Abstract

In the past decade or so, Paul’s ideas about the eschaton as expressed in Romans 11 have been invoked in a lively discussion about why the Catholic Church today does not organize campaigns to convert Jews to Christianity. Particularly important have been his words about “the full number of the Gentiles.” This essay asks if Paul’s letters require, or support as most appropriate today, a triumphal Christian expectation that at the end of days Jews will inevitably admit that they had been wrong all along in saying “no” to the Christian proclamation of the Gospel. It suggests that a crucial factor is whether Christian readings of Romans 11 today—as well as typical translations of Romans 11—are predicated on a view of Paul as an apostate who departed from Judaism. It argues that current actualizations of Pauline eschatology are quite different if Paul is instead understood as an apostle to the nations from within Judaism. It concludes that present-day eschatological scenarios need to have greater complexity than simplistic zero-sum phrases like “a Jewish turn to Christ” or “Christians will see their error,” and that Paul himself—in a very different religious world—tried to resist such binary thinking when it came to Jews and non-Jews.

Highlights

  • It is well known that the groundbreaking 1965 Second Vatican Council declaration, Nostra Aetate, relied heavily upon Paul’s Letter to the Romans to state that the Jewish people remain “most dear” to God (Rom 11:28), and, to them belong “the glory and the covenants and the law” (Rom 9:4)

  • Declaration’s roots in Paul’s eschatological expectations—which flowed from God’s irrevocable covenantal promises—is the combined work of a Jewish exegete (Mark Nanos) and a Catholic biblical theologian (Philip Cunningham). Both authors will speak to the issues raised, but in general Nanos will focus on insights into the translation and interpretation of Paul’s language approached from within the late Second Temple Jewish thought-world in which it was written with some attention to the reception history of Paul’s language, while Cunningham will focus on how Paul’s language can—and just as importantly, cannot, apart from significant qualifications—be usefully employed to address Christian theological concerns today

  • The modern recourse to Romans arguably arose from the ethical need that Christians felt, and some Jews welcomed, to find a new way to read Paul’s representations of Jews and Judaism following the horrendous sufferings of Jews in cultures that were partially shaped by long-lived, anti-Jewish readings of Paul, including Romans 11

Read more

Summary

Recent Catholic Interest in Paul’s Eschatology

It is well known that the groundbreaking 1965 Second Vatican Council declaration, Nostra Aetate, relied heavily upon Paul’s Letter to the Romans to state that the Jewish people remain “most dear” to God (Rom 11:28), and, to them belong “the glory and the covenants and the law” (Rom 9:4). To counter this understandable impression, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, composed an important essay that was printed in the Vatican newspaper at the pope’s request He argued that the prayer was not promoting the missionizing of Jews, but rather drew upon the eschatological perspective of Romans 11: The salvation of the Jews is, for St. Paul, a profound mystery of election through divine grace ([Rom] 9:1429). Hildegard Brem comments on this passage as follows: In the light of Romans 11:25, the Church must not concern herself with the conversion of the Jews, since she must wait for the time fixed for this by God, ‘until the full number of the Gentiles come in’ (Rom 11:25). Pope Benedict and those he cites, Bernard of Clairvaux and Hildegard Brem, all adduce Paul’s phrase about the “full number of the Gentiles coming in” to argue that the salvation of Jews is divinely guaranteed and will be God’s doing. Paul have possibly been thinking in such binary terms about “Judaism” and “Christianity,” when the only church he knew was a subgroup within Judaism, when faith in Jesus as Messiah was an option conceptualized within Judaism, not by conversion from it to a different religious affiliation?

Paul: Jewish Apostle or Jewish Apostate?
Reading Paul and His Eschatological Hope from “Within Judaism”
Romans 11
Unity Among Jews and Gentiles in Christ
A Temporary Development that Paul’s Ministry Will Address
A Slip into but Then a Recoiling from Binary Thinking
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call