Paul's letter to the Romans, says Nanos, is an example of Jewish correspondence, addressing believers in Jesus who are steeped in Jewish ways-whether of Jewish or gentile origin. Arguing against those who think Paul was an apostate from Judaism, Nanos maintains Paul's continuity with his Jewish heritage. Several key arguments here are: Those addressed in Paul's letter were still an integral part of the Roman synagogue communities. The "weak" are non- Christian Jews, while the "strong" included both Jewish and gentile converts to belief in Jesus. Paul as a practicing devout Jew insists on the rules of behavior for "the righteous gentiles." Christian subordination to authorities (Romans 13:1-7) is intended to enforce submission to leaders of the synagogues, not Roman government officials. Paul behaves in a way to confirm the very Jewish portrait of him in Acts: going first to the synagogues.

The purchase of a slave for their teacher leads a group of schoolboys in ancient Rome into a dangerous intrigue.

Paul's Letter to the Romans is one of the most influential writings of Christian theology. In this reinterpretation, the author provides a new reading that places Romans within the sociocultural, historical and rhetorical contexts of Paul's world.

Over fifty years ago, Vatican II's Nostra Aetate 4 drew from Romans 11 to challenge the way Paul's voice has been used to negatively discuss Jews and Judaism. The church called for Catholics to conceptualize Jews as "brothers" in "an everlasting covenant," and many other Christian organizations have expressed similar sentiments in the years since. Nevertheless, the portrayal of Jews as "branches broken off," "hardened," "without faith," "disobedient," and "enemies of God" whom Christians have "replaced" as "true Israel," are among the many ways that readers encounter Paul's views of Jews and Judaism in today's translations and interpretations of this chapter, and throughout the letter as well. In the chapters in this volume, Nanos shows why these translations and interpretive decisions, among others, do not likely represent what Paul wrote or meant. Each essay offers challenges to the received view of Paul from the research hypothesis that Paul and the Christ-followers to whom he wrote were still practicing Judaism (a Jewish way of life) within subgroups of the Jewish synagogue communities of Rome, and that they understood Paul to observe Torah and promote Judaism for their communities.

It is AD 186, and Britain is the northernmost province of the hugely successful Roman Empire. In Glevum (modern Gloucester), Libertus, a freedman and pavement-maker, lives under the patronage of Marcus Septimus. When a body is found in the furnace room of a nearby villa, and identified as that of Crassus Germanicus, a retired centurion, Marcus asks for Libertus's help. A slave is missing and the solution to the mystery seems obvious. But Libertus soon discovers that Germanicus has many enemies, and he must use his mosaicist's skill to put together the pieces of a most deadly puzzle.

What survives from the Roman Empire is largely the words and lives of the rich and powerful: emperors, philosophers, senators. Yet the privilege and decadence often associated with the Roman elite was underpinned by the toils and tribulations of the common citizens. Here, the eminent historian Robert Knapp brings those invisible inhabitants of Rome and its vast empire to light. He seeks out the ordinary folk—laboring men, housewives, prostitutes, freedmen, slaves, soldiers, and gladiators—who formed the backbone of the ancient Roman world, and the outlaws and pirates who lay beyond it. He finds their traces in the nooks and crannies of the histories, treatises, plays, and poetry created by the elite. Everyday people come alive through original sources as varied as graffiti, incantations, magical texts, proverbs, fables, astrological writings, and even the New Testament. Knapp offers a glimpse into a world far removed from our own, but one that resonates through history. Invisible Romans allows us to see how Romans sought on a daily basis to survive and thrive under the afflictions of disease, war, and violence, and to control their fates before powers that variously oppressed and ignored them.

Paul tells those at Corinth, he "speaks the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory. Which none of the princes knew; for had they know it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory." To those at Rome he says, it is "the mystery which was kept secret since the world began; but is now, made manifest by the scriptures of the prophets." Struct blind on the road to Damascus, Saul returns from the desert, as the new man Paul. He tells the believers at Colossae: "Whereof, I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you, to fufil the word of God; even the mystery which has been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints." The mystery, which Paul reveals wihin his letters, is the key to understanding every story, every parable, and the intent of God's every intervention into the lives of men. Those letters entice believers to search for the