New Test. Stud. (), , pp. –.

© Cambridge University Press, 

doi:10.1017/S0028688518000097

Paul’s View of Israel’s Misstep in Rom 9.32–3:

Its Origin and Meaning
F R AN K T H I E L MAN
Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, 800 Lakeshore Dr., Birmingham, AL
35229, USA. Email: fsthielm@samford.edu

The form of Paul’s citation of Isa . and . in Rom .– indicates not only
that his source was an early Christian collection of stone texts but also that this
collection followed a particular interpretation of Jesus’ death: Jerusalem’s ruling
class planned Jesus’ death because of his controversial approach to the law and
the temple. Paul quotes these texts to help explain why unbelieving Israel has
rejected the gospel. Like Israel’s ruling elites, they have lost sight of the law’s
weightier matters. Punctuated correctly,  Thess .– confirms this under-
standing of Rom .–.
Keywords: Rom .–,  Thess .–, stumbling stone, Paul and Isaiah, Paul and
Israel, Jesus and the temple
Introduction

In Rom .–, Paul describes the double irony involved in Gentile accept-
ance of the gospel and Israelite rejection of it. Gentiles, he says, have caught up
with righteousness without even pursuing it, but Israel, despite pursuing a right-
eous law, has failed to catch up with it. Paul expresses the reason for this failure in
a notoriously compressed and difficult statement. In answer to his own rhetoric-
ally posed question about why Israel failed to catch up with the law (v. a), he
says this happened ὅτι οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἐξ ἔργων (v. b). He then
explains what he means by Israel’s pursuit of the law ὡς ἐξ ἔργων with the
comment that προσέκοψαν τῷ λίθῳ τοῦ προσκόμματος (v. c). He elaborates
on this explanation with a mixed quotation of Isa . and . (v. ), two texts
that, in their original contexts, identify the Lord (.) or his work (.) with a
stone. Most interpreters of Romans agree that Paul identifies ‘the stone’ with
Christ (cf. .), and most students of the use of biblical stone texts in early

 A few commentators, focusing on the lack of any conjunction connecting v. b with v. c,
have thought this means that no logical connection exists between the two statements. See
e.g. M.-J. Lagrange, Saint Paul Épitre aux Romains (Paris: LeCoffre, ) : ‘Ce qui suit
n’est donc pas l’explication de ce qui précède.’ The compressed statement ὡς ἐξ ἔργων
 requires explanation, however, and it is natural to see vv. c– as supplying this need.

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 Paul’s View of Israel’s Misstep in Rom .– 

Christianity agree that their use predates Paul. Several interpreters have sug-
gested that Paul’s view of Israel’s stumbling here is connected with the rejection
of Jesus’ approach to the Mosaic law among some Jews during his ministry,
although a detailed argument to this effect is lacking, and the position, at least
in its older form, is often quickly dismissed.
I would like to argue that when this idea is pursued further it not only illumines
Paul’s argument in Rom .–. but makes sense of Paul’s difficult statement
about Jewish responsibility for Jesus’ death in  Thess .– and points
towards the historical origins of Paul’s view of unbelieving Israel’s misstep.
Paul’s use of two ‘stone’ texts in Rom .c– links him not simply to Jewish
rejection of Jesus’ view of the law, but to a specific set of historical circumstances
in which Israel’s political and intellectual elites in Jerusalem plotted Jesus’ death
because they objected strongly to his view of the law and the temple. Paul saw this
account of Jesus’ death as an example of the zealous approach to the law that he
had himself followed before the risen Christ appeared to him (Phil .; Gal
.–). He also saw it as an example of the approach to the law that prompted
some Judeans to persecute Jewish Christians and to drive him out of Judea
( Thess .–; cf.  Cor ., ; Gal .).
If this is correct, then when Paul faults Israel in Rom .–b for their works-
oriented attitude to the law, he is not analysing the religious attitude of all non-
Christian Jews. He is speaking specifically of Israelites who have heard,

 Scholars have occasionally argued for an identification of the stone with something other than
Christ, for example, the law, the preaching of the resurrection or the gospel. See, respectively,
C. K. Barrett, Essays on Paul (Philadelphia: Westminster, ) –; P. E. Dinter, ‘The
Remnant of Israel and the Stone of Stumbling in Zion according to Paul (Romans –)’
(Ph.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, ) –; and
J A. Fitzmyer, Romans (AB ; New York: Doubleday, ) . Some interpreters see the
stone image as polyvalent, e.g. J. R. Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul in
Concert in the Letter to the Romans (NovTSup ; Leiden: Brill, ) –; idem,
‘Faithfulness and Fear, Stumbling and Salvation: Receptions of LXX Isaiah :– in the
New Testament’, The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of
Richard B. Hays (ed. J. R. Wagner, C. K. Rowe and A. K. Grieb; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
) –, at . Most commentators, however, believe that Paul’s use of Isa . in
Rom ., where the pronoun αὐτῷ clearly refers to Christ, makes any other referent for
the λίθος of .b– improbable. See F. Schleritt, ‘Das Gesetz der Gerechtigkeit: Zur
Auslegung von Römer ,–’, Between Gospel and Election: Explorations in the
Interpretation of Romans – (WUNT ; ed. F. Wilk, J. R. Wagner and F. Schleritt;
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ) –, at –.
 J. Munck, Christ and Israel: An Interpretation of Romans – (Philadelphia: Fortress, )
–; R. Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, ) .
For dismissals of Munck’s view, see e.g. Dinter, ‘Remnant of Israel’,  n.  and
N. A. Dahl, ‘The Future of Israel’, Studies in Paul (Minndeapolis: Augsburg, ) –,
at  n.  (whom Dinter also cites).
 Cf., correctly, Schleritt, ‘Das Gesetz der Gerechtigkeit’, –.

