Introducing Jesus, the Christ: Paul as Memorial Entrepreneur

The closest thing we have to a surviving author who was an eyewitness to the life of Jesus is the Apostle Paul, who, before engaging in his missionary work, met two of the apostles. ... Still, one of the most striking features of Paul's surviving letters is just how little he actually tells us about Jesus's life prior to his death.

"Thinking with" Jesus

I was born in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, on the seventy-eighth day of Jimmy Carter's presidency. Five years earlier, on Saturday, June 17, 1972, my mother was not yet fifteen when five men were arrested attempting to fix a malfunctioning wiretap at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. Watergate exerted a weight on American culture that may explain some features of my early experiences, for example why one popular sitcom from my childhood featured Alex Keaton, a Young Republican who toted a lunchbox with Richard Nixon's likeness, and why so many political scandals during my lifetime tend to be known as This-or-That-Gate.

Watergate — and especially the memory of Watergate in late-twentieth-century American political discourse — offers an interesting way to think about Paul as Jesus's "memorial entrepreneur." On the twentieth anniversary of the Watergate break-in, Michael Schudson noted: "While Watergate may be a significant factor when people think back on their formative political experiences, it has regularly seemed to commentators all but invisible in daily American life." Those two descriptors — "significant factor" and "all but invisible" — seem incompatible. But there they are, side-by-side in a relatively bland statement whose accuracy can hardly be challenged. Yes, Watergate shook American political institutions to the core, such that, as 1973 and the first half of 1974 unfolded, the future of American constitutional government seemed increasingly imperiled. But no, it has not had any lasting or fundamental effect on the American political institutions it threatened.

The parallel, with Watergate and American politics on one hand and Jesus and Paul on the other intrigues me. It would be foolish to suggest that Jesus is "all but invisible" in Paul's letters. If anything, Jesus is conspicuously visible in Paul's writings. Paul uses Jesus's name, Iesous, 213 times in the thirteen letters that bear his name. If we ignore the six letters whose authenticity Pauline scholars question, that number drops to 142, which is still quite significant. Not surprisingly, he uses the word Christos ("anointed one, Christ") even more often.

Even with all these references to Jesus, Paul is famously silent about Jesus. Very little of Jesus's teaching appears in Paul's letters, and when Paul does include something that sounds like Jesus's teaching, he doesn't usually bother to tell the reader, "Hey, this comes from Jesus." For example, when Paul instructs his readers in Rome, "Bless people who harass you — bless and don't curse them" (Rom 12:14), his words remind us of Jesus's teaching in Matthew's Sermon on the Mount and Luke's Sermon on the Plain:

Despite the similarities between Paul's instruction in Romans and Jesus's in Matthew and Luke, nowhere does Paul give any hint that he's passing along teachings of Jesus. In fact, Romans 12 is one of those rare chapters where Paul doesn't mention Jesus's name, even though echoes of Jesus's teaching are especially resonant in this chapter. In other words, here in Romans 12, where it might have been easiest for Paul to point out for his readers that Jesus stands behind and authorizes his moral instructions, he doesn't. If Jesus is there, he is invisible, all but forgotten as the source of the profoundly difficult instruction, "Bless people who harass you — bless and don't curse them" (Rom 12:14).

Let's return to Watergate. Michael Schudson notes the deplorable state of Americans' knowledge of the details of the Watergate scandal and the resignation of the thirty-seventh president of the United States. In the twenty-five years since Schudson's book, that knowledge has only further degraded. Watergate is a public event, and it offers "tools ... for a society's thinking out loud about itself, not only at the time but in retrospect." As a public event, Watergate is arguably a foundational component of American political memory. Even if the majority of Americans today can't remember when the Watergate burglars were arrested (17 June 1972), when Nixon resigned from office (8 August 1974), or what, precisely, led to his resignation, they do understand comparisons of contemporary events to Watergate via the "-gate" suffix (e.g., "Bridgegate," or "Emailgate," or "Faceliftgate") or comparisons with Richard Nixon. Watergate, as a public event, provides "cultural forms" for American political discourse and activity, and these forms "store and transmit information that individuals can make use of without themselves 'memorizing' it." The memory of Watergate affects the way many people perceive, understand, and react to events in the present even if knowledge and discussion of Watergate itself is largely missing and inadequate.

