The Flexibility of Sabbath: Another Pauline Ethnopolitical Device

Theoretical Framework: The Flexibility of Sabbath-Commandment

Van Baaren (1984) argued that “myth, even if we define it as the supernatural charter on which a society is based, is not at all inflexible, except in theory” (p. 217). Such flexibility, for Van Baaren, is “not in the sense of degeneration or secularization when a certain myth is in the process of losing its function … but in the sense of its adaptability to new situations and challenges” (p. 218). Rather than viewing the phenomenon of adaptability as a gradual disappearance, the changes function as prevention of loss and maintenance of effort. Though most of the changes occurred as a result of outside influences, Van Baaren insisted that the leading cause of changes is to be found in the character of the myth itself since myths also change without outside influences. Hence, the specific character of myth, for Van Baaren, is flexibility or changeability itself (pp. 220–22).

Van Baaren further noted that the myth changes are easier to make in non-literate societies, as written traditions are more difficult to alter than oral traditions. However, he said that “in this situation the flexibility of myth is transferred to its exegesis” (p. 224). As one encounters the varieties of versions of the same oral myth and finds difficulties in pointing out which one is the original version, such a phenomenon can also be found in the variety of exegesis of the written traditions. Yet, one has to note that, in addition to the change that may occur in: (1) from an oral tradition to another oral tradition; and (2) written traditions to exegetical traditions, the change can also occur in the process of writing down the oral traditions or in rewriting any written texts (Van Der Toorn 2009). The so-called Biblical traditions are no exception to this phenomenon, hence the biblical scholarship trajectory of compositional history, source criticism, redaction criticism, and the rewritten Bible.

In light of Van Baaren’s concept of the flexibility of myth, in what follows, I look specifically at the Sabbath myth (commandment) in the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch preserves at least two versions of the Decalogue, one in Exodus 20 and the other in Deuteronomy 5. The significant difference between these two Decalogues is in the fourth commandment, the Sabbath commandment. In comparing the two passages, we note two significant differences: First, while Exodus uses the verb zkr (to remember) to begin the commandment, Deuteronomy uses the verb smr (to observe) from the outset. Second, Exodus bases the Sabbath commandment within the creation narrative, while Deuteronomy situates it within the framework of the deliverance from Egyptian bondage. The scholarship on this issue mostly discusses the dating and the origin of both texts, such as (1) the affinity to one of the Pentateuchal layers, (2) the reconstruction of the original form, (3) the originality of the composition, and (4) its Sitz im Leben (Kaiser 1984: 73). However, Martin Prudky (2006) takes a different tack by dealing with the “overall construction logic of the Sabbath-Proclamation, in its text-syntax and palistrophic structure” (p. 255). For Prudky, rather than looking at these differences as being “the result of two partially independent developments in tradition history,” this issue should be considered “two variant elaborations of a literary, textually defined entity.” In his other article, Prudky (2016) concludes that, “the halachic instruction is identical, even verbatim, in both versions; the hagadic part, the ‘preaching of the command,’ is variable, tailored to the specific contexts…” (p. 43). For Prudky, the variances of the Sabbath commandment preserved “in the manuscript sources, in translations from antiquity, and epigraphs, are testimony to the impact of the tradition which developed this requirement … and projected it into changing contexts” (p. 58). He calls this phenomenon “the dynamic character of Biblical traditions.” Or, in Van Baaren’s language, “the flexibility of myth.” I agree with Prudky in regard to how he speaks of how the variation of the Sabbath commandment is tailored and belongs to a specific context. In the next section, I discuss whether the flexibility of Sabbath also extends to its practices.

Beyond the Pentateuch tradition but still within the Hebrew Bible, there are other notions of the Sabbath. However, I restricted myself to discussing only the two versions of the Sabbath commandment due to space constraints. Yet, scholars like Herold Weiss (2003) argue for an eschatological aspect of the Sabbath. Such an argument supports this present article at least insofar as Van Baaren’s asserts that “eschatological myths simply form a special variation” (1984: 222). Thus, the flexibility of the Sabbath is apparent even from its variation within the Pentateuchal traditions. The author(s) of the Decalogues apparently feel free to adapt the Sabbath concept to fit the narrative that matches their specific context and purpose.

The Flexibility of Sabbath Practice

In this section, I explore the variety of Sabbath practices found in extra-biblical materials, particularly those that differ substantially from practices described in the biblical records. I do so in order to emphasize the variations in Sabbath observance. In dealing with the differences, I will not attempt to discern which is more authentic or legitimate, as it will be an almost impossible task (Van Baaren 1984: 224). Instead, I will consider the differences as all being part of the Jewish traditions and as representing the varieties of practice within the tradition—hence, the flexibility of myth in its exegetical tradition. Thus, it endeavors to note the flexibility of Sabbath observance within the Jewish community in antiquity.

