Hanukkah and Paul’s notion of “justification by faith”

 

     Hanukkah[1] was inaugurated on (what westerns call) December 25^th, 164 B.C. (cf. 1 Maccabees 4.52),[2] following the cleansing of the Jerusalem Temple by the Maccabees to purify it of the desolations of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV “Epiphanes” who had ruled one of the empires that had emerged after the death of Alexander the Great in the year 323.  The Maccabean Revolt had been provoked by Antiochus’ program of forced assimilation to Hellenic culture, which had included the banning of circumcision as well as the observance of both the Sabbath and the kosher laws (cf. 1 Maccabees 1—4).  The fact that the Jews had (successfully) fought to defend their “right” to observe the Mosaic Law just a couple of centuries before Jesus’ baptism (c. AD 30) goes a long way towards explaining the Pharisees’ attitude towards strict observance of those conventions for which blood had been shed during the Revolt against Antiochus IV.  The Jews have always succeeded, against enormous odds, in preserving their distinctive identity, even when they have found themselves, as they often do, to be a minority within totalizing imperial contexts (cf. Richard A. Horsley, ed. In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance, Louisville: WJK, 2008).

     What does this have to do with the apostle Paul?  Well, quite a bit.  Paul’s ministry was exercised in a context where “loyalty to the Law” had taken on added (what we would call) political dimensions.  During the second-temple period, the Jews were (almost always) under pagan imperial domination, and those aspects of the Law that Antiochus had tried to outlaw – i.e. circumcision, sabbath observance and the kosher rules^[3] – not only served as signs of faithfulness to the Mosaic tradition, but also served to buttress Jewish national identity in the face of pressure to assimilate to imperial culture.  In this highly-charged atmosphere, any perceived disloyalty to the Law – even something as “inconsequential” as carrying your mat on the Sabbath (cf. Jn. 5.1-11) – was seen to be a sign, not only of impiety, but also of disloyalty to the Jewish nation.  In the first-century context of Roman occupation, a “lawbreaker” (i.e. a “sinner”) was a traitor to the national cause.  This background helps colour our understanding of the Pharisees’ “politico-religious” program and make the attitudes/actions of someone like Jesus of Nazareth appear that much more controversial (i.e. seditious).

     In his letter “to the Galatians”, Paul castigates his Galatian converts for their attempt to be “justified” by the “works of the law”.  Since the 16^th century (AD), this has often been interpreted to mean that the Galatians were trying, under the influence of “Judaizers”, to “earn” their salvation by observing the Mosaic Law, as opposed to sticking with the gospel of free, unmerited salvation-by-grace-through-faith that Paul had originally preached to them.  However, this interpretation is problematic for several reasons.  First, the (general) issue in Galatians is (primarily) the “work” of circumcision (cf. Ac. 15), the sign of the covenant that God gave to Abraham (cf. Gn. 17).  This leads to the particular issue of whether or not Jewish followers of Jesus should share meals with pagan converts to Jesus-faith (cf. Gal. 2; Ac. 10-11).  No one in the Galatian churches wondered if the Mosaic law would help them “get to heaven”; rather, the question was who was allowed to eat with whom, i.e. how to determine who was a legitimate member of the people of God, a people which was being reconstituted by the followers of Israel’s Messiah (i.e. Jesus).

     This is what “justification” meant in second-temple Judaism (i.e. the period of the New Testament) – those who were “justified” were the (true) members of the people of God, i.e. those who would be vindicated at the moment of eschatological judgment over against “the pagans”, and who were identified in the present by those “works of the law” that the Maccabees had fought so hard to defend – i.e. circumcision, Sabbath observance and the kosher regulations.  Paul’s radical message to his pagan converts is that it is no longer these “works of the law” – in particular, circumcision – that identity people as members of God’s people (i.e. children of Abraham); since the resurrection of Jesus, what marks people out as “justified” is faith in Christ.  All who have faith in Jesus – whether they be Gentile or Jew – are “justified” and therefore belong at the same table.  The invitation to join in the eternal celebration of the kingdom of God inaugurated by Jesus the Messiah still stands.  Join the feast, and Happy Hanukkah (in advance)!

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[1] a.k.a. the Festival of Lights, or the Feast of Dedication: Jn. 10.22.

[2] The fact that Hanukkah (almost) coincides with the Winter Solstice, which is probably why the date of December 25 was chosen for the celebration of Jesus’ birth in the 4^th century AD, appears to be a (felicitous?) historical accident.

[3] This interpretation of the “works of the law” is one of the hallmarks of the “New Perspective on Paul”, initiated by the work of E.P. Sanders in 1977, and which has since become a diverse spectrum of perspectives that have as their common denominator a desire to nuance the typical Lutheran reading of Paul, according to which “the Law” served only a negative purpose in the divine plan of redemption.