Paula Fredriksen

Why Should a "Law-Free" Mission Mean a "Law-Free" Apostle?

“Law-free” is a phrase habitually used to describe both the Pauline mission itself, and Paul’s own personal repudiation of traditional Jewish practices. The present essay argues that the phrase misleads on both counts. Paul demanded of his gentiles a much greater degree of Judaizing than either the synagogue or the Jerusalem temple ever required or presupposed of theirs; and gentile involvements in Jewish community institutions, whether ekklēsiai, synagogues, or the temple, in principle can tell us nothing about Jewish levels of Torah observance within these same institutions. The essay concludes that much of the Pauline mission was Jewishly observant and traditional, and that Paul’s Judaizing demands of his gentiles are to be understood as an aspect of his absolute conviction that he lived and worked in history’s final hour.

Arms and The Man: A Response to Dale Martin’s ‘Jesus in Jerusalem: Armed and Not Dangerous’

Did Jesus oppose the temple? Did he predict its destruction? Against the recent proposals of Dale Martin, this article argues that the evidence is controvertible. However, the article does agree that Jesus’ followers were probably armed with μάχαιραι; but so was a significant proportion of Jerusalem’s male population, specifically at Passover. These ‘arms’, then, cannot explain Jesus’ arrest and execution.

Jesus the Jewish Christ

This paper represents the Nils A. Dahl Lecture, which I delivered for his centenary birthday on 11 October 2011. It unites broad themes in his classic essays with current work on the historical Jesus and on Paul.

Why was Jesus Crucified, but his Followers were not?:

In ‘The Madness of King Jesus’, Justin Meggitt presents a rich dossier of popular, literary and medical views on madness in antiquity, and of the range of responses, from hostile to notionally therapeutic, that madness could elicit. To this he adds other ancient notices about arbitrary crucifixion (Juvenal), interrogation and execution (Josephus, Philo, Quntillian, Livy). This vast erudition then serves to construct a new interpretive context for the Gospels’ traditions about Jesus’ death. Meggitt urges that earlier efforts to understand Jesus’ death in light of two famously contradictory facts—Jesus was put to death as an insurrectionist, but none of his followers was—have failed. By reframing the passion narratives with materials fromhis broader reading,he reachesa novel conclusion, namely, that ‘[t]he Romans executed Jesus because they thought they were disposing of a deluded lunatic’ (p. 384). Indeed, the hypothesis that Pilate thought Jesus a madman, Meggitt claims, is the ‘one possible solution’ to the challenge of ‘this famous conundrum’ that is ‘historically defensible, and makes sense within the first-century cultural context’ (loc. cit.). But is it? All efforts to make sense of Jesus’ death in light of the Passionconundrum, Meggitt’s included, bear certain resemblances to each other. Some scholars emphasize priestly initiative (Wright 1996: 552; Crossan 1991: 355-60), others, the degree of collegial cooperation between Caiaphas and Pilate (Sanders 1993: 273; Meier 2001: 623), still others— namely, Meggitt and I—emphasize Pilate’s initiative to the point of minimizing the involvement of the priests (Meggitt, p. 384; Fredriksen 2000: 252-55.) But all scholarly reconstructions infer from Jesus’

Include Me Out: Tertullian, the Rabbis, and the Graeco-Roman City

Gods and humans cohabited the ancient city. Dedicated festivals, celebrating seasons and times sacred to divine patrons both celestial and imperial, punctuated the civic year. The venues of these celebrations – the theatre, the circus, the stadium, the amphitheatre – held altars to and images of these gods. So did the halls of town councils. Household calendars and domestic space replicated in miniature these civic structures, wherein celebrations of the life-cycle – adulthood, marriages, naming ceremonies – also invoked and honored presiding deities. The gods were everywhere, not only in the public and private buildings of ancient municipalities, but also on insignia of office, on military standards, in solemn oaths and contracts, in vernacular benedictions and exclamations, and throughout the curricula of the educated. It was impossible to live in a Greco-Roman city without living with its gods. 2 How did Jews – and, later, Christians – cope within this god-congested environment? Jews knew that these other gods existed: their sacred scriptures said as much. “Who is like you, O Lord, among the theoi?” Moses asked (Ex 15.11 LXX). True, these other gods were less exalted than Israel’s god. “The theoi of the nations are daimonia,” the Psalmist sang in Greek (Ps 95.5