Paul and Rabbinic Exegesis

Abstract

For some time scholars have recognised that Paul's exegesis of Scripture was influenced by rabbinic hermeneutics. As early as 1900 H. St. John Thackeray argued that Paul utilised rabbinic methods of interpretation to confute the Jews. In a number of cases, he wrote, particularly where the original sense of Scripture is not adhered to, ‘we may undoubtedly see the influence of his rabbinic training in the use to which the Old Testament is put and the inferences drawn from it.’ In 1911 H. Lietzmann described Paul's treatment of the desert sojourn in 1 Cor. 10.1–11 as ‘the Haggadic method’, implying a comparison with rabbinic method. Following this same line of argument A. F. Pukko in 1928 asserted that Paul utilised Hillel's seven principles of rabbinic exegesis. According to Pukko, ‘As an interpreter of the Old Testament Paul is above all a child of his time. The methods of interpretation and deduction which he learned in the Rabbinical school emerge frequently in his work.’