Book Review: Paul the Pharisee: A Vision Beyond the Violence of Civilization by John Dominic Crossan

[1] Why would you want to take a deep dive into seeing and understanding the Pharisaic Paul of the New Testament? I will tell you up front that John Dominic Crossan’s Paul the Pharisee: A Vision Beyond the Violence of Civilization is that deep dive and you will want to take your time, and even haul out that map of “Paul’s Missionary Journeys” from one of your old Bibles, to appreciate all the details. This book will invite you to study, not simply read.

[2] But, again, why take the dive? Because Crossan sees Paul capturing most closely the vision of Jesus for peace, not to say also salvation, of any writer of our New Testament books. In other words, read Paul to get to Jesus, and this perhaps even more than the New Testament’s Gospels. Crossan wants us to get to Jesus and here Crossan sets Paul’s writings in contrast with the writer and writing of Luke and Acts. With this helpful (and even at times in Table format) contrast of Paul and Luke/Acts we as readers of Paul the Pharisee mine the value of being as close to the original Paul as we can.

[3] To set the stage for how Paul’s mission vision and mission strategy differs from the Apostle Peter’s vision and strategy, Crossan gives us a good understanding of just how Ascension theology and Resurrection theology differ. The author describes how Luke/Acts tells Jesus’ ultimate victory as Ascension while Paul tells the story of Resurrection, and while both Ascension and Resurrection are metaphors for God’s ultimate reign of peace, it is Paul’s Resurrection theology that is best, if not also more accurate then and now, for us today to live within for a responsible and accountable ethic. One of the key attractions I find to Crossan’s work is his constant engagement of biblical material with today’s atheist and “None” as well as theist in mind. Crossan would contend, I believe, that one does not have to be a Christian or Theist to reap return from reading Paul and he, Crossan, wants us to see and use Christ’s cross and resurrection to engage what he calls the evolutionary challenge that is trifold: “ever accelerating” climate change, bio-diversity loss, and weapons of mass destruction. While you may disagree theologically with Crossan’s definition of gospel, and thereby salvation (Peace = distributive justice through non-violence[i]) or think it too earthly-minded, you will find here in Paul the Pharisee a rigorous application of Scripture that even the most non-religious should find compelling.

[4] I will give you a wider description of the contents Crossan lays out for us as he identifies Paul as the key missionary to those outside of his own Judaism. Afterward, at the close, I will give you a brief listing of “fun facts” you will discover as you traverse this book (e.g. just what is a “Pharisee” anyway? You may be surprised!).

[5] First, in working to help us understand Jesus’ Ascension and Resurrection as metaphor he gives us the history of the development of both in extra-biblical and biblical material. Crossan is relentlessly historical at all turns and here we gain appreciation for how these important biblical events grew out of a matrix of historical events and spiritual applications.

[6] Next, in his chapter entitled “The Question of Due Diligence,” being aware of how hard it is today for any of us to name and claim actual truth, Crossan lays out just how Luke/Acts and Paul differ in their understanding of “gospel” and what their sources were that led them to their positions. Crossan wants us to see how Paul’s view of the Resurrection brings to us a “searing challenge” for living now in God’s way (for Crossan, the Resurrection is all about our responsibility and accountability of carrying forward God’s vision of peace) rather than a “transcendental terrorism” of God’s judgment and punishments when we don’t follow God’s way.

[7] Crossan next engages Paul’s conversion experience that Paul describes as distinctly different from how Luke/Acts does, and argues that Paul ever remained a Pharisee, albeit a “Messianic/Christic” one. There is a popular notion today that Paul converted from Judaism to Christianity. This is something that on the face of it we know is not true because there was no “Christianity” to which to convert.  But still we tend to think Paul rejected his roots even as he still appreciated them. For Crossan, there was no rejection of Phariseeism by Paul, but rather a change in how the Resurrection of Pharisaic belief was inaugurated in the God’s Time as Now rather than God’s Time as Future.

[8] In the book’s Chapter Four (“I Saw A Light From Heaven, Brighter Than The Sun”) the reader will find Crossan’s detailed analysis of how Luke/Acts consistently demoted Paul in relation to Peter in order to further Luke/Acts intention of elevating Peter and Rome (in contrast to Paul and Jerusalem) as the center of growth and vitality for the newly developing faith.  Using chapter sections entitled “Parallel Beginnings,” “Parallel Events,” and “Parallel Vocations,” Crossan lays out a convincing argument for Luke/Acts “insistent exaltation of Peter over Paul and especially its creation of Peter rather than Paul as the Apostle of the Gentiles in later apologetical interpretation rather than earlier historical information.”

[9] Crossan moves on, using geographical research and Paul’s own descriptions/writings and extra-biblical sources like First Century Josephus’s Wars and Antiquities, to lay out for the reader just what Paul’s first missionary work likely was in those first “three years” in “Arabia” after his conversion. Crossan, working from these sources, constructs Paul’s initial mission timeline.