The Ambiguity of the Beginning of the Sabbath

The beginning of the Sabbath also had its share of indecision regarding practices, as we see from Lutz Doering’s 2017 study. While it is widely accepted that the Sabbath is reckoned from evening to evening, Doering highlights the ambiguity of the term “evening.” By analyzing the use of the term “evening” from the phrase “between two evenings” in the Book of Jubilee, he finds that the term can mean “the last third of the day(light)” and the “first third of the night.” While some rabbinic texts attempt to distinguish between the time for Sabbath preparation and the beginning of Sabbath rest proper, Doering asserts that “the precise transition to the Sabbath remains a problem for the practitioner, and it is not sufficiently clarified in the early rabbinic (Tannaitic) period” (pp. 215, 220).

Doering then discusses the role of the Sabbath meal in resolving or flattening the ambiguity about time. This practice differs from the Sabbath-fasting practice that I presented earlier. Doering writes:

Hence, in this practice we find the flexibility of practice that deals not with outside influence or situational changes but rather with the ambiguity of the myth itself, as Van Baaren (1984) noted regarding the character of the myth itself.

So, what does all this mean? Allow me to summarize what I have proposed so far. First, I discussed the concept of the flexibility of myth. In itself, myth is flexible, adaptable, and changeable, depending on the situational change. Such flexibility is not to make the myth disappear. Instead, it is to maintain it. While it is easier to adapt the myth within the oral tradition, the flexibility of myth in the written tradition is manifested in the exegetical tradition. Hence, the myth is still flexible despite the permanent appearance of the text. Second, I have shown the flexibility of the Sabbath myth, beginning with its commanding tradition in the Decalogue, its flexibility of practice based on various situational changes, and the invention of practice in dealing with the ambiguity of the Sabbath myth itself. Therefore, when one says that Sabbath is one of the Jewish ethnic identity markers, one must deal with its flexibility. In the next part of the article, I discuss how the flexibility of the Sabbath contributes to Paul’s ethnic reasoning. Here, Gerbern S. Oegema’s 2016 work is helpful.

After discussing several texts that can be recognized as coming from certain identified groups (Hasmonean, Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, and People of Jubilees), Oegema concludes in his study that “identity marker is more than simply a mark on someone or something that automatically ‘makes’ him or her Jewish. Instead, it is a complex phenomenon with different and often changing connotations that are crystalized in texts” (p. 117). He adds that while the texts refer to certain aspects of the identity marker, at the same time, they serve as the multiple facets of continuing socio-religio-political settings. Oegema claims this has to do with “how these texts and the authors and audiences behind them have negotiated their identity” (p. 117). He finally notes that the “various and different interpretations and practices also marked important differences between certain groups within Judaism” (p. 118). Oegema hints at how the “flexibility of myth” contributes to identity construction, not only between the Jewish and non-Jewish but within the Jewish tradition itself. In the following parts of the article, I discuss this how the flexibility of the Sabbath functions as one of Paul’s ethnopolitical devices of identity construction.

The Fluidity of Ethnicity

Denise Kimber Buell (2005) discusses the concept of race and ethnicity in the Greco-Roman era. Buell suggests that “instead of viewing race or ethnicity as ascribed or fixed … we view each as concepts to which fixity is attributed but that are nevertheless malleable” (p. 6). Buell draws from Ann Stoler (1997), who said that “the force of racial discourse is precisely in the double-vision it allows, in the fact that it combines notions of fixity and fluidity in ways that are basic to its dynamic” (p. 198). The concepts of race and ethnicity are always unstable as they are not characterized continuously in a similar course in all specific situations. Yet, Buell writes, “considerable energy and anxiety have been expended to ‘secure’ stable meanings for race [or] ethnicity in colonial and racist regimes” (p. 7).

Buell discusses that the flexibility of such concepts has been apparent even since antiquity. Quoting Irad Malkin (2011), Buell shows a range of conventions from which the concept of Greek ethnicity can be drawn. Some scholars draw from Herodotus’ five-fold criteria of Greekness, that is: “common purpose (avenging the burning temples by Persians, kinship (having the same blood, homaimon), shared language (homoglosson), shared sanctuaries of the gods and sacrifices … and similar ways of life or customs” (pp. 5-6). However, other texts regarded the territory and climate as more significant elements in defining an ethnicity (Antonaccio 2001). The climatic zones are considered to determine specific human characteristics, such as temperament and skin color, and some authors insisted that the world is divided by such climatic zones (Thomas 2011).

