Reinventing Paul

by John G. Gager

Overview

Throughout the Christian era, Paul has stood at the center of controversy, accused of being the father of Christian anti-Semitism. But have we misunderstood the man and his teachings for nearly 2,000 years? In this highly accessible book, John Gager challenges this entrenched view of Paul, arguing persuasively that Paul's words have been taken out of their original context, distorted, and generally misconstrued.
Gager takes us in search of the "real" Paul—using Paul's own writings. 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. First, he puts Paul's proselytizing in context. Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles, not the Jews. 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. Moreover, Paul relied on rhetorical devices that were familiar to his intended audience but opaque to later readers of the letters. As a result, his message has been misunderstood by all succeeding generations.
Reinventing Paul brilliantly sets forth a controversial interpretation of Paul's teaching. This thought-provoking portrait is essential reading for theologians and lay people, historians and philosophers, Christians and Jews.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198030799
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/16/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	267 KB

About the Author

John G. Gager is William H. Danforth Professor of Religion at Princeton University. The author of The Origins of Anti-Semitism and many other books and articles, he lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Editorial Reviews

Gager (religion, Princeton) has written an articulate and well-documented presentation of a controversial but increasingly popular point of view in Pauline studies. Traditionally, biblical scholars have held that Paul taught that the Church replaced the Jews as those now in covenant with God and that Paul thought the Law was no longer binding. Gager sees this as a complete misunderstanding that can be cleared up if we recognize that Paul's teachings on these issues were meant for Gentiles only. The essence of Gager's view is that since Gentiles are Paul's intended audience, it should be clear that rather than rejecting Judaism, Paul is rejecting "anti-Pauline apostles within the Jesus-movement." After he lays out the issues in question and summarizes traditional views of Paul, Gager then makes his argument and discusses various like-minded contemporary scholars, such as E.P. Sanders. He then shows how passages in the New Testament books of Galatians and Romans can be interpreted very differently when his Gentile audience is kept in mind. This informed and revolutionary view of Paul's thought will become one of the central books of modern scholarship on this subject. Highly recommended for any library.--David Bourquin, California State Univ., San Bernardino Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Library Journal

In this lucid overview of recent scholarship on the theology of the Apostle to the Gentiles, Princeton theologian Gager (The Origins of Anti-Semitism, 1983) challenges the received view of Paul as a convert from Judaism to Christianity who rejected the law of Moses and taught that God was replacing the people of Israel with a new Israel, the Christian church. Gager sees the traditional view as resting on a failure to locate Paul within rather than against the Judaism of his time (a Judaism anachronistically caricatured by later Christian commentators), on an inability to identify the intended hearers of Paul's message and the rhetorical strategies he used to persuade them, and on a tendency to illegitimately universalize the particular polemical contexts in which Paul wrote. The result was a series of fundamental misunderstandings of Paul and his gospel. A chapter on "New Views of Paul" surveys challenges to the traditional view from scholars like Krister Stendahl and E.P. Sanders (who made important contributions to viewing Paul within the context of first-century Judaism), and Lloyd Gaston and Stanley Stowers (whose work on Paul, the Torah, and the letter to the Romans are fundamental to Gager's argument). Gager concludes that the traditional wisdom about Paul is completely wrong: Paul's mission was only to the Gentiles, and his polemic against the Jewish law was directed at those in the Jesus movement who demanded that Gentiles be circumcised. Paul believed that Jews remained the people of God, in Gager's view, and although the calling of the Gentiles through Jesus was to play a role in the (imminent) salvation of Israel, belief in Jesus was not necessaryforJews. Gager puts these "new views" to work in detailed examinations of the letters to the Galatians and the Romans. Gager is attempting a very great deal in a very short space; as a result, assertions and quotations from other scholars (particularly Gaston and Stowers) sometimes take the place of arguments, and some serious exegetical difficulties (particularly in the discussion of Romans) are elided. Readers who want to explore the issues Gager raises will be well advised to turn to his sources—and, of course, to Paul.

Kirkus Reviews

"My Paul has always been a pious, pompous, and somewhat inconsistent Christian, alternately displaying the anger of Jeremiah, the vision of Isaiah, and the ego of Douglas MacArthur. Gager's Paul is pre-Christian, a Jew who believed in Jesus as the Messiah who came to fulfill, not to destroy, the Law. Pauls message, Gager contends, was written for Gentiles of the first century, not for the Church of Augustine, sixteenth-century Protestant reformers, or post-Holocaust moderns. Gagers argument from text and context is always careful, learned, clear, and courageous at times audacious. It will convince many thoughtful scholars and, at very least, will shake all serious readers, whether theologians, historians, or intelligent laity. I predict we shall soon have a new industry devoted to responding to Gager." —Walter F. Murphy Author of Upon This Rock

"In his thoughtful, incisive, and lucidly written book, John Gager presents a radical challenge to the way that people have read Paul for 2000 years. Reinventing Paul is essential reading for anyone concerned with the history of religion and the relationship between Jews and Christians." —Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels and The Gnostic Paul : Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letter

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