The parallel with Paul and Jesus is instructive. Scholars disagree and debate whether Paul's knowledge of Jesus's life and teachings was inadequate, but no one can deny that such knowledge is almost completely missing from Paul's letters. Bart Ehrman calls the apostle Paul the "closest thing we have to a surviving author who was an eyewitness to the life of Jesus," and yet Paul, Ehrman notes, is almost useless as a source of knowledge about the historical Jesus. He provides a list of things we learn about Jesus from Paul. I'll quote that list in full; it won't take long:

Jesus was born of a woman (Gal. 4:4). ... He was born as a Jew (Gal. 4:4). He was descended from the line of King David (Rom. 1:3). He had brothers (1 Cor. 9:5), one of whom was named James (Gal. 1:19). He had twelve disciples (1 Cor. 15:5). He conducted his ministry among Jews (Rom. 15:8). He had a last meal with his disciples on the night he was turned over to the authorities (1 Cor. 11:23). Paul knows two things Jesus said at his last supper (1 Cor. 11:23-25). Paul knows two other teachings of Jesus: that Christians should not get divorced (1 Cor. 7:10) and that they should pay their preacher (1 Cor. 9:14). Jesus appeared before Pontius Pilate (1 Tim. 6:13; this datum is found only in a letter Paul probably did not himself write). Jesus died of crucifixion (1 Cor. 2:2). Those responsible for his death were Judeans (1 Thess. 2:14-15).

This comprehensive list is in complete contrast to the list of things Paul doesn't say about Jesus: "to make a complete list, all you would have to do is cite virtually any story in the Gospels, and it would be something Paul doesn't tell us." It is difficult to know how much weight to put on Paul's silence regarding Jesus's life and teachings. It's possible to acknowledge Paul's silence about Jesus, but not infer — as some claim — that Paul was disinterested in the facts of Jesus's life. "If we had nothing but Paul's letters ... we would know very little about him. Nevertheless, in letters not intended to provide biographical details, the number of allusions is probably enough to confirm both Paul's knowledge of and interest in Jesus prior to his death and resurrection."

The question remains: How well (or: How much) does Paul remember Jesus? Paul was keenly interested and invested in knowledge of Jesus, despite the paucity of biographical details in Paul's letters. "His was a knowing of Jesus that ... permeates the apostle's thinking and writing and that shines through his epistles." Rather than the word knowing, I prefer the phrase "thinking with." Paul "thinks with" Jesus to understand and respond to the challenges facing his communities, including problematic notions about the future (1 Thess; 1 Cor 15), social divisions within his communities (1 Cor; Phil 4; Rom 14–15), the expression of spiritual gifts within the communities' worship gatherings (1 Cor 11–14; Rom 12), and so on. Indeed, hardly any aspect of the Pauline communities' life and thought escapes being filtered through the influence of Jesus's life and teachings.

Perhaps an example is in order. Early in his letter to the Thessalonians, as Paul offers prayers of thanksgiving for his readers, he says, "You became imitators of us and of the Lord when you accepted the message that came from the Holy Spirit with joy in spite of great suffering. As a result you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia" (1 Thess 1:6-7). A scholar who emphasizes Paul's silence regarding Jesus would rightly observe that this verse teaches us nothing about Jesus as a historical figure. But notice how Paul describes his own pattern of behavior — his moral norms, expectations, and actions — in relation to Jesus, on one hand, and his readers, on the other. Joshua Jipp helpfully argues that Paul portrays Jesus as a royal, kingly figure who, among other things, "secures the internal harmony of the community through providing a royal pattern for his subjects to imitate. For Paul, the Torah is refracted through the lens of the Jesus-tradition and the narrative configuration of the king who embodied Lev. 19:18 — 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" Paul's and his gentile converts' daily, mundane ethical conduct reflected and transmitted the memory of Jesus. The memory of Jesus provided a template that shaped and a frame that interpreted Paul's early Christian communities, even if the memory of Jesus was also a mirror in which the community saw itself.

If we focus on the explicit references to and quotations of the Jesus tradition that would later be written down in the Gospels, we might conclude that Paul doesn't remember Jesus very much at all. But even a cursory reading of Paul's letters reveals this would be a limited and shortsighted conclusion. This chapter demonstrates that Paul, at every turn, exhibits a concern to root his readers' way of thinking and living in the memory of Jesus.

Paul, Jesus's First "Memorial Entrepreneur"

Why are we starting with Paul? Common sense tells us that the Christian story begins with Jesus. The apostle Paul may be an extremely early character in this story, but he is not its beginning. Paul's letters would seem to agree. Throughout Paul's letters, Jesus's life, death, and resurrection are in the past. Even so, Paul gives us our earliest evidence for Jesus. The first time Jesus of Nazareth is mentioned in a preserved document is in Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, written around the year 50 CE, followed quickly by his letter to the Galatians (c. 51 CE). The first time the name "Jesus" (Iesous), as a reference to the man from Nazareth, was written down in a text we still have today, was in the phrase, "To the Thessalonians' church that is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess 1:1). In other words, the first reference to Jesus already addresses him as "Lord" (kyrios) and as "Christ" (christos). And this is the earliest extant reference to Jesus!

First Thessalonians is woefully short on details about the life and teaching of the historical Jesus; throughout the entire letter we only learn one thing about him (he was killed by the Jews, just like Israel's prophets; 1 Thess 2:15). Yet 1 Thessalonians offers us glimpses of Paul and his companions commemorating Jesus in their daily lives and their reading of Israel's scriptures. We learn that Jesus was killed and was raised from the dead (1:10; 4:14), that he embodies the appropriate way of living for his followers, both in Greece (1:6-7) and in Judea (2:14), that he is granted honorific titles ("Lord" and "Christ," but also "Son [of God]" and "Deliverer" [1:10]), and that his followers await the unveiling of his presence (parousia; 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23), in which he will march at the head of an army of saints (3:13; 4:16). Again, all of this describes the very first appearance of Jesus of Nazareth in the literary record.

