18. See Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26.
19. The idea of two distinct forms of the Eucharist, one from Paul and the other from the Jerusalem church, was effectively argued by Hans Lietzmann in 1926. Needless to say it stirred up a whirlwind of controversy, though overall I find it quite convincing. For an updated discussion see R. H. Fuller, “The Double Origin of the Eucharist,” Biblical Research 8 (1963): 60–72.
20. Translation from Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, p. 431.
21. See Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 156–85, for a discussion of various New Testament manuscript traditions. The Western Text (Codex Bezae, designated D) has a number of significant omissions, particularly in Luke, that some scholars have argued are more authentic but the example of Luke 19b–20 seems to be a clear attempt by the textual editors to remove the difficulty of the two cups. It is more likely that Luke’s original text had both than that a later manuscript tradition would have added the second cup. Additions and omissions are almost always in the service of harmonization, that is, when the scribes see difficulties they wish to help resolve with the text they are copying.
22. See The Messianic Rule 2.10–20 (1QSa), in Vermes, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, pp. 159–60.
23. See Preserved Smith, A Short History of Christian Theophagy (Chicago: Open Court, 1922). Parallels have been suggested with Attis the Phrygian god, Mithras, and particularly Dionysus, where an animal was torn apart and eaten raw.
24. Dennis Edwin Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2003).
25. See the discussion and references in Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 217–19.
26. Bruce Chilton has suggested that Jesus did indeed refer to “body” and “blood”; not to his own, but to that of the Passover sacrifice that he was rejecting as part of a corrupt Temple system: “This is my body”—the bread; “This is my blood”—the wine, so no need for the literal flesh-and-blood sacrifice of a lamb. As attractive as I find this alternative, it seems to me unlikely since the juxtaposition of the terms bread/body and wine/blood comes from Paul and has no independent source. See Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans, Jesus in Context: Temple, Purity, and Restoration (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 59–89.
27. See Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), pp. 385–510.
28. On this point see Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, pp. 18–24.
29. In Galatians 4:3–4, Paul refers to the astral spirits who enslave humankind but are defeated by Christ.
30. See Robert Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them, pp. 16–20.
CHAPTER 7: ALREADY BUT NOT YET
1. For a good effort at putting a positive face on Paul’s views of women see Garry Wills, What Paul Meant (New York: Penguin, 2006), pp. 89–104. Wills agrees that Paul, as a man of his culture and time, could not wholly escape the sexism common in both Jewish and Greco-Roman culture, but Wills concludes that Paul taken overall defends women’s equality. What Wills has failed to take into account, in my view, is the inherent and unavoidable contradiction between Paul’s “already but not yet” stance on all of these related gender issues. An evangelical Christian attempt at the same task is Brian J. Dodd, The Problem with Paul (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996).
2. See Cynthia L. Thompson, “Hairstyles, Head-coverings, and St. Pauclass="underline" Portraits from Roman Corinth,” Biblical Archaeologist 51:2 (June 1988): 99–115.
3. This prohibition against braided hair, put up above the neck and ears, shows up elsewhere in the New Testament: “Women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair” (2 Timothy 2:9); “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair” (1 Peter 3:3).
4. This theme of humankind falling into corruption through these “fallen” angels is a common one in Jewish texts of the period; see Jubilees 5:1–6, 1 Enoch 15:1–12. It also shows up in a few New Testament texts: 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6. The emphasis is that these angels left their proper place in the created order. There are several other possible interpretations, among them the fascinating proposal of Jason BeDuhn that Paul is speaking of the creation of the sexes, divided into male and female, as the inferior work of angels, when God had originally intended Humankind/Adam to be an androgynous unified being: “ ‘Because of the Angels’: Unveiling Paul’s Anthropology in 1 Corinthians 11,” Journal of Biblical Literature 118:2 (1999): 295–320. BeDuhn offers a very thorough review of the abundance of scholarly literature attempting to interpret this difficult verse. In the end I remain convinced that the lustful gaze of the angels is what Paul has in mind.
5. The Dead Sea Scrolls sect shared this idea that the holy angels were present when the group assembled. See Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “A Feature of Qumran Angelology and the Angels of I Cor. xi. 10,” New Testament Studies 4 (1957): 48–58. Fitzmyer does not share the view that Paul’s reference is to lustful angels, but simply to the holiness of angels present in the assembly who would be offended by any kind of immodesty on the part of women. My argument is that Paul’s cosmos is as thick with negative spiritual forces as with positive, and he mentions in this same context both the “discerning of spirits” and the likelihood that some are being “moved” by demonic activity posing as the Spirit of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 12:1–4).
6. See Borg and Crossan, The First Paul, pp. 55–57.
7. See the footnote in the Revised Standard Version.
8. Thomas C. Oden, First and Second Timothy and Titus (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1989), 101.
9. Sandra R. Joshel, Slavery in the Roman World (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
10. See S. Scott Bartchy, “Slavery (Greco-Roman),” in Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992).
11. Anthony Everitt, Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician (New York: Random House, 2003), pp. 121, 175–77, 241–47, 319–24.
12. The Revised Standard Version, as well as many others, translates this problematic phrase “avail yourself of the opportunity,” which is surely less offensive than the more literal reading. S. Scott Bartchy supports this, translating more freely: “Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t worry about it. But if, indeed, you become manumitted, by all means [as a freedman] live according to [God’s calling].” See MALLON CHRESAI: First-Century Slavery and 1 Corinthians 7:21, Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 11 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1973). The New Revised Standard Version returns to something closer to my understanding: “Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever.”
CHAPTER 8: THE TORAH OF CHRIST
1. See Julie Galambush, The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament’s Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005); Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2007); Barrie Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008); James D. G. Dunn, ed., Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999).