The Jewish Paul

Introduction

The Apostle Paul is a pivotal character in the New Testament narrative, and his letters are foundational to Christian theology. Unfortunately, Paul has long been misjudged as an apostate, as someone who abandoned Judaism to start a new religion. If that's true, he violated both the Torah and the teaching of Yeshua. However, more recent scholarship on the New Testament has made the case that Paul remained an observant Jew until the end of his life. His name wasn't really changed from Saul to Paul. He didn't violate the commandments of the Torah or even the traditions of Judaism. When rumors began to spread that Paul had abandoned the Jewish way of life, he completed a nazirite vow in Jerusalem to demonstrate that he still practiced Judaism. What's more, he testified in court that he remained a Torah-observant Jew still practicing and advocating the Jewish religion as a follower of Yeshua.

Paul’s Background

A key passage in the Epistle to the Philippians contains Paul's biography in his own words. Who was Paul? The old-school, replacement theology answer is that he used to be a Pharisee named Saul who persecuted the Christians. Then he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Jesus changed his name from the Jewish name "Saul" to the Christian name "Paul." After that, Paul renounced Judaism and became a Christian. Contrast this with Paul's own account in Philippians 3:4-8:

“Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ”  (Philippians 3:4-8, ESV Bible)

Let’s look at each part of his account in more detail:

“Although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more.” (Philippians 3:4)

Confidence in the flesh means status and prestige. Paul is saying, "If anyone has good credentials for being an apostle and teacher, I have better credentials.”

… circumcised the eighth day. (Philippians 3:5)

When Paul says that he was circumcised on the eighth day, he is not just stating the obvious. He points out that he is not a convert or proselyte to Judaism. Instead, he was born into it, a Jew since birth. Circumcised on the eighth day means born Jewish.

... of the nation of Israel. (Philippians 3:5)

When Paul says that he is "of the nation of Israel," he means that his parents are not converts; he comes from a pure Israelite lineage. An Israelite means Jewish Parents.

... of the tribe of Benjamin. (Philippians 3:5)

Not only is he an Israelite, he even knows his tribal heritage, which is something most Jews had lost. He is from a proud Benjamite family, which is why he was named after King Saul, the first king of Israel, who was also a Benjamite. A “Benjamite” is a reference to Paul’s Jewish Pedigree.

... a Hebrew of Hebrews. (Philippians 3:5)

Paul is Jewish not only by ancestry but also by culture. Despite growing up outside the land of Israel, his parents raised him to remain distinctly Jewish in his language and customs. “A Hebrew of Hebrews” means culturally Jewish.

...as to the Law, a Pharisee. (Philippians 3:5)

You may be surprised to learn that the term Pharisee does not mean "hypocrite." It was a sect of Judaism with a particular set of beliefs. Josephus, a historian from the age of the apostles, explains the Pharisees' beliefs in his book Antiquities of the Jews:

[The Pharisees] believe that souls have an immortal vigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life, and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again. (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jew)

Some doctrines of the Pharisees are:

  1. The immortal soul

  2. Reward and Punishment in the afterlife

  3. The resurrection of the dead

  4. The coming Messiah

  5. The existence of angels and demons

  6. A traditional interpretation of the Bible

Acts 22:3 tells us that Paul was one of the disciples of Gamaliel, the wise head of the Sanhedrin. Gamaliel was a leading Pharisee, the grandson of the great teacher Hillel, and a famous personality in rabbinic literature. Paul's education is the equivalent of having a PhD from a prestigious school.

... as to zeal, a persecutor of the church. (Philippians 3:6)

Paul is not bragging about the fact that he persecuted believers, but he is bragging about the fact that he was so passionate about his faith that he even went so far as to campaign against those he at first perceived to be heretics.

... as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless. (Philippians 3:6)

Paul is not claiming to be sinless; he is simply saying that he was scrupulously Torah-observant and did not neglect any of the commandments. Blameless means Torah-Observant.

But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3:7-8)

If we were to end our study of Paul with these verses, we would conclude, as so many have, that when Saul became a disciple of Yeshua, he renounced Judaism and walked away from the Torah to convert to Christianity.

Saul or Paul?

