Paul and Jesus

4. Romans 3:22, 26; Galatians 2:16; 3:22.

5. The most direct reference is 1 Corinthians 9:14: “In the same way the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.” One can assume that passage could be connected to Luke 10:17: “The laborer is worthy of his hire.” It is possible, but not certain, that he knows Jesus’ teaching forbidding divorce (1 Corinthians 7:10), but when he says he has something “from the Lord,” it can just as likely mean he is claiming a subsequent revelation from the heavenly Christ. That is surely the case in 1 Corinthians 11:23–26, where he relates the scene of the Lord’s Supper. Paul teaches that loving one’s neighbor fulfills the Torah, but since this saying was common among rabbis of his day, not only Jesus, we can’t say he is referring to Jesus (Galatians 5:14; Romans 13:10). The book of Acts quotes Paul as quoting Jesus once: “Remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ ” (Acts 20:23). Ironically, this does not appear to be a direct quotation but an allusion, perhaps to Luke 6:38.

6. See Margaret Barker, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel’s Second God (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), and Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinical Reports About Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden: Brill, 2002).

7. The literal term in Hebrew, “messenger-Yahweh,” is usually translated as “the angel of Yahweh,” but this is not the best choice for English since “angel” in English has its own set of connotations quite different from Hebrew. In Hebrew the phrase used, mal’ak Yahweh, means a manifestation of Yahweh and this figure speaks and acts as Yahweh in the first person, appearing and departing, sometimes in a flame of fire (see Genesis 16:10; 18:33; 22:11; Exodus 3:2; Judges 13:20). There are a few passages where these “two Yahwehs” are mentioned in a single verse: “Then Yahweh [below] rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yahweh [above] from heaven” (Genesis 19:24).

8. See Schonfield, “The Christology of John,” in Those Incredible Christians, pp. 243–55.

9. See David B. Capes, Old Testament Yahweh Texts in Paul’s Christology, WUZT 2.47 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr/Paul Siebeck, 1992) for ways that Paul applied texts of the Hebrew Bible about Yahweh directly to Jesus.

10. Josephus, Antiquities 18.117–19.

11. They had to do with ritual purity after contact with such contaminants as blood, a corpse, disease, or bodily discharges (Leviticus 14:8–9; 15:1–33; 19:13). Running water from a lake or stream was preferred though ritual pools or baths called mikveh are commonly found in Jewish homes and public buildings during this period.

12. Community Rule 3.1–10, in Vermes, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, pp. 100–1.

13. See my discussion in The Jesus Dynasty, pp. 134–37.

14. See Richard E. Demaris, “Corinthian Religion and Baptism for the Dead (1 Corinthians 15:29): Insights from Archaeology and Anthropology,” Journal of Biblical Literature 114 (1995): 661–82.

15. The author of Acts records one such riverside baptism (Acts 16:13–15).

16. Naked baptism was considered essential and is specified in all of our sources. Presumably, the sexes were segregated even if male attendants officiated, but it is possible that women attended to women. We are not sure how this practice was carried out to ensure modesty. In Judaism to this day men and women who visit the mikveh or ritual bath remove all clothing. When male witnesses are present in the case of women, they stand out of sight. See Jonathan Z. Smith, “Garments of Shame,” in Map Is Not Territory (Leiden: Brill, 1978), pp. 1–23.

17. Paul never mentions the “laying on of hands” in his letters but the author of the books of Acts seems to know of the practice, tracing it back to Paul (Acts 19:6). It is also mentioned twice in later letters attributed to Paul (1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6). The book of Hebrews, which seems to have some connection to Pauline ideas, mentions “baptisms and the laying on of hands” in conjunction with one another (Hebrews 6:2).

18. See Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26.

19. The idea of two distinct forms of the Eucharist, one from Paul and the other from the Jerusalem church, was effectively argued by Hans Lietzmann in 1926. Needless to say it stirred up a whirlwind of controversy, though overall I find it quite convincing. For an updated discussion see R. H. Fuller, “The Double Origin of the Eucharist,” Biblical Research 8 (1963): 60–72.

20. Translation from Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, p. 431.