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  FRANK THIELMAN

understood and rejected the gospel, and especially of those who have rejected the
gospel violently, following in the footsteps of the politically powerful priests and
scribes that plotted Jesus’ death.
In .c– Paul is concerned with a particularly egregious result of failing to
believe the gospel and persisting instead in trying to find life by doing the law
(.b; ., ). By recalling this result to the minds of his first hearers he illustrated
what he was talking about when he described God as hardening part of Israel (.;
cf. ., , ) in order that he might ultimately include within his believing people
both Gentiles and a vast number of Israelites (.–; .–, –).

. A Brief History of the Stone Image in Earliest Christianity

Although Paul is the earliest textual witness to the use of a biblical stone image
in reference to Christ, it is unlikely that he was the first to employ it. The case that the
image preceded Paul is straightforward. Paul’s use depends on two passages from
Isaiah that also show up in  Pet .–, and almost all the variations from the LXX
that appear in Paul’s quotation of these passages also appear in  Peter. This
harmony between Rom .c– and  Pet .– takes a form, however, that
makes any direct literary connection between the two passages unlikely.
Paul quotes mainly from Isa ., differing from the LXX in small ways.
His first-person reference to God is not as emphatic (Paul is missing the
LXX’s ἐγώ) and, in Paul’s quotation, God speaks of placing a stone in Zion in the
present (τίθημι ἐν Σιὼν λίθον) rather than of putting a stone into the foundations
of Zion in the future (ἐμβαλῶ εἰς τὰ θεμέλια Σιων λίθον), a change that looks like
a more literal rendering of the Hebrew (‫)יסד בציון אבן‬. In addition, Paul uses the
negative of the simple future passive indicative at the end of the verse
(οὐ καταισχυνθήσεται), whereas the LXX has a doubly negated aorist passive
subjunctive (οὐ μὴ καταισχυνθῇ). Paul joins the LXX in using the phrase ἐπ᾿
αὐτῷ, which is missing from the Hebrew, and the verb καταισχύνω (‘put to
shame’), which is not an obvious rendering of the Hebrew ‫‘( חוש‬hurry, hasten’).

 See especially R. Harris, Testimonies ( vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, –)
I.–; B. Lindars, New Testament Apologetic: The Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament
Quotations (Philadelphia: Westminster, ) –; C. D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of
Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature (SNTSMS ;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ) –; Wagner, Heralds, –. Wagner argues
successfully that an author’s use of a particular text from a text collection does not necessarily
imply that the author considered the context of the passage in its original source to be insignificant
(Heralds of the Good News, –; idem, ‘Faithfulness and Fear’,  n. ). Cf. C. H. Dodd,
According to the Scriptures: The Substructure of New Testament Theology (London: Nisbet,
) –.
 Cf. Wagner, Heralds, .
 Wagner, Heralds, –. See BDAG , s.v. καταισχύνω ; HALOT (Study Edition) I., s.
v. I ‫חוש‬,‫חיש‬.

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 Paul’s View of Israel’s Misstep in Rom .– 

Paul supplements his quotation of Isa . with a phrase from Isa . that
allows him to replace the reference in Isa  to a stone that is ‘precious’,
‘choice’, ‘architecturally most important’ and ‘highly valued’ (πολυτελῆ
ἐκλεκτὸν ἀκρογωνιαῖον ἔντιμον) with a stone that instead causes stumbling
and is a rock of offence. When Paul makes this replacement, he differs from
the wording of Isa . LXX in two significant ways. First, Paul follows the
Hebrew more closely. Isa . LXX says, almost unintelligibly, that the prophet
Isaiah ‘will not encounter’ (οὐχ … συναντήσεσθε) the Lord ‘as a stumbling
caused by a stone nor as a fall caused by a rock’ (ὡς λίθου προσκόμματι …
οὐδὲ ὡς πέτρας πτώματι). Paul omits any negation and simplifies the syntactical
relationship between the expressions for the stone and the falling that it causes
(‫והיה למקדש ולאבן נגף ולצור מכשול‬/ λίθον προσκόμματος καὶ πέτραν σκανδάλου).
Second, whereas the LXX represents the Hebrew term ‫ מכשול‬with πτώματι, Paul
has σκανδάλου.
Isa . and . also appear in  Pet . and  on either side of another stone
text, Ps (MT ). LXX. In  Peter, then, the two Isaiah texts appear separ-
ately from each other with no imposition of one text upon the other.
Remarkably, with one exception, the same variations between the LXX of the
two Isaiah passages and Paul’s quotation show up in  Peter.  Peter has all of
Paul’s changes to the two Isaiah texts except his use of the simply negated
future passive indicative (οὐ καταισχυνθήσεται) rather than the doubly
negated aorist passive subjunctive (οὐ μὴ καταισχυνθῇ).
It is unlikely either that Paul somehow had access to  Peter or that Peter
picked apart Paul’s composite quotation to use its constituent parts separately.
Yet both texts exhibit the same curious combination of readings that sometimes
represent the Hebrew more literally than the LXX and sometimes depart from
the Hebrew in ways that match the LXX. The most reasonable explanation for
the similarity between Paul and  Peter at this level of detail is the existence of
an early tradition that brought Isa . and . together in the particular
form that both Paul and Peter quote.
An allusion to Isa .– also shows up in Luke and Matthew in an explan-
ation of Jesus’ rejection by the chief priests, scribes, elders (Mark .; Matt
.; Luke ., ) and Pharisees (Matt .). Shortly after his action in the
temple, and immediately after telling the Parable of the Wicked Tenants, Jesus
quotes Ps (MT ). LXX (cf.  Pet ., ) and then follows this quotation

 English translations of the Scriptures throughout are from the NETS and the NRSV. Here,
however, I have rendered the adjective ἀκρογωνιαῖον with an adjectival phrase rather
than following the translation ‘cornerstone’ in NETS.
 Dodd, According to the Scriptures, ; D. Alex-Koch, ‘Beobachtungen zum christologischen
Schriftgebrauch in den vorpaulinischen Gemeinden’, ZNW  () –, at ;
Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture, –; Wagner, Heralds, –.
 Wagner, Heralds, –.

