Paul Within Judaism - by Mark D Nanos (Paperback)

About the Book

These chapters explore a number of issues in the contemporary study of Paul raised by questing what it means to read Paul from within Judaism rather than supposing that he left the practice and promotion of living Jewishly behind after his discovery of Jesus as Christ (Messiah).This is a different question to those which have driven the New Perspective over the last thirty years, which still operates from many traditional assumptions about Pauls motives and behavior, viewing them as inconsistent with and critical of Judaism.

Book Synopsis

In these chapters, a group of renowned international scholars seek to describe Paul and his work from within Judaism, rather than on the assumption, still current after thirty years of the New Perspective, that in practice Paul left behind aspects of Jewish living after his discovery of Jesus as Christ (Messiah). After an introduction that surveys recent study of Paul and highlights the centrality of questions about Pauls Judaism, chapters explore the implications of reading Pauls instructions as aimed at Christ-following non-Jews, teaching them how to live in ways consistent with Judaism while remaining non-Jews. The contributors take different methodological points of departure: historical, ideological-critical, gender-critical, and empire-critical, and examine issues of terminology and of interfaith relations. Surprising common ground among the contributors presents a coherent alternative to the New Perspective. The volume concludes with a critical evaluation of the Paul within Judaism perspective by Terence L. Donaldson, a well-known voice representative of the best insights of the New Perspective.