest things like that  however be Arabs are very controversial they're   not easy to make and there's a lot of how lucky  discussions about it and a lot of dispute about   it so the joke goes like this now that I given the  background to cabooses are studying Talmud and one   of them says the other listen Shlomi I have to  tell you I'm not Jewish and loamy says what are   you talking about roofing how could you say you're  not Jewish you know we're sitting here you're   wearing a kippah you're learning tomorrow with  you I known you for years how can you say you're   not Jewish isn't while the truth is you know I  just kind of picked it up and sort of enjoyed   it and I learned Hebrew and I learned Aramaic and  no one really asked me so I just kept going along   and he says that's ridiculous I can't believe  you're not Jewish you've been studying Talmud   for years you could go for Sumiko you could become  a rabbi what is his story he says listen I have   to tell you Shlomi the truth is I transgressed  the Torah every Shabbos just to Remember Who I   am and he says to me well what are you talking  says well I carry on Shabbos social on me says   you can carry on Shabbos here we have an air of  and he says yeah but I don't hold by the arif   it's kind of a long strange joke right okay so but  getting back to the whole question of the election   of Israel what does it mean who's in charge what  does it mean if the Jews are so one of the things   that's been come to known as the Pauline doctrine  and I'm going to show you a couple of images here   which are much later in origin but they kind of  Express a way to explain this that the way Paul   has been interpreted through later centuries  is that the Jews were the most favored nation   but they somehow lost that status because they  betrayed God so this is often expressed in the   form of two female figures one representing church  and the other representing synagogue this here is   a actually not the original it's a reproduction  of a massive monumental architecture outside the   Cathedral of Strasbourg they're sometimes called  the Strasbourg sisters they stand about 12 feet   high above eye-level really quite magnificent  this is a reproduction I think from bait that's   food so and you can see this is a church here and  she has a few like symbolic elements repeated over   and over again she's got the chalice here her her  clothes are all properly arranged and so on she's   wearing a crown indicating that she's a royalty  and in charge he's got an upright staff and so   on and the know next to her is this woman who  represents the synagogue who is in an attitude of   decline she's actually falling away from the wall  she's blindfolded indicating that she's unaware   of the truth of Christianity her staff is broken  meaning that you know she no longer has power the   she's holding on to the Schnee Lou Jota Britt the  tablets of the law that are falling from her hands   because she doesn't hold in them and the whole  message is meant to indicate that the the the   woman that represents Judaism the synagogue has  betrayed God and is now a fallen woman but the   upright Christian woman is now taking her place  as the righteous you know inheritor of God's favor   I happen to especially like this one and I think  it's become a classic because in my humble opinion   I'm not an art historian but the the church is  not portrayed in a very sympathetic way here in   fact I think if you were a Martian and you were  to look at these sculptures you would tend to   identify with synagogue you know she looks beaten  and depressed and this one you know the way she's   looking at her looking daggers she looks like  you know which but I'm thinking of something   that rhymes it with a different letter she looks  really nasty you know here's another example   sometimes this gets quite violent yes esta Belle  yes I repeat stuff like this over and over again   yes it was the same to just it was the original as  opposed to the I like the contrast here you're not   supposed to point out when I'm repetitive because  then okay all right this was also in a display   this is a 14th century stained glass window from  the German city of a turbine and it shows also the   same idea of church to synagogue this is also  if you imagine in real life huge stained-glass   windows like 810 feet tall here's church and  she's riding a tetra morph you know a beast with   four heads mystical allusions to the Bible the  upright staff the chalice and here's my favorite   a hand descends from heaven and places a crown  on her head very strong statement of approval   the synagogue on the other hand you've got the  broken staff she's blindfolded that the the   crown is knocked off her head and in case you were  not certain about God's opinion of her there's a   bloody sword driving into the top of her head from  heaven right so the whole message and think if you   will for a minute if you are an illiterate peasant  in an era where visual art like this is very rare   you know we live in a visually saturated age where  we're constantly bombarded with high-quality 2d 3d   images in the medieval world you know the Gothic  period the only people when they got arts they   actually put it inside closets you would you would  not put it on your wall for vision you'll put in   you're in a closet and you would close the doors  until you had guests and then you would open say   look at my art and you would open it up for them  you know they would really it was like special   and and the only place where a peasant would  see art is if they went to a public space like   this the the Cathedral or something like that and  these would be overwhelming this would be like 3d   Sensurround kind of experience and the if you're  illiterate you take in all the details and you may   have a deepen or someone explaining to you what it  means and you get the message that the church is   regnant and the the the synagogue is repudiated  and this comes from this whole idea of the   election that it seems to be the natural outgrowth  of Paul's teachings yes ELISA MS Abramson right so ya know that's a that's an excellent  question the reality is that the two answers   really one is because for much of Western history  especially especially art history and literary   history when you speak about large abstract ideas  like the what church you use female figures by   women yeah justice right there why is it a woman  holding the scales right just like that kind of   idea women the second thing is this actually comes  out of another form of art called the living cross   where Jesus would be portrayed on the cross  with his right hand over the church that's why   the church is always portrayed on the left here  because it's the the right hand of Jesus and the   left hand would be would be the synagogue and so  there is a male figure in the original versions   of these works that has kind of been edited out  as they just focused on the to detail figures yes   yes so