Why did Paul Persecute the Church? Four Types of Answers

I've recently done some work on this and thought I would offer a summary. I haven't included the evidence for each position, as that would make this an even longer post. The categorizations, of course, are artificial, and, yet, I think they fairly represent the emphasis each approach. Representative scholars are included, but for the most part the paragraphs try to spell out general features common to several scholars. If you want to know what a particular scholar says, it's best to look them up. If I feel inclined to do so, I may offer some evaluation later. Your comments, of course, are welcome.

Religio-theological explanations focus on Christology (Hurtado) and/or soteriology (Hengel). Christ, strictly speaking, is central to both, in the first via what is claimed in preaching or reflected in devotion regarding the status of Jesus, and in the second via what is understood to be the effect or meaning of the Christ-event, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah. Whether it was the exalted claims and devotional practices or the very undermining of the salvific system of Judaism, the new sect stood in stark contradistinction with the norm of Jewish tradition. The growth of the sect had to be opposed, and Paul was up to the task.

The socio-theological explanation shifts the focus to ecclesiology, the question of what practices define the sphere of salvation, the community of the elect. For J. D. G. Dunn, Paul opposed the flagrant violation of Torah. For T. Donaldson the conflict between Christ and Torah in terms of community definition was more clear in the mind of Paul than the early Christ-believers. In either case, Paul viewed Christ as vying with Torah as the token badge of covenant membership, and this had to be opposed with righteous zeal.

Socio-political explanations are of two rather different kinds. The first assumes a Palestinian locale and a very Palestinian problem—the subjugation of Judaea to Rome (J. Taylor; N.T. Wright). Paul’s zeal for Torah energizes a militaristic anti-Roman sentiment, which, in turn, provides the rationale for his opposing the Christians, who stand in the way of the Zealot agenda. The second assumes a Diaspora context (P. Fredriksen). Rather than advancing the attainment of freedom, in this scenario Paul protects the possession of freedom(s). Jewish communities of the Diaspora enjoyed and relied on the benefaction of the local and trans-local authorities. When a new sect arrived in their presence, whose allegiance/worship was to a crucified insurrectionist and whose message bore overtones of political conquest, Paul thought it better to discipline them than to allow the whole community to be put at risk of the often fierce discipline of Rome or the potentially equally devastating effects of mob violence.

And, finally, there are socio-psychological means of explanation for Paul’s anti-ekklesia activity. Most common here has been the search for some object or experience that accounts for Paul’s repressed anger: perhaps he was frustrated with the law (an older explanation), tried violently to repress a belief of which he was slowly becoming convinced, or channeled anger with God for personally tragic circumstances at the Christ-believers (Murphy-O'Connor).