SBL 2021 Panel I Responding to Paul Within Judaism

Paul “Within Judaism”

A Response by Christine Hayes

As should be crystal clear by now, the question occupying today’s panelists is the following: what is the meaning of the deceptively simple phrase “within Judaism” when applied to a text, a writer, a practice, a belief, or a mode of discourse?  The papers presented today have brought both complexity and clarity to the phrase.  This is important. If a phrase or term is going to be serviceable it cannot be employed in different ways by different people, or they will simply be talking past one another. The four authors in this session agree on this point: those who use the term must make explicit what precisely they mean by it. I imagine they would also all agree that those who would use the term should think carefully about what is at stake when we attempt to identify a text, writer, practice, or belief to be within Judaism. Reinhartz rightly cautions us about the contemporary apologetic work that is done by some attempts to place John within Judaism. Placing John within Judaism is sometimes an attempt to explain, or explain away, the profound anti-Judaism of the 4th gospel: by viewing it as an understandable and harmless reaction to the mistreatment of an alleged Johannine community by those who expelled them from the synagogue; by claiming, rather tautologically, that the rhetoric can’t be anti-Jewish because John is within Judaism and by definition what is within Judaism cannot be anti-Jewish (I’ll return to this at the end); or by claiming that because it offers salvation to Jews, John’s gospel is clearly not anti-Jewish.  Such apologetic instrumentalizations of the “within Judaism” approach are unacceptable and we can move on to more productive deployments of the approach.

Collectively today’s papers have identified the most common -- if occasionally unconscious -- uses of the phrase “within Judaism.” They have tried them on for size, pointed to their drawbacks, and in some cases suggested tentative alternatives, with all due awareness that none of these alternatives is entirely perfect. I’d like to offer my own reflections on the various uses of the term described and suggested in today’s papers. I too will try them on for size, engaging in a few simple thought experiments along the way to test out their viability and utility.

John Van Maaren devoted attention to each of the three components of the phrase “X within Judaism” beginning with the word “within” itself. We can understand what “within” means by contrasting it with its opposite. To say a text, a writer, a practice, or a belief is within Judaism is to say that it is an integral part of Judaism as opposed to standing apart from or in front of Judaism. Thus, the “within Judaism” approach militates against binary comparisons between a single text, person, or practice standing over against all of Judaism.

Matthew Novenson agrees with Van Maaren that such binary comparisons are inherently problematic. While it is certainly possible to compare a single figure with an entire ethno-religion it is unlikely to be interesting or profitable because the two things being compared are wildly asymmetrical. Novenson follows Nongbri in asserting that there is more to be gained from comparing a single text or figure with some other single text or figure rather than something known as “all of Judaism.” In addition, the comparative approach that follows from viewing a writer or text against the backdrop of Judaism, suffers from a kind of question-begging deficiency: it assumes the very thing it should be proving – that the two are different.  The very act of viewing Paul for example against the backdrop of Judaism assumes that the two are distinct and can be compared, that there is a difference between them, that Paul is in some way anomalous or unique.  This is a valid criticism of the comparative approach, but it does cut both ways. If the comparative approach that views Paul against the background of Judaism is purpose-built to highlight Paul’s differences from Judaism, shouldn’t we worry that the attempt to view Paul within Judaism is purpose-built to highlight Paul’s continuities with Judaism? (Is this an automatically disqualifying consideration?)

Be that as it may, Van Maaren and Novenson appear to agree that the designation “X is within Judaism” corrects a tendency to view Judaism as the backdrop against which a text or writer is thrown into relief, a tendency that fosters inapt and asymmetrical comparisons, all but mandates the identification of difference and anomalies AND, we may add, assumes a monolithic Judaism. This was another point of general agreement among our panelists. All underscored the fact that Judaism in late antiquity was a many-splendored thing encompassing diverse forms. The “within Judaism” approach is preferable to the comparative “against the backdrop of Judaism approach” because it better aligns with the widely attested fact of late ancient Jewish diversity, understanding Judaism as less of a monolith and more of a tableau: one of those vivid living scenes containing multiple actors or models. To locate a writer or text within Judaism is to locate them within this living scene of figures – different from the other figures but not from the whole, and no more different from the other figures in the tableau than they are different from one another.

