THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS—Friday, January 9, 1959-32 German Claims Conference Opens '59 Jewish Scholarship -Program Dr. St. -mime' Views Paul as Hellenistic Jew: Shows now Philo 'Reversed His Process' Prof. Samuel Sandmel, Pro- vost of Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion and an authority on literary activi- ties of Jews in the pediods of Jesus and Paul, already has es- tablished his position as a Jewish expert in matters in- volving the New Testament, with his book, "A Jewish Under- standing of the New Testa- ment." His latest work, "The Genius of Paul," just published by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, is another outstanding contribu- tion to New Testament studies and throws much light on Paul in relation to Christianity. Dr. Samuel describes Paul— who bore the Hebrew name Saul before changing it to the Apostolic Paul—as "A Hellenis- tic Jew" whose thinking was shaped by his environment, who "gave Christianity a new direc- tion which resulted in his de- tachment from Judaism." * * There were more Jews living in the Greek world than in Palestine in Paul's time, Dr. Sandmel points out. The Five Books of Moses had already been rendered into Greek and "there was already a Graeco- Jewish tradition" that "over- lapped with Palestinian Judaism in many ways" and "made it adaptable to the Greek world." "Although Paul called him- self a Pharisee, one cannot say that he was closely identified with Palestinian Judaism be- fore his conversion," the author of this important -book declares. "To call Paul a Hellenistic Jew is not to put a value on the nature of his Jewish fidelity, but is only to state a fact." He adds: "Paul was in some ways a universalist, but his Jewish par- ticularism never disappeared completely. . . Paul advocated a particularism, 'Christi a nit y.' Paul did not use that term; for us to use it in connection with it is anachronistic, . . . not only because it arose after Paul's time, but also because Paul had no sense of his being something other than a Jew. He was fully aware that convictions sepa- rated him from his erstwhile coreligionists, but he had no sense that he was abandoning J u d a is m. Rather, from his standpoint, his fellow-Jews had failed to come along with him on the final step which he felt that they, as true Jews, should have taken." * * * Interesting comparisons are made by Prof Sandmel of the writings and trends of thinking of Paul with that of the great Jewish philosopher who lived in the same period, Paul's Graeco- Jewish contempory, Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE-40CE). Strikingly common elements are seen in Philo and Paul, and we are told how they "tend to re- verse each other's process:" "To Philo, the Law of Moses is the formula whereby the in- dividual enables his higher mind to achieve domination over his body, lets his soul rise out of his body, and achieves immortality. The observance of the Law of Moses, according to Philo, can bring a transforma- tion of man from a bodily crea- ture into a spiritual creature— and it is likely that Philo means an actual transformation . . . But for Paul, by contrast, there was a personal problem: he could not do those things which the Law and Philo would have said he must do. Paul needed beforehand the peace of mind to do that which Philo asserted would bring peace of mind to a person. To Paul the Law of Moses was a revelation which came at one particular time in history. . . and it could there- fore be supplanted by a revela- tion more recent in history. . ." In his description of Paul the Man. Dr. Sandmel states: "A few short years after the move- ment later known as Christian- ity came into being, it spread into the Greek world. A certain Greek Jew named Paul first op- posed this version of Judaism and later joined the movement. He opposed the movement be- cause it differed from his view of Judaism. When he joined it, he was convinced, rather, that it was a true version of Judaism. When Paul joined the move- ment, it received no ordinary man, but a highly individualistic genius. Almost half of the writ- ings in the New Testament come from his hand. Even when we subtract the Epistles attri- buted to him, which are now not regarded as from his hand, his writings are more numerous in the New Testament than those of any one else." In his evaluation of Paul the Jew, Dr. Sandmel shows how "Paul saw the ancient revela- tion to Moses not as a crucial, decisive event, but as a single milestone in a long road of re- velations," a d din g: "For the rabbis, the climax was in Moses, and Sinai to them was the high- est mountain; for Paul, Sinai