Furthermore, Buell explains how the same complex issue happened in the Roman imperial period. Ptolemy of Alexandria, for instance, suggested that the physical and social (ethical) characteristics of a specific group are based on the climate but also the influence of astral bodies. However, Polemo, a physiognomist in the second-century C.E., finds difficulties in determining who belongs to what race when he finds Syrians in Italy and Libyans in Thrace, if only by hair and skin color. Egyptian ethnicity is also difficult to determine, at least in the eyes of Emperor Caracalla. His edict, according to Buell, “reveals a tension between the presuppositions that Egyptianness ought to be marked on the body in obvious ways (occupation, dress, manners, and religious practice) and the acknowledgment that it is not necessarily so” (p. 39). For instance, one can find linen weavers as Egyptians, yet one must listen to their speech. However, even this may not pan out in practice. Ultimately, the emperor referred to the Egyptians as “those who flee the countryside where they belong to avoid farmwork,” though even this is obviously a stereotype rather than an absolute indication.

Because of this complexity, Buell refers to the fact that most sociologists, anthropologists, and now also many classicists and ancient historians dismiss the thought that there is any key substance to ethnicity. Instead, they view ethnicity as a contingent social construction. Hence, scholarly discussions move “away from the question of whether or not race/ethnicity is fixed or mutable to analyses of how discourses of race and ethnicity rely upon the notion of fixity and primordiality even while they are also always under negotiation and flux” (p. 7). Thus, Buell suggests seriously considering the flexibility or fluidity of ethnicity.

Out of these two discourses of the fixity and fluidity of ethnicity, Buell suggests understanding “some forms of the early Christian imagination and practice as ‘ethnic reasoning’” (p. x). Ethnic reasoning, he says, refers to “the modes of persuasion that may or may not include the use of a specific vocabulary of peoplehood” (p. 2). This reasoning allows the early Christians to validate its various views as the universal and most genuine while simultaneously offering a self-definition both in relation to “outsiders” and competing with other “insiders” for superiority. Buell notes four strategic uses of ethnic reasoning for Early Christians:

Hence, ethnic reasoning includes a notion of religious practice and its membership that is intertwined with a notion of fixity of birth and descent. Yet, this concept is juxtaposed with its claim of fluidity that allows other people to join its membership while simultaneously establishing superiority in relation to its competitors.

In her other work, co-authored with Johnson Hodge (2004), Buell points out that Paul uses this very strategy in his rhetoric. Paul’s usage of this reasoning functions “to solve the problem of the exclusion of gentiles from God’s promises to Israel” (p. 238). Such a strategy is suitable for Paul as “it offers a model of unity and connection among peoples while still maintaining differences” (p. 238). Paul’s use of ethnic reasoning is as follows. First, “Paul formulates his central theological problem in terms of ethnicity: gentile alienation from the God of Israel” (p. 245). They then make a clear distinction between Judeans and non-Judeans based on their “ethnicity,” which is kinship with Abraham. But then, Paul offers a way out that is also within the kinship and ethnicity terminology, hence ethnic reasoning. As Buell and Hodge contend: “On the one hand, the differences between gentiles and Judeans seem fixed, having some real content; on the other hand, it is also fluid—through Christ, the gentiles receive a new ancestry and a new identity” (p. 245). Paul did not argue that ethnicity is fixed and that Christ has broken or “fulfilled” it. Instead, he illustrates how Christ can bring about ethnic transformation. Now this kind of argument clearly requires his audience to understand ethnicity and kinship as something fluid, despite his seemingly fixed contrasting differentiation between Judean and gentile.

However, Buell and Hodge carefully assert that this ethnic reasoning does not signal a neutral ethnicity; rather, it is a Judean identity. For Paul, being a gentile in Christ means entering the broader kinship of Israel. To conclude, they assert that Paul’s rhetoric emphasizes “the fluidity and messiness of ethnoracial categories” (p. 251).

The Malleability of Paul

In this section, I present Cavan W. Concannon’s concept of the malleability of Paul (2014). Not surprisingly, Concannon also benefits from Buell’s concept of ethnic reasoning, as indeed he lays out in his introduction. Yet, he advances the discussion by analyzing the malleable body of Paul in Paul’s own political rhetoric.

