Professor Isaac W. Oliver goes into detail on the inspiration for The Early Reception of Paul the Second Temple Jew: Text, Narrative and Reception History, co-edited with Professor Gabriele Boccaccini.
1. How would you describe your book in one sentence?
The Early Reception of Paul the Second Temple Jews examines the different ways Christians from the first two centuries evaluated Paul’s Jewishness and views on Judaism in relation to their own Christian faith.
2. What drew to you writing about this subject?
I am interested in all things related to Jewish-Christian relations. My interest in this subject is very personal. I was raised in a “Jewish-Christian” household: both my parents were of Jewish heritage but were members of a Christian denomination (my father was even a pastor for the church). I was raised Christian yet told by my parents that I was Jewish. As I grew up, I wanted to understand how that could be. This led me to study the origins of Judaism and Christianity. Naturally, Paul is an important figure for understanding the historical developments that gave rise to Judaism and Christianity as we know them. He is the earliest writer of the New Testament and, arguably, the most influential thinker in Western Christianity. I remember listening to numerous sermons based on Romans in the church I was raised. And there were also those great stories about his adventures in the Acts of the Apostles that I learned at Sabbath School. But it was only later that I learned that he had much to say about the Jews too, some surprising things I knew nothing about. You can say that the investigation of Paul came to me naturally.
3. How long have you been researching it? How did you come to study it?
As I indicated, I was almost raised with Paul. But the academic investigation of Paul truly began during my graduate studies. My dissertation dealt, among other things, with the Acts of the Apostles. Much of Acts is dedicated to the figure of Paul. Yet Paul did not write Acts. Someone else did. Acts, therefore, presents us with a “reception” of Paul, a presentation of who Paul was in the eyes of another beholder. When reading Acts critically, it becomes quickly apparent that its author seeks to project a particular image of Paul, one that conflicts with other portraits of Paul from the time, even the representation(s) of Paul one deduces from reading Paul’s own letters. This shows that Paul was a contested figure at a very early time. From the very beginning, his views on Jesus, Torah, and Judaism divided Christians and Jews.
Ever since, I been trying to comprehend better Paul’s views in relation to Judaism but also through the prism of his first Christian “receptors.” The Enoch Seminar, a learned society devoted to the investigation of Jewish and Christian origins, has provided me with wonderful opportunities to pursue such questions. In the summer of 2014, the Enoch Seminar hosted an international meeting titled, “Re-Reading Paul as a Second Temple Jewish Author.” The conference focused on reexamining Paul’s Jewish background, his criticism against the Roman Imperial order, and his contribution to early Christian identity formation. I dealt in particular with the latter point by presenting a paper comparing the Paul of Acts with the Paul one finds in his own letters. It then occurred to me that an entire conference should be devoted to appreciating the receptions of Paul in other documents from roughly the same time as Acts such as the Pastoral Epistles of the Gospel of Matthew but also non-canonical sources such as 1 Clement or even Marcion. The idea materialized into a second conference on Paul hosted by the Enoch Seminar in the summer of 2016. A select portion of the papers presented have been rewritten and are now included in this volume.
4. What does your book focus on that hasn’t been explored elsewhere?
Rivers of inks have been spilled over Paul. And the study of Reception History in the academy is very much in vogue these days, including the study of the reception of Paul. What is lacking, however, are more satisfactory treatments of the reception of Paul that take into consideration our newer understandings about the relationship between early Judaism and Christianity. Within this framework, not only is Paul’s Jewishness to be taken seriously but also the Jewish texture that continued to define early Christianity in the decades after Paul. Our book is exceptional in so far as it focuses exclusively on the reception of Paul the Jew, how Paul’s Jewishness and his views on Jewish beliefs, Israel, Torah, and Scripture might have shaped Christianity in its formative self-understanding vis-à-vis Judaism.
We are most grateful to Professor Oliver for this interview!
The Early Reception of Paul the Second Temple Jew is now available for purchase.
Comments