was only a hill, which had now sunk below the horizon." Dr. S an dm el also explains that while Christianity took over many of the holy days from the Jewish calendar, "Pauline Chris- tianity and rabbinic Judaism share little more than a com- mon point of departure, the Bible. . . In the sense that to Judaism the Law remains con- ceived of as throughly divine in origin and eternal, and in Paul as limitedly divine and can- cellable, one can almost set Pauline Christianity and rab- binic Judaism down as anti- theses to each other." Discussions of Paul the Con- vert and Paul the Apostle add to the value of Dr. Sandmel's work. "A 'convert,' in Paul's view, is one who has undergone `spiritual rebirth' " In this con- nection there is reference to prophets and prophecy. In Prof. Sandmel's judgement, "no term better serves initially to classify the convert Paul than the word `prophet.' Paul had the sense of a call from God, of com- munion with him." But Paul "described himself as an `apostle,' the basic meaning of DR. SAMUEL SANDMEL which the HUC-JIR professor says is equivelent to "messen- ger, emissary, missionary." Paul did not meet Jesus, but his claims were to having seen the Risen Christ and to having been predestined for his spiri- tual role. Paul saw himself as the minister of a new spirit, "as Moses was the minister of the old," and his intent was "to M o s e s' disadvantage." "The leading characteristic of Paul was that he regarded himself as an apostle, indeed the Apostle, the prophet par excel- lence." Dr. Sandmel's analyses of Paul and the Acts of the Apos- tles adds to the scholarly con- tributions he has made in this field. He shows how Christianity "a long with its tremendous legacy from Paul inherited some minor debits" and shows how Paul "confused his preachment of liberty from the Law with his hearers' disposition towards license." We learn much in this book about the Palestinian Jewish Christianity, the rise of the dia- spora Church, the conflicts be- tween the two as indicated in other New Testament writings and the fact that: "Except for Revelation, every writing in the New Testament is by Paul, or attributed to Paul, or deals with issues and problems created for the church by reason of Paul's tremendous contribution." "A modern Jew can certainly not follow Paul. But he can try to assess him more justly than Paul assessed Judaism," is the tolerant way in which Prof. Sandmel concludes his study. "It was the genius of Paul," he states that "cut a road from Palestinian Jewish Christianity that went almost all the way to the Dispersion Gentile church." The book is a most interesting study that adds to the stature of the author who has emerged as an authority on New Testament literature from the Jewish point of view.—P.S. Rabbi Brevis Honored NEW YORK (JTA) — T h e sixth annual program of Inter- national Scholarship and Fel- lowship Grants for the academic year 1959-60 will be offered by the Conference on Jewish Ma- terial Claims Against Germany, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, Confer- ence president, announced. The grants will be awarded to Jewish victims of Nazi persecu- tion who qualify for Jewish teacher training scholarships, scholarships in Jewish. studies, and research fellowships for in- dependent projects in Jewish arts, letters and social sciences. Last year, 163 successful can- didates in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Luxemburg, Swe- den, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, United States, Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Australia received scholarship and fellowship grants, totaling $135,000. Applications for grants must be submitted on special forms which may be obtained from the offices of the Claims Con- ference in New York. Scholar- ship and fellowship applications must be submitted to the Claims Conference not later than March 31. The scholarship and fellow- ship grants are part of a greater program for Jewish cultural and educational reconstruction car- ried on by the Conference. Around the World... A Digest of World Jewish Happenings, from Dispatches of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Other News-Gathering Media. Europe MUNICH — A request by the Bavarian Council of Jews for confiscation of anti-Semitic literature being printed here and distributed from a Munich office has been turned down by the Prosecutor pending further inquiries into the Council's complaints against the periodicals "Cel" and "Hidverok," pub- lished here by a Hungarian refugee group whose members formerly belonged to the anti-Semitic "Arrow Cross." The Jew- ish group demanded confiscation of a book by