Concannon discusses this issue through Philo’s writing on political life and polymorphic self. He observes that “Philo suggests that the political life was one that necessitated a polymorphic self, an ability to be many things for the sake of safeguarding one’s political community” (p. 27). For Philo, a good politician is one who functions as both a leader and a polymorphous mirror image of the political system, as the political system itself “is many-colored and multiform.” Concannon further argues that by claiming that he trains his body so that he can “become all things to all people” (1 Cor 9:22), “Paul similarly presents himself as an ethnically polymorphous politician” (p. 27). Thus, Paul’s trained body was able to become a Judean who is “outside the law,” a gentile who is “under the curse of the law,” and to become weak. For Concannon, Paul ultimately “lifts up his ethnically malleable body as an object deserving of praise (1 Cor 9:19–23)” (p. 29).

This strategy of Paul’s is not unique. Concannon brings to our attention an orator named Favorinus, who employed a similar strategy. Concannon writes:

Hence, much like Paul, Favorinus “deployed his own ethnically malleable self before an audience of Corinthians” (p. 28).

Concannon further notes that the flexibility that Paul developed was in regard not to only to his ‘other’ ethnicity, but also to with his own, his Judeanness. When Paul says he “became as” a Judean, he construes his Judeanness as malleable. He never gave up his identity as a Judean, yet he “reconfigured that identity in light of his voluntary enslavement to the law of Christ” (pp. 28–29). Note that Paul first insists that his body can be reconfigured in relation to any ethnicity, even Judean ethnicity. Yet, his polymorphic body has a stable core “in the law of Christ.”

Ultimately, by portraying his body as ethnically malleable, Paul invites his addressees to recognize that their bodies also have a potency of malleability, whether it is as a Judean or a gentile. Says Concannon,

Paul’s ethnically flexible body is presented to the Corinthians as a model of ascetic self-control and the selfless exercise of a divine calling; Paul claims to be both a slave of a powerful master who subjects his body to a painful workout for the sake of others and a free man with authority who renounces it for the benefit of all. Paul’s self-presentation thus serves as a site for what Castelli calls “body power,” wherein the body becomes a site where competing discourses coalesce around the articulation of identity” (p. 35).

In sum, Concannon recognizes that Paul argues for the fluidity of ethnicity by presenting his own body as ethnically malleable.

The Flexibility of Sabbath as Another Ethnopolitical Device of Paul’s in Romans

Helpful to our investigation is also Gay Byron (2002), who coined the term “ethnopolitical rhetorics.” Byron explains that ethnopolitical rhetorics “are discursive elements within texts that refer to ‘ethnic ‘identities or geographical locations and function as political invective. [And] ethnicity is the chief constituent component of any ethnopolitical rhetorics” (p. 2). Byron understands the concept of ethnicity similarly to Buell and Concannon—namely, that it is not a “given” but a “social construct that draws attention to the differences that exist within communities” (p. 2). She emphasizes that ethnopolitical rhetorics function in differentiating between “insiders” (hence, a self-definition) and “outsiders” (an ethnic-othering attitude).

I see the concept of “ethnic reasoning” functions well to “resolve” the “invectiveness” that Byron suggests in the ethnopolitical rhetorics. By this, I mean that ethnic reasoning attempts to embrace the difference, yet of course doing so for a particular political purpose. Paul cleverly (or perhaps even cunningly?) used both strategies in his writing, as Buell and Byron point out in their respective work. Here I introduce another term that I call “ethnopolitical devices.” I understand “ethnopolitical devices” as the “ethnic” elements that are being used both in the “ethnopolitical rhetorics” with their divisive nature and in “ethnic reasoning” with its unifying nature. Ethnopolitical devices exist both under the notion of ethnicity as a social construct in boundary-making and under the notion of the flexibility of such ethnicity. Thus, when I refer to something as an ethnopolitical device, I emphasize its notion of being considered fixed yet having the potency of becoming flexible or even, by nature, being flexible. For instance, when Buell discusses how Paul is differentiating the ancestry of Judeans and Gentiles but at the same time is insisting that through Christ the Gentile can share in the Judean ancestry, I understand ancestry as one of Paul’s ethnopolitical devices. I also understand Paul’s own body as his ethnopolitical device when Concannon points out his ethnically malleable body. In light of this concept, I recognize how Paul employed one of his ethnopolitical devices in Romans 14:5–6, namely, the Sabbath.

Paul wrote:

In interpreting to what specific “day” and “days” Paul is referring in this passage, scholars have various suggestions. Some argue that it is an early development of Sunday as a day of worship. Others argue that it is about particularly auspicious days in the Greco-Roman astrological calendar. However, the majority of scholars understand him to be referring to the Jewish Sabbath and/or Jewish festivals, while the rest think he is referring to fast days. James Dunn (1988) persuasively argues that Sabbath was a sensitive issue within Judaism at this time. He points out that already in Josephus’ writing, “eating unclean food and violating the sabbath ranked together as the two chief hallmarks of covenant loyalty” (p. 805).

