This book explores the historical context of Paul and the way Paul’s Jewish heritage was received, including the specifics of contemporary Jewish phenomena, within the successive generations of Jesus-followers during the first two centuries CE (in and outside the corpus of New Testament writings).

Receptions of Paul during the First Two Centuries: Exploration of the Jewish Matrix of Early Christianity examines the historical context of Paul and the way Paul’s Jewish heritage was received. Contributors take into consideration the aftermath of the Jewish War and its impact on the development of the Jesus movement and early Christian-Jewish relations in the following period. The chapters come to the conclusion that after the Jewish War, the reception of the authentic Paul was transformed more and more into the tradition about Paul, based and established by the second and third generations of Jesus-believing Gentiles, which perceived Paul as a convert from what is labeled “Judaism” (Ἰουδαϊσμός) to the complete opposite of it, “Christianity” (Χριστιανισμός).

Introduction

František Ábel

Part 1: Knowing What’s What in the Early Reception of Paul the Apostle

Chapter 1: Correcting Some Misperceptions About Paul

James H. Charlesworth

Chapter 2: Observations on the Reception of the Pauline Expression “Works of the Law”

Michael Bachmann

Chapter 3: The Perception of Paul’s Social Influence in the Corinthian Correspondence

J. Brian Tucker

Chapter 4: “Jezebel,” Paul, and the Problem of Mixed Marriage. A Contested Reception of 1 Corinthians at the End of the First Century?

Paul B. Duff

Chapter 5: The Triumph of Paul in Portraits of Peter

Joshua D. Garroway

Part 2: The Early Reception of Paul the Apostle in the Deutero-Pauline Letters

Chapter 6: The Pastoral Epistles and the Jewish Paul

Stefan Krauter

Chapter 7: The Role of Women in Teaching and Learning—Pauline Trajectories in Acts and in the Pastorals?

Kathy Ehrensperger

Chapter 8: Colossian “Philosophy” and Torah: Paul in a New Context (Col 2:6–23)

Karl Olav Sandnes

Chapter 9: The “Man of Lawlessness” as an Eschatological Enemy in Second Thessalonians and its Second Temple Period Jewish Background

Kenneth Atkinson

Chapter 10: Ephesians as the Quintessence of Pauline Deracination

Neil Elliott

Part 3: The Early Reception of Paul the Apostle in the Acts of the Apostles

Chapter 11: From Pharisee to Ascetic. The Shift of the Image of the Apostle Paul in the Literature of the Genre of Acts

Jiří Lukeš

Chapter 12: Paul’s Torah Observance According to Acts in Light of Recent Reconfigurations of Paul’s Jewishness

Ruben A. Bühner

Chapter 13: The Image of Paul in Act’s Missionary Speeches

Istvan M. Ledán

Chapter 14: Paul in Acts 16:18–21 in the Context of Roman Law

Valéria Terézia Dančiaková

Chapter 15: Justification and Salvation in Paul and Acts: A Reading “Within Second Temple Judaism”

Gabriele Boccaccini

Part 4: The Other Receptions of Paul the Apostle

Chapter 16: How Pauline is the Gospel of John?

Eric Noffke

Chapter 17: The Epistle to the Hebrews as a Consoling Appeal to Ostracized Jewish Christ-followers: Reception of Jewish Paul in Hebrews

Pavel Paluchník

Chapter 18: Παύλου συμμύσται ἐστε. Ignatius’ Reception of Paul and Jewishness in the Antiochian Context: Another Piece of the Mosaic

František Ábel

Part 5: Receptions of Paul during the First Two Centuries: A Critical Evaluation from Second Temple Judaism Research

Chapter 19: “Correcting Some Misperceptions About New Testament Translation”: A Response to A Presupposition in James H. Charlesworth’s “Correcting Some Misperceptions About Paul”

Hans Förster

Chapter 20: Perspectives on Perspectives: Overall Response to Presented Contributions

Daniel Boyarin