\n<\/p>\n
Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019re listening to The Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on the internet. I\u2019m Pete Enns.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n And I\u2019m Jared Byas.<\/p>\n [Music plays]<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Hello, everyone, and welcome to today\u2019s episode. But before we get started, we have just a couple of announcements:<\/p>\n 1) We have a new video course coming out called Reading the Bible Through a Love Centered Lens. This is a six part video series based on my book, Love Matters More, and you don\u2019t need to have read the book to take the course or to get anything out of it. It\u2019s available to buy and watch on October 17th. It came from a lot of questions I got after the book came out like, \u201cOkay, what do we do with the Bible now? What\u2019s a way we can approach it?\u201d So we go through the history of some of these interpretive lenses as I call them in the course, and then focus on a love centered lens and what it means to read the Bible through that. So like all of our other video series, this course will be Pay What You Can for one week, so on October the 24th, the price will increase to $60. We would encourage you to get a couple of people together. This is a great way to get groups interacting around some of the questions that we wrestle with at the Bible for Normal People. Again, available to buy and watch on October 17th. Don\u2019t forget, it\u2019s only Pay What You Can for one week, so head to TheBibleforNormalPeople.com\/lovevideo to get the course today.\u00a0<\/p>\n 2) Then secondly, we\u2019re excited to announce the newest title in the Bible for Normal People book series, Romans for Normal People<\/em>. It\u2019s written by our good friend Daniel Kirk. He\u2019s an award winning New Testament scholar, author who spent years engaging normal people about the Bible and nerdy things through blogs, podcasts, books, speaking. This book is great because it doesn\u2019t just give you the historical, literary context of the letter\u2014though of course it does all of that. But it also wrestles with what it means to read Romans well. And that\u2019s important because reading Romans well is not always something we as Christians have done, well\u2026well<\/em>. Romans is not just this collection of one liners that we can wield against those with whom we disagree. It\u2019s Paul\u2019s plea to the early church to put aside their petty squabbles, and get on with the business of living like Jesus. To stop waiting for the new creation and just start living it. So with our latest book here, Romans for Normal People,<\/em> you\u2019re invited to, you know, think about Romans in a new way and engage with the text as it is. And of course, we couldn\u2019t ask for a better guide than our good friend Daniel Kirk. So the book officially comes out on November 1st, but you can preorder Romans for Normal People today. You can also get a bonus gift when you preorder by going to theBibleforNormalPeople.com\/books.<\/p>\n So for today\u2019s episode, we couldn\u2019t have asked for a more perfect segue because we are talking about Paul with Pamela Eisenbaum. [Music ends] Pamela Eisenbaum is not only a New Testament scholar, but one of four Jewish New Testament scholars teaching in Christian theological schools. So we get a unique perspective today, as we talk about Paul and salvation. She\u2019s the author of Paul Was Not a Christian<\/em>, as well as many other books, so we hope that you get a lot out of this. It was a really exciting conversation for me, again, to have that unique perspective of a Jewish New Testament scholar, as she sees Paul from the perspective of Judaism.<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Teaser clip of Pamela speaking over music] \u201cOkay, so here you have to think like a Jew for a minute, and one of those is that salvation means a world, literally, a world, where people don\u2019t fight each other, and people don\u2019t know hunger. It\u2019s a world where people behave in a kind of idealized way, as a way God intended for humanity. When Paul talks about salvation, I think he mainly is talking about collectivities of peoples, not individuals. But I think Paul has a much bigger view of the sort of reconciliation of humanity to God than most people give him credit for. [Music ends]<\/p>\n [Ad break]<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, welcome to the podcast, Pamela! It\u2019s great to have you.<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Thanks for inviting me. I\u2019m glad to be here.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Absolutely. Well we want to start with a little bit of background on you, so what got into your psyche, into your heart, mind, soul that drove you to New Testament scholarship in general, but Paul in particular?<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n When I was first starting to teach, because I never envisioned I would be a scholar working on Paul, that wasn\u2019t something I focused on in graduate work or dissertation. But it comes from teaching. I taught Introduction to the New Testament, like pretty much any other New Testament scholar would, and I was very disciplined in those days. And I used to read texts in Greek [laughs] to get ready for class just to be very prepared. And whenever we came to the Pauline material, I always felt like the translations were more obscuring than I would experience in the Gospels\u2014that were problematic\u2026There was other stuff going on, and later, if you want to talk about some examples, we can do that. And so I started making little translations, because it was hard for me to illustrate a point about Paul with them looking at the RSV or the NIV or pretty much any translation. So and then, of course because Paul is known as kind of the father of anti-semitism, and, you know, I\u2019m Jewish, obviously, and I grew up, by the way, in conservative and Orthodox synagogues. And my father comes from a very Orthodox background. So, you know, I thought if Paul is sort of the one who just, you know, killed it for the Jews, I mean, just ruined everything, and Jesus as the good guy\u2014and that\u2019s pretty much what Jews (I am overgeneralizing, of course) that Jews have thought of and that, you know, Paul said some things that sound pretty horrific when you\u2019re reading them as a Jew, or when you\u2019re reading them as a Christian with sensitivity towards Jews. So I realized because I was also interested in Christian anti-semitism, that Paul was a place to focus\u2014one for teaching and explaining things more, that agency elsewhere, and speaking to the issue of anti-semitism in a contemporary context, for Christian anti-Judaism if I\u2019m speaking more properly in historical context.