Romans 11 is much more fascinating to me than the bulk of Paul's writings, because it states his beliefs regarding Jews who don't share a belief in Jesus, that our covenant is not null and void
Unsurprisingly,
Nostra Aetate relied almost exclusively upon
Romans 11 as its scriptural reference-point for a positive reappraisal of Judaism, arguing against supersessionism and deicide, without citing
Hebrews even once (which was conspicuous by its absence).
Its references are as follows:
Nostra aetate
1. Cf.
Acts 17:26
2. Cf.
Wis. 8:1;
Acts 14:17;
Rom. 2:6-7; 1
Tim. 2:4
3. Cf.
Apoc. 21:23f.
4. Cf 2
Cor. 5:18-19
5. Cf St. Gregory VII,
letter XXI to Anzir (Nacir), King of Mauritania (Pl. 148, col. 450f.)
6. Cf.
Gal. 3:7
7. Cf.
Rom. 11:17-24
8. Cf.
Eph. 2:14-16
9. Cf.
Lk. 19:44
10. Cf.
Rom. 11:28
11. Cf.
Rom. 11:28-29; cf. dogmatic Constitution,
Lumen Gentium (Light of nations) AAS, 57 (1965) pag. 20
12. Cf.
Is. 66:23;
Ps. 65:4;
Rom. 11:11-32
13. Cf.
John. 19:6
14. Cf.
Rom. 12:18
15. Cf.
Matt. 5:45
No trace of
Hebrews.
A Rabbi once, somewhat humorously, paraphrased the argument in
Hebrews as being akin to, "
anything Jews can do, Christ can do better" i.e. because of its apparent claims - in an unuanced, straight reading - that Jesus represents a better covenant, a better tabernacle, a better sacrifice, a better (spiritual and eternal) Temple and a better (eternal) high priest than Judaism, with those infamous Melchizedek passages.
As Gilbert Rosenthal notes,
Nostra Aetate rejected this theology:
A Jubilee for All Time
It calls for dialogue between the two faiths. And rather than advocating proselytizing Jews, it cites Paul's views in Romans 9-11, which stress that Christianity is the new shoot grafted on the old, nurturing roots of Judaism and that God does not renege on His promises or calling, and it looks forward to an eschatological joining of the two faiths in worshipping the one God (Zephaniah 3:9). By citing Romans 9-11, Nostra Aetate rejects the usual interpretation of the Letter to the Hebrews chapter 8 that seems to portray Judaism as obsolete and passe. To put it differently, Romans trumps Hebrews.
Indeed, the most recent Vatican document on Jewish-Catholic dialogue was again prefixed around an exegesis of
Romans 11 and it's "
olive tree" framework:
“The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29) - A reflection on theological questions pertaining to Catholic-Jewish relations (10 December 2015)
The
New Perspective on Paul in New Testament scholarship, spearheaded by E.P. Sanders and including in its ranks Jewish scholars such as Paula Fredriksen, has done great work in teasing out all of the exegetical nuances of Pauline thought on Judaism.
It is arguably very clear now - to me at least, anyway - that the traditional Protestant interpretation of his authentic Epistles is pretty far off the mark (he did not, for example, set a "
gospel of grace" against a "
works" based Judaism but was rather concerned with intra-Christian disputes over the integration of non-Torah observant Gentiles into the movement and a proper understanding of his Epistles is impossible without invoking that context).
Of course, Catholics are very happy with the
New Perspective turn in scholarship, as we've never believed in
sole fide (faith alone) and "
once saved, always saved" anyway, so the new scholarly perspective on Paul is actually like our old one in many respects.
Emblematic of the
New Perspective is the work of Paula Fredriksen. A review of her books here:
Enter Paul: On Paula Fredriksen’s “Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle” and “When Christians Were Jews” - Los Angeles Review of Books
Put it this way: an itinerant rabbi from the Galilee — the backwaters of Palestine — leads a popular movement among the Jews, one that comes to an ignominious end when he is executed for sedition by the Roman authorities. Some of his followers form a small community in Jerusalem, proclaiming that not only was this rabbi and prophet the longed-for Messiah of Israel, but he is alive, in glory with God, vested with impregnable power and heavenly authority. These messianic Jews share goods in common and worship daily at the temple, praying and waiting eagerly for Jesus’s imminent return, when he will drive out the pagan occupiers and restore his people’s fortunes.
Pause the frame there. Nothing about this picture offers even a hint that this same community — one defined by exclusive loyalty to Jesus, Israel’s Messiah and Lord — will, centuries hence, find itself filling the Roman Empire, legalized and endorsed by that same empire, dominated by gentiles, not Jews, and led by men like Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis.
How did this happen? Why did it happen? To answer, we need to leave Augustine behind and follow Fredriksen into the world of the eastern Mediterranean in the first century of the common era, specifically Jewish life under the thumb of the Roman Empire...
Common Christian teaching on this point says something like the following. The coming of Jesus is the end of the Law of Moses. The Law was once the means of knowing and obeying God’s will, and thus of shaping the life of God’s chosen people. But now God’s people is the church, not Israel, defined by faith in Jesus, which is available to all humanity. The works of the Law fail because humans cannot do enough good to achieve the righteousness requisite for life with God; it is the tragedy of the Jews that they think they can save themselves through such efforts, refusing the free gift of salvation through Jesus. If any ethnic Jews accept that gift, and come to faith, then they should cease Torah observance, for otherwise they would be continuing in the old way of things. The result: A new people of God, shorn of theologically relevant ethnic distinctions, universal in every way, a “new humanity” of Jews and gentiles indistinguishable one from the other. More than any other author in the New Testament, Paul is claimed as proponent and progenitor of this view. Fredriksen begs to differ.
First, she says that this view makes mockery of the history and election of the Jews. God calls them and gives them the Law, only to punish them for seeking to obey it. Second, it undermines the goodness and trustworthiness of God. God unconditionally and irrevocably bound himself to Abraham’s descendants as his people forever. Yet here he is said to have replaced them with another, on other grounds. How could this be the same God as the One spoken of in Genesis, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Jeremiah? Third, it does not fit the evidence of the New Testament itself. The Book of Acts makes no mention of the apostles or early believers giving up the Law. The only relevant question is whether gentiles who believe ought also to keep the Law. The answer is no for them, but not for Jews — Jews, that is, who belong to the church and have faith in Jesus.
This picture suggests the fourth and most important point, connecting back to Paul. The vision of the gospel gathering gentiles to Israel before Jesus’s victorious reappearance only makes sense if the resulting community consists of distinct Jews and distinct gentiles. That is why Paul fought so hard against, then worked so hard for, gentiles to remain gentiles even as they spurned idols for worship, in Jesus’s spirit, of the one God alone. How could the gentiles be distinct as gentiles if the Jews did not remain distinct as Jews? Jews aren’t distinct by mere parentage: their sons are circumcised, they rest on the Sabbath, they observe kashrut, and so on. For Paul or the other apostles to reject the Torah for themselves and fellow Jews would be to give up their Jewish identity, and thus to compromise the project of a single community worshiping the God of Israel “with one voice,” as Paul puts it — Jews-as-Jews and gentiles-as-gentiles.
