This King James translation of Psalm 2:1 has stuck with me since childhood, long before I had any idea what it meant. But it seems apt for what I am about to share with you. First, let’s look at the psalm from the Jewish Publication Society translation (the best place to start for translations of the Hebrew scriptures in the Old Testament):

“Why do nations assemble (Heb = ragash, also translated as “rant,” “rebel,” “grow insolent,” “get in an uproar,” “conspire,” “get angry”), and peoples plot vain things; kings of the earth take their stand, and regents intrigue together against the Lord and against His anointed?” (Psa. 2:1-2; JPS)

The translation of ragash closest to “rage” is most meaningful today. As my readers know from my blog posts of June 3 and November 17, 2023, I contributed a brief article to Biblical Archaeology Review (Summer, 2023) entitled “Five Myths About the Apostle Paul.” You can access it, two scholarly responses to it, and my response to the responses, online at Bible History Daily: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/the-great-paul-debate/?unapproved=2000369295&moderation-hash=72bd35b02744325fe6f7fe0aaea721d0#comment-2000369295

The most recent issue of BAR (Winter, 2023) featured reader letters responding to my summer article. I’ve posted them below along with my responses which were also printed. I’ve omitted the letter writers’ names. As you read, I would like you to note the tenor of some of the letters. Are they making informed arguments? Are they asking good questions and practicing critical thinking? Do their responses reflect your point of view?

This situation creates “teachable moment” in critical thinking versus emotionalism. I’ve italicized key words or phrases in the letters which deserve closer attention. After the letters and responses, I add a few additional comments for you, my readers.

Letter 1: Correct me if I’m wrong, but BAR is an archaeological journal, not a forum for theological debate. The article, “Five Myths About the Apostle Paul,” by David Clausen, is not only a poor example of new age religious revisionism, but it isn’t even remotely connected to biblical archaeology. Instead, it only seems to serve as a childish and uninformed attempt at tearing down core Christian doctrines.

BAR responded that “in our Epistles section, we also highlight new scholarly insights into the Bible’s history and composition, including, in this case, how Paul’s letters would have been read and understood in their own time.” I’ll have more to say below.

Letter 2: While I agree there are misconceptions about Paul, Clausen weakens his case by over-stating certain elements while eliding evidence that speaks against his arguments. One example: He states, “Paul brought his gospel to those who had no covenant relationship with the God of Israel” (p. 61). This ignores the fact that, as often recorded in Acts, Paul “brought his gospel” into the synagogues whenever he entered a city, preaching first to his fellow Jews. It is unfortunate that Clausen, in his desire to “de-mythologize” Paul, transgresses Paul’s admonition to the believers in Corinth: “Do not go beyond what is written.”

My Response: Because of its late, second-century, date, Acts should not be used as an unimpeachable source about what Paul did, in this case taking his message first to Jews then to Gentiles. In Paul’s own letters, he proclaimed himself apostle to the Gentiles. Undoubtedly Paul stopped at synagogues (where there were any) while he traveled, and likely explained his mission and message about Gentile redemption to their leadership (he says they whipped him a number of times over it) but this did not alter his stated mission.

Letter 3: I read with interest David Clausen’s “Five Myths” but take exception to his assertion that “Historically, we know that there was no such thing as ‘Christianity’ in the time of Paul, and the word ‘Christian’ was likely not in use either” (p. 60). Acts 11:26 states, “For a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch” (NIV). It thus seems that the term “Christian” was indeed in use during the time of Paul. Am I misreading that passage?

My response: Note that Acts does not say when Christianity became a term for the movement in Antioch. If Acts is indeed a second-century composition, as scholars are beginning to assert, it tallies with the time in which Ignatius of Antioch also began using the term Christianity.