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah. So that is a fascinating entry point, I think, into Paul. So, you were seeing some problems in translations of Paul, and also just things that Paul says that were problematic and so you decided to dig into this more, and the more you dug into it, you started having a career around Paul.<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, that\u2019s right. And I think there was emerging\u2014there were some scholars who really began to influence me. But, by the way, I went to Harvard Divinity School and\u2014you\u2019re a graduate of Harvard, as I recall, Peter, at least in the doctoral program\u2014but Krister Stendahl was my advisor.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh!<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n And\u2014Yeah! So, he obviously was an important influence and I didn\u2019t mention this earlier, but he had encouraged me to work on Paul and I had no interest in Paul at the time. But obviously, his voice was\u2026um\u2014<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Could, could you talk about who he is? Because some of our listeners might not be familiar with him.<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Sure. So, Krister Stendahl taught, was a New Testament scholar who also was Dead Sea Scrolls scholar and was an amazing scholar. And he taught at Harvard for many years as well as in Sweden, and he was a bishop in the Swedish Lutheran Church, who became the Bishop of Stockholm, in fact, retired Harvard to go become the Bishop of Stockholm. And I remember, he makes that decision right about the time I graduate from my master\u2019s program at Harvard. And I remember being surprised at that and I asked him, \u201cWhy would you want to go to the church now?\u201d I had such a scholar\u2019s bias, I think, and he said, \u201cI\u2019m just as much a man of the church as I am a scholar.\u201d That left a big impression on me. He wrote some influential and highly readable things, should people be interested in that.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Right, right. Yeah, he was an amazing scholar and a person too from what I understand. So\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n He was, he was indeed.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, you mentioned just before\u2014Let\u2019s get into Paul a little bit more specifically. You mentioned examples of translations that were problematic, you know, for engaging Paul. Do you have an example to give to put some feet on this?<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, let me give perhaps a simple one. So in Romans 11:28, so if you were looking at the NRSV or NIV\u2014I can only think of one exception off the top of my head\u2014That verse starts with, in English, \u201cAs regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake.\u201d And then it goes on to say, \u201cBut as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their ancestors,\u201d and the \u201cthey\u201d here are Jews\/Israel. Paul vacillates in using that term. But if you\u2019re looking at an NRSV, you know the little tiny letter notes that appear, not the commentaries, but the little translator\u2019s notes there?<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, at the bottom.<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019ll see\u2014Right, at the bottom. It\u2019ll say, \u201cEnemies of God\u2014not in the Greek.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Laughs]<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n So out of\u2026<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Laughing] Okay!<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I love it when they make stuff up!<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, the whole phrase\u2014I\u2019m sorry, \u201cof God,\u201d they just added it! And this phrase\u2014so in the late 90s when the internet, you know, was just proliferating like crazy, there were a lot of Neo-Nazi Christian groups starting websites. And they would quote this verse\u2014by the way, in concert with Genesis\u2014to argue that the Bible, that Jews were descendants of Satan. Right, so we don\u2019t want to get off track into how their exegesis works there, but to say that Jews are the enemy of God, you put that together with certain elements historically of Christian theology like the charge of deicide by the church that Jews killed God because of their contribution to the crucifixion of Jesus; how Christians read certain stories of the interaction between the snake and Eve. So this little phrase \u201cenemies of God\u201d adds to a lot of problems that if you just read it with the Greek, you wouldn\u2019t have. So it just says, \u201cAs regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake.\u201d And if I were writing the translation, and as you know, in Greek, word order doesn\u2019t matter. That\u2019s a slight overstatement. But you can put the subject, the object, verb anywhere in the sentence. And so that\u2019s reading it\u2014sort of what I just said, \u201cAs regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake,\u201d that\u2019s reading it in the order of the words in the Greek. But all Paul means there really is they are enemies of the gospel. In fact, that\u2019s what it says, \u201cThey\u2019re enemies against the gospel.\u201d And I think all he means, he\u2019s been discussing in Romans 9 to 11, how the Jews\u2019 rejection of his message gives more time for non-Jews, the Gentiles, the nations, to receive the message that he\u2019s preaching. So he thinks it\u2019s a good thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Hums in agreement]<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n But they\u2019re not enemies of God\u2014they oppose his message. So all they need to say is, you know, they oppose the gospel, or it\u2019s just by the way, a participle\u2014well I don\u2019t want to get into too much grammar and cause everyone to fall asleep. But why add the words \u201cof God\u201d? I think they\u2019re much\u2014I\u2019ve never chased down the whole tradition of this. But I think they assume that the message of the gospel is also God. I mean, there\u2019s a theology embedded there. So because Paul, I think, is much more important, really\u2014so let me just say this. I think, you know, people sometimes ask me, \u201cIs Paul really the one who founded Christianity?