Abraham's Uncircumcised Children
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ABRAHAM’S UNCIRCUMCISED CHILDREN: THE ENOCHIC PRECEDENT FOR PAUL’S PARADOXICAL CLAIM IN GALATIANS 3:29 by Amy Genevive Dibley A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Joint Doctor of Philosophy with Graduate Theological Union in Near Easter Religions in the Graduate Division of the University of California at Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor LeAnn Snow Flesher, Chair Professor Daniel Boyarin Professor Eugene Eung-Chun Park Professor Yair Zakovitch Professor Erich S. Gruen Fall 2013 ABSTRACT Abraham’s Uncircumcised Children: The Enochic Precedent for Paul’s Paradoxical Claim in Galatians 3:29 by Amy Genevive Dibley Joint Doctor of Philosophy with Graduate Theological Union in Near Easter Religions in the Graduate Division University of California, Berkeley Professor LeAnn Snow Flesher, Chair This study proposes the Book of Dreams as the precedent for Paul’s program of gentile reclamation qua gentiles predating the composition of the Epistles by two centuries. 1 Dedication To my husband Peter, for whom the words loving and supportive and partnership hardly begin to encompass the richness of our journey together through this process. For our girls, Langsea and Lucia (5 and 4 years old as I submit this), who when playing “mommy” pause from dressing and feeding baby dolls to write their own dissertations. In thanks to the women of First Covenant Church in Rockford, Illinois and Kerry Staurseth (Langsea’s godmother) who watched those most precious to me so that this first child could at last be born, proving that it also takes a village to write a dissertation. To my most excellent committee whose genius and insight is evident at every turn in this project. And for the Apostle Paul, who when all the Pauline scholars gather for coffee in the world to come, will no doubt be amazed at the industry his letters spawned. i CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1 DEDICATION………………………………………………………………………………………….. i INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter ONE THE M ETHOD : R HETORICAL CRITICISM AND THE P AULNE EPISTLES 4 Classical Rhetoric and the Pauline Epistles The Resurgence of Interest in Rhetoric as a Tool for Pauline Studies……………………………….……………………….…..... 4 New Rhetoric……………………………………………………...….. 6 The Project of New Rhetoric…………………………………….... 7 The Role of the Audience in Rhetorical Theory…………………... 9 Real and Intended Audiences……………………………………… 12 Audience as a Projection of Self………………………………....... 15 Narrative Criticism…………………………………………………..... 17 TWO THE P ROBLEM : T HE P ARADOX OF GALATIANS 3:29 The Case for Abraham’s Uncircumcised Children……………..…....... 18 Mapping Paul The Traditional Take…………………………………………..…... 21 Segal………………………………………………………..….. 23 The Rise of the New Perspective on Paul Wrede…………………………………………………….….... 24 Schweitzer………………………………………………..….... 25 Stendahl…………………………………………………..….... 26 Sanders……………………………………………………..…. 28 Four New Perspective Takes on Paul Dunn: Christianity as philosophic essence of Judaism……...... 29 Hays: Christianity as hermeneutical evolution of Judaism….... 30 Wright: Christianity as restoration from Exile…..…………..... 31 Boyarin: Paul as a Jewish cultural critic…………..………….. 32 Circumcision…………………………………………….…………..... 38 Genesis and the Tanakh……………………………….………….. 38 Maccabees……………………………………………………….... 40 2 Maccabees…………………………………………………... 41 1 Maccabees…………………………………………………... 45 4 Maccabees: a conjecture……………………………………. 48 Pagan Zeitgeist and Jewish Weltanschuung…………………….... 50 Chapter ii Summary………………………………………………………...... 54 Implications for reading the Epistles………………………………..... 55 Conclusion……………………………………………………………. 61 THREE THE P RECEDENT : THE B OOK OF DREAMS 1 E NOCH 83-90 63 The Book of Dreams Rediscovery and Scholarship……………………………………... 63 Language of 1 Enoch……………………………………………... 66 Date of Composition for the Book of Dreams…………………..... 66 Unity and Theme in the Book of Dreams ……………………………... 68 Transformation in the Narrative Arc of the Book of Dreams ………..... 72 First Vision and Prayer – 1 Enoch 83-84 (seventeen verses)……... 72 Second Vision – The Animal Apocalypse………………………... 73 Pattern and Function of Lament in the Book of Dreams……... 73 The Inordinate Attention Given the Noahic Flood………….... 76 The Flood and the Sons of Noah 1 En 89:1-10……………….. 77 The Transformation of Noah 1 En 89:1 and 9 (Ethiopic version only)…………………………………………………... 79 The Significance of the Shift from “Bulls” to “Sheep” 1 En 89:12…………………………………………………………... 82 The Slaughter of the Apostates and the Transformation of Moses 1 En 89:15-38………………………………………..... 83 The first omission: the giving of the Law……………….... 84 The second omission: the intercession of Moses……………………………………………………... 84 The stress of a minor scene: the slaughter of the apostates…………………………………………………... 