well this is supposed it's actually she's  riding a mule you can't see because we have not   enough contrast here when we get the new building  we'll have like beautiful lights you really see   the colors and so on she's holding on to a goat's  head which is an illusion in medieval anti-jewish   polemic of the carnal nature of Israel and we can  go about more details of this but I don't want to   do it on tape so let's go vite her here now what  ends up happening with Paul he goes in his travels   he comes back to Jerusalem about the Year 57 and  he's warned by some of his followers that he is   persona non grata in Jerusalem his you know he's  been traveling all over Asia Minor telling people   they should convert to Christianity Jews and  Gentiles alike and when he comes to New Rochelle   I am he's not going to be a popular figure so he  les goes to Jerusalem and he's apparently bringing   some charitable funds there and he is at some  point so afraid of what might happen to him at the   hands of the elders again recall that he himself  was a persecutor of Christians he apparently   turns himself over to the Romans for protective  custody he is then sent to Caesarea which had a   Roman garrison and he is imprisoned there for two  years awaiting trial the trial was to be held and   again we're not clear on exactly what was the  charges but you can imagine in this period of   time sedition or Incentive incitement to rebellion  things like that these are all kinds of charges   going on it looks like it's not going to go his  way so since he is a Roman citizen he demands the   right to appeal his case directly to the Emperor  which is apparently part of the judicial process   so he has taken two after two years imprisonment  in Caesarea he has taken to Rome where he is   placed once again under house arrest there for  another two years and then the trail disappears   we don't know exactly what happens to him after  that there is however a fairly reliable Church   tradition that he was beheaded by Nero's troops  in the the context of the dissolution of Nero's   Empire and and on charges that are unspecified  so most likely he was killed sometime in the   early seventh seventh decade by Nero in Rome we  have a little bit of a coda to this mostly in   2009 there was an interesting discovery made  in Rome this is a the Basilica of Saint Paul   Outside the Walls I don't know why it has that  unusual name but an archaeological team went in   there is not a great effect don't you love this  thing we actually go into the building like this   we can do that a few times because and they found  a crypt with a sarcophagus inside it they did not   open this are prophetess but they did some kind  of whatever x-ray imaging and they found that   there is in fact a body in there and some traces  of what appear to be you know funeral shrouds   that would be consistent with the first century  and there's an inscription underneath that says   Paul apostle martyr given that this particular  Basilica is reputed by church tradition to be   his final resting place they may actually have  found the bones of Paul and they're located here   inside this crypt so if we go back and let's just  kind of assess his legacy once again without a   doubt Paul is one of the most influential Jews in  world history not so much for you know promoting   Judaism but nevertheless his Jewish origins his  Jewish thought and the Jewish context in which   he worked was crucial for his later influence  given the kind of receding pacifistic nature   of Jesus who was a definitely a charismatic  and powerful pharisaic teacher it's unlikely   that Jesus's teachings really would have spread  beyond the small environment of Jerusalem were   it not for the tremendous prodigious efforts of  someone like Paul who took Jesus's story on the   road and transformed it to a Gentile faith meaning  appealed to the Greeks and the Romans saying this   is something that would interest you and but  nevertheless he had a long-standing conflict   internal conflict over what that meant for his  his Judaic heritage and he struggled all the time   with this question which really is a question  for the church even today is it Universalist or   is a particular astern you maintain both of  those things simultaneously as Christianity   develops through Paul's influence it becomes  more and more Gentile meaning the percentage   of people who are ethnically Jewish following  Christianity drops precipitously as Christianity   expands dramatically so that creates a rift within  the the two faiths which now they really are two   faiths which unfortunately causes a significant  backlash on the mother religion because while Jews   and Jewish Christians are having an argument over  what Christianity means it was still an argument   within the family it's still an argument where and  you know you can argue bitterly with your siblings   and with your parents and with your children  but you love them and you know when push comes   to shove you would still you still consider them  within your family but once it becomes a Gentile   religion so far away from its Jewish origins then  it becomes an us versus then kind of them kind of   situation and unfortunately there is a lot of  negativity directed at Judaism by in conclusion   there's a fascinating observation by a very heroic  20th century theologian rosemary Radford ruther   one of the first Christian theologians to grapple  with the meaning of the Holocaust for Christianity   and the the relationship of Christianity and  the responsibility for the Holocaust and I   strongly urge you to look at her work because  it is really for the 1970s in particular very   very heroic attempt to deal with some of these  difficult questions she writes that the left hand   of Christology is anti-semitism what she means  by that is when the Gentile church is raising up   the figure of Jesus they are ipso facto putting  down the mother religion the two things have to   balance each other out and that she says is  the the dangerous aspect of this split this   rift between the early Christian Jewish Church  and the later Gentile Church okay that was a   really controversial lecture I'm going to wrap  it up here and then I'll take questions offline   thank you very much for your indulgence and  I look forward to seeing you next week when   we're talking about the Jews of Babylon and  the Talmud things like that thank you okay

Channel: Henry Abramson

Views: 432,504

Rating: 4.3018126 out of 5

Keywords: Paul The Apostle (Saint), Judaism (Religion), History, JBAH, Abramson JBAH, JBAH Abramson, YIBH, Young Israel of Bal Harbour, Henry Abramson, Paul The Apostle (Religious Leader), jewish people, jews, hebrews, judaism, torah, talmud, jewish-christian debate, Early Christianity (Literature Subject), Documentary, Culture, Hebrew, Heritage, Jesus Christ (Deity), ancient israel, Saul of Tarsus

Id: oLSELg4TNPU

Length: 57min 50sec (3470 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 17 2013