Turning to the other elements in the phrase “X within Judaism,” Van Maaren notes that we must clarify the value of X so that we understand precisely what it is that is “within Judaism.” In other words, when we say Paul is within Judaism do we mean that Paul himself remained within Judaism even though his audience was Gentile? Van Maaren contrasts Matthew, where both writer and audience may be said to be “within Judaism.” Thus, one must clarify whether the term “within Judaism” is being applied to the writer, the writer’s audience, or both.

This point raises some interesting questions that are mentioned by Reinhartz and which I would like to explore even further. First, if a writer can be within Judaism even though the writer’s audience is not, we might ask whether a text can be “within Judaism” even though the author is not. For the sake of argument, let’s suppose that what I mean when I say the author is not within Judaism is simply that the author is not an ethnic Jew? A contemporary analog to this question that has been the subject of heated debate and controversy in recent years is: can writers write outside their own identity? There are two ways of understanding this question. The first is whether it is humanly possible for writers to write outside their own identity. Most would agree, that writing outside of one’s own identity is precisely what novelists do all they time. They create an array of characters of diverse ages, genders, races, abilities who undergo experiences that have not been the experience of the writer. Some do it well, some do not, but it seems to be theoretically possible. The second way of understanding the question, however, is ethical: can a writer write outside their own identity actually means should a writer write outside their own identity, or is telling a story that is not one’s own a form of colonial erasure?

When I ask whether a person could write outside their identity in our ancient context, I am posing the question in the first sense: is it possible for a person to write outside their own identity? Is it conceivable that a non-Jew could write a Jewish text? While we have more work to do to define the terms “Jewish” and “Judaism”, I would suggest that the idea of a non-Jew creating a text that participates in and contributes to something called Judaism seems not only theoretically possible but also not entirely remote.

A second question that arises when we consider various ways of cashing out the value of X in the phrase “X within Judaism” pertains to reception history. What is the status of a text that may have originated within Judaism but was subsequently interpreted in such a way as to place it outside of Judaism -- in other words, a text written by a Jew immersed in Jewish ideas, employing Jewish modes of discourse in support of Jewish goals that later comes to be understood as speaking from a position outside Judaism? To what stage in its life does the label “within Judaism” apply? In the spirit of maximal clarity and accuracy, should we not say this text was once within Judaism but came to be outside Judaism? Some would argue that this is the most apt way to describe Paul’s writings. Paul’s letters, like Paul, were within Judaism, but the history of their reception would eventually place them outside Judaism.

Which brings us to the third term in our equation: Judaism. Van Maaren points out that to know whether something can be situated within Judaism, or is an expression of Judaism, we must have a working definition of Judaism, and this is notoriously difficult – is it a religion, an ethnic group, an ethno-religion, a nationality? But certain definitions of Judaism when plugged into the formula “X within Judaism” create odd limitations, that intuition and experience tell us don’t make much sense. For example, the idea that a writer is within Judaism simply and only because they are ethnically Jewish, is a minimalist criterion with an oddly maximalist outcome. It entails the idea that anything a native-born Jew does is “within Judaism” – even if the Jew knows nothing of Jewish culture and religion, writes Greek love poetry, and manufactures and sells idols for a living. If this native-born Jew who does these things does not see them as either an expression or a direct result of their Jewishness, it is difficult to see how their activity can be said to be within Judaism in any meaningful way. And if this same individual were to suddenly take up Jewish practices, or if a Greek poet suddenly took up Jewish identity and practice, how would we describe the Greek love poems that they now write? Are these poems suddenly within Judaism despite undergoing no change in content, theme, or style, simply because they are written by persons who have taken up Jewish practices and identity?

