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Paul and Palestinian Judaism

Th e present work is the resul t o f rather a long period of research and thought, during which there was at least one major change in the precise focus of the research. I first started trying to work seriously on what I then thought of as the Jewish 'background' of the New Testament in 1962-63, when I studied Rabbinic and modern Hebrew in OxforcLand Jerusalem. Since I thought that comparative studies should not be undertaken too early, nor under the time pressure of a doctoral program, my thesis was not a comparative study, although I did continue course work on aspects of Judaism. In 1966 I set mysel f to consider Goodenough' s theory of Judaism - a small island of Rabbinic Judaism set in a vast sea of mystical , strongly Hellenized Judaism. I worked on Goodenough' s materials for two years and then, during a year's leave, returned to the Hebrew language sources. During this period I not only came to the obvious conclusion that Judaism must be studied in its own left, but , as I became increasingly immersed in the study of Rabbinic religion, I also began to focus on a somewhat different project from the one first outlined: a comparative study limited to Palestinian Judaism and the most obvious New Testament writer, Paul . Th e present work is the result

of that study. Th e more I studied Jewish sources, the more it became apparent that it would be wrong and futile to try to write as i f I were not primarily a student of the New Testament . New Testament scholars who have written on Judaism have sometimes pretended to an indifferent 'history of religions' viewpoint and educational background which they have not had, and I have

tried not to make that mistake. On the other hand, I have tried to avoid the opposite pitfall of limiting the description of Judaism to individual motifs which are directly parallel to a moti f in Paul or which are seen as directly relevant to his 'background' . I have attempted to compare Judaism, understood on its own terms, with Paul , understood on his own terms. I hope that this effort will prove to make a contribution not only to the understanding of Paul and his relationship to Judaism, but to the study of Judaism itself. I f I cannot teach a Talmudis t anything about Rabbinic religion, I hope at least that the argument about the structure and functionmg of that religion and the way in which it is compared to other forms of Judaism will prove useful.

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