There Is Nothing Unclean: Jesus and Paul against the Politics of Purity?

What kind of Jews were Jesus and Paul? What was the impact of their personal religious experiences on their own way of being Jewish? And to what extent was the apostle’s Jewishness influenced by Jesus’ words and deeds? In order to find an answer to such questions, this paper will try to re-examine the problem of continuity or discontinuity between Jesus and Paul, starting from their actual practice of life. We will focus, especially, on their concrete attitudes towards ritual purity and dietary laws, as central aspects of ancient Israel’s politics and piety. We will be forced, once again, to compare Romans 14:14.20, where Paul affirms to know and be persuaded «in the Lord Jesus» that «there is nothing unclean in itself», with the puzzling sentence transmitted by Mark 7:15.19, in which Jesus denies that anything outside a man «can make him unclean». The discrepancy between Mark and its parallels has long been noticed by scholars, as well as the apparent irrelevance of this radical statement among the early Christian groups. Combining a historical-exegetical approach with a careful anthropological examination, our analysis will attempt to show that the Markan account may reflect Jesus’ original intentions. If this is the case, Paul’s reference to the «Lord» can turn out to be more than a brilliant and personal insight.