Rabbinic Exegesis and Paul's Use of the Old Testament

and the Jesus Tradition

Paul and the Jesus Tradition
The question of the relationship between Paul and Jesus has gained renewed prominence,
primarily because of the recent study by D. Wenham.i The longstanding argument is centered
upon the degree of continuity between the traditions concerning the ministry of Jesus found in the
gospels and the teachings of the Apostle Paul found in his letters. In order to avoid confusion, it
should be made clear that what is being compared and contrasted in this discussion is not two
historical figures, but two literary repositories, which represent the church's memory of the
teachings of these two historical figures. One of the more commendable feature's of Wenham's
book is his forthright assessment of the problem. At the very beginning, he has documented Paul's
remarkable failure to make use of direct quotations from the Jesus tradition. ii
This issue is clouded by two other critical factors. First, the four canonical gospels, in
their final written form, almost certainly post-date all of Paul's writings. In fact, it is likely that the
gospels were all written after Paul's death. Therefore, when we refer to Paul's lack of reference to
the Jesus tradition, we know little about the content, and even less about the form, of that which
Paul did not quote. What we may know is largely the result of hypothetical processes, such as
form criticism of the gospels and the reconstruction of Q. Second, the only evidence we have of
the thought and teaching of Paul is a limited number of canonical epistles, whether their number
be seven, thirteen, or some number in between. We do not know what Paul thought, or what he
taught and preached orally (except perhaps for the sermons recorded in Acts, which may be
literary constructions themselves). We only know some of what he wrote.
One frequent explanation for Paul's failure to quote the Jesus tradition is that it was
common knowledge both for him and his readers.iii I find this argument quite dubious. Paul's

epistles were written primarily to address problems and disagreements within the early church.
That Paul would fail to make explicit use of points of agreement in order to settle points of
disagreement is contrary to his obvious patterns of argument in at least some of his epistles.iv This
argument assumes, rather, that Paul would rely on his readers to recall on their own just the right
portion of the Jesus tradition which would support his argument. A further corollary of this
position is that Paul's extensive quotation of the Jewish Scriptures must have meant that his
audience was quite unfamiliar with this tradition.
In the remainder of this brief essay, I wish to call attention to a few features of Paul's use
of sources, namely the Jewish Scriptures, and what these features may reveal about his failure to
quote the Jesus tradition. In short, Paul used sources like a rabbi. When he offered quotations as
support for his arguments, his most common introduction was kathos gegraptai. Paul wrote in a
time when there were certainly no authoritative written versions of the Jesus tradition. He was,
therefore, unable to construct exegetical arguments from the teachings of Jesus, even if he knew
them well.v

Paul's Use of the Jewish Scripturesvi

Paul quotes the Jewish Scriptures some ninety-three times. Of these, E. E. Ellis concluded
that fifty-one were "in absolute or virtual agreement with the LXX." Furthermore, he considered
four of these quotations to be in agreement with the Hebrew text and the other thirty-eight to be
divergent from both the Greek and Hebrew traditions.vii Why would Paul use the Jewish
Scriptures in such an inconsistent manner? Was he careless, haphazard, or even ignorant? Surely,
a large number of answers to this question could be advanced. I would like to propose one which
also answers the questions above concerning Paul's use, or lack of use, of the Jesus tradition.

Few interpreters doubt the veracity of the statement in Acts 22:3 that Paul received a
rabbinic education, as a student of the great rabbi, Gamaliel. This raises the possibility, perhaps
probability, that Paul wrote and argued in a manner related to that in which he was taught as a
rabbi. One of the distinctive features of rabbinic exegesis was what Michael Fishbane has
identified as "the al tiqre technique." This refers to the practice of rabbis of the Talmudic era
altering the reading of scripture using the construction "al tiqure (do not read)...elah (but)..." The
actual reading of the Hebrew text would be inserted after al tiqre and the emended reading of the
rabbi after elah.viii Of course, Paul was writing in Greek and most often to a Gentile audience, so
he could not use this esoteric rabbinic construction. Might Paul have been doing something
similar, however, in his alternate uses of biblical traditions. Fishbane made two important
assertions about the al tiqre technique which fit Paul strikingly. The technique "clarifies an
otherwise opaque exegetical exposition" and "is also the means for articulating some relatively
radical rabbinic theology."
Two examples may serve to illustrate how well both of these descriptions fit Paul's
exegetical arguments. In Gal. 3:6 Paul quotes Gen. 15:6. In this case a literal translation of the
Hebrew text into Greek would clearly not have served his purpose because of the ambiguity of the
Hebrew text. MT reads, "And he believed YHWH, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness."
It is not at all clear who is reckoning what to whom. Instead, Paul quotes LXX almost precisely.
LXX reads, "And Abram believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness." While 15b
still contains only pronouns, the ambiguity has effectively been removed. Thus the LXX reading
of Gen. 15:6 makes Paul's point that righteousness (justification) is the result of belief (faith). In
essence, Paul may just as well have said "Al tiqre the Hebrew text elah the Greek text." Just a
few verses later in Gal. 3:11 Paul makes reference to Hab. 2:4b. Here are literal translations of
the three pertinent versions of this clause.