Lajos Mars- chalko, "The World Conquerors," written in the style of the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, "The Protocols of Zion." KIEL — The Ministry of Culture was requested by the Social Democratic Party in the Schleswig-Holsterin Parliament to suspend a high school teacher, Lothar Stielau, district leader of the neo-Nazi Deutsche Reichspartie in Luebeck, who is accused of making racist remarks against Jews and -Negroes .. . Reinfried Freuneck, a male nurse in a Munich sanitarium, has been indicted on a complaint by the Weiden Jewish com- munity of violating the state law prohibiting the spreading of national and racial hatred . . . East Germany may permit the Frankfurt prosecutor to inspect the personal records of Otto Schweinsberger, suspended public prosecutor in the Hesse Ministry of Justice, who is accused of having quashed court proceedings against an army official charged with murdering 75 Jews in the Caucuses during World War II. PARIS — The French government was asked by Andre Blumel, president of the Zionist Federation of France, to move its Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Blumel having stressed that such a move would serve as an example for the other Great Powers, pointing out that it could draw no objections from the United Nations since Israel has given every assurance of the protection of the Holy Places in the city.. United States PHILADELPHIA — A three-year grant of $117,345 for Sheltered Workshop of the Jewish Employment and Vocational Service from the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare has been approved by the State Office of Vocational Rehabilitation. BALTIMORE — Louis J. Fox, retiring president of the Jewish Welfare Fund of Batlimore, who has been active nation- ally in the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, announced the establishment of the "Harry Greenstein Leader- ship Award" to encourage • the development of new leaders, and to provid recognition for young men who have outstanding leadership qualities, the award being named in honor of the Welfare Fund's executive director, Harry Greenstein. Israel JERUSALEM — The Jewish Agency is implementing the decision to reduce its staff for economy reasons by dismissing • 500 members of the Agency staffs, 400 members of the admin- istrative - staff having been dismissed, with 100 more to be dismissed in the next three months . . . The Jewish Agency executive approved the dates Feb. 26-March 6 as the period for the next session of the Zionist Actions Committtee. Dr. Nahum Goldmann, world president of the agency, is expected to arrive here Feb. 8 . . . The parliamentary correspondents who have been boycotting Parliament for a week returned to their assign- ments after a compromise was worked out, calling for a month's trial of new regulations to which the correspondents had objected . . . Of a total of 26,000 new Jewish immigrants who arrived in this country in 1958, more than 11,000 came here in the last three months, according to figures disclosed by the Jewish Agency which show that about half of the total of the new arrivals came from Eastern Europe . • Israel and Liberia concluded a treaty of friendship and a commerce and navigation agreement, Israel having pledged to provide Liberia with experts, know-how and capital in industry, agricul- ture and irrigation. TEL AVIV — Fifteen young Arab citizens of Israel have been awarded government prizes for literary works including poetry, novels, short stories and drama, among the winners Rabbi Harry Brevis (right), blind Jewish Chaplain of being a 13-year-old boy from a Northern Galilee village who Buffalo, N.Y., a former Detroiter, "father of the International won an award for a lengthy ode in classic Arabic, commemor- Hebrew Braille Code," receives a testimonial scroll from the ating Israel's tenth anniversary . . . Due to American financial Chaplaincy Commission of the New York Board of Rabbis in and technical aid, there is a new highway link between Haifa recognition of his 25 years of service on behalf of the Jewish and this city, saving 15 minutes in the motor run between blind and in the Chaplaincy. The presentation by Dr. Jacob these two important centers, the new link, a section of modern Freid, executive director, Jewish Braille Institute of America, roadway between Nathanya and Hederah, having opened last was made at a meeting of the New York Board of Rabbis. week-end, built under the supervision of an American, Harold Rabbi Bervis is a graduate of the University of Michigan Monson, who was brought to Israel by the United States Oper- and ordained by the Jewish Institute of Religion. ations Mission.