Letter 4: Space would not permit a full listing of the New Testament Pauline passages contradicting David Clausen’s fourth myth that “Paul taught that Christ died for the sins of the world.” Instead, I will just appeal to logic. If Jews already had “ample means of atonement” for sin, why wouldn’t God’s solution for the Gentiles simply be for them to convert to Judaism? It is not surprising that many people believe that Christ’s death is not necessary for them [emphasis in the original]. But it is logically untenable to believe that God has one plan for Jewish salvation and a different plan for the Gentiles. Paul was far too rational for that.

My response: Paul certainly acknowledged that everyone had to deal with sin. But as any first-century Jew would know, they had for centuries dealt with sin within their covenant relationship with God, which offered them means of atonement. This does not mean that the resurrected Jesus had no meaning for believing Jews. Jesus’s Jewish followers found much meaning in his life and message and anticipated his forthcoming return. Their hope lay largely in Jesus’s ability to restore Israel once he returned, not in forgiveness of sins for individual Jews. As for converting Gentiles to Judaism, Paul knew the Hebrew prophecies that spoke of Gentiles (“the nations”), not converted Jews, joining their Jewish neighbors in the worship of God, ostensibly on the Day of the Lord. This was Paul’s message: that there was now a means for Gentiles to remain Gentiles yet be redeemed of their sin within a new covenant relationship in order to numbered among God’s people.

Online (Letter 5): I’ve a masters in religion with an emphasis in theology from Westminster Theological Seminary and I can tell you with certainty that this theory is absolute nonsense. Although Paul’s ministry was to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, it wasn’t a DIFFERENT gospel. Same gospel, different people. Just Galatians 3:28, 4:20-31 dispels this biblical twisting. Galatians 4 alone makes evident that the way of the Jews was abrogated by Jesus Christ’s ultimate sacrifice: “So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” — it’s quite clear that Paul, a Jew of Jews, includes himself within the group to whom he is speaking. It amuses me how modern scholars continually try to come up with new and different biblical exegesis when they should continue the teachings given down to us from the apostles. I say “amuses,” but I really ought to say causes righteous indignation inside of me because this kind of poppycock eisegesis can confuse people and shake their faith in the Bible and it’s perspicuity.

 My response (next five paragraphs): My approach to Paul is as a historian not an apologist. I do not attempt to interpret Paul to defend Christian orthodoxy. I try to approach Paul objectively and let him speak for himself with as few preconceptions as possible within the context of first-century Judaism in the Roman Empire. I am not sure why this should cause anyone “righteous indignation.” The passage you quoted, from Paul’s midrash on the Abraham/Sarah/Hagar story, is found in his Letter to the Galatians as you state. That letter was clearly written to Gentiles (Gal. 4:8) about Gentile issues, primarily Gentile male circumcision. The midrash reads as if Paul was trying to reinforce belief in the redeemed nature of his baptized Gentiles insisting that there was no need for them to become circumcised (though never saying that Jews should not continue obedience within their covenant).

Paul identified each woman in the story as representing a covenant. Hagar, the enslaved pagan, stands for the Mosaic covenant which would have condemned her – the ultimate fate of pagans (“slaves to sin”; see Gal. 4:3, 7, 8-9) was destruction (Gal. 3:10). Gentiles without Christ were like Hagar’s son Ishamel, treated neither as sons nor heirs, adopted or otherwise. The “present Jerusalem” was the seat of the Torah-based cultus that condemned them – Gentiles were not even allowed to worship in the temple sanctuary.

The second of the two covenants Paul mentions in the midrash is the new covenant symbolized by Sarah, the freeborn woman. Members of this covenant were citizens of a new, or spiritual, Jerusalem (Isa. 56:6-7 LXX; Mark 11:17). Paul insisted that his baptized Galatians were no longer enslaved like the others; they had become “children of the promise” that was made to Abraham about Sarah conceiving nations and the blessings that would one day be theirs. It goes without saying that Jews were already children of Abraham and Sarah and did not need to “become” such. If you know your scriptures, you know Paul already understood Israel as God’s child (Ex. 4:22; Jer. 31:9; Hos. 11:1)

Paul called those in Galatia who were trying to persuade his baptized Galatians to be circumcised “children of the flesh.” His Galatians, through baptism, had been “born according to the Spirit.” And just as the enslaved Hagar was thrown out by Abraham (Gen. 21:10), Paul implied that his baptized Galatians “cast out” the interferers with their alternate gospel.