Dunn concludes by saying:

Regarding the food debate, scholars mostly interpret this to be referring to the Kosher laws, given how significant such laws are for Jewish identity, as mentioned in Josephus. I, however, would like to propose a different reading by considering the study of Margaret Williams (2004) that I discussed above. Williams proposes a possibility for the Roman Jews to observe the Sabbath through the practice of fasting. The text supports this reading in several ways:

First, the counsel parts of the food debate (vv. 3, 6) only mention the two groups as “those who eat” (ho esthiōn) and “those who not eat” (ho mē esthiōn). Without any specific reference to what is being eaten, it is possible to read the counsel as referring to those who do not eat anything at all, hence fasting. Even more, throughout the passage Paul is more concerned with the act of eating rather than what is being eaten.

Second, the presence of wine in v. 21. I have discussed above the significance of wine for certain groups of Jews in observing the Sabbath. The juxtaposition of meat and wine can also be seen as a Jewish feast, and again, as I have shown, in some parts of the Talmud (among others, b. Shabbath 118b and 119a), Jews view the Sabbath as the day of gladness and thus as the occasion to hold a special feast. Yet Paul encourages those who hold this kind of observance that it is better not to feast than to cause your “weak” brother to stumble (v. 21).

Third, throughout the food debate in this passage, the discussion about days appears only in two verses (vv. 5, 6), and there it is connected to the food debate. The counsel about the observance of the days is tied to the counsel about eating and not eating. Thus, it is not unreasonable to consider both elements (days and eating/not eating) as an integral part of the practice of fasting in observing the Sabbath, rather than as separate parts (observance of Sabbath and Kosher laws). If this reading is correct, we can now see the Sabbath as another of Paul’s ethnopolitical devices.

In Romans 14:5–6, Paul presents two kinds of Sabbath observances: fasting on the Sabbath (ho mē esthiōn) and non-fasting or even Sabbath feast (ho esthiōn). This indicates the flexibility of the Sabbath that I discussed in the first part of the article. Paul, however, then employed ethnic reasoning when he mentioned:

Instead of using the formula en khristō (in Christ), here Paul uses the term kyriō (to/for the Lord). Through such reasoning, Paul points out the legitimation of the flexibility of Sabbath observance, whether it is by fasting or special feast, as long as it is offered kyriō (to/for the Lord), Paul’s “stable core” (Concannon 2014: 35). In this reasoning, one can see the interplay of the three-fold concept of the flexibility of Sabbath, the fluidity of ethnicity, and Paul’s malleability. While Paul was aware of the Sabbath’s significance among the Jewish community, he was also aware of the various practices and interpretations of the Sabbath. Similarly, while Paul was aware of the significance of ethnic identity, his ethnic reasoning shows us how he played around with the fluidity of ethnicity. In short, as he embraced both parties through his ethnic reasoning, we can now clearly see his strategy of “being all things to all people.” Hence, his malleable body.

One might ask: “What motivates Paul to employ this strategy?” Here, Rudolf Brandle’s and Ekkehard W. Stegemann’s (1988) study is useful. They suggest that “we must ask the question of how the ‘Christ-faith’ happened to come to Rome at all. Paul certainly did not bring it there…Romans, however, also presupposes that Paul and his missionary endeavors in Rome were not unknown. There are indications in Romans 3:8 that certain negative opinions of Paul were well known” (p. 127). Hence, Paul’s letter to the Romans can be seen as an apologetic or an attempt to exercise his authority over the Christ-believers in Rome. To do that, he had to gain as many “votes” as possible, or to win over as many minds as he could. The kind of reasoning that enabled him to embrace as many people as possible under his authority is ethnic reasoning.

Conclusion

This study explored how Sabbath become another of Paul’s ethnopolitical devices. The flexibility of the Sabbath fits well with Paul’s ethnic reasoning in relation to the fluidity of ethnicity and Paul’s ethnically malleable body. Paul embraced the two conflicted Sabbath observances in Rome—fasting and non-fasting or special feast—by subsuming them to the formula of kyriō (to/for the Lord). Paul was aware of the Sabbath’s importance as a Jewish ethnic identity marker, yet he was also aware of the various interpretations of the Sabbath observance. Through this ethnic reasoning, Paul attempted to exercise his authority over the Jewish Christ-believers in Rome.