In other words, is a text or practice Jewish by virtue of being written or performed by a Jew such that everything any Jew writes or does is within Judaism? Or does Judaism refer to an ideal body of cultural practices that establish the criteria according to which a figure or text may be deemed to be within Judaism? Shaye J. D. Cohen once captured this distinction when responding to the question “What is Judaism?”:

Is it the religious behavior of all people who call themselves and are known to others as Jews, Israelites, and Hebrews? Or is it an ideal set of beliefs and practices against which the practices and beliefs of real Jews are to be measured and judged? If the former, Judaism is a relativistic construct of human beings, and no variety of Judaism is any more "correct" or "authentic" than any other. This is the perspective of the historian. If the latter, Judaism is a body of absolute truths revealed by God and/or sanctioned by tradition, and those interpretations of Judaism which more nearly approximate these absolute truths are truer and more authentic than those which do not. This is the perspective of the believer. In this book [Cohen wrote] I am a historian. (From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, p. 134)

Both Runesson and Reinhartz caution us against confusing the perspective of the believer and the historian. As Runesson notes, it is the historian’s task to understand what “within Judaism” meant in the past without worrying about contemporary religious boundaries. He contends that our understanding of Judaism, and by extension what is within Judaism, in the period of late antiquity requires considerable revision to escape the illusion of a Jewish-Christian dichotomy that pervades our contemporary perception. Specifically, it is easy to suppose that “within Judaism” implies “not within Christianity.” But the gospels and writings of Paul predate the emergence of Christianity as a discursively or socially identifiable entity. What I understood Runesson to be saying is: If Christianity did not yet exist, then what could these writings, and these early Christ-groups who worshipped the god of Israel be within, if not Ioudaismos (Judaism). There really was no other game in town.

Our panelists see difficulties in the attempt to understand what it is to be “within” Judaism by establishing a set of ideas or practices that are considered essential to Judaism, such as the four elements defined by Dunn (monotheism, election and land, Torah, and Temple), so that one can categorize various Christ-groups as within or not. Like Van Maaren, Runesson sees flaws in this approach in light of source materials that attest to Judaism as a highly fluid and diverse phenomenon. In recognition of this diversity, some have taken to simply specifying what kind of Jew a given individual was, or what kind of Jewish sub-group a text is within, but as Novenson points out the piling up of such descriptors is not entirely satisfying. As he rightly states, to label is not necessarily to understand.

Ultimately both Runesson and Van Maaren favor a policy of self-ascription (based on the idea that identities are circumstantial rather than given, whether primordially or essentially). As Van Maaren explains, according to the ascription approach, identity cannot be determined by a list of shared or defining characteristics exhibited by all group members; it is primarily a matter of ascription which means that a person’s identity is what they think and claim it is. For his part, Runesson maintains that rather than deciding what a 1st century Jew could or could not think or do, the historian who wishes to situate Paul or the Gospels would do well to investigate the wider discursive context (including traditions, customs, ideas, and texts) within which they formulated and communicated their messages as well as the discursive contexts they left unused. According to Runesson, this investigation produces not an ideal image of an authentic fixed model of Judaism against which to compare Paul’s letters or the gospels, but rather a set of “variations” with no original theme or starting point; versions with no Ur-text, an idea finding increasing acceptance in philological circles. I see promise in this idea of variations with no shared original theme, and will return to it.