This midrash has nothing to do with the abrogation of Torah, the replacement of Jews with baptized Gentiles, with Jews being in the wrong covenant, or with Paul rejecting his Jewish identity. Jews were not the enslaved ones in Paul’s midrash and Paul never described them as such.

Let’s point out a few additional issues with the letters. The first writer does not distinguish between theology and history. It can be confusing when historical-critical approaches are taken toward the biblical texts. But historians do not try to prove the truth of the Bible nor should they attempt to disprove its theological propositions. We try to understand the texts in their cultural and historical period. Historical investigation is not “new age religious revisionism” regardless of the conclusions reached by the historian. Religious revisionism is theology. The writer also feels that conclusions that disagree with one’s beliefs are “childish and uninformed” implying that the writer is the informed adult with the correct opinion (orthodoxy). Again, orthodox belief is a theological construct.

The second letter writer complains of eliding (omitting) evidence. No argument here. I had barely two pages in the magazine to raise five issues that challenged traditional thinking. There was no way to adequately defend any of them though I did reference a more complete defense in my book. And, as I pointed out, historians generally do not just accept the Acts of the Apostles as “gospel.” The author of Acts was not present during the events described and likely did not know any of the players. We must assess all the evidence and make informed judgments. Writer 3 struggles with the same issue but in this case Acts does indeed report that the term “Christian” was first used in Antioch. This may be true but the information it presented as an aside in the text. We do not know when the author believed the term Christian was first used.

Letter four is interesting, not least in its confusion of rationality, logic, and religious belief. The writer presumes the existence of God and that God thinks logically. There are all kinds of ways to challenge this assumption, but historians do not privilege historical events as divinely wrought. History is rarely logical or even rational. Neither are religious figures who often act irrationally, for example, when they believe they receive divine communications. Paul was such a visionary. He believed God’s son was divinely revealed to him. Beliefs like this may be accurate reflections of what Paul thought, but are they rational and logical? I am also troubled at the underlying supersessionism inherent in the letter. This supremacist, exclusionary attitude determines for Writer 4 what God would or could do. Which human being is qualified to know the mind of God? Apparently, this writer thinks they are one of them.

The final writer, the one with the “masters (sic) in religion,” understands the historian’s role as championing Christian orthodoxy, “continuing the teachings” of the apostles. Which apostles? Where are their teachings recorded? Modern scholars do not accept that Matthew or John, followers of the human Jesus, actually wrote the gospels that now go by their names. Paul thinks he is an apostle yet both historians and theologians continue to wrestle with what his letters mean. The so-called teachings of the apostles is an indemonstrable construct. Where do we find these teachings when the majority of apostles left no written teachings behind? Whose version of apostolic teaching should one follow? The church’s? Which church? Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant? This person is righteously indignant because the feel people are too stupid to consider alternative interpretations of biblical texts and make informed decisions like, apparently, they were doing in graduate school. Keep the masses ignorant because their faith is weak and their minds weaker. Attack the heretic as “twisting the Bible” with “poppycock eisegesis.”

Public challenges like this are nothing new to secular scholars and instructors in the field of Christian origins. Students, some of whom share the opinions of these writers, are often startled to find that upon historical examination, things may not have been as the church has described them. Interpretations of the New Testament known to most Christians have been handed down from ecclesiastics often bound to Christian orthodoxy and doctrine. The historian is not bound by preconceived conclusions and can work freely trying to understand how things actually were regardless of whether their conclusions comfortably fit within Christian teaching.

Just as we can never be completely sure of the meaning behind ancient texts, we can never presume to be certain about history; historians will always be able to approach the evidence with fresh insights and new knowledge. These advancements often guide how we interpret biblical texts. Faith, it seems to me, needs to be based on more than just texts or interpreters.