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  FRANK THIELMAN

with a statement that looks like a paraphrase of Isa .–. The Isaiah text refers
to a ‘stone’ (λίθος) that causes ‘stumbling’ (πρόσκομμα), to a ‘rock’ (πέτρα) that
causes a ‘fall’ (πτῶμα), and to a group of people who ‘will fall’ (πεσοῦνται) and
‘be crushed’ (συντριβήσονται). This is similar to Jesus’ claim in Luke .
that πᾶς ὁ πεσὼν ἐπ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τὸν λίθον συνθλασθήσεται· ἐϕ᾽ ὃν δ᾽ ἂν
πέσῃ, λικμήσει αὐτόν, a sentence that, apart from two small changes, also
appears in Matt . after Jesus tells the Parable of the Wicked Tenants to ‘the
chief priests and the elders of the people’.
The statement’s appearance in Matthew poses a well-known text-critical
problem, and commentators often reject it. It is reasonably clear, however,
that it belongs to Matthew’s original text. The manuscript evidence in favour
of accepting it is so weighty that the only basis for rejecting it is that it might be
a scribal harmonisation to Luke’s text. The harmony, however, is inexact: not
only does Matthew not have Luke’s opening πᾶς, but instead of ἐπ᾽ ἐκεῖνον
τὸν λίθον, Matthew has ἐπὶ τὸν λίθον τοῦτον. A scribe trying to create
harmony between the two gospels, moreover, would have placed the sentence
after Matt . to keep the Lukan order of the two stone sayings intact.
Paul’s use of Isa . in Rom ., then, forms a connection to the account in
the synoptic tradition of Jesus’ rejection by the chief priests, scribes, Pharisees
(Matt .; cf. John .) and elders, and this account circulated before the com-
position of either Matthew or Luke.

 It is common to see this sentence as an allusion to Dan . (Theodotion). See e.g. Koch,
‘Beobachtungen’,  n. . The second half of Luke . (ἐϕ᾽ ὃν δ᾽ ἂν πέσῃ, λικμήσει
αὐτόν) may contain an echo of Dan . (ἡ βασιλεία αὐτοῦ … λεπτυνεῖ καὶ λικμήσει
πάσας τὰς βασιλείας), especially if a text similar to Theodotion’s was circulating as early
as the Greek sources of Matthew and Luke. The first half of Luke . (πᾶς ὁ πεσὼν ἐπ᾽
ἐκεῖνον τὸν λίθον συνθλασθήσεται), however, is closer to Isa . (πεσοῦνται καὶ
συντριβήσονται) than to Dan .–, –. It is also possible that Theodotion used the
NT. On this, see E. Nestle, ‘Lk ,’, ZNW  () –, at .
 E.g. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, The Gospel according to St Matthew ( vols.; ICC; London:
T&T Clark, –) III. n. ; J. Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the
Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, )  n. ‘e’, .
 E.g. J. Gnilka, Das Matthäusevangelium ( vols.; HTKNT; Freiburg: Herder, ) II.–;
U. Luz, Matthew – (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress) .
 The sentence is missing only in D  it sys Ir Or Eussyr.
 B. M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, ) .
 This would be true whether Luke and Matthew used a common source independently of one
another or Luke used Matthew. According to Luz (Matthew –, ) Matt . ‘is probably
not redactional.’ On Luke’s possible use of Matthew, see F. Watson, Gospel Writing: A
Canonical Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) –. It would be easy to
imagine Luke tidying up Matthew’s narrative at this point by omitting Matthew’s reference
to Ps : LXX in Matt :b (cf. Mark :) and putting the two stone texts together.

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 Paul’s View of Israel’s Misstep in Rom .– 

In light of this evidence from Paul,  Peter and the synoptics, it is reasonable to
think that between Jesus’ death in  (or ) CE and Paul’s composition of Romans
in  CE, Christians began telling the story of Jesus’ rejection using Ps . and
Isa .– and ., and describing him as the rejected but costly stone. Since
Paul quotes Isa . and . in Rom .c–, it is likely that he knew this col-
lection of texts, perhaps in an oral rather than a written form. If he knew this col-
lection of texts, he probably also knew the story that accompanied them.

. The Story of Jesus’ Rejection That Paul Knew

The form of the story about Jesus’ rejection that Paul received from early
Christian tradition seems to parallel in its basic outline the form of the same
story in the Synoptic Gospels. Both Paul and Peter refer to the stumbling stone
(‫ )צור מכשול‬of Isa . as πέτραν σκανδάλου, whereas the LXX translates this
same phrase as πέτρας πτώματι (‘a fall caused by a rock’). It is possible that
those who assembled the stone text collection used σκάνδαλον for ‫מכשול‬
simply because they relied on a Greek translation that differed from the LXX at
this point. It is also possible, however, that whoever added Isa . to the
stone collection used σκάνδαλον for ‫ מכשול‬intentionally because it was an appro-
priate term for describing the law-oriented nature of Jesus’ rejection.
F. J. A. Hort noticed long ago in his commentary on  Pet .–. that this
variation seemed to reflect the language of the gospels on the rejection of
Jesus. ‘The single word σκανδάλου, as used in this connection by St Paul and
St Peter’, Hort observed, ‘pointed back to characteristic language of our Lord
Himself as well as of the Evangelists on his being a “stumblingblock” to the
Jews who refused him …’ Hort then listed a series of references that is strangely

 E. Käsemann, Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) .

 The term ‫ מכשול‬appears fourteen times in the OT and is translated by σκάνδαλον in the LXX only
three times (Lev. .;  Sam .; and Ps  (LXX ).). Aquila has σκανδάλου in Isa .
and uses it to translate ‫ מכשול‬elsewhere (G. Stählin, ‘σκάνδαλον, κτλ.’, TDNT VII.–), but he
was working in the late second century CE, and it is unclear to what extent he represents ancient
alternatives to the LXX that were also available to the earliest Christians. According to Eusebius,
Symmachus also had σκανδάλου in Isa ., but, as Stanley says, ‘it is always possible that the
Christian Eusebius has confused the readings of Paul and Symmachus’ (Paul and the
Language of Scripture, ). Cf. Koch, ‘Beobachtungen’,  n. . For the relevant texts and dis-
cussion, see K. Müller, Anstoss und Gericht: Eine Studie zum jüdischen Hintergrund des pauli-
nischen Skandalon-Begriffs (SANT ; Munich: Kösel, ) –.
 F. J. A. Hort, The First Epistle of St Peter I.–II. (London: Macmillan, ), . On Hort’s
observation, see Harris, Testimonies, I.–. Hort did not think that Peter and Paul used a
common source but believed it was ‘morally certain that St Peter borrowed from St Paul’
(First Epistle of St Peter, ).
 Hort, First Epistle of St Peter, .