MT: "But the righteous by his faith shall live."

LXX: "But the righteous by my faith shall live."
Gal. 3:11: "The righteous by faith shall live."

Paul makes the phrase fit into his argument smoothly by choosing neither the third nor the first
person pronoun. Here the rabbinic equivalent would have been "Al tiqre his faith or my faith elah
faith." By omitting any possessive pronoun, Paul avoids a thorny theological problem. Is faith a
human achievement or purely a gift from God?ix Through use of his own equivalent of the al tiqre
technique Paul makes his point while sidestepping this question.
Surprisingly, the major works on Paul's relation to Judaism make little or no mention of
Paul's techniques of using scripture compared to those of the Jewish scribes. I have found no
such reference in either W. D Davies's Paul and Rabbinic Judaism or E. P. Sanders's Paul and
Palestinian Judaism. Ellis did make reference to some similarities and differences between Pauline
and rabbinic method, but this was almost exclusively in reference to the use of introductory
formulae.x Paul was writing Greek epistles for Gentile Christians, not midrash for fellow Jewish
scholars. Therefore, he was limited in the extent to which he could make use of characteristic
rabbinic methods. I hope I have demonstrated, however, the distinct possibility that he made use
of an adapted form of one particular rabbinic technique.

Conclusion

The question with which this essay began was "Why did Paul quote the Jewish Scriptures
so often and not the Jesus tradition?" Perhaps the way in which Paul used the former makes it

clear why he could not use the latter. Rabbis in Paul's time quoted accepted authoritative tradition
in their arguments. Paul, arguing like a rabbi, could no use the Jesus tradition for support. His
lack of clear references to the Jesus tradition tells us nothing about whether he knew it, but only
that he did not consider it authoritative.
Recent interpretation of Paul's writings have focused almost entirely on Hellenistic literary
forms as a basis for comparison. As nearly every Pauline scholar has acknowledged, Paul was
also a child of first century Judaism. The role which this literary tradition played in Paul's work as
a writer has not been adequately explored. I hope this essay may serve as some small impetus for
those more adept in rabbinics to intensify such exploration.

Notes

i. D. Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). See also the

important review of this work by M. D. Hooker in SBL 115 (1996), pp. 756-758, with which I am largely in agreement.

ii. D. Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Chriistianity, pp. 4-5.

iii. See D. Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity, pp. 5-6.
iv. See the analysis of Paul's argument in the Galatian epistle by J. G. D. Dunn, The Theology of the Epistle to the
Galatians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

v. An argument similar to this is hinted at by Hooker, "Review of Paul. Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity,"

SBL(115), p. 758. She proposes that Paul quoted Scripture and not Jesus because Scripture was "the authoritative body of
teaching to which one appealed." The unaddressed question this begs is, why was Scripture authoritative for a Christian
apostle and the teaching of Jesus was not?

vi. Naming the entity which Paul quoted is difficult, as will become clear below. I use this vague designation to describe
the scriptures of the Jewish people, both in their Hebrew and Greek forms.

vii. This is the count of E. E. Ellis, Paul's Use of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1957), pp. 11-12.
viii. M. Fishbane, The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press),
pp. 22-23.

ix. Note how Paul stumbles over this same issue in 4:9.
x. E. E. Ellis, Paul's Use of the Old Testament, pp. 45-46.

