In Review
A Jewish Paul
The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles
Greco-Roman Associations, Deities, & Early Christianity
A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse
Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean
Interpreting 2 Peter through African American Women’s Moral Writings
The Samaritan Woman’s Story
Reconsidering John 4 after #ChurchToo
Rethinking the Atonement
New Perspectives on Jesus’s Death, Resurrection, and Ascension
Scapegoats
The Gospel through the Eyes of Victims
Leading Christian Communities
A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles
By Matthew Thiessen
Baker Academic
Of the many books on Paul published this year, Matthew Thiessen’s stands out. It offers a delightfully clear introduction to a way of reading Paul that is generating lots of discussion among New Testament scholars, though not much among clergy and others. While Thiessen offers his own account, his approach shares much in common with the “Paul within Judaism” or “radical new perspective” reading of Paul. This reading begins with a simple premise: Paul was thoroughly Jewish. As Thiessen says, Paul was “not an anomalous Jew, not a radical Jew, not a marginal Jew. Just one Jew living his life and following his perceived calling amid the diversity and richness of first-century Judaism.” Accordingly, Thiessen places Paul within the “diversity and richness of first-century Judaism” in ways that challenge common ideas about how Paul related to Judaism in his day.