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  FRANK THIELMAN

imprecise for so meticulous a scholar. Jesus really uses the language of stum-
bling only once in response to Jewish sceptics other than his own disciples or
John the Baptist (Matt .), and there he takes action to avoid giving offence.
Despite this, Hort was perhaps on to something instinctively. The language of
stumbling was especially suited to the notion of offending either God or another
person by transgressing God’s law or a particular interpretation of that law. This
use of stumbling language is especially prominent in Matthew. Jesus’ interpret-
ation of the Parable of the Tares says that it refers in part to the day when the
angels of the Son of Man συλλέξουσιν ἐκ τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ πάντα τὰ
σκάνδαλα καὶ τοὺς ποιοῦντας τὴν ἀνομίαν (Matt .). After Jesus tells the
Pharisees and scribes that nothing going into a human being from outside
defiles that person, but only what comes out of that person’s mouth, the disciples
come to him and say, οἶδας ὅτι οἱ Φαρισαῖοι ἀκούσαντες τὸν λόγον
ἐσκανδαλίσθησαν; (.). Similarly, when Jesus tells Simon to pay the temple
tax in Matthew’s Gospel, he says they should do this ἵνα … μὴ σκανδαλίσωμεν
(.).
This fits with a characteristic use of stumbling language in the LXX. Ps .
promises peace to those who love God’s law, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτοῖς σκάνδαλον.
In . the psalmist prays, ϕύλαξόν με ἀπὸ παγίδος ἧς συνεστήσαντό μοι καὶ
ἀπὸ σκανδάλων τῶν ἐργαζομένων τὴν ἀνομίαν, a notion that is reflected in Pss.
Sol. ., which speaks of the Lord’s deliverance ἀπὸ παντὸς σκανδάλου
παρανόμου. Judith explains to Holofernes that she cannot eat the food he has
set before her ἵνα μὴ γένηται σκάνδαλον (.).
The term σκάνδαλον is rare outside the LXX and early Christian texts, and so
it is likely that when Christians first used it in the version of Isa . in their col-
lection of stone texts, it carried this nuance of offence against the law. This idea is
consistent with the narrative context of the Parable of the Wicked Tenants in the
Synoptic Gospels and the use of Ps . LXX and Isa .– there. Although the
term σκάνδαλον does not appear, οἱ οἰκοδομοῦντες who reject ‘the stone’
(Mark .) correspond to ‘the chief priests, the scribes and the elders’
who control the temple and have objected to the disturbance Jesus created
there (Mark .–). In Acts , Peter will address the ‘rulers, elders and
scribes … with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas, and John and Alexander,
and all who were of the high priestly family’ (vv. –) and tell them that Jesus is

 Five of his ten references to the language of stumbling are not germane to his point – one
refers to John the Baptist (Matt ./Luke .), three others to the disciples (Matt .,
; John .), and one to a group of disciples separate from the twelve (John .). Hort’s
commentary was published posthumously from lecture notes (First Epistle of St Peter, ix–x),
and this may account for the inexactness of his references.
 See also Sir . and the discussion in Stählin, ‘σκάνδαλον’, –.
 On the metaphorical use of the term ‘builders’ for religious leaders in Jewish literature of the
period, see C. A. Evans, Mark :–: (WBC B; Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, ) .

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 Paul’s View of Israel’s Misstep in Rom .– 

ὁ λίθος, ὁ ἐξουθενηθεὶς ὑϕ᾽ ὑμῶν τῶν οἰκοδόμων, ὁ γενόμενος εἰς κεϕαλὴν

γωνίας (v. ).
The collection of stone texts from which Paul cited Isa . and . in Rom
.c–, therefore, probably interpreted the rejection of Jesus as the work of the
Jewish leadership in Jerusalem and interpreted that rejection as focused on his
controversial approach to the law and the temple. These elements of Jesus’ min-
istry caused Israel’s Jerusalem-based leadership to ‘stumble’ over Jesus and send
him to his death.
This understanding of the stone text collection fits well with what many histor-
ians of early Christianity acknowledge about the relationship between Jesus’
action in the temple and the Jewish involvement in his arrest, trial and crucifixion.
In the words of Ben F. Meyer, ‘[t]he cleansing of the temple triggered a sequence
of events that brought Jesus to his death on a cross outside the city wall.’ There is
much controversy about whether Jesus’ temple action should be called a ‘cleans-
ing’, and, if not, exactly why he did what he did, but many historians of early
Christianity acknowledge that he did it, that he did it in order to make a point,
and that, to use Meyer’s words again, ‘it was an explosive act’.
It is likely that even before Paul’s conversion he had heard about the connec-
tion between Jesus’ controversial approach to the temple and the reasons why the
religious and political elites in Jerusalem sought his execution. The false charge at
Jesus’ trial that he wanted to destroy the temple seems to have been widely known
since it shows up in a number of different contexts in the gospels (Matt .–;
.– = Mark .–; John .–; cf. Gos. Thom. ). Acts, moreover,
depicts Paul in Jerusalem, only a short time after Jesus’ death, persecuting
Christians such as Stephen because Stephen supposedly claimed Jesus the
Nazarene would destroy the temple and ‘change the customs Moses handed
down’ (Acts .; cf. .; .).
According to the accounts of Paul’s persecuting activity in Acts, he targeted
Christians both in Jerusalem and Damascus with the written permission of the
high priest and his associates (Acts .–; .; cf. .–), the same group

