8 - Born under the Law: Intertextuality and the Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus in Paul's Epistles

Summary

Preliminary Remarks

Who then is Paul's Jesus? Paul identifies him only briefly in ways that, decades later, dominated the gospel narratives: as a human being…though from ‘heaven’…a man born of woman, under the Law, that is, a Jew…a descendant of King David…and thus the Messiah.

—Paula Fredriksen

Paula Fredriksen sees Paul's Jesus as a heavenly being sent down to earth to take human form. This makes Paul a witness to an earthly Jesus through those who knew him even if, Fredriksen admits, he does not much dwell on Jesus' earthly life. However, it is clear that by her list above, Fredriksen mentions ‘only briefly’ of a historical figure. Because Paul says his Jesus was ‘born under the law’, he must have been a Jew, as the law is understood as the Jewish Scriptures. Paul states that Jesus was ‘born of a woman’ and thus he had to have been human with a human mother that gave birth to him. He was a descendant, according to Fredriksen's reading of Paul, of David, and therefore claimed (or perhaps others portrayed Jesus as one claiming) to be the Messiah. Fredriksen reads that Jesus came in ‘the likeness of sinful flesh’, that he was a man, a descriptive which expressed a historical, human Jesus. Many scholars accept that Paul's image of Jesus was a historical human being that Paul elaborates upon, and with only a few exceptions many also agree that Paul does not seem to busy himself with historical information. Paul's ignorance of Jesus' human qualities and his human crucifiers is because, per Fredriksen, Paul's focus was on the resurrected Jesus, the ‘divine preexistent son of God’.