\u201d You know, people have argued that Jesus, you know, was in the fold of Judaism, and Paul\u2019s the true founder of Christianity. I don\u2019t know that I would say that. But I would say this: the form and direction that Christianity takes owes itself to Paul and particularly Protestant theology rests on poles since Luther himself said that the Gospel is justification by faith. Which is weird, because Paul said the Gospel is the death and resurrection of Jesus. And Luther knew that. [Laughs] But Luther argued that, you know, the point of the death and resurrection was justification by faith. So, so much is at stake. And I would say this\u2014by the way, this is true of progressives and evangelicals, when it comes to Pauline theology. I\u2019d like to get to that at some point.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I think let\u2019s jump, let\u2019s jump into that a little bit. Because what I hear you saying is, not just Paul as the crux, but also all these layers of tradition that have been added onto Paul and maybe close readings might ask some serious questions of these various interpretations that some of us who grew up Protestant or evangelical, maybe take for granted. So are there a few things that maybe we can jump into that you wish everyone knew about Paul, that might cause us to ask some of these questions that at least loosen up our like, what you just said, about enemies of God and the assumption that the Gospel is God? That would have been right in line with how I would have grown up. The tradition I grew up in would have made that equation. So are there other places like that, that maybe we can explore?<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, oh my gosh! So things I want people to know about Paul. So, most important to me is that Paul didn\u2019t hate Jews, condemned Judaism, that he lived and died a Jew, and I don\u2019t mean an ethnic Jew. People would concede that point. I mean, religiously he\u2019s just as Jewish at the end of his life as he is at the beginning. And the understanding of the construction of Christianity as something in opposition to, or over against, or a correction to, what Judaism once was. That understanding where Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism? That rests in Paul, not in Jesus. You maybe could point to a few verses, but really, that understanding is rooted in Paul. So that\u2019s the first thing. The second is Paul did not worship Jesus like a God. Paul never talks about that kind of religious devotion to Jesus. So Jesus has to stay\u2014Jesus is always distinct from God, you don\u2019t have a Trinity theologically yet, that comes much later. This is an obvious one for many, most scholars, I think that may not be for everyone. And that is that Paul didn\u2019t write all the letters attributed to him in the New Testament, that\u2019s an important one to know. Paul didn\u2019t hate women, by the way, either. And Paul, relative to his time, perhaps we can\u2019t call him a feminist but he has certain ideas about the role of women that are very unconventional and moving in a very liberative direction that he still needs to be given more credit for.<\/p>\n And I have one more. Well, one more worth articulating.<\/p>\n [All laughing]<\/p>\n I have more I could think of, but one more. And that is, and this is the most controversial one from me. When Paul talks about salvation, I think he mainly is talking about collectivities of peoples, not individuals. And I think he\u2019s much more inclusive\u2014what some people might call universal salvation, which, as you guys know, gets condemned as a heresy pretty early on in Christian history. But I think Paul has a much bigger view of the sort of reconciliation of humanity to God, than most people give him credit for.<\/p>\n [Ad break]<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Can we start with the most controversial one [laughs] and talk about that?\u00a0<\/p>\n Pamela<\/strong><\/p>\n [Laughs] Sure!<\/p>\n Pete<\/strong><\/p>\n I mean, this is certainly something that many people think about, including myself and Jared, and how, what is Paul after when he talks about salvation? And I don\u2019t mind saying I\u2019ve gotten into a little bit of trouble, not that I care about, you know, in Romans, Paul really isn\u2019t talking about the individual as much as he is talking about groups of people and things. So can you, can you flesh it out and explain more about that, and maybe if there\u2019s a passage or two that you can point to, to help us understand how salvation for Paul is not, you know, the \u201cRomans road\u201d that Christians talk about sometimes, which is all about how individuals avoid hell. But there seems to be something else that Paul\u2019s talking about.<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n You know, I only learned about the Romans road, like maybe five years ago.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019re so sheltered.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I am, I mean\u2014I\u2019m a Jewish Christian\u2014<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Sarcastically] How can you be a Paul scholar?!<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, I know, I\u2019m late, but that\u2019s\u2014I never heard any of my scholar friends mention that, but I love it when students bring that in. So the first thing is, I think Paul thinks that the end of the world is imminent. So I think Paul is very much, you know, what we call an apocalypticist. He doesn\u2019t just think about the end of the world, he thinks that the end of the world is imminent. And the reason he thinks that is when he had an experience of the risen Jesus, I\u2019ll just call it that\u2014I think he has some sort of experience he himself describes in Galatians 1 of the risen Jesus\u2014that when he has that experience, he associates resurrection of the dead with the end of the world, because, you know, in Jewish tradition of his time, and even now, people don\u2019t willy-nilly get up out of the grave after dawn. They don\u2019t get up three days later and wander around like zombies. The resurrection of the dead happens at the end of the world for the purposes of the final judgment.