 Some interpreters believe that, at least for Paul, the σκάνδαλον in Rom . was Jesus’ cru-
cifixion, just as it is in  Cor . and Gal .. See e.g. Lagrange, Romains,  and B. Byrne,
Romans (SP ; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, ) . Paul mentions Christ’s crucifixion
only once in Romans (.), however, and the emphasis there falls more on Christ’s death than
on the shameful nature of his death. The scandal of the cross, so important to Paul elsewhere,
is not part of the argument in Romans, and it is unlikely, then, that Paul alludes to it here.
 B. F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus (London: SCM, ) .
 Ibid. On whether Jesus ‘cleansed’ the temple, see especially E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism
(Philadelphia: Fortress, ) –.
 M. Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul (London: SCM, )  calculates the time between Jesus’
controversial teaching on torah and temple and Paul’s persecution of early Christians in
Jerusalem as one to three years.

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  FRANK THIELMAN

that had put Jesus on trial and sentenced him to death (cf. Acts .; Luke .; John
., ). Ernst Haenchen thought that Luke had made all this up based on what
he read in  Macc .– about the Romans giving the high priest Simon
Maccabaeus the right of extradition. This approach to Acts .–, however, was
part of Haenchen’s otherwise improbable theory that Paul had never persecuted
Christians in Jerusalem. There is nothing unlikely about a well-educated
member of the upper classes who received his training in Jerusalem having
access to the high priestly circle in Jerusalem and using that access to facilitate
his zeal for the law and the temple by persecuting Christians. If, then,
Haenchen is wrong about Luke and Luke is right about Paul, it is unlikely that
Paul and ‘the chief priests’ failed to discuss the role that Jesus’ own approach
to the temple played in his death.
This means that Paul the Pharisee probably understood his own efforts at
stamping out the new movement to be an extension of the opposition of ‘the
chief priests, the scribes, the elders’ and ‘the Pharisees’ (Matt .; cf. John
.) to Jesus’ criticism of what was happening in the temple complex. Paul
and the chief priests may well have opposed Jesus’ approach to the temple for dif-
ferent reasons. The chief priests may have felt threatened by Jesus’ criticism of the
way they ran the temple’s financial affairs (Mark ., ; Matt .–; Luke
.). Paul, as a Pharisee, may have been more concerned with Jesus’ non-trad-
itional approach to the Jewish law generally, including laws governing who was

 E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, ) –,
– n. . See also J. Knox, Chapters in a Life of Paul (New York: Abingdon, ) –. The
theory, based on Gal ., that Paul’s persecutions took place near Damascus and that he
actually had no extensive contact with people in Jerusalem before his conversion is unlikely
to be correct. Not only do Paul’s references to Damascus and Arabia in . put him in
the vicinity of Jerusalem prior to his conversion (Hengel, Pre-Christian Paul, –), but he
was a Pharisee (Phil .), and the Pharisees were located primarily in Jerusalem. On this,
see J. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford: Clarendon, ) – and J. D. G.
Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem (Christianity in the Making ; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
) –. Paul’s persecuting activity in Judaea most likely involved Greek speaking
Jewish Christians (Luke’s ‘Hellenists’) and left those who only spoke Hebrew relatively
untouched. Gal . describes a situation in which Jewish Christians who spoke only
Hebrew did not know Paul personally but heard reports from the Hellenists about Paul’s dra-
matic change. On this, see Hengel, Pre-Christian Paul,  and the similar position in Dunn,
Beginning, .
 See Haenchen’s complete survey of the relevant evidence (Acts, – n. ). Scholars will
come away from Haenchen’s survey with different impressions, but to some interpreters
the evidence confirms the plausibility of the scenario Luke describes. The evidence, in any
case, does not seem to warrant Haenchen’s definitve pronouncement about the impossibility
of the scene (‘ein unmögliches Verfahren’). For a more positive assessment of Luke’s reliabil-
ity on this point, see R. Pesch, Die Apostelgeschichte (Apg –) (EKKNT /; Zürich: Benziger/
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, ) ; Dunn, Beginning, ; and C. S. Keener, Acts: An
Exegetical Commentary ( vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, –) II.–.

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 Paul’s View of Israel’s Misstep in Rom .– 

ritually qualified to worship in the temple (e.g. Mark .–; .). They would
both have nevertheless agreed that Jesus and his movement posed a threat to
the temple.
When Paul used the stone texts of Rom .c– to explain his statement in
.b that Israel did not attain the law because they pursued it οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως
ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἐξ ἔργων he was probably thinking of the reason why the chief priests,
the scribes and the Pharisees rejected Jesus. They had stumbled over Jesus’
approach to the Jewish law, including the law’s regulation of the temple. Paul
knew about this attitude first-hand from his own exposure to and participation
in it in Jerusalem shortly after Jesus’ death. He also knew about it from the tradi-
tions about Jesus’ death that he inherited from the early Christian community and
that used Ps . and Isa . and . to interpret Jesus’ rejection and execu-
tion by Israel’s leadership in Jerusalem. The earliest Christians believed that Jesus
was the most important stone in a temple not made with human hands (e.g.  Cor
., –; .;  Cor .–; Acts .–; cf.  Kings .), and the chief priests
and elders of the people had plotted Jesus’ execution in part because they believed
he threatened the physical temple in Jerusalem.