Luke abruptly begins calling Saul "Paul" in Acts 13, but he went by both names. "Saul" was his Hebrew name; "Paul" was a Greek transliteration of his Latin name. First-century Jews often used Gentile names when in non-Jewish contexts, and Roman citizenship required a Latin name.

Paul, A Follower of Jesus

Paul did not leave Judaism and convert to a new religion. Paul considered all his credentials as inconsequential compared with the surpassing riches he had gained in Messiah.

In the eyes of men, his allegiance to Jesus had cost him all the prestige that those credentials once earned him. But the Messiah was more important to him. "I count them but rubbish so that I may gain the Messiah" is not the same as disavowing them.

Many modern scholars have formulated a new premise regarding Paul: Paul differed from other faithful Jews of his day only in that he believed Yeshua of Nazareth to be the Messiah

We can actually test this theory against the Bible by looking at a story in Acts 21, in which Paul makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to keep the biblical festival of Shavu’ot:

After we arrived in Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. And the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present. They said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the (Torah]." (Acts 21:17-20)

This is how our faith looked in the days of the apostles: Torah-observant Jews. Faith in Yeshua should make a Jewish disciple zealous for the Torah. That's what repentance is all about. The natural result of faith in Yeshua is that people should be zealous for Torah.

"And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, 'You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law.'" (Acts 21:20)

In Acts 21, as Paul finished his report about his work in the Diaspora, the elders of the Jerusalem assembly offered their own praise-report, pointing out that Jerusalem was filled with thousands of Jewish believers, all of them "zealous for the Torah." The sect had grown. In those days, idealistic Jews of Judea and Galilee demonstrated their zeal for their country, their nation, and their religion in sporadic uprisings, banditry, assassinations, and insurrection against Roman overlords. The disciples of the Master channeled their zealotry into a zeal for Torah. Simon Peter taught his followers, "Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good?" (1 Peter 3:13). Commentators have often wondered what to do with this description. From the perspective of traditional Christian interpretation, one would expect Jewish believers to be apathetic about the Torah.

Many commentaries consider Acts 21:20 as a criticism against the believers in Jerusalem. They explain that many Jewish believers had not yet fully committed to Christ because they still held on to the legalistic religion of Judaism and Torah-observance. On the contrary, Luke consistently presented the Yeshua-movement as a Torah-observant sect within Judaism. Yeshua taught Torah and urged His disciples to higher levels of holiness. His message called Jews to repentance—a return to Torah. Zeal for Torah is consistent with Luke's earlier descriptions of the believers, and it accurately represents the gospel message of repentance. "Jews who have believed ... all zealous for the Torah" describes authentic, biblical Messianic Judaism. Faith in Yeshua should bring Jews into a genuine and heartfelt zeal for the Torah.

According to the Torah, the final redemption brings Jewish people back to Torah:

"You [will] return to the LORD your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and our sons ... Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live" (Deuteronomy 30:2, 6).

When faith in Messiah takes Jews away from Torah observance, that expression is inconsistent with the message of Messiah's gospel. Jewish believers who use Yeshua as an excuse to disregard Torah blaspheme the Master's name and destroy the credibility of the gospel.

They rob our Master of His glory, "who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds" (Titus 2:14).

They have heard it said about you that you teach all the Jews who are in the midst of the Gentiles to turn away from Moses in your saying that they are not obligated to circumcise their sons or to walk in the statutes of the Torah. (Acts 21:21)

James and the elders voiced the concern that circulated among the disciples. The believers in Jerusalem heard that Paul was "teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs." The allegations were serious. Since the believers in Jerusalem were all zealous for the Torah, they now thought of Paul as an apostate. Each allegation needs to be examined.

  1. Teaching Jews to forsake Torah

  2. Teaching Jews not to circumcise their children

  3. Teaching Jews not to keep Jewish customs

If these things were true, it was a problem for the apostles and utterly discrediting for Paul. The angst of James and the elders over the matter makes it clear that the apostles expected the Jewish believers to (1) cling to the Torah, (2) circumcise their children, and (3) keep Jewish customs. If Paul was teaching Jews not to do those things, the apostles needed to reprimand him. The credibility of the gospel was at stake. If these allegations are true, Paul really did become an apostate from Judaism, and he converted to a new religion. According to the teachings of Moses (and even the teachings of Yeshua), teaching Jews to break their covenant obligations makes Paul a heretic. These are serious allegations.

