Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

entirely self-ascribed mission to the gentiles, which the leaders of the Jesus
     movement in Jerusalem appear not to have initially supported. Although there was a
     great deal of discussion among the apostles over how strictly the new community should
     adhere to the Law of Moses, with some advocating rigorous compliance and others taking
     a more moderate stance, there was little argument about whom the community was meant
     to serve: this was a Jewish movement intended for a Jewish audience. Even the Hellenists
     reserved their preaching mostly for the Jews. If a handful of gentiles decided to
     accept Jesus as messiah, so be it, as long as they submitted to circumcision and the
     law.
    Yet, for Paul, there is no room whatsoever for debating the role of the Law of Moses
     in the new community. Not only does Paul reject the primacy of Jewish law, he refers
     to it as a “ministry of death, chiseled in letters on a stone tablet” that must be
     superseded by “a ministry of the Spirit come in glory” (2 Corinthians 3:7–8). He calls
     his fellow believers who continue to practice circumcision—the quintessential mark
     of the nation of Israel—“dogs and evildoers” who “mutilate the flesh” (Philippians
     3:2). These are startling statements for a former Pharisee to make. But for Paul they
     reflect the truth about Jesus that he feels he alone recognizes, which is that “Christ
     is the end of the Torah” (Romans 10:4).
    Paul’s breezy dismissal of the very foundation of Judaism was as shocking to the leaders
     of the Jesus movement in Jerusalem as it would have been to Jesus himself. After all,
     Jesus claimed to have come to fulfill the Law of Moses, not to abolish it. Far from
     rejecting the law, Jesus continually strove to expand and intensify it. Where the
     law commands, “thou shall not kill,” Jesus added, “if you are angry with your brother
     or sister you are liable to [the same]judgment” (Matthew 5:22). Where the law states, “thou shall not commit adultery,”
     Jesus extended it to include “everyone who looks at a woman with lust” (Matthew 5:28).
     Jesus may have disagreed with the scribes and scholars over the correct interpretation
     of the law, particularly when it came to such matters as the prohibition against working
     on the Sabbath. But he never rejected the law. On the contrary, Jesus warned that
     “whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so,
     will be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19).
    One would think that Jesus’s admonishment not to teach others to break the Law of
     Moses would have had some impact on Paul. But Paul seems totally unconcerned with
     anything “Jesus-in-the-flesh” may or may not have said. In fact, Paul shows no interest
     at all in the historical Jesus. There is almost no trace of Jesus of Nazareth in any
     of his letters. With the exception of the crucifixion and the Last Supper, which he
     transforms from a narrative into a liturgical formula, Paul does not narrate a single
     event from Jesus’s life. Nor does Paul ever actually quote Jesus’s words (again, with
     the exception of his rendering of the Eucharistic formula: “This is my body …”). Actually,
     Paul sometimes directly contradicts Jesus. Compare what Paul writes in his epistle
     to the Romans—“everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans
     10:13)—to what Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew: “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord
     Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
    Paul’s lack of concern with the historical Jesus is not due, as some have argued,
     to his emphasis on Christological rather than historical concerns. It is due to the
     simple fact that Paul had no idea who the living Jesus was, nor did he care. He repeatedly
     boasts that he has not learned about Jesus either from the apostles or from anyone
     else who may have known him. “But when it pleased God … to reveal his son to me, so
     that I might preach him to the gentiles, I did not confer with anyone, nor did I go
     up to Jerusalem[to ask permission of] the apostles before me,” Paul boasts. “Instead, I went directly
     to Arabia, and then again to Damascus” (Galatians 1:15–17).
    Only after three years of preaching a message that Paul insists he received not from
     any human being (by which he quite obviously means James and the apostles), but directly
     from Jesus, did he deign