. Evidence for This Approach to Rom .– from  Thess .–

In  Thessalonians, perhaps the earliest extant Christian text, Paul com-

pares the persecution of the Christians in Thessalonica by their συμϕυλέται
with the suffering of the Judean churches ὑπὸ τῶν Ἰουδαίων τῶν καὶ τὸν
κύριον ἀποκτεινάντων Ἰησοῦν καὶ τοὺς προϕήτας ( Thess .–). Frank
D. Gilliard offered a persuasive argument nearly thirty years ago that the partici-
pial clause in this prepositional phrase should be read as a restrictive rather than a
descriptive clause. Everyone Paul refers to in this long sentence was Jewish, so it
would be odd for Paul to say that ‘the Jews’ persecuted the churches in Judea and
killed both Jesus and the prophets. Paul is instead saying that Jewish Christians in
Judea suffered at the hands of a sub-group of their Jewish compatriots – οἱ καὶ τὸν
κύριον ἀποκτείναντες Ἰησοῦν καὶ τοὺς προϕήτας.

 The tight connection between the law and the temple is evident in the ‘Halakhic letter’ from
Qumran Q (QMMTf) with its description (Q, frr. – col. II, lines –) of a series
of highly specific temple procedures as ‘works of the law’ (‫)מעשי התורה‬. Cf. Rom .b, and see
M. Goodman, ‘The Temple in First Century CE Judaism’, Judaism in the Roman World:
Collected Essays (AGJU ; Leiden: Brill, ) –, at –.
 F. D. Gilliard, ‘The Problem of the Antisemitic Comma between  Thessalonians . and ’,
NTS  () –. Among commentators who have adopted this translation, see A. J.
Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians (AB B; New York: Doubleday, )  and
G. D. Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians (NICNT; Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, ) –.

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  FRANK THIELMAN

If this is correct, then Paul refers to the politically powerful people – the ruling
priests and the legal experts – who plotted Jesus’ execution because he opposed
traditional interpretations of the law and seemed to threaten the operation of
the temple in Jerusalem. Paul’s claim that they also killed the prophets parallels
the implicit claim in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants that Jesus was the last
in a long line of Israel’s prophets whom its leaders had rejected.
When Paul goes on to say that these same people drove him and his co-
workers out he is probably describing in general terms the set of circumstances
Luke narrates in Acts .–:

[Saul] went in and out among them in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name
of the Lord. He spoke and argued with the Hellenists; but they were attempting
to kill him. When the believers learned of it, they brought him down to
Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.

Luke does not say specifically who these Greek-speaking Jews were, but the
assessment of Hengel and Schwemer that they were ‘his former friends … from
the Greek-speaking synagogues of Jerusalem’ is probably right (Acts .; .;
.). This was the same group that had ‘stirred up the people as well as the
elders and the scribes’ against Stephen (Acts ., ), and brought him before
the Sanhedrin, which included ‘the high priest’, for questioning (.). Although
Paul was writing of events that probably occurred four or five years after the
death of Jesus (Gal .), Annas (or Ananus the elder) and Caiaphas were still
among the ‘chief priests’ if Jesus’ death occurred in  CE. Even if Jesus’ death
happened in  CE and the events described in  Thess .– occurred in 
or  CE, however, one of Ananus the elder’s sons (either Jonathan or

 T. Holtz, Der Erste Brief an die Thessalonicher (EKKNT ; Zürich/Braunschweig: Benziger/
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, ) .
 Some commentators (e.g. Malherbe, Thessalonians, ) believe that Paul is referring to per-
secution in Thessalonica, but for a convincing argument that he is describing opposition in
Judea, see Fee, Thessalonians, –.
 Whether Luke’s ὡς … ἐπληροῦντο ἡμέραι ἱκαναί (Acts .) can accommodate Paul’s μετὰ
ἔτη τρία (Gal .) is a classic conundrum, with many interpreters concluding that Luke’s
narrative at this point ‘ist unglaubwürdig’ (Pesch, Die Apostelgeschichte (Apg –), ; cf.
Haenchen, Acts, –) and others arguing that Luke has condensed his source in accord
with his normal custom (e.g. Keener, Acts II.) or followed the perspective that Paul is
reacting against (e.g. Dunn, Beginning, –). For the historical plausibility of Luke’s
account of the Hellenists’ persecution of Paul in Jerusalem three years after his conversion,
see M. Hengel and A. M. Schwemer, Paul between Damascus and Antioch: The Unknown
Years (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, ) –.
 Hengel and Schwemer, Paul, .
 On the chronology of this period, see R. Riesner, Paul’s Early Period: Chronology, Mission
Strategy, Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) –, .

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 Paul’s View of Israel’s Misstep in Rom .– 

Theophilus) would have been high priest (Josephus, Ant. .). Ananus
himself may well have been living, and the rest of his powerful and wealthy
family would still have had enormous sway over affairs in Jerusalem. Paul,
then, could reasonably describe the chief priests and the Sanhedrin in the
Jerusalem of the period – or – as ‘the Jews who killed both the Lord
Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out’ (NRSV, altered).
If that is what he is doing in  Thess .–, then his next phrase, τῶν … θεῷ
μὴ ἀρεσκόντων καὶ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις ἐναντίων, is not an echo of a common
anti-Jewish slander, as commentators have sometimes suggested. Rather, it is
a theological comment on the character of the chief priests and legal scholars
who arrested, tried and executed Jesus and then continued over the course of
several decades to oppose his followers.
The opinion that in the mid-first century the high priestly class and those con-
nected with them were corrupt, ruthless and violent shows up in a variety of
ancient Jewish literary sources. The author of the Assumption of Moses, writing
a few decades after the death of Herod the Great, accuses the priests of the
Hasmonean period (.; .) of aligning themselves with ‘the scholars who will
be their teachers’, ‘impious judges’ who will, in their legal decisions, ‘favour the
persons that please them, and accept gifts’ (.). The author is not as specific
about the abuses of the priests in the years during which Herod’s sons were in
power (.–.). His belief, however, that he was living in the final period of
great evil before the eschaton probably also means that he would have considered
the gospels’ ‘chief priests’ and ‘scribes’ to be among ‘the pestilent and impious’
rulers in the decades after Herod (.). They ‘proclaim themselves to be right-
eous’, he says, all the while engaging in the worst vices (.–). ‘Their hands
and minds will deal with impurities, and their mouth will speak enormities,
saying in addition to all this: “Keep off, do not touch me, lest you pollute me”’
(.–). The author draws a portrait of hypocritical rulers who keep up an
appearance of pious law-observance, including ‘compassion’ towards the poor

