Language:
English
Year of publication:
2022
Titel der Quelle:
The Oxford Handbook of Pauline Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2022) 371-388
Keywords:
Paul, Criticism and interpretation
;
New Testament. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
;
Christianity and other religions Judaism 1st century
;
History
;
Jews in the New Testament
;
Gentiles in the New Testament
Abstract:
When Paul says ‘Israel’, what or whom does he have in mind? Christian theological tradition has long answered that by ‘Israel’, a universalist Paul means ethnically non-specific ‘Christians’. But a great deal of evidence in Paul’s letters weighs against such an idea. This chapter examines, in turn, the modern myth of a post-ethnic Paul, ancient ideas about divine and human ethnicity, Paul’s language about Jewish and gentile ‘natures’, Paul’s language about Jewish and Gentile kinds of sins, Paul’s application of different Jewish laws to Jews and Gentiles, respectively, and finally Paul’s actual usage of the ethnonyms ‘Jew’ and ‘Israel’. It is concluded that, for Paul, Jews are Israel, and Israel, his own family, is the Jews. God, through Christ, at the end of the ages (mid-first century CE), was graciously calling all humanity into the redemption that he had promised to Israel long ago. Eschatological humanity thus remains two different people groups—Israel and the nations—embraced by a single salvation.
DOI:
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199600489.013.34
URL:
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