Paul the Jew and Jewish Influence on his Ideas

Even after Paul became a member of the Jesus (Messiah=Christ) movement, ‘the sect (hairesis) of the Nazoreans’, he remained a Jew (Acts 24.5). Actually, ‘sect’, the usual translation of hairesis in the NRSV (Acts 5.17; 15.5; 24.5, 14; 26.5; 28.22), is not the best understanding of the word. It really means ‘choice’ or ‘choosing’ of particular principles or ideas among various options. It does not imply separation of one group from another, as ‘sect’ often does. Paul uses hairesis only twice (1 Cor. 11.19; Gal. 5.20), both times without an implication of separation. Hairesis had not yet come to mean ‘heresy’, as it did later in the church. ‘Party’ would probably be the better choice, as in ‘party of the Pharisees’ (Acts 15.5, RSV; so also Acts 26.5). According to Acts, members of a hairesis were a particular group of Jews who held particular principles or opinions different from other Jews: Paul was ‘a pestilent fellow…among all the Jews…and a ringleader of the party of the Nazoreans’ (Acts 24.5-6).

It is not accurate even to speak of Paul as ‘a Christian Jew’ as I have done. Paul calls his fellow Jews ‘my brothers’, ‘my kinsmen by natural origin’, and ‘Israelites’ (Rom. 9.3). Of his Jewish adversaries he says, ‘Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I’ (2 Cor. 11.22). After Jesus’ coming and Paul's joining the Jesus movement, he did not forsake ‘the people of Israel’ (Phil. 3.5).