 See Table  in D. Barag and D. Flusser, ‘The Ossuary of Yehoḥanah Granddaughter of the High
Priest Theophilus’, IEJ  () –, at .
 E.g. E. Best, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians (BNTC; London: Adam &
Charles Black, ) ; Holtz, An die Thessalonicher, . On the ancient slander that
Jews were misanthropic, see e.g. L. H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, ) –. Paul’s statement is not unlike the
slander as reported in Josephus (on the lips of Haman) that claims the Jewish people is
ἐχθρὸν … ἅπασιν ἀνθρώποις (Ant. .; cf. Esth .; Esth .e LXX; Tacitus, Hist. ..).
 On the date of the Assumption of Moses, see J. Tromp, The Assumption of Moses: A Critical
Edition with Commentary (SVTP; Leiden: Brill, ) –, –. I have used Tromp’s
translation throughout.
 On the text’s Sitz im Leben, see Tromp, Assumption of Moses, .

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  FRANK THIELMAN

(.) and ritual punctiliousness (.), but do so in the service of extravagant self-
indulgence.
Josephus, describing events in Jerusalem in  CE, says that there was ‘mutual
enmity and class warfare between the high priests, on the one hand, and the
priests and the leaders of the populace of Jerusalem, on the other’ (Ant. .;
trans. L. H. Feldman, LCL). He seems to ascribe most of the blame to ‘the high
priests’ (ἀρχιερεῖς), a term that refers to the ruling class of priests, some of
whom had served for a time as high priest:

Such was the shamelessness and effrontery which possessed the high priests
that they actually were so brazen as to send slaves to the threshing floors to
receive the tithes that were due to the priests, with the result that the poorer
priests starved to death. Thus did the violence of the contending factions sup-
press all justice. (Ant. .; trans. L. H. Feldman, LCL).

A few years later, in  CE, something similar happened under the ‘high priest’
Ananias son of Nedebaeus (cf. Acts .–; .), whom Agrippa II had recently
deposed. Despite losing his official position, he seems to have continued to exer-
cise significant political power in the city, along with the group that Josephus calls
‘the high priests’. Unless the story is a duplicate (its details are similar to the pre-
vious account), then once again ‘the high priests’ stole the tithes of the poorer
priests with the result that many of them starved to death (Ant. .–).
This period of the high priesthood’s history probably lies behind the description
of the high priests in t. Menaḥ. . F (cf. b. Pesaḥ. a):

For they are high priests, and their sons, treasurers, and their sons in law,
supervisors, and their servants come and beat us with staves.

 Cf. Tromp, Assumption of Moses, –, . Tromp cautions against either limiting the
rulers depicted here to the priests and the Sanhedrin or assuming that the author’s highly
biased description reflects reality. It seems likely, however, that the powerful people who gov-
erned the temple were included in the author’s portrait. For a similar approach to As. Mos.
.–., see C. A. Evans, ‘Jesus’ Action in the Temple: Cleansing or Portent of Destruction’,
CBQ  () ; idem, Mark :–:, .
 E. M. Smallwood, ‘High Priests and Politics in Roman Palestine’, JTS NS  () –, at ;
BDAG , s.v. ἀρχιερεύς a; J. C. VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after
the Exile (Minneapolis: Fortress, ) : ‘Whatever may have been the range of meaning
expressed by the plural high priests, they were undoubtedly the aristocrats among the
clergy, people of rank and pedigree.’
 VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas, –.
 VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas, –. On the possibility of a duplicate passage, see
ibid.,  n. .
 On the interpretation of the passage, see Evans, ‘Jesus’ Action in the Temple’,  and
VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas, –, . I have used the translation of J.
Neusner, The Tosefta ( vols; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, ; reprinted, New York: KTAV,
–) II..

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 Paul’s View of Israel’s Misstep in Rom .– 

Josephus also says that Ananias retained his power as Jerusalem descended into
political chaos in the years before the outbreak of the Jewish war by the use of ‘his
wealth to attract those who were willing to receive bribes’ (Ant. .; trans. L. H.
Feldman, LCL).
A Jew such as Paul, who felt that he and other Jewish Christians had been the
victims of the Jewish ruling elites in Jerusalem, might well describe them, there-
fore, as people who do not please God and oppose all people. As long as we are
willing to allow for some hyperbole in the use of the term ‘all’, what Paul says here
is consistent with what some other Jews from roughly his own time and later said
about their character. If Paul did have in mind the politically and intellectually
influential Jews in Jerusalem in the decade following Jesus’ death when he
wrote  Thess .–, then v.  probably refers to the contentious debates he
had with his former Greek-speaking Jewish colleagues in Jerusalem. According
to Luke these debates led his opponents to try to kill him and led him to flee to
Tarsus (Acts .–).
He may have discussed with this group God’s commission to send him to the
Gentiles, something that, in the words of  Thess ., they strongly opposed
(κωλυόντων ἡμᾶς τοῖς ἔθνεσιν λαλῆσαι), and that would have also fed into
Paul’s description of them as τῶν … πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις ἐναντίων. Luke, at
least, seems to have understood the reason for Paul’s departure from Jerusalem
this way. Towards the end of his narrative, he describes how Paul was again in
Jerusalem and near the temple when an angry mob accused him of bringing
Gentiles into temple areas forbidden to them (Acts .–). Paul’s speech of
defence says that during his first post-conversion trip to Jerusalem (cf. Acts
.–) he visited the temple to pray, and that he entered a trance there in
which God directed him to preach the gospel to the Gentiles (.–). Luke
probably viewed this ecstatically experienced call to preach to the Gentiles as
the source of the tension that led Paul’s former ‘Hellenist’ colleagues to seek
his death (Acts .).
From the perspective of Rom .–., it is also hermeneutically helpful to
observe what ancient Jewish literature outside the NT says about the devotion
of the priestly class of this period to the law. In a famous passage (Ant. .–
), Josephus describes how Ananus, son of the NT ‘Annas’ (Luke .; John
., ; Acts .), took advantage of his briefly held position as the official
high priest in  CE to arrest James ‘the brother of Jesus who was called the
Christ, and certain others’ whom ‘he accused … of having transgressed the law
(παρανομησάντων)’ (trans. L. H. Feldman, LCL). James and the others
(perhaps other Jewish Christians) were convicted by the Sanhedrin and delivered
over for stoning. Josephus considered this action to be an example of the ‘heart-
less’ (ὡμοί) judgements of the Sadducees, the sect to which Ananus belonged,

 Evans, ‘Jesus’ Action in the Temple’, –; idem, Mark :–:, .