84 The embellishment: the transformation of Moses………... 85 Moses v. Noah……………………………………………. 86 The transformation of Moses……………………………... 88 Elijah and the First and Second Temple Periods (1 En 89:41- 90:5)…………………………………………………………... 89 Judas and the Maccabean Revolt……………………………... 90 The End of the World As We Know It: Eschatology of the Book of Dreams……………………………………………………………….. Final Judgment 1 Enoch 90:17-27…………………………..... 93 The Redemption of Israel 1 Enoch 90:28-32………………..... 95 The Reclamation of the Gentiles…………………………….... 97 Conclusions Concerning the Conclusion of the Animal Apocalypse…………………………………………………..... 104 Enoch’s Final Lament……………………………………….... 108 Conclusion…………………………………………………………….. 111 Chapter iii FOUR THE S OLUTION : A T HEORY AS TO THE EVOLUTION OF IDEAS c. 160 B.C.E. – c. 60 C.E. The Threat of Circumcision…………………………………………..... 112 The Book of Dreams and the Epistles of Paul………………………….. 113 Call and Response Regarding the Problem of the Longevity of Gentile Political Ascendancy: Points of Eschatological Continuity in the Book of Watchers, Daniel, the Book of Dreams and the Pauline Epistles Disavowal of the Final Battle…………………………………….. 117 Stress on the Final Judgment……………………………………... 122 Resurrection of the Dead and the Loss and Recovery of the Messiah Origins of Resurrection in the Tanakh……………………….. 123 Three Tales of Resurrection in 1 and 2 Kings ........................... 125 Resurrection in the Book of the Watchers …………………..... 127 Resurrection in Daniel ……………………………………….. 131 Resurrection in the Book of Dreams …………………………. 137 The Phantom Book of Dreams School – a Theory………….... 139 Excursus: Evidence For and Against Baptism as a Ritual of Conversion to Judaism in the Late Second Temple Period….. 142 Paul…………………………………………………………… 149 CONCLUSION : S UGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER S TUDY …………………………………. 153 APPENDIX A: The Absence of the Law in the Book of Dreams ………………………. 154 APPENDIX B: The Resurrection Tales of 1 and 2 Kings ………………………………. 157 BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………...................... 166 iv INTRODUCTION With the rise of the New Perspective in the aftermath of World War II, the traditional, ‘Lutheran’ reading of Paul, which set the Apostle in opposition to his Jewish tradition as a convert to Christianity, has been assailed from all sides. The longstanding portrayal of Paul as a reformer in the image of Martin Luther was seriously challenged by Krister Stendahl in 1976. Stendahl countered that the evidence of the Epistles suggests that Paul understood himself not as a convert from Judaism but a Jew prophetically called to proclaim the gospel among the gentiles. The following year E. P. Sanders disputed the correlating association of first century Judaism with sixteenth-century Catholicism; an association which had cast Judaism as the legalistic dark foil against the liberating light of Pauline theology. Much New Perspective scholarship has subsequently focused on diminishing the historic antithesis between Paul and Judaism in an effort to repatriate Paul as a Jew; albeit a Jew at the far margins of his society, a cultural critic in an intramural Jewish debate concerning inclusivity. The premise that Paul stood in opposition to his tradition, either in whole or in part, as convert or critic, is rooted in the long standing interpretive convention that Paul’s metanoia regarding Christ resulted in a radical paradigm shift. While the subject of Paul’s metanoia has been rigorously debated (the ‘Lutheran’ interpretation holding that Paul changed his mind about the efficacy of Judaism; the New Perspective that he reversed himself only on the subject of gentiles) Paul is nevertheless presumed in both readings to have been on the inventive vanguard of a new movement. Paul’s signature contribution to the Christian movement was his instance that gentile converts remain gentiles – i.e. that they remain uncircumcised. However, as will be discussed at length in the chapters below, one could hardly exaggerate the significance of circumcision for the religious and cultural identity of Jews in the first century. Yet, even after the confusion in Galatia, the Pharisaically trained Paul never wrote a manifesto ensuring this new vision of humanity was properly laid forth and cogently argued for the far-flung churches vulnerable to the influence of the pro-convert-circumcision fraction within the early Church. More bewildering still is Paul’s exasperated, panicked tone in Galatians if, as it is routinely assumed, his argument that the converts should remain gentiles was truly an innovation. Clearly the Galatians understood themselves to have converted to Judaism, hence their desire to complete their conversion by being circumcised. Rebuking them for having been so easily persuaded