As Jesus and his disciples approach Jerusalem, a rich man asks Jesus about eternal life (19:16). Specifically, the rich man asks Jesus if there is a good deed he must do in order to be right with God and enter the kingdom of heaven.
Who is this rich man? Mark 10:13 simply called him a man, Matthew 19:22 adds that he was young, Luke 18:18 says he was a ruler (ἄρχων) who was “extremely rich” (πλούσιος σφόδρα; 18:23). In Matthew 8:19 a scribe came up to Jesus, using similar vocabulary and syntax (εἷς προσελθὼν αὐτῷ εἶπεν). If he is a scribe and an official in the bureaucracy of Jerusalem, then he would be wealthy. Young and wealthy may imply he was from a good family which accumulated wealth and power in Jerusalem. Wealth was a sign of God’s blessing based on the blessings in the Law for those who are obedient. The man might think he is right with God because his family has been materially blessed.
Is this rich man the young rabbi Saul? Stanley Porter examines Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 9:1, “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” and argues Paul knew Jesus before the Road to Damascus (When Paul Met Jesus: How an Idea Got Lost in History [Cambridge, 2016]; see my review here). Porter offers a detailed exegesis of this passage, comparing it to 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 to argue that Paul had seen Jesus just as the other apostles had. He is careful to suggest this as a possible reading of the text, but along with 1 Corinthians 9:1 and the book of Acts, there is a strong possibility Paul had known Jesus prior to his conversion experience. He very tentatively suggests Paul was the “the lawyer who asked the question” in Luke 10:25-28 (147). Similarly, that Paul “overheard Jesus’ words regarding the worker being worthy of his/her wages” (159) seems to go beyond the evidence or that Paul overheard the Olivet Discourse and “heard enough” of Jesus at that point (167). All of these are of course possibilities but move into the area of speculation which cannot be supported by evidence.
The man asks what good thing he needs to do to have eternal life (v. 16). If he was extremely wealthy, he might want to know what public benefit he must do to assure his place in the kingdom of heaven.
We cannot know any details about the man other than he sincerely wanted to hear Jesus’s opinion on what kind of good deed he needed to do to guarantee eternal life.
If he wasn’t Paul, then he was probably someone just like Paul before his Damascus road experience
Porter’s thesis is unconvincing to me. 1Cor. 9.1 doesn’t use “risen” but it seems implied as if that was the important “seeing.” 1Cor. 15.6 where the 500 witness the resurrected Christ were chosen to this since Jesus did not reveal Himself to all the people after the resurrection.
Also, it seems like Paul would have used this encounter with Jesus and turned it to a teaching lesson if it did occur, but he is silent.
I wrote a post on a ruler “testing” Jesus in Lk. 10 which is clear insincerity. I concluded as much with this account in Matthew in the post. They ask basically the same question as if eternal life is settled with a “contribution.” https://wordpress.com/post/beliefspeak2.net/11853
The book has been out for a few years now and I do not think he has convinced very many!
That URL does not go anywhere, do you want to edit it?
Try this link: https://beliefspeak2.net/2021/11/18/the-context-of-the-parable-of-the-good-samaritan-misunderstood/?preview_id=11853&preview_nonce=2fd494d9e2&preview=true
What it seems to me is given too short a shrift is the fact that we should expect a more robust personal history, a sort of animosity resolved, between Jesus and the most overwhelmingly present author in the New Testament corpus.
In short, a better explanation for how “upside down” Jesus was for the earthly Saul’s experience and expectations of the prophesied Messiah, and why Saul had concluded that the Christian message was a wholly antinomian threat to the future of rabbinic, Pharisaically-oriented Torah obedience… In yet another intriguing episode, after a group of Sadducees fail to trap Jesus in the temple with the question, “Whose wife will she be in heaven?, a young “lawyer” or “scribe” asks Jesus what “the greatest commandment in the law is,” to which Jesus’ answer is met by the lawyer’s approval, who then offers the retort that “God is one,” whereupon Jesus asks the question about how David’s son can also be his Lord! Then he goes to warn of the leaven of the Pharisesees! If this young lawyer was also the young Saul of Tarsus, do we now have an explanation why he begin to harbor murder in his heart towards Jesus and the nascent Christian church movement? How absolutely startling it must have been for Saul later to discover that not only was Jesus actually divine, but that He was embodiment of the central message of Torah itself!!!
For me, this supplies the “speculative warrant” that so many seem to be hesitant to take.
A principle I follow is that large outcomes demand adequate causes, and for Saul to turn into the Gentile-loving person in the epistles written by the “newly-minted Paul”… well, that took nothing less than a miracle, of both recognition and repentance on the road to Damascus!!
It’s not that I disagree with you that this speculative, but I find the cumulative case more compelling than you, for the reasons stated above.
Wouldn’t it be similarly startling to find that Saul /Paul is way more prominent in the gospel stories that he is usually given either recognition or credit for?
When interpretive avenues like this open up, I’m kind of used to interacting with various scholars helpfully, with whom I’ve come to agree or disagree with.
SO, even if we remain disparate on these interpretations, by the grace of God, we can agree to disagree, agreeably, so that our essential unity in Christ is kept clearly in view!
Cheers, and I’d love to hear your reply!
Good morning. Since you wrote something about “the rich young ruler,” I thought you might like to read the novella I wrote about him.
see my site https://lewishb.wixsite.com/mysite … feel free to spread my three Biblical novellas.
Maranatha, Lewis Brackett