\u00a0<\/p>\n So when Paul has his experience of the risen Jesus, whatever else that experience does to him, it signals to him that Jesus is the beginning of the end. And he even calls him you know, the firstborn, the \u201cfirstborn of the resurrection,\u201d of the new children of God for the new world. So, in that tradition of the end of the world, he appeals to certain prophetic traditions that talk about all the nations\u2014people know these well\u2014all the nations streaming to Jerusalem to recognize the one true God. And so that\u2019s the imagery that Paul has. And when he talks about all the nations of the world, and when he uses that word, ethne<\/em> (nations) it gets translated gentiles so often, but he really means people groups. And you know, there\u2019s no such thing as an individual gentile. Even my\u2014so the word ethne<\/em>, which is the plural for gentiles or nations, translates from the Hebrew goyim<\/em> and a boy is a nation, not an individual. So when Paul uses, you know, a singular, he doesn\u2019t mean a non-Jew. He doesn\u2019t have a word for an individual non-Jew, except to maybe call them a Greek or something else. But that also gets distorted in translation.<\/p>\n So Paul\u2019s got this tradition of all the nations streaming to Jerusalem, and he understands his mission as speaking to peoples in general. And to your last point about an example, I think, since I\u2019m in Romans 11\u2014Romans 11, you have this language about how the Jews \u201cwill reject the message until the full number, the full count, of the gentiles has come into the fold.\u201d And I think when you say full number, he doesn\u2019t just say \u201cthe gentiles have come in\u201d or something like that, all the nations come\u2014it\u2019s an emphasis on the full number. And then the very next verse is, \u201cAnd so all Israel will be saved.\u201d So scholars have long thought when Paul says that Israel no longer means Jews, that in fact\u2014the Vatican had a stance on this basically until several years after the State of Israel was founded, that the church is Israel, that\u2019s why the Vatican voted against the formation of the State of Israel in 1947. Seriously, that was state\u2026 \u201cWe can\u2019t recognize Israel, because we\u2019re Israel.\u201d So\u2014<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n And by the way, I heard that too, in seminary.<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2014Right, that Israel is now the church.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, right, yeah.<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Right, right, that Paul has redefined Israel. And there\u2019s a way in which Paul does have the sort of a broader vision of who Israel is, but he hasn\u2019t changed the meaning of the word. In fact, the fact that he first mentioned the full number of Gentiles, and then all Israel\u2014<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2014it\u2019s a very big picture. I think it\u2019s a way that Paul breaks the world. He\u2019s a traditional Jew, right? He sort of\u2026there\u2019s Jews and everybody else, he breaks the world into those two things. So when he mentions those two groups with the adjective \u201ceverybody,\u201d that\u2019s everybody for him. And I used to be more open to the, \u201cMaybe he\u2019s redefined\u2026\u201d\u2014at the very beginning, you know, when I was just beginning my work on Paul and I didn\u2019t know what I thought about what Paul exactly means by \u201cIsrael\u201d\u2014did he change its meaning? And I think, in the end, you can\u2019t say, people have to end up saying, \u201cWell, he doesn\u2019t mean\u2026He can\u2019t really literally mean all of Israel, all these rights, whether they believe in Jesus or not,\u201d but the fact that he doesn\u2019t just say, \u201cIsrael will be saved,\u201d he says, \u201cAll Israel will be saved.\u201d And there\u2019s no textual variants [laughs] for that. So that\u2019s a pretty big claim. And you, I know I heard you on some podcast not too long ago refer to Romans 8 about how all of creation is groaning as the new world comes into being, he uses the language\/metaphors of women in labor. In Romans 8, there\u2019s a way in which Paul thinks all of creation is going to be transformed. And so it\u2019s everybody<\/em>. And by the way, I don\u2019t literally think Paul literally thinks that this transformation is like people are going to live in a different place like in the sky, in heaven, in some other part of the cosmos. I think Paul thinks that this world gets transformed to a kind of messianic age, where the lion lies down with the lamb. And if that is the case, that this is your vision of the world, this means everybody who\u2019s in the world.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n So maybe then that\u2019s a tie in, because I think we could spend all of our time just on that. I mean, each one of these five points that you\u2019ve made could be their own podcast, for sure. But we\u2019re talking about salvation. And we\u2019ve talked about how Paul takes that collectively and likely universally. But then that does raise the question of an earlier point you made, that Paul didn\u2019t worship Jesus as God. And so for, again, my tradition, there is no salvation without Jesus being God. And so that does tie that question into it. So if Paul didn\u2019t worship Jesus as a god, or as God, how did Paul see Jesus? And then what is salvation if it\u2019s not Jesus as God and sacrificed himself as God? And all of that substitutionary atonement stuff.<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Okay, so here you have to think like a Jew for a minute. And obviously, ancient Judaism and modern Judaism, there\u2019s a big difference there. But there are some, you know, kind of entrenched ideas there. And one of those is that salvation means a world, literally, a world where people don\u2019t fight each other and people don\u2019t know hunger. It\u2019s a world where people behave in a kind of idealized way, as a way God intended for humanity. And Paul does use the language of eternal life: that he doesn\u2019t envision an end, necessarily, to this, and I\u2019m not sure what his sort of metaphysics and time and space are and whether he even thought that through. He\u2019s not a systematic theologian. But I don\u2019t think he means\u2026 So when I hear Christians talk about being saved, I assume they mean, \u201cMy individual soul. I\u2019m not going to hell, I\u2019m going to heaven. And I live eternally somewhere else, not on Earth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Hums in agreement]<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Right?