Even so, Runesson would still posit a very simple criterion to keep the many variants together as a category and that criterion is: a self-professed loyalty to the God of Israel, which might be termed Yahwism. There’s something intuitively persuasive about this suggestion, but it seems at once too little and too much.  Too little because it may tend to reduce Judaism to a religion (loyalty to a specific god), which is anachronistic and would mean the exclusion of persons with an ethnic or even nationalist identity (and I believe that such persons existed in antiquity as now), as well as the exclusion of Jews who engage in the syncretistic worship of other gods (and there were certainly self-identifying Jews who did). The general criterion of Yahwism is also too much, because as Runesson himself acknowledges it includes Samaritans, and we may even suppose it would encompass persons who included Israel’s god in their pantheon (as magical materials suggest was the case).  Runesson himself rightly wonders then whether we need a more robust criterion to signal what is within Yahwism, since not all Yahwisms are Judaisms.

This raises the idea of nested identities discussed by Van Maaren. He notes that people generally identify with multiple ethnic categories, often arranged hierarchically one inside another.  Thus, the term Jew may refer to a descendant of the Judeans, but the Judeans were a subgroup of the larger group known as Israel. The idea of hierarchically arranged nested identities shifts the discussion from what is within Judaism to what Judaism is within! Like Runesson, Van Maaren struggles to conjure a term for this larger group that Judaism is within – perhaps Israelitism? – and like Runesson he is not entirely happy with the results.  For our purposes it is interesting to note that attempts to identify a larger group that Judaism is within, fall into the same difficulties that bedevil the attempt to identify Judaism itself. Is this larger group to be characterized primarily in religio-cultic terms, as the proposed name Yahwism implies, or primarily in ethnic or ethno-religious terms as the proposed name Israelitism implies?

Moreover, it’s not clear to me that the ancients would have understood their identities to be nested in the ways modern scholars sometimes suppose. For example, for the rabbis, Judaism is not nested within something larger, and they regularly deploy the term “Israel” to refer to a single comprehensive entity. There is of course tremendous variety within that community (including non-rabbis and even non-observant Jews), but in the rabbinic idiom the term Israel is interchangeable with the term Yehudi – these are not nested identities. The rabbinic elision of “Israel” and “Jew” is likely an act of resistance to those seeking to create hierarchically nested identities that relegate Jews and Jewishness to a lesser status within a larger “Israel.” We see this in Paul’s differentiation of Israel in the flesh and Israel in the spirit, a hierarchical differentiation that in the hands of the early church fathers placed Israel in the flesh, or Jews, as the inferior element within a more highly valued larger group.  But for the rabbis there is one Israel and although it features some internal variety, that Israel is coextensive with the Jewish community subtended by the rabbis. That community, the community of kelal Israel, all of Israel, represents a privileged category and God fearers and gerim are nested within that community; that community is not nested within a larger group of God-fearers, Yahwists, or Israelites. 

Finally, a word about a methodological problem raised by the self-ascription approach. Van Maaren proposes that we use the term “Jewish” for an individual’s self-ascription (a person is Jewish if they claim to be) and that we use the term “Judaism” for a description of practices and beliefs. Thus, a “text is within Judaism if its conceptual world and associated practices are part of common ways of being Jewish rather than a rejection of them.” The last phrase here caught my attention. It suggests that it is not enough for a text’s conceptual world and associated practices to be part of the common ways of being Jewish; a text is only within Judaism if in addition it does not reject or seek to replace those common ways of being Jewish. This raises some prickly questions. Specifically: at what stage does criticism and inner-group polemic place one outside the group? Most of us would agree that it is possible to be within a group (both by self-ascription and ascription by others) and at the same time to criticize it.  Most would grant that criticism may even lead to a desire by persons within the group to effect some improving changes? The desired changes might even be radical. But what if persons within a group feel that the group has become so misguided or corrupted that it must be rejected as it is and replaced with a truer version of itself? These individuals may still self-identify as being “within the group” even as they reject what the group has become, and seek to replace it. Indeed, they may feel that they have not left the group, the group has left them. Or, is the self-representation and self-ascription of these radical reformers beside the point?  Is there a stage beyond which criticism, rejection, and replacement become so extreme that they place one outside the group regardless of one’s self-ascription?  The issue here is whether our definition of what it is to be within a group can be based on the principle of self-ascription AND at the same time insist that being within a group precludes a desire to reform, replace, or reject the group. Some self-ascriptions combine a claim of being within a group with rejecting and seeking to replace the group.