Having heard Paul's own presentation of his work in the Diaspora and having met delegates from his congregations, James and the elders dismissed the allegations lodged against Paul as slanderous rumors. James and the apostles were worried that these allegations would gain widespread acceptance. So they propose a plan whereby they will be able to prove to everyone living in Jerusalem that the allegations against Paul are false charges:

All will know that there is nothing to the things which they have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the [Torah]. (Acts 21:24)

From where might such rumors about Paul have originated? They stemmed from confusion between his teaching to Jews and his teaching to Gentiles.

His epistles make clear that he did not teach God-fearing Gentile believers to take on the whole Torah of Moses as Jews. He taught them not to undergo circumcision. He did not instruct them to take on halachic legal observances that pertained exclusively to Jews. Some people misunderstood his intentions and thought that he applied the same message to Jewish believers. Up until this day, many readers of his epistles make the same mistake:

He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:15-16 NIV).

On the other hand, the false reports circulating in Jerusalem might have derived from more than a simple misunderstanding. Paul had enemies. A few days later, he encountered some Jews from Ephesus who claimed, "This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people and the Torah" (Acts 21:28). It is reasonable to assume that they also preached everywhere and to all men against Paul. Their trip to Jerusalem gave them the opportunity to lodge their complaints against Paul with the Jerusalem believers. The Diaspora synagogues that had grievances against Paul and his opponents from those synagogues were eager to see him discredited. They wanted to discredit him with his own sect, and they had malicious motivations for distorting the truth about his message.

The false allegations lodged against Paul are similar to those raised against Stephen in Acts 6:11-14. Perhaps Luke intends his readers to see the irony. Paul's opponents slander him with the same type of lies with which he once slandered Stephen. Equally ironic, traditional Christian interpretations accept the allegations against Stephen and Paul. The traditional, antinomian view not only accepts the allegations as true, it propagates them as doctrine. Many church leaders and teachers affirm that Paul taught Jews to abandon the Torah, omit circumcision, and leave behind Jewish tradition.

According to the testimony of James and the other apostles, the allegations against Paul were false. Paul was not teaching Jews to forsake Moses; he was not teaching them to forgo circumcision; he was not teaching them to disregard Jewish tradition— instead, he himself was walking orderly, keeping the Torah.

At the time, Paul was under a nazirite vow. This was a vow not to consume wine or fruit of the vine, not to cut one's hair, and not to become ritually defiled by contact with a dead body. When the term of the vow was over, a Nazirite had to go to the Temple, offer sacrifices, and get his hair cut.

They wanted to diffuse the situation quickly. They seemed fearful that the disciples in Jerusalem might lay violent hands on Paul. They said, "What, then, is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come!" At the very least, James and the elders wanted to avoid a formal inquiry and legal trial.

James and the elders said that they would announce their findings to the disciples, but they also felt that some show of submission to the Torah would be appropriate on Paul's part. They recommended that he pay the expenses of four Nazirite believers and join them in the completion of their vows. He agreed to the plan.

Expenses for five nazirites completing their vows (Numbers 6:13-21):

Advocates of replacement theology claim that Paul hid his negative feelings about Judaism and took a nazirite vow only as a concession to James and to smooth things over with the other apostles. However, this interpretation should be rejected, as it casts serious doubts on Paul's integrity and credibility.

To prove that Paul was walking according to Torah and keeping the Torah, James and the apostles proposed that, in addition to fulfilling his own vow, Paul should also pay the expenses of four other Jewish believers who were also completing their nazirite vows. When all the Jewish disciples who were "zealous for the Torah" saw that Paul was keeping a nazirite vow and paying the expenses of the Nazirites, they would know that the rumors about Paul were false.

If Paul actually taught the cancellation of the Torah, he should have seized the moment to admonish the Jerusalem elders for their allegiance to the old covenant of law. He did not. Instead, he consented to their plan to demonstrate to all of Jerusalem that he was, indeed, a faithful, Torah-keeping Jew. If Paul wanted to make a theological statement about grace vs. Torah, Acts 21 would have been the time to do it. Instead, he consented to go through with the plan to prove to everyone that he was obedient to the Torah. Any seemingly contrary statements from his epistles must be weighed against Acts 21.