<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Hums in agreement again]<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n So I do think that Paul thinks\u2014so when you talk about peoples being saved rather than individuals, you don\u2019t have to worry about every individual being saved. You know what I mean? So if I can say, \u201cthe Greeks will be saved,\u201d I can leave out the Greeks I don\u2019t like. I mean, when you start [laughs]\u2014you know, people say to me, \u201cIf you believe in\u2026you\u2019re really going to have Mother Teresa and Hitler in the same room together?\u201d Or whatever, and I\u2019m like, well, no. When you think of whole peoples, just like when we talk about the survival of humanity, and we don\u2019t mean like every individual person, we mean more like as a species or as an identifiable group. That\u2019s what you mean.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n So there\u2019s this vision then, it\u2019s of Paul, of all the people groups of the world getting along, there\u2019s no more war, there\u2019s no more hunger, and then that way of life goes on forevermore. That\u2019s kind of eternal life?<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s right. And I should also say, by the way, I don\u2019t think Paul thinks about hell at all. So even if you disagree with me on the universal salvation point, Paul thinks that if you don\u2019t get to live in that messianic utopian world, let me put it that way, then you just go extinct. That would be the alternative. You don\u2019t go to a place of eternal torment. You just permanently die.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Okay. Yeah. So, the salvation, you\u2019re really getting at something very important for me and I know, for people who are listening. Collective salvation, the ethne<\/em>, you know, the nations\u2026Doesn\u2019t mean every individual in those groups, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s right.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Okay. So a question that always comes up, because I, you know, I happen to be very big on the notion of a collective vision that Paul has, like especially in Romans. But the response I always get is, \u201cBut how about individuals? Don\u2019t individuals matter? And does Paul speak to individuals?\u201d So how would you address that for people who might be wondering, like, doesn\u2019t Paul care at all about individuals naming the name of Christ and being saved by that?<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Okay, here\u2019s maybe where we get to the most controversial point of my own view. I think that he does think that non-Jews do need to confess Christ, but I don\u2019t know how literally he thinks of every individual. So if you let\u2019s say he\u2019s talking to Cretans, I don\u2019t know, or Romans, let\u2019s take some people he grew up\u2014he would have been familiar with. I think, ideally, when he\u2019s preaching to people, just like when you\u2019re talking to anyone, you come to see them as individuals. Paul has friends, he has people he cares about. And at the pastoral level, he\u2019s thinking about individuals or very, very small communities, because otherwise, how can you be pastoral? You don\u2019t interact with abstract entities at a pastoral level, you do that when you\u2019re thinking theologically. So I think, I think that he does think that Jesus\u2019s death is a sort of shortcut for the nation.<\/p>\n So here, here\u2019s where I almost hate to articulate this because it\u2019s so arrogantly Jewish. It\u2019s not a theology I would advocate, necessarily, but Paul is really\u2014he thinks Jews are superior, I\u2019m sorry to say. So he thinks that Jews who\u2019ve been in a covenant with God, always, they\u2019re not in a state where they need salvation the way non-Jews do. They\u2019re not in a state of alienation from God. Paul doesn\u2019t think everybody\u2019s alienated from God, he thinks people who worship other<\/em> gods are alienated from what he thinks of as the one true living God. And Jesus is, and I don\u2019t know how literally Paul thought of this, but is a kind of atoning sacrifice that functions to reconcile people. And by the way, Paul sometimes does use language of reconciliation and redemption. He probably uses that more, the word redemption, more often than he uses the word salvation to mean kind of the same thing, you need to be redeemed to God. Because the number one sin for a Jew, at least a Jew like Paul, is worshiping other gods. That\u2019s the number one sin, it\u2019s the sin in his mind that leads to all other sins. And it\u2019s a sin that makes you fundamentally impure. You can\u2019t even share the same space with God.\u00a0<\/p>\n So Paul, before the end of the world comes, he wants everybody to be reconciled with God. And I think that\u2019s to remove their state of alienation. So, yes, he does want the real people\u2014and that would be real individuals\u2014to understand what Jesus has done for them (to evoke modern language) and therefore become reconciled. So it\u2019s not that\u2014of course Paul recognized individuals, and he liked some people and hated some and others, I\u2019m sure. And in Romans 2, he even talks about individuals and how, by the way, to, you know, paraphrase, there are good Jews and bad Jews, there are good gentiles and bad gentiles. There have always been. So Paul recognizes there are people who worship other gods who are honest in their business dealings, and Jews who aren\u2019t. By the way, I also think there is a way in which he does also have a tradition of \u201cyou need to be accountable for your sins.\u201d And there, maybe Paul literally does mean your individual sins\u2014that\u2019s how later rabbinic theology goes, it does think that way too. But I also think there are sins of the nations. I mean, this is all over the Hebrew Bible, right? That the Assyrians, the Malachites, they sinned against Israel. That often there are groups of people who\u2019ve created injustices, and that\u2019s what they need to be forgiven for. So I think, obviously, representatives from those groups would need to be repentant in some way.