[10] All of this ground is covered before the reader moves on with Crossan into Paul’s “missionary journeys” (get out those bible maps! Actually, having them handy for the “Arabian” three year stint is helpful too!). Using his own extensive research from traveling in the Middle East and Mediterranean areas, Crossan covers all of Paul’s journeys in detail and describes how it is that Paul actually did his missionary work among Gentiles even as he used Jewish synagogues as his preferred locations for such work. “God-Worshippers,” men and women who were not Jews but who followed the religious customs and teachings of the Jews, were the “Gentiles” on whom Paul focused. Because Paul was able to reach these Gentiles in synagogues, persons with some familiarity with Jewish teaching and faith, according to Crossan “the Pauline train ran on God-Worshipper rails; the Pauline express moved swiftly because it did not have to lay track.”

[11] Would it be too much to say that all Christians today look for and are interested in knowing exactly what Jesus’ resurrection, not to say also his life and death, means for them in their personal lives as well as our community and global life? I would venture to say most Christians today think resurrection is about clearing a way for them in their afterlife and, if applicable in this life, it’s about giving a feeling of hope (because of that after-life coming their way) and promoting a positive attitude toward all in relationships and circumstances. Crossan is clear about Jesus’ death and resurrection being about an impact of love and service in this life, and definitively not about giving a life to humanity after their lives. Crossan argues persuasively in Chapters 8 and 9 in this volume that “text and ritual” both support his contention that the resurrection of Jesus is about accountability and responsibility in our lives now, before we die. By “text” he explicates Paul’s Romans and Galatians writing and by “ritual” Paul’s understanding of baptism.  Paul, writing before the writer of the Gospel of Mark (and thus any of the Gospels), was the first, according the Crossan, to see and use Jesus’ death and resurrection as the key to the dynamism of Jesus (as opposed to the source Q used by both Matthew and Luke/Acts writers who viewed and accented Jesus’ life and teaching as key). Crossan breathes vitality and relevance into the New Testament’s focus on Jesus’ death and resurrection by documenting how the text and ritual bring that vitality and relevance to this life that we know now and not the next life that we know nothing about.

[12] Continuing what I would call his investigative exegesis of Paul’s life and ministry, Crossan gives us great details about how Paul’s collection of funds from churches throughout his travels to bring to the poor of Jerusalem’s church were much more than a general caring of benevolence for the unfortunate. The reader is introduced to seeing how Paul writes of giving significant time and energy into making sure this Collection is secured and safely delivered whereas the Luke/Acts writer of Paul’s mission work gives the Collection little to no notice. We are invited to see how the Collection is part and parcel of Paul’s actual living out of how Christ’s resurrection brings reconciliation to all now and in this lifetime.

[13] In looking at the end of Paul’s ministry and indeed, Paul’s life, Crossan brings to us some helpful analysis, again in Table form and then a detailed narrative to explain how Paul’s version of his own story and his story told by Luke/Acts differs not only by Luke/Acts apologetics but also Luke/Acts use of what Crossan calls Luke/Acts “Pre-Lukan Historical Source.” We are given a helpful analysis of how and why the Third Person to First Person writing in Acts shifts back and forth in the telling of Paul’s journeys. Crossan has a way of making the dense and hard to see things easy to follow through good categorical summations. He does so in this book by asserting that Luke/Acts has a “generative vision” that Luke/Acts wants to convey and that follows through the entire narrative: 1) Internal Messianic/Christic Harmony 2) External Jewish Turmoil 3) Official Roman Exculpation (of Paul’s arrest/death). Contrasting this vision with Paul’s own version of his life and ministry throughout the entire book, Crossan brings to us Paul’s historical identity, but not only for the sake of an accurate historical accounting. Crossan wants to connect us with Paul’s “evolutionary relevance” as in the tri-fold “evolutionary challenge” mentioned earlier. Crossan reveals to us a Paul who brings Jesus to bear on these challenges in a big way.

[14] Closing here, and perhaps as an added incentive for you to pick up this book, let me leave you with a few promised “fun facts” you will encounter in Paul the Pharisee. These “fun facts” are icing on the cake that this book brings to us: the Paul of history that is a person of faith with a radical vision of transformation of our world built on and through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In no particular order:

-Just what is a Pharisee anyway?

-Who is the unnamed but described Traveler with Paul who Crossan names as the historical source (other than the Q also used by Matthew’s gospel writer) for Luke/Acts?

-Compare and Contrast Ascension and Resurrection as theological developments

-A Travel Guide for Paul’s Life and Mission today (e.g. Go to Aphrodisias, not just Ephesus!)

-How the name “Paul” came to be

-What is Paul’s “thorn in his flesh” (2 Corinthians 12)?

-Where did Paul go for those first 3 years after his baptism?

[15] I highly recommend this book for its biblical analysis as well as for its engagement of that analysis with our contemporary global challenges. I also appreciate its acknowledgement of the wide variety of readers (theist, atheist, “Nones,” agnostics, et. al.) who would benefit.

[i] Cf. John Dominic Crossan, How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian, (New York: Harper Collins, 2015) 155. John Dominic Crossan, Render Unto Caesar, (New York: Harper Collins, 2022) 243.