This book is novel in its questioning of the adequacy of interpreting Paul from the perspective of the Reformation and in its application of sociological methods to the New Testament.
While interest in Paul's relationship to Judaism has been growing recently, this study adds an important aspect by comparing Paul’s practical instruction with the ancient halakha or Jewish traditional law. First Corinthians is found to be a source of prime importance, and surprisingly, halakha appears to be basic to Paul's instruction for non-Jewish Christians. The book includes thorough discussion of hermeneutic and methodological implications, always viewed in relation to the history of Pauline and Judaic study. Attention is also being paid to the setting within Hellenistic culture. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the texture of Paul's thought and these are applied to two ‘theological’ passages decisive for his place in Judaism. Historical and theological implications are vast, both regarding Paul's relationship to Judaism, his attitude towards Jesus and his Apostles, and the meaning of his teaching concerning justification and the Law.
Paul the Jewish Theologian reveals Saul of Tarsus as a man who, though rejected in the synagogue, never truly left Judaism. Author Young disagrees with long held notions that Hellenism was the context which most influenced Paul's communication of the Gospel. This skewed notion has led to widely divergent interpretations of Paul's writings. Only in rightly aligning Paul as rooted in his Jewishness and training as a Pharisee can he be correctly interpreted. Young asserts that Paul's view of the Torah was always positive, and he separates Jesus' mission among the Jews from Paul's call to the Gentiles.
This book is devoted both to the problem of Paul's view of the law as a whole, and to his thought about and relation to his fellow Jews. Building upon his previous study, the critically acclaimed Paul and Palestinian Judaism, E.P. Sanders explores Paul's Jewishness by concentrating on his overall relationship to Jewish tradition and thought. Sanders addresses such topics as Paul's use of scripture, the degree to which he was a practicing Jew during his career as apostle to the Gentiles, and his thoughts about his "kin by race" who did not accept Jesus as the messiah. In short, Paul's thoughts about the law and his own people are re-examined with new awareness and great care. Sanders addresses an important chapter in the history of the emergence of Christianity. Paul's role in that development -- specially in light of Galatians and Romans -- is now re-evaluated in a major way. This book is in fact a significant contribution to the study of the emergent normative self-definition in Judaism and Christianity during the first centuries of the common era.
While the task of exegesis after Auschwitz has been to expose the anti-Judaism inherent in the Christian tradition, the founding of the Jewish state has also helped show the continuation of the covenant between God and Israel. For Lloyd Gaston the living reality of Judaism makes possible a better understanding of Paul's prophetic call as Apostle to the Gentiles. In Paul and the Torah, Gaston argues that the terms of Paul's mission must be taken seriously and that it is totally inappropriate to regard his conversion as a transition from one religion to another. Paul's congregations were not made up of Christian Jews: they were exclusively Gentile. He therefore focused on God's promises to Abraham concerning Gentiles which were fulfilled in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. The inclusion of Gentiles in the elect people of God through their incorporation into Christ thus does not mean a displacement of Israel. Nowhere does Paul speak of the rejection of Israel as God's chosen people, of the Sinai covenant as no longer in effect for Israel, or of the church as the new and true Israel. He also says nothing against the Jewish understanding of Torah as it applies to Israel when he speaks of law in reference to Gentiles. But for those outside the covenant God made with Israel, the law acted in an oppressive and condemning way, and Gentiles needed liberation from it. Paradoxically, Paul finds the gospel of this liberation to be proclaimed already in Torah in the sense of Scripture.
Drawing upon the concepts of cultural and linguistic hybridity developed by Homi Bhabha, Salman Rushdie, Mikhail Bakhtin, and others, Garroway suggests that the first generation of Gentile converts were uncertain whether they had become Jews or remained Gentiles in the wake of their baptism into Christ.
In the Second-Temple period non-Jews were attracted to Judaism's communal life, religious observance and theological imagination. On the Jewish side, this was matched by the development of several discrete "patterns of universalism"-ways in which Jews were able to conceive of a positive place for Gentiles within their symbolic world. In this book Terence Donaldson collects and comments on all of the texts (to the end of the second Jewish rebellion in 135 CE) that deal with Gentile sympathizers, proselytes, ethical monotheists and participants in end-time redemption. In impressive detail, Donaldson identifies, defines, and describes these "patterns of universalism."