If you are a fan of Australian theologian Michael Bird, you won’t be disappointed by his newest book: An Anomalous Jew: Paul Among Jews, Greeks and Romans. If you are not a fan, then you should be. He is a theologian who writes with keen insight and clarity, as well as his characteristic wit. This is the third Bird book I have read this year, the other two being his Romans commentary in the Story of God Bible Commentary series, and What Christians Ought to Believe: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine Through the Apostles’ Creed. In addition, I have been reading sections of his Evangelical Theology.
The title of this new book informs us of the subject: Paul as an anomalous Jew. We know Paul was a Jew, but what kind of Jew was he? What was distinctive about his Jewishness? What changed after his Damascus road experience? How did Paul posture himself with an approach that both affirmed and transformed his Jewish heritage?
The title of the Introduction gives us hints of Bird’s perspective: “Paul the Jew…of Sorts” . In answering the question of what sort of Jew Paul was, Bird sets forth the five primary options: 1) a former Jew, 2) a transformed Jew (the view of the New Perspective), 3) a faithful Jew, 4) a radical Jew, or 5) an anomalous Jew. Now as you might have guessed from the book’s title, Bird opts for Paul as an anomalous Jew. However, he says the problem in arriving at that conclusion is that there is something right about each of the proposals. Nevertheless, he believes that the best option for characterizing Paul is that of an anomalous Jew, which flowed from his messianic eschatology as he attempted to “create a social space for a unified body of Jewish and Gentile Christ-believers worshipping God”. In brief:
God had launched the new age through the cross and resurrection of Christ, which meant the launch of the new creation and the renewal of Israel, of which his assemblies were the vanguard” (page 28).
What we call Paul’s anomaly, he would probably call the “revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal 1:12) that he received, which discloses how faith in Christ without Torah was the instrument that brings Jews and Gentiles into reconciliation with God and into the renewal of all things (page 28).
This apocalyptic interpretation of the Messiah’s death and resurrection forced Paul into a “rereading of Scripture” with “the story and symbols of Judaism now being redrawn around Jesus the Messiah and his followers, who constitute the renewed Israel of an inaugurated eschatology”.
So, if that sounds simple, well, it wasn’t. The religious claims of Paul the anomalous Jew had the result of making him a marginal Jew as well. And his position was full of “tensions and ambiguities” that required theological answers and pastoral responses which needed to be worked out in actual practice. And we get a running blow by blow account in Paul’s epistles and the book of Acts.
So then Bird tests his hypothesis of “an anomalous Jew on the margins” in five different areas, each of which constitutes a chapter of the book.
Chapter 1: Salvation in Paul’s Judaism
Chapter 2: Paul: Apostle to the Jews and Gentiles?
Chapter 3: An Invasive Story: An Apocalyptic and Salvation-Historical Rereading of Galatians
Chapter 4: The Incident at Antioch (Gal 2:11-14): The Beginnings of Paulinism
Chapter 5: The Apostle Paul and the Roman Empire (he does this through a section by section analysis of Paul’s epistle to the Romans)
While I thoroughly enjoyed the whole book, I must say my favorite chapter was chapter 4 on the Incident at Antioch (Gal 2:11-14), for Bird says that it was in this incident that the anomaly that is Paul first appeared. To me, that chapter just “rolled” , and after I finished the book I went back and typed up five pages of my notes and highlights from that chapter alone.
Some of the key insights from that chapter: 1) Although a mediating position had been agreed upon at the earlier Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), that position did not envision table fellowship between circumcised and uncircumcised believers; 2) Therefore the Council inadvertently permitted the existence of two parallel theologies; 3) The problem was not the food itself, but the company in which it was consumed (with uncircumcised Gentiles); 4) Paul would not accept a “separate but equal” position (shades of the Jim Crow South); 5) The Council had probably not even considered integration into a single “church”; 6) The underlying issue was circumcision (Gentiles did not need to be circumcised—unless of course they wanted to share in table fellowship on an equal basis); 7) The church in Jerusalem was experiencing severe persecution from the Jews, and the men from James hoped to prevent further persecution by insisting on social separation between circumcised and uncircumcised believers in Antioch ; 8) Paul saw this as a betrayal of the Jerusalem Council agreement (at least of its spirit), a rebuke to his apostolic authority, and an affront to the truth of the gospel; 9) It appears that the majority sided with Peter instead of Paul; 10) The result was not a complete break with Jerusalem—it was a “parting IN the ways”, not a “parting OF the ways”; 11) Afterward, Paul became an outsider to the very assemblies he had helped establish, grow and defend; 12) He therefore had to seek another base of mission operations, and was left with only the Gentile-majority churches in Galatia and Cilicia.
There are of course numerous other highlights scattered throughout the other chapters, including:
1) A discussion of the New Creation and New Israel on pages 162-168 of chapter 3.
2) The discussion in chapter 3 of whether Galatians 2:16 should be rendered the “faithfulness of Jesus Christ” (subjective genitive), or “faith in Jesus Christ” (objective genitive) in pages 140-144. He concludes that a better solution is somewhere in the middle ground, whereby it “directs us to human faith in the whole apocalyptic saving reality wrought by God in the faithfulness, death, and resurrection of Jesus.” (Note: Bird does accept the subjective genitive for Galatians 2:19).
3) His understanding of justification as the act whereby God creates a new people, with a new status, in a new covenant, as a foretaste of the new age (chapter 3, page 140).
4) On page 179, he cites Richard Bauckham on Acts 15:16-18 (based on Amos 9:11) to show that the eschatological temple is not a literal building, but is the eschatological people of God composed of both Jews and Gentiles, a key distinction differentiating dispensational from non-dispensational interpretations of Scripture.
But those are just a few of the many highlights of an excellent and very thorough discussion of Paul as an anomalous Jew.
And of course the book includes many “zingers”, the very tweetable pithy one-liners that Bird is known for. For example:
“Paul would not adhere to the demand of anyone who wanted to use the foreskins of Gentiles to save their own skins from the sword “.
“Justification is forensic, apocalyptic, covenantal, and transformative”.
“Jesus is raised AS Israel and FOR Israel”
“Galatians exhibits Paul in his most raw and radical state”
“Christ terminates the Mosaic dispensation in order to fulfill the Abrahamic hopes (or promise)”
In conclusion, a highly recommended book which will give you insights into Paul and biblical Christianity that will stay with you and greatly enhance your reading of the relevant Bible passages.
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Michael F. Bird is an extremely underrated New Testament scholar. This book needs more 5 stars.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2024
Michael F. Bird is an extremely underrated New Testament scholar. This book needs more 5 stars.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2016
