Negotiating Jewishness: Paul's Ethnicity Between Continuity and Discontinuity: A Discussion with Ruben A. Bühner

In today’s episode, Claire is joined by Ruben Buhner to talkabout his book Negotiating Jewishness: Paul's Ethnicity Between Continuity and Discontinuity.

The assertion that Paul remained a Jew throughout his liferequires little further justification. However, questions remain, including: How can his relationship with Judaism be positively articulated? How was that relationship influenced by Paul’s belief in Jesus as the Messiah? A particular difficulty arises here: reconciling the sometimes contradictory statements in Paul’s epistles concerning his connection to the Jewish people and their beliefs and behavior. A lively discussion surrounding the Jewishness of Paul in the last fifteen years has yielded the "radical new perspectiveon Paul," or "Paul Within Judaism" perspective. Dismissing older conceptions that contrast the Christ-believing Paul with a monolithic and negatively characterized ancient Judaism, new approaches focus on the extent to which we should depict Paul as "within Judaism" or still torah observant.

With Negotiating Jewishness, Ruben Bühner addresses these issues and offers a different, more balanced approach byconsidering three key aspects: ancient ethnicity, neglected sources, and scholarly debates. Drawing from studies in cultural science and ethnology, Bühner shows that ancient Jewish identity can be characterized as "mesomorphic" as it integrated diverse—even divergent—parameters in ethnic construction. With a focus on passages from the Pauline Epistles crucial for understanding Paul’s Jewishness, alongside a thorough excavation of the realities of Jewish life in the Greco-Roman diaspora, the book aims to bridge the gap between English-speaking and continental European scholarship, with a particular emphasis on underrepresented German perspectives.

Paul navigated his Jewish identity within the myriad cultural landscapes of the first-century Mediterranean world and in constant dialogue with his missional calling and interactions with other Jews. Traces of this process emerge from his writings amidst their diverse historical, social, and rhetorical contexts. Negotiating Jewishness probes these scattered glimpses into Paul’s self-understanding to demonstrate that Paul’s relationship to Judaism can be best understood as a reflection of ancient Jewish ethnic negotiation. Bühner contributes to the scholarly conversation with a new definition of what it means to read Paul (or any New Testament text) "within Judaism."

Dr. Ruben Bühner is a postdoctoral researcher for New Testament Studies at the University of Zurich and the University of Bonn.