<\/p>\n [Ad break]<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n So I have a picture in my head, and I want you to tell me if I\u2019m picturing this correctly. So I think of it like, there is this program of salvation that we get hints of throughout the Hebrew Bible as well for all the nations to be worshiping the one true God. And then there\u2019s this sort of finish line that\u2014I think of it like a football field, like there\u2019s the touchdown line with this vision that Paul has of Jesus, \u201cthe time has come\u201d that\u2019s very urgent, and apocalyptic. And the nations have to come to follow God. And it\u2019s almost like the Jewish people are, say that they\u2019re at the 20 yard line, that they\u2019re almost in the red zone, though all these other people are further behind. And it\u2019s almost like Jesus allows\u2014Jesus allows that space to get\u2026it closes the gap, and so we can usher in the nations then into this, you know, salvation or salvific period, or the Messianic age together. So there\u2019s, there\u2019s a privilege of the Jewish people and Jesus is here to sort of close the gap for everyone else in that sense of accountability and if we\u2019re going to all get across this finish line, there has to be some accounting for things and Jesus does this accounting on our behalf. Is that a way of saying that?<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n That is a beautiful, beautiful summary. I\u2019m not a big football fan, more of a basketball fan, but I love the 20 yard-line imagery. And absolutely, yes. And maybe you can help me find ways to communicate this to students or your listeners, because let me give you a couple examples of you know, stage earlier in my career when I didn\u2019t know I was going to teach in a Christian theological school since I\u2019m Jewish, and became a scholar of early Christianity and all my advisors, even Krister Stendahl, tried to talk me out of that. For one reason, my Hebrew was much better than my Greek for a long time since I learned it as a child. But I didn\u2019t have any of the background you guys have. But I have an Orthodox Jewish background, and I\u2019m steeped in that and steeped in the hermeneutic\u2026in the story of, what do I want to say?, theologies of Scripture that are very different from Christians. And so I can remember an instance once where I was newly in junior high school, and I\u2019m at my locker, so excited that I have a locker. And the girl next to me had a locker and we would, we didn\u2019t know each other previously, we would run into each other occasionally. And one day she asked me, \u201cHave you been saved?\u201d And I looked at her and I go, \u201cFrom what?\u201d [Chuckles]<\/p>\n [Jared and Pete laugh]<\/p>\n Like, you need to have something you want to be saved from, right? I mean, she was speechless. She actually didn\u2019t know what she needed salvat\u2014[Laughing]\u2014I mean, I think the answer is death. Right? But she was, so this is how steeped in her world she is. Right? And I don\u2019t have any of that. So the question didn\u2019t make sense to me. And there are other ways where there are certain assumptions where people see problems\u2014Christians, I think, where Jews wouldn\u2019t have the same problem, you know. So I think there are certain ways of reading Paul, let me give you another example of one of the things I have to work against.\u00a0<\/p>\n So in an intro level class, when people first start reading Paul, Paul uses the language of Jews and Gentiles particularly all over Romans and Galatians. My students often think Paul identifies with the Gentiles, and they often, when they read \u201cJews and Gentiles\u201d, they see \u201cJews and Christians\u201d, and they associate Paul with the latter group. I mean, it\u2019s crazy, because Paul says denigrating things about non-Jews and whatnot. But that\u2019s how much the paradigm shifted when you just had Christian readers, or I should say non-Jewish readers of Paul, that have a very different formation than ancient Jews of the first century did. And so initially I found it very, very weird, that it was so hard for me to get students to think that Paul identifies as a Jew, and he\u2019s on team Jewish. And he wants\u2014he thinks like maybe some modern evangelicals do. He is faced with the problem of how can God, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, my God, who created the whole world and all the people in it\u2014is there really going to be a final judgment where he\u2019s going to kill everybody except Israel? Because I think evangelicals or former evangelicals I meet often have that cognitive dissonance, and maybe it\u2019s suppressed a lot.\u00a0<\/p>\n But in my own experience of teaching, and obviously I don\u2019t really get a representative sample of evangelicals, I suspect that a lot of those folks have that cognitive dissonance that we\u2019d have to frame in modern evangelical terms. Is God really going to condemn everybody to hell who doesn\u2019t confess the name of Jesus and get baptized? There\u2019s a way in which people already feel uneasy with that, that it doesn\u2019t fit. Why would a god create the whole world then pretty much destroy almost all of it? And that\u2019s called salvation? So it creates cognitive dissonance. And I think Paul\u2014Jesus becomes a way for Paul to understand that God wants to be reconciled to all of humanity, that actually God wants that. And I think, by the way, this sets Paul apart from say, most of the people who are responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls. So there were Jews, right, in the prophetic tradition, that tradition we refer to of all the nations streaming to Jerusalem and, you know, the whole world\u2014this idyllic period and all peoples recognizing God together in harmony\u2014there\u2019s a counter tradition where God does kill everybody else who oppressed Israel, and Israel alone is left standing. That theology is also, that strain is also there, in the prophetic tradition. But so there are some Jews who bought into that. And then other Jews like Paul, who I think just can\u2019t buy that. They embrace the other one, more positive, more inclusive. I don\u2019t know, why do people like exclusive\u2014It\u2019s just people\u2026it\u2019s the old you know, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be a member of a club that everyone else wants to be a member of.