Jonathan Klawans’ study of ancient Jewish attitudes towards the Temple grapples with this issue.[i]  Klawans cites the work of Bryan R. Wilson who distinguishes “reformist” sects and “introversionist” ones.[ii] He writes: “Reformist ideology articulates criticism in the hopes that things will change. This criticism can be quite pronounced, but it stops short of advocating withdrawal from the general society. A group with an “introversionist” ideology, however, turns into itself, rejecting entirely the hope that society outside the sect can be redeemed or reformed…Wilson’s term “reformist” can be taken to refer to ancient Jewish criticisms of the temple, its practice, and its personnel that stop short of either boycotting the temple or establishing institutional alternatives…, we will contrast reformist views with “rejectionist” ones. A rejectionist approach not only criticizes the current temple as inadequate in some way, but also takes the critique to the next level by boycotting the temple and possibly by establishing some sort of alternative.” He continues “As we have seen, the Dead Sea sect did indeed abandon the temple at some point during this period: the various complaints we have surveyed here coalesce into a coherent, sectarian, rejectionist ideology.” And yet, despite this rejectionist stance, I don’t think anyone on our panel would say that the Qumran community was not within Judaism.

And this brings us back to John and the paper by Adele Reinhartz. Although Reinhartz rejects apologetic attempts to explain or explain away the profound anti-Judaism in the 4th gospel by placing John within Judaism, if I understand her correctly, she is not saying that there is no perspective from which we might see John as within Judaism – perhaps there is. Perhaps – and here’s another thought experiment –  we can maintain that John is within Judaism even as he rejects Judaism.  But if John is within Judaism because of a shared conceptual world for example, then we can't maintain an absence of any rejectionist desire as part of our criterion for what it is to be within Judaism.  My point is this: the case of John alerts us to a methodological tension at the heart of the “self-ascription” approach: If we wish to honor the principle of self-ascription, what do we do about groups who self-identify as Jews and yet in the eyes of others in that group place themselves outside it by advocating for the rejection, replacement, or subsumption of the group?  Whose perspective trumps? The perspective of those who self-ascribe as within Judaism even as they reject it OR the perspective of their contemporaries who view rejection as an automatic disqualifier for membership within the group?

Fortunately, it is not for the historian to adjudicate this debate. Rather, the task of the historian is to understand and explain the debate, which means understanding why a person or text that self-identifies as being within Judaism does so (even when others view them as outside Judaism) and why a group rejects the claims of some who declare they are within it. Focusing on understanding the debate rather than adjudicating it, we realize that there were in antiquity, as there are today, multiple ways to lay claim to being within Judaism that were not universally accepted. Thus, loyalty to Yawheh was the basis for some self-ascriptions, while a zealous nationalism based on a rejection of Roman rule was another, and we can generate more ways of laying claim to being within Judaism at increasingly granular levels (as Novenson’s many descriptors would suggest). What’s important to realize, however, is that these multiple ways of staking a claim to a location within Judaism were not uncontested and may have been perceived by those on the ground as mutually exclusive. In other words, the scholarly attempt to identify a single criterion by which we might designate a person or text as within Judaism is misguided – not only because it will likely have to be so general as to be unilluminating but because there simply is none.  Different groups who saw themselves as being within Judaism contested and sometimes denied each other’s claims to being within Judaism. Again, it is not the historian’s task to adjudicate the question against a Platonic ideal of “Judaism” but to understand those self-ascriptions, to understand how and why various ancient Jewish groups and texts could lay claim to being within Judaism and how and why others could deny that very claim.

[i] Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism, p. 147.

[ii] Wilson, Magic and the Millennium, 18–26.

Christine Hayes is Sterling Professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica at Yale University.