Martin Buber's Theopolitics

260 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics

dawning. This new alternative is of such dramatic tension that it divides believ-
ers and unbelievers into children of light and children of darkness.”^54 Far from
sapping the will to action, Taubes points out that apocalyptic determinism has
provided an intense motivating force.^55
Taubes’s criticisms of Buber are rooted in Scholem’s understanding of apoc-
alyptic messianism, which Taubes holds in highest regard: “[Whoever] under-
stands what Scholem presents in the eighth chapter of Major Trends in Jewish
Mysticism can penetrate more deeply into Paul’s messianic logic than by reading
the entire exegetical literature.”^56 The reference is to Scholem’s discussion of “Sab-
batianism and Mystical Heresy.”^57 Taubes criticizes the treatment of Paul in Jew-
ish studies in language reminiscent of Scholem’s earlier critique of Wissenschaft
des Judentums:

Now it happens that the Jewish study of Paul is in a very sad state. There is a lit-

erary corpus about Jesus, a nice guy, about the rabbi in Galilee, and about the

Sermon on the Mount; it’s all in the Talmud and so on... there is a consensus

in Liberal Judaism (not in Orthodox Judaism, which hasn’t moved an inch),

that is, a sort of pride in this son of Israel. But when it comes to Paul, that’s a

borderline that’s hard to cross.^58

After dismissing most Jewish books on Paul with contempt, Taubes admits one
exception:

The most important Jewish book on Paul, written deeply from the heart and as

an attack, is Martin Buber’s Two Types of Faith. This book deserves to be taken

seriously; it’s based on a thesis that I think is highly dubious but from which

I have learned a great deal.... Buber of course wants Jesus... on the positive

side (which is very hard to do, since he was more of an apocalyptic than a

prophet), and Paul belongs on the other.^59

However, it is not merely Buber’s prophetic-apocalyptic dichotomy per se to
which Taubes objects. He focuses, as most readers of Two Types of Faith have
done, on its eponymous thesis: there is a Jewish faith, emunah, a relationship of
trust in the God one happens to encounter, and a Greek faith, pistis, which one
adopts upon the recognition that some proposition or other is true. Buber holds
that Paul’s pistis is a philosophical faith whose Greek origin requires no discus-
sion. Taubes dissents: “Buber here misses the whole point of the thing, which is
that ‘faith in’ is by no means only Greek but is the center of a messianic logic.”^60 For
proof of this, however, Taubes does not philologically investigate the term pistis;
rather, he adduces a series of anecdotes about Sabbatianism.^61 These are meant to
show that “the internal logic of events demanded a faith that is paradoxical, that
is contradicted by the evidence.”^62 Shabbetai Zvi converted to Islam, Jesus died
on the cross; to believe in them anyway becomes an equivalent, in apocalyptic
faith, for all the commandments of the Law (“works”): “Now you understand
my corrective to Buber.... That Buber is a sensitive and a great figure—we don’t