\u201d<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I mean, I think that what this is painting the picture for me of is just how influential our framework that we are born into and gets downloaded into us from our own traditions is, because I think of it almost like a paint by number or color by number where we all start with the same colors, you know, the same set of markers that we\u2019re using, but when you put those numbers in different parts of the picture, you end up with a vastly different understanding. And just given the framework you just laid out, I can imagine someone who grew up very fundamentalist evangelical\u2014everything you just said, I can just imagine for our listeners, they\u2019re gonna have to listen to that like six times before it makes a lick of sense, because it is a completely different starting place for what\u2019s happening in our New Testament and with Paul in particular. And I think that for me is the takeaway of how we can read the same texts and come to just\u2014it\u2019s not even like two sides of the same coin. It\u2019s like, we\u2019re not even on the same planet in terms of the language we\u2019re using. And that\u2019s, I find that actually encouraging to be honest, but I just, that\u2019s\u2026<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Wait. You find it encouraging that nobody else gets it?<\/p>\n [All laughing]<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Because, you know what it is, because I think our listeners, in particular, our audience, I can\u2019t speak for anyone else. But I think for our audience, they\u2019re looking for something that doesn\u2019t have that cognitive dissonance that you talked about. Something that does seem to resonate and make sense with everything else they\u2019ve learned about the Hebrew Bible and about Paul and about the context of the ancient world. Where all of this systematic theology that we\u2019ve been building up for 500 years in the Protestant tradition and downloaded, it starts to get really abstract and away from the ancient context. And so by learning more and more\u2014I know for me in my studies, more and more once I started understanding the ancient context, all of that other abstraction made less and less sense. But I didn\u2019t have another way to put the pieces together. And that\u2019s what I hear you doing, is putting the pieces together in a way that is more congruent with that ancient world and the way that that ancient Jews would have, would have thought about things. And that\u2019s what I find hopeful is it gives a new paradigm to go, \u201cAh-hah!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n New categories to think about.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cYeah, that makes, that makes a lot more sense.\u201d So, yeah.<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah. You know, I want to speak to the chasm between the ancient world and the modern world and the problem of having the Bible and the biblical tradition as some sort of answer book for modern problems, in which the ancients never could have imagined the problems or just the questions we have that we bring to the book. Over the years, I\u2019ve come to realize that Christians need some sort of theology of Scripture that allows for recognizing historical context and also recognizing that if you have a living faith, the Bible also needs to be a living text. Which is an expression, by the way, both Jews and Christians have used, that it\u2019s a living text. And Jews, because they have this notion of the written and the oral Torah, which Paul has a rudimentary version of the same thing. And the oral Torah is all the tradition that goes with the written Torah. And that tradition is revealed on an as-needed basis.<\/p>\n So do you know, Peter might know, there\u2019s a rabbinic story, you know, that begins with the question\u2014as rabbinic stories often do, you know, why was Moses on the mountain for 40 days, on Mount Sinai for 40 days? Often rabbinic stories begin like you\u2019re about to tell a joke. And the answer is because God had to teach Moses Torah\u2014and by the way, he was a poor student. And like most rabbinic things, they didn\u2019t just make that up. They get that from the biblical texts. Moses said he\u2019s slow of speech, that people in the ancient world associate how well you speak with how well you think. So there\u2019s actually several rabbinic stories in which they imagine that God really wanted to give the Torah to Ezra or Rabbi Akiva or somebody else because Moses was, you know, less than the ideal candidate. But the story is quite an entertaining story, and it does try to explain the problem of why Moses has to be on the mountain for 40 days. And it\u2019s that oral\u2014and Moses doesn\u2019t understand, and the story is very funny. At one point, you know, God tries to reassure him by saying, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to understand because later times\u2026Some of what I teach you only applies to a time, you know, beyond you. And there\u2019s someone who\u2019s going to come along way smarter than you, Moses and his name is Rabbi Akiva\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Laughing]<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAnd he will teach Torah to the people.\u201d And Moses at one point is so fed up with the whole, you know, he\u2019s on week three, and asked God, he says, \u201cYou\u2019re not a very good teacher. Why don\u2019t you give me Rabbi Akiva and I\u2019ll learn it from him if he\u2019s such a good teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n [All laughing]<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n And God\u2019s zaps Moses into the future and he finds himself sitting in the back of the classroom listening to Rabbi Akiva lecture. And he sits there for a while, and he realizes this isn\u2019t helping. It\u2019s making everything worse. \u201cOkay, I want to go back to Mount Sinai.