TRANSLATE

La exgesis rabnica y Uso de Pablo del Antiguo Testamento

y la tradicin de Jess
Pablo y la tradicin de Jess
La cuestin de la relacin entre Pablo y Jess ha cobrado un renovado
protagonismo , sobre todo por el reciente estudio de D. Wenham . El argumento
de muchos aos se centra en el grado de continuidad entre las tradiciones sobre
el ministerio de Jess que se encuentra en los evangelios y las enseanzas del
Apstol Pablo que se encuentran en sus cartas. Con el fin de evitar confusiones ,
debe quedar claro que lo que est siendo comparado y contrastado en esta
discusin no es de dos figuras histricas , sino dos repositorios literarios , que
representan la memoria de la iglesia de las enseanzas de estos dos personajes

histricos . Una de las caractersticas del libro de Wenham ms loable es su

evaluacin franca del problema. Al principio , se ha documentado notable fracaso
de Pablo a hacer uso de citas directas de la tradicin de Jess .
Este problema se ve empaado por otros dos factores crticos. En primer lugar,
los cuatro evangelios cannicos , en su forma final por escrito , casi con toda
seguridad posterior a la fecha de todos los escritos de Pablo . De hecho , lo ms
probable es que los evangelios fueron escritos despus de la muerte de Pablo.
Por lo tanto , cuando nos referimos a la falta de referencia a la tradicin de Jess
de Pablo , sabemos poco acerca de los contenidos, y menos an sobre la forma ,
de la que Pablo no cit . Lo que podemos saber es en gran parte el resultado de
procesos hipotticos , como forma de crtica de los evangelios y de la
reconstruccin de Q. En segundo lugar, la nica evidencia que tenemos del
pensamiento y la enseanza de Pablo es un nmero limitado de las epstolas
cannicas , si su nmero ser siete, trece, o algn nmero en el medio. No
sabemos qu pens Paul , o lo que l ense y predic por va oral ( excepto
quizs para los sermones registrados en Hechos , que pueden ser propios
construcciones literarias) . Lo nico que sabemos algo de lo que l escribi .
Una explicacin frecuente de fracaso de Pablo a citar la tradicin de Jess es que
era del dominio pblico , tanto para l como para sus lectores . Me parece que
este argumento bastante dudosa . Epstolas de Pablo fueron escritas
principalmente para hacer frente a los problemas y desacuerdos dentro de la
iglesia primitiva. Que Pablo dejara de hacer uso explcito de puntos de acuerdo a
fin de resolver los puntos de desacuerdo es contrario a sus patrones obvios de
argumento en al menos algunas de sus epstolas. Este argumento supone , ms
bien, que Pablo se basara en sus lectores a recordar por su cuenta slo la parte
derecha de la tradicin de Jess lo que apoyara su argumento. Otro corolario de
esta posicin es que la amplia cita de Pablo de las Escrituras judas debe haber
querido decir que su audiencia era bastante familiarizados con esta tradicin.
En el resto de este breve ensayo , me gustara llamar la atencin sobre una serie
de caractersticas de uso de Pablo de las fuentes , es decir, las Escrituras judas ,
y lo que estas funciones puede revelar acerca de su fracaso para citar la tradicin
de Jess . En resumen, Pablo utiliz fuentes como un rabino. Cuando se
ofreci citas como apoyo a sus argumentos , su introduccin ms comn fue
kathos gegraptai . Pablo escribi en una poca en que no haba duda hay
versiones autorizadas por escrito de la tradicin de Jess. Fue, por tanto
, incapaz de construir argumentos exegticos de las enseanzas de
Jess, aunque l los conoca bien .
El uso de Pablo de las Escrituras judas
Pablo cita las Escrituras judas unos noventa y tres veces. De stos, EE
Ellis concluy que el cincuenta y uno fueron " totalmente de acuerdo o
virtual con la LXX. " Por otra parte , consider que cuatro de estas citas
para estar de acuerdo con el texto hebreo y los otros treinta y ocho a ser
divergente tanto de la tradicin hebrea y griega . Por qu Pablo usar las
Escrituras judas de una manera tan inconsistente? Era negligente o al azar , o

incluso ignorante? Sin duda , un gran nmero de respuestas a esta pregunta se

podra adelantar . Me gustara proponer una que tambin responde a las
preguntas anteriores sobre el uso de Pablo, o la falta de uso, de la tradicin de
Jess.
Pocos intrpretes dudan de la veracidad de la declaracin en Hechos 22:03 que
Pablo recibi una educacin rabnica , como alumno del gran rabino Gamaliel .
Esto plantea la posibilidad , tal vez la probabilidad, de que Pablo escribi y
argument de manera relacionada a aquel en el que se enseaba como rabino .
Una de las caractersticas distintivas de la exgesis rabnica era lo que Michael
Fishbane ha identificado como " la tcnica tiqre al. " Esto se refiere a la prctica
de los rabinos de la poca talmdica alterar la lectura de las Escrituras mediante
la construccin "al tiqure (no leer ) ... elah (pero ) ... " La lectura actual del texto
hebreo se insertara despus de que al tiqre y la lectura enmendado del rabino
despus elah . Por supuesto , Pablo escriba en griego y ms a menudo a una
audiencia gentil, as que no poda utilizar esta construccin rabnica esotrico.
Podra Pablo ha estado haciendo algo similar , sin embargo , en sus usos
alternativos de las tradiciones bblicas . Fishbane hizo dos afirmaciones
importantes sobre la tcnica tiqre al que se ajustan Paul notablemente . La
tcnica ", aclara una exposicin exegtica de otro modo opaco " y " tambin es el
medio para articular alguna teologa rabnica relativamente radical. "
Dos ejemplos pueden servir para ilustrar qu tan bien estas dos descripciones
encajan argumentos exegticos de Pablo. En Gal . 03:06 Pablo cita Gnesis 15:6 .
En este caso, una traduccin literal del texto hebreo al griego habra resultado
manifiestamente cumplido su propsito debido a la ambigedad del texto hebreo
. MT lee , " Y crey a YHWH , y le fue contado por justicia . " No es del todo claro
que se Reckoning qu a quin . En cambio, Pablo cita LXX casi exactamente . LXX
dice: "Y Abram crey a Dios, y le fue contado por justicia . " Mientras 15b todava
contiene slo los pronombres , la ambigedad efectivamente se ha eliminado .
As, la lectura LXX de Gnesis 15:6 hace que el punto de Pablo de que la justicia
(justificacin) es el resultado de la creencia ( fe ) . En esencia , Pablo pudo muy
bien haber dicho " Al tiqre el texto elah hebreo el texto griego. " Slo unos pocos
versculos ms adelante en Gal . 3:11 Pablo hace referencia a Habacuc . 02:04 b .
Estas son traducciones literales de las tres versiones pertinentes de esta
clusula.
MT: " Mas el justo por su fe vivir . "
LXX : " Mas el justo por la fe vivir . "
Galn 03:11 : "El justo por la fe vivir . "
Pablo hace la frase encaja en su argumento sin problemas por la eleccin ni el
tercero ni el pronombre de primera persona . Aqu el equivalente rabnica habra
sido " Al tiqre su fe o mi fe elah fe. " Al omitir cualquier pronombre posesivo , Paul
evita un problema teolgico espinoso. La fe es un logro humano o puramente un
regalo de Dios ? A travs del uso de su propio equivalente de la tcnica tiqre al
Pablo hace su punto mientras esquivando la pregunta.
Sorprendentemente , los principales trabajos sobre la relacin de Pablo al

judasmo hacen poca o ninguna mencin de las tcnicas de Pablo de la utilizacin

de la escritura en comparacin con las de los escribas judos . He encontrado
ninguna referencia en cualquiera de Paul W. D Davies y el judasmo rabnico o
Paul de EP Sanders y el judasmo palestino . Ellis hizo hacer referencia a algunas
similitudes y diferencias entre Paulina y el mtodo rabnico , pero esto era casi
exclusivamente en referencia a la utilizacin de frmulas introductorias. Pablo
escribi epstolas griegas para los cristianos gentiles , no Midrash para
eruditos judos compaeros . Por lo tanto , se vio limitado en la medida
en que l podra hacer uso de mtodos rabnicos caractersticos. Espero
haber demostrado , sin embargo, la clara posibilidad de que hizo uso de
una forma adaptada de una tcnica rabnica particular.
conclusin
La pregunta con la que se inici este ensayo fue " Por qu Pablo cita las
Escrituras judas tan a menudo y no la tradicin de Jess ? " Tal vez la forma en
que Pablo us la antigua deja claro por qu no poda utilizar la ltima. Rabinos en
el tiempo de Pablo citado aceptados tradicin autoritaria en sus argumentos. Paul
, con el argumento como un rabino, no poda usar la tradicin Jess por ayuda.
Su falta de claras referencias a la tradicin Jess nos dice nada acerca de si l lo
saba, pero slo que l no consider autoritario.
Interpretacin reciente de los escritos de Pablo se han centrado casi
exclusivamente en formas literarias helensticas , como base para la
comparacin. Como casi todos los Pauline estudioso ha reconocido , Paul
fue tambin un nio del judasmo del primer siglo. El papel que esta
tradicin literaria jug en la obra de Paul como escritor no ha sido
explorado adecuadamente . Espero que este ensayo puede servir como un
pequeo impulso para los ms expertos en rabnicos para intensificar esa
exploracin .