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  FRANK THIELMAN

and gives the impression that he thought Ananus’ enthusiasm for punishing those
who violated the law had blinded him to the injustice of what he was doing.
In a similar vein, t. Menḥ. .B–E reflects on the reason for the destruction of
the temple in  CE by comparing it with the destruction of the first temple:

As to Jerusalem’s first building, on what account was it destroyed? Because of

idolatry and licentiousness and bloodshed which was in it. But [as to] the latter
[building] we know that they devoted themselves to Torah and were meticulous
about tithes. On what account did they go into exile? Because they love money
and hate one another. This teaches you that hatred of one for another is evil
before the Omnipresent, and Scripture deems it equivalent to idolatry, licen-
tiousness, and bloodshed.

This text seems to draw a contrast between the lawlessness of those who con-
trolled the first temple and the devotion to the law, particularly the law of
tithing from which they benefited, of those who controlled the second temple.
The problem with those who controlled the second temple was not their attention
to the details of the law, but their failure to attend to its weightier matters. Being
meticulous about tithes yet being greedy and hateful is equivalent to being an
idolater in God’s eyes, and this form of idolatry characterises Israel’s rulers in
the first century (t. Menḥ. .B–E; cf. Matt .).
Josephus’ perspective on Ananus’ execution of James and the rabbis’ perspec-
tive in t. Menḥ. .B–E are both reminiscent of the description in the
Assumption of Moses of Jerusalem’s Jewish leadership in the period after the
death of Herod the Great. These leaders were scrupulous in their public commit-
ments to ritual purity and the poor but were ruthless and violent towards others in
their actual behaviour (As. Mos. .–; cf. Mark .–; Matt .–, –; Luke
.–).
When Paul speaks of ‘the Jews who killed both the Lord Jesus and the pro-
phets, and drove us out’, and says that ‘they displease God and oppose everyone
by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved’, there-
fore, he is not talking about ‘the Jews’ generally but about the group of political,
judicial and intellectual leaders in Jerusalem who plotted Jesus’ death and perse-
cuted his earliest followers after his death. These were leaders who, from Paul’s
post-conversion perspective (and the perspective of other Jews in his time and
afterwards), pursued doing the law but failed to attend to its weightier matters.

Conclusion

For Paul, the law’s weightiest matter – its τέλος – was Christ himself. This is
why he chose to illustrate his statement in Rom .–b that unbelieving Israel

 Trans. Neusner, Tosefta, II.. On this, see Evans, ‘Jesus’ Action in the Temple’, .

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 Paul’s View of Israel’s Misstep in Rom .– 

had pursued the law ‘as if by works’ rather than ‘by faith’ with a set of traditional
stone texts recalling Jesus’ final conflict with Jerusalem’s social elites (.c–).
When those within Israel whom God had hardened (.) heard the gospel
(.–), they did not submit to it (., ) because they thought they could
attain life by doing what the law required (.). They knew the gospel in the
sense that they were exposed to it (.), but they were ignorant of its real signifi-
cance as the revelation of God’s free gift of righteousness to the wicked and
undeserving (.–.) and continued to try to establish their own righteousness
by keeping the law (.). Paul’s citation of two texts from an already traditional
collection of stone texts that explained Jesus’ rejection at the hands of Jerusalem’s
leadership provided a clear example of this focus on the law’s details to the neglect
of its weightier matters.
It was an attitude towards the law with which Paul was familiar because he had
once shared it. Just as the unbelieving Israelites of Rom .–. pursue the law
because of their ‘zeal (ζῆλον) for God’, so Paul’s ‘zeal’ (ζῆλος) led him to follow
the Pharisees in interpreting the law, to attain blamelessness with respect to the
law, and to persecute the church (Phil .–). He was so committed to his ‘way
of life in Judaism’, and so ‘extremely zealous (περισσοτέρως ζηλωτὴς
ὑπάρχων)’ for his ancestral traditions, that he ‘persecuted the church of God to
an extraordinary degree (καθ᾽ ὑπερβολὴν) and tried to annihilate (ἐπόρθουν)
it’ (Gal .–).
He was also familiar with this attitude towards the gospel because he had
experienced persecution from those who continued to hold it ( Cor ., ;
 Thess .; cf. Gal .). Paul’s reference to persecution in Rom .–, his
use of Pharaoh in . and his reference to the embattled prophet Elijah in
.– show that the persecution of God’s people was not far from his mind
when he wrote Romans –. This receives confirmation from ., where he
asks the Roman Christians for their prayers that he ‘may be rescued from the
unbelievers in Judea’.
In Paul’s view, this law-based resistance to the gospel should be a cause
neither for retaliation (Rom ., –) nor alarm (.a) among Christians
because it was part of God’s merciful design to enclose everyone within disobedi-
ence ‘that he may be merciful to all’ (.). He placed the stone in Zion that
became a stumbling stone to some and the object of faith for others, and he con-
tinues to stretch out his hands to the part of Israel that disobeys and opposes the
gospel (.; cf. Isa .). In the end, Paul argues, history will reveal that Israel
has not ‘stumbled (ἔπταισαν) so as to fall’ but so that ‘through their stumbling
(παραπτώματι) salvation has come to the Gentiles’ (.).

 Wagner, ‘Faithfulness and Fear’, .

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