\u201d And he becomes a more patient student. But the idea is\u2014and you, I don\u2019t know if you guys have ever heard of responsa<\/em>, but even, you know, even after the sort of canonization of the Talmud\u2026(so we won\u2019t go into the whole history and structure of rabbinic literature)\u2026but the Talmud is sort of fixed in place somewhere around the eighth century. But Jewish leaders continue to write something called responsa<\/em>, and this is whenever a new situation, a new technology, a new social situation, emergency situations caused by war or climate, create problems for observing Jewish law. And rabbis following the oral Torah, this might be a time where we need, there\u2019s new messages we need to discern from Scripture to speak to new conditions.<\/p>\n So you know, when Edison is about to light up New York City with electricity, rabbis asked\u2014actually a few of them write to Thomas Edison to ask, \u201cWhen you turn on the switch, do you create a spark?\u201d Because obviously the Bible doesn\u2019t prohibit the use of electricity, but it does prohibit kindling a flame on the Sabbath. And so this is why for Orthodox Jews, they didn\u2019t turn on and off lights because the rabbis debated the point in the time of Edison, and decided that flipping a switch was analogous to lighting a spark. And that would be part of the tradition of Oral Torah. So on the one hand, it\u2019s all revealed to Moses at the same time, but it\u2019s only sort of\u2014or it\u2019s all taught to Moses when the tablets are given, but that it\u2019s only revealed as I said, on an as-needed basis. So Christians, it seems to me, one of the things I noticed they get stuck with is, \u201cIt either means this or it doesn\u2019t mean this, and if it doesn\u2019t mean this, why should I be a Christian? Why should I revere the Bible?\u201d Whereas I\u2019ve never been to any Jewish congregation, no matter how lefty\u2014and in Boulder, Colorado, we get some very lefty Jews. [All laugh] There\u2019s no Jewish community in which it would ever come up, \u201cMaybe we should stop reading the Torah in our liturgy,\u201d like, I\u2019ve never heard anyone propose that.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Whereas I spoke not too long ago at a Presbyterian congregation where the pastor, a progressive Christian asked me, \u201cYou know, we read Native American poetry, which we value in our services. And when some of my parishioners asked me why should we stick with the Bible?\u201d He said, \u201cI don\u2019t really have a good answer.\u201d And I think it\u2019s because if it\u2019s past, and we can only talk about it in its historical context, and it doesn\u2019t speak to modern ethical problems\u2014I mean, you guys have articulated this a lot on your show, right? This problem. And it seems to me this problem doesn\u2019t manifest itself in quite the same way in Judaism because of this notion of the written and oral Torah. And because that\u2019s a very old tradition in and of itself. That\u2019s not\u2014<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s baked into the tradition.<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s baked into it. Right.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah. And Christians don\u2019t\u2026 I think Christians have had that, but I think we\u2019ve lost it in modernity and not to blame everything on Martin Luther, but I think the Reformation had a lot of impact on, you know, the medieval Christian sense of flexibility. And you know, there\u2019s a moral meaning, there\u2019s a literal meaning, there\u2019s a [unsure of this word], there are different levels of meaning and they don\u2019t\u2014not everyone has to agree on what those meanings are. And I think for modernist evangelicals and evangelicals are modernists at their core, it\u2019s hard to have that kind of flexibility towards scripture, and realizing that Scripture exists because it\u2019s been read and understood within traditions that see themselves as changing and that\u2019s like a sacred obligation to maintain those changes. That\u2019s actually an act of worship. That\u2019s how you do this. And that is, for me, and Jared, we do talk about this a lot. That\u2019s, I think, a fundamental misunderstanding of just the nature of all this on the part of some iterations of Christianity, not all.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, you know, we could go on talking here for hours. I have about 40 more questions, but we\u2019ll have to have you back sometime, Pamela, but we just want to thank you for taking the time. This was just fun. I don\u2019t know, Jared\u2014was it fun?<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, I agree.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n It was fun just to talk with you and to hear your perspective on Paul and salvation especially and\u2026<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I love that we left a cliffhanger. That we started with, \u201cOh, by the way, Paul didn\u2019t write all the letters attributed to him,\u201d and we\u2019re just gonna leave it. We\u2019re not gonna address it. And we will invite Pamela back and at some episode in the future, maybe a year, maybe two, one day, you\u2019ll be surprised, and we\u2019ll actually talk about that.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, we will. Okay.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Thank you so much, Pamela, for coming on.<\/p>\n Pamela\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019d be great. It\u2019s been fun, and thank you for having me on.<\/p>\n Outro\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Jaunty outro music plays] You\u2019ve just made it through another episode of The Bible for Normal People! Thanks to our listeners who support us each week by rating the podcast, leaving a review, and telling others about our show. We couldn\u2019t have made this amazing episode without the help of our Producers Group: Sarah Bowman, Neal Andrews, Mark Spangenberg, Ashley Soto, Megan Selbach-Allen, Carlos Ochoa, Alyssa and Jeremy Truman, Chaplain Mike, Timothy Rink, and Maison Heidelberg. As always, you can support the podcast at Patreon.com\/TheBibleforNormalPeople where for as little as $3\/month you can receive bonus material, be part of an online community, get course discounts, and much more. This episode was brought to you by The Bible for Normal People team: Brittany Prescott, Savannah Locke, Stephanie Speight, Tessa Stultz, Nick Striegel, Haley Warren, Jessica Shao, and Natalie Weyand! [Outro music ends]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n