When Saul became a disciple of Yeshua, did he renounce Judaism and walk away from Torah and Jewish identity? By no means!

All Things to All Men?

Paul's participation in the sacrificial services proved to the Jerusalem believers that he was not an apostate. Ironically, many Christian interpreters would consider participation in a Temple sacrifice as apostasy from Christ. They excuse Paul's backsliding into Judaism on the basis that he was pressured into the ceremony by James and the elders. Moreover, Paul himself said, "I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some" (1 Corinthians 9:22). In this case, Paul agreed to the plan proposed by James and the elders as part of a ruse to convince the Jews that he still kept Torah, but in reality he did not. He even says, "To the Jews I became as Jew, so that I might win Jews" (1 Corinthians 9:20). So goes the common explanation.

This explanation presents several problems. It seems to imply that Paul adopted hypocritical pretenses in order to win people to the gospel. When around Jews, he acted Jewish; when around Torah-observant people he pretended to be Torah-observant; when around non-observant people he acted non-observant, and so forth. When Paul does make strong statements about his faithfulness to Torah, many New Testament teachers point to this passage to explain that Paul only pretended to be Torah-observant, but in fact he no longer kept the Torah as a Jew. That explanation paints a troubling portrait of Paul as disingenuous, deceitful, and hypocritical.

The same method of evangelism has often been attempted in messianic missionary circles. Jewish Christians pretend to be Torah-observant in the hope of winning Jewish people to Messiah, but in fact, they did not believe in the ongoing authority of the Torah. Their observances were only a pretense to lure Jews closer.

Is it fair to suppose that the holy Apostle Paul, who did not hesitate to face all adversity and persecution for the sake of his convictions, acted in such a deceitful manner? Those who claim the "all-things-to-all-men" explanation for Paul's cooperation with the Nazirite plan are really suggesting that Paul put on a face of Torah observance and Jewish piety when in Jerusalem, but he disregarded the Torah and lived as a liberated Gentile when in the Diaspora among his Gentile friends. For the sake of clarification, we will take a closer look at the "all-things-to-all-men" passage:

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Torah, as under the Torah though not being myself under the Torah, so that I might win those who are under the Torah; to those who are without Torah, as without Torah, though not being without the Torah of God but under the Torah of the Messiah, so that I might win those who are without Torah. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

Paul said, "To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews." In fact, Paul was Jewish. He never quit being Jewish. He simply means that, when among Jewish people, he employed that common ground to his advantage. He shared with them a common cultural and historical heritage. He used that common ground in order to present the gospel. For example, when in the synagogue, he offered teaching steeped in Jewish terminology and prophetic expectation to argue for Yeshua as the Messiah.

Paul said, "To those who are under the Torah, as under the Torah though not being myself under the Torah, so that I might win those who are under the Torah." Paul sometimes used the term "under the law" to refer to the Jewish people in general (e.g., Galatians 4:4-5), but more often, he used it to refer to converts to Judaism, that is, Gentiles who placed themselves "under the law" in the same manner as the Jewish people. If so, the phrase should be understood, "To those who have gone through conversion and become Jewish, I became as one who had gone through conversion to become Jewish, (though not myself having undergone conversion to become Jewish)." In other words, he met the proselytes where they were, accepted their status as converts, reached out to them at their level of comprehension, and presented the gospel as relevant to them in their new status as proselytes to Judaism, even though he was born Jewish and not a proselyte.

Paul said, "To those who are without Torah, as without Torah, though not being without the Torah of God but under the Torah of the Messiah, so that I might win those who are without Torah" (1 Corinthians 9:21). In this context, "without law" does not refer to lawlessness or paganism. It refers to Gentiles who have not undergone conversion and are not undergoing conversion, i.e., Gentile God-fearers. Paul became as they were. For example, Paul set aside his high halachic dietary standards for the sake of table fellowship in Antioch. That is not to say he ate forbidden foods or unclean meats, but wherever he had room to budge, he did so. Paul explained that he himself is not "outside of the law," that is to say that he was not a Gentile God-fearer. Instead he was under the "Torah of Messiah." He remained legally Jewish in Messiah, but he bent where he could bend and flexed what he could flex in order to win those who were not Jewish.

Paul’s Continued Defense

From the time of his arrest in Acts 21 to the end of the book of Acts, Paul had to defend himself in a series of legal trials and inquiries.

When the Romans arrested him for causing a ruckus in the Temple, Paul offered a long defense to the pilgrims gathered in the Temple:

This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people and the Law and this place. (Acts 21:28)

l am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God just as you all are today. (Acts 22:3).

Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day. (Acts 23:1)

For a Jew to stand in front of the Sanhedrin-the top Torah scholars in the world-and say, "I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God." is the same as saying, "I have kept the Torah." In addition, Paul testified under oath before the Sanhedrin that he continued to be a Pharisee:

Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. (Acts 23:6)

If Paul was actually an apostate no longer observing the commandments, then he perjured himself because the Pharisees were strictly Torah-observant. His enemies could have easily produced witnesses who could say, "This man claims to be a Pharisee, but we know that he is not because he does not keep the Torah." But after examining the evidence, the Pharisees who served as judges on the Sanhedrin ruled:

We find nothing wrong with this man. (Acts 23:9)

In Acts 24, Paul stands trial before the Roman procurator Felix. His accusers are certain Sadducees who are hostile to the Pharisaic belief in the resurrection of the dead, including the corrupt high priest, Ananias. 'They accuse Paul, saying:

We have found this man a real pest and a fellow who stirs up dissension among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. And he even tried to desecrate the temple; and then we arrested him. (Acts 24:5-6)

Paul defends himself, saying:

I went up to Jerusalem to worship. Neither in the temple, nor in the synagogues, nor in the city itself did they find me carrying on a discussion with anyone or causing a riot. Nor can they prove to you the charges of which they now accuse me. But this I admit to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect I do serve the God of our fathers. (Acts 24:11-14).

He admits that he is a Yeshua follower, but he believes "everything that is in accordance with the Torah and that is written in the prophets" (Acts 24:14). He says he does his best to maintain a blameless conscience before God and man. Finally, he gives the reason he was in the Temple:

To bring alms to my nation and to present offerings; in which they found me occupied in the temple, having been purified, without any crowd or uproar. (Acts 24:17-18)

Felix left Paul in prison without judging his case for two years. Rome replaced him with a new governor named Festus. In Acts 25, Festus entertained a new trial against Paul, summoning him and his accusers to appear before his Roman tribunal. Acts 25:7 says that his accusers brought "many and serious charges against him which they could not prove.” Paul defends himself:

I have committed no offense either against the (Torah] of the Jews or against the temple or against Caesar: (Acts 25:8)

A short while later, the local dignitaries Herod Agrippa and his sister Bernice arrived to welcome Festus to the region. Because Agrippa was Jewish and familiar with Jewish law, Festus asked him to hear Paul's case:

This man is not doing anything worthy of death or imprisonment ... This man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar. (Acts 26:31-32).   

Paul is sent to Rome where he has an informal hearing before the leadership of the Jewish community there. 'There is no accusation against Paul among the Roman Jewish community. They had not heard of him. But they had heard of the Sect of the Nazarenes, they knew some, and they wanted to hear Paul's story. Paul says:

I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers. (Acts 28:17)

The "customs of the fathers" refers to what we call the Oral Torah, that is, the traditional interpretation of Torah and Jewish law.

Those are the six trials of the Apostle Paul in the Bible. He stands one last, seventh trial before Nero, and not long after that, he dies as a martyr, a Torah-observant Jewish disciple of Yeshua, faithful to the Land, the People, and the Scriptures of Israel to the very end of his life.

Paul's accusers claimed he had broken Jewish law by desecrating the Temple. Paul testified that he had done no such thing; instead, he had kept the commandments in accordance with Jewish tradition his entire life. Unfortunately, many followers of Yeshua have been taught that Paul's accusers were correct-that he no longer kept the Torah's commandments. Let's make sure we side with Paul and not his accusers!

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Paul and the Law