In this earliest Christian text, Paul repeatedly refers to "the gospel" (euangelion).Paul refers to both "the gospel of God" (1 Thess 2:2, 8, 9) and "the gospel of Christ" (3:2). This gospel — "of God" and "of Christ" — has now been "entrusted" to Paul and his companions (2:4), so that now it is also "our gospel" (1:5). Paul's internalization of the gospel of God/Christ — again, which is now "our gospel" — draws Paul's identity into the mission and proclamation of Jesus's message. Paul isn't a preacher of the gospel; he is the preacher of the gospel to gentiles, the apostle to the gentiles, the one who has been entrusted and commissioned to take the message of Israel's messiah to the nations. Here Paul's second letter, which he wrote to the Galatians, becomes relevant:

The influential leaders didn't add anything to what I was preaching — and whatever they were makes no difference to me, because God doesn't show favoritism. But on the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for people who aren't circumcised [i.e., gentiles], just as Peter had been to the circumcised. The one who empowered Peter to the apostolic calling for the circumcised empowered me also to the Gentiles. James, Peter, and John, who are considered to be key leaders, shook hands with me and Barnabas as equals when they recognized the grace that was given to me. So it was agreed that we would go to the Gentiles, while they continue to go to the people who were circumcised. (Gal 2:6-9; CEB modified)

This passage concludes in the first- and third-person plural: "we would go to the Gentiles, while they continue to go to the people who were circumcised." Despite this ending, the passage as a whole has a strong first-person singular tone: the influential leaders in Jerusalem didn't add anything to Paul's message (v. 6); Paul had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised (v. 7); he who empowered Peter to preach the gospel to Jews also empowered Paul to preach to gentiles (v. 8); the grace of the apostolic call to the gentiles was given to Paul (v. 9).

We see in Paul's language that he was protective — even territorial — about his status as the apostle to the gentiles. That Paul was protective of his apostolic status isn't controversial; Paul repeatedly insists on his divine credentials, in part because not everyone accepted them. But his claim goes further: Paul doesn't claim simply to be an apostle; he insists he is the apostle to the gentiles, the one commissioned by Jesus himself to proclaim the gospel to the gentiles, to gather them as an offering to the Lord, and to present them to the Lord as a sacrifice, "acceptable and made holy by the Holy Spirit" (Rom 15:16). Paul's apostolic vocation extends to all the gentiles, to call them "to faithful obedience for his name's sake" (Rom 1:5), including the gentiles in Rome to whom Paul has not preached the gospel (1:13-15). This concern to spread the umbrella of his apostolic authority over the Roman gentiles "explains his concern for writing in the first place."

Paul's self-understanding and self-presentation as the apostle to the gentiles provides a key to unlocking multiple facets of his ministry, including his preaching to gentiles, his letter-writing, as well as the contents of his letters. From another angle of perception, however, we can describe Paul as Jesus's "memorial entrepreneur," as one who is invested in developing, proposing, and defending a particular reputation for Jesus. In this case, Paul is invested in advancing a reputation for Jesus as Israel's messiah. As apostle to the gentiles, Paul takes singular responsibility for how Jesus is presented to gentiles and how they respond to him. In other words, Paul saw himself as the gatekeeper for Jesus's memory — his reputation — among gentiles. The role and responsibility of "reputational entrepreneurs" (or "memorial entrepreneurs") involves "two critical tasks: to propose early on a resonant reputation that is linked to the cultural logic of critical 'facts' and then to make that image stick, diverting other interpretations." As we saw in the introduction, the authors of the NT — including Paul — fit the "critical 'facts'" of Jesus's life into a "cultural logic" defined by the story of Israel's scriptures. This isn't a controversial claim, even if the details of that fit remain matters of debate. More controversial is this: Paul proclaimed Jesus as the king of Israel, and he founded communities of gentile converts who pledged allegiance to Jesus as the vice-regent and representative of Israel's God.

In the remainder of this chapter, we will very quickly trace Paul's presentation of Jesus in a thoroughly biblical (= Old Testament) framework. Our journey through the texts will be cursory; because of space constraints, we will only discuss Paul's earliest letter (1 Thessalonians) and his most significant letters (Galatians and Romans; 1–2 Corinthians). Even so, Paul's earliest and most significant letters will suffice to show that Paul only ever understands Jesus inasmuch as he aligns Jesus with Israel's scriptures. In other words, alignment rather than replacement characterizes how Paul relates Moses's Torah and Israel's messiah. Moreover, within this biblical alignment, Paul identifies Jesus as Israel's king, whose reign brings peace, first for the Jews and then for the gentiles.