Reinventing Paul
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.61 (953 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0195134745 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 208 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-11-19 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Throughout the Christian era, Paul has stood at the center of controversy, accused of being the father of Christian anti-Semitism. Through an exhaustive analysis of Paul's letters to the Galatians and the Romans, he provides illuminating answers to the key questions: Did Paul repudiate the Law of Moses? Did he believe that Jews had been rejected by God and replaced as His chosen people by Gentiles? Did he consider circumcision to be necessary for salvation? And did he expect Jews to find salvation through Jesus? To all these questions, John Gager answers no. As a result, his message has been misunderstood by all succeeding generations. Gager takes us in search of the "real" Paul--using Paul's own writings. Reinventing Paul brilliantly sets forth a controversial interpretation of Paul's teaching. His most vehement arguments were directed not against Judaism but against competing apostles in the Jesus movement who demanded that Gentiles be circumcised and conform to Jewish law in order to be saved. Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles, not the Jews. This thought-provo
"Gager - required reading for the student of Paul" according to Amazon Customer. Gager's text, "Reinventing Paul" is perhaps mislabeled, as he does less re-inventing than "recovering." With the sort of exasperation characteristic of E.P. Sanders' in "Paul and Palestinian Judaism" Gager dismantles, by way of a thorough review of recent Pauline scholarship, the age-old distortions of Paul and first century Judaism that have plagued Christianity from the outset.His dismay is easily understood as he makes plain the way that Paul, the "Apostle to the Gentiles" was forced into the role of "Paul, critic of all that is Jewish." (my phrase) Indeed, the only regret. "One Trick Pony, but what a trick!" according to Jean E. Pouliot. "Reinventing Paul" is John Gager's attempt to solve one of the most vexing problems of New Testament scholarship: Saint Paul's seeming anti-Judaism, if not outright anti-Semitism. The view that Paul (and God!) turned against his own people had been considered self-evident to a long line of scholars and theologians stretching back at least to St. Augustine. But the history of the 20th century, soaked copiously with the blood of innocent Jews, made many New Testament scholars hope that a less Jew-hating Paul could be salvaged from Paul's writing.Gager reviews the roots of tradi. Will the Real Paul please stand up? Gager could perhaps be starting a quest similar in intent if not in form to that of the Jesus Seminar, namely, the search for the 'real' Paul, or at least the 'real meaning' of Paul. Paul has been reinterpreted and recast in many ways over the past 2000 years, for denominational and sociological reasons. To build upon Schweitzer's observations about the changing images of Jesus, just as each age reinterprets Jesus to, in one way or another, recast Jesus in the image of that age, so too does Paul undergo a similar change. What Gager is doing, however, is not merely reinterpret
The raw truth, as most readers will acknowledge, is that Paul's ad-hoc, hastily written letters are not fully consistent. (July) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. . Yet Gager has still accomplished something important, sketching a new way of reading Paul that, if not always fully persuasive, nevertheless helps us see the man more clearly for what he was: a first-century Jew on fire with the belief that God through Jesus had opened salvation to all people. Gager wants to dispel what Paul Meyer has called the "dark Manichean shadow across the pages of Paul and his commentators"Athat is, the use of Paul to justify Christian anti-Semiti