Pauline Traditions and the Rabbis: Three Case Studies

Abstract

The comparative study of Paul and the rabbis, an interest of students of the New Testament ever since Christian Hebraism, radically changed in the second half of the twentieth century. If “the study of relations between Judaism and early Christianity, perhaps more than any other area of modern scholarship, has felt the impact of World War II and its aftermath,” then, within this, Pauline scholarship has felt this impact the most. Various post-Holocaust studies read Paul not only in connection to early Judaism but specifically to rabbinic Judaism, which they saw as the epitome of both halakhic and Midrashic discourses. Turning to Tannaitic and Amoraic literatures expressed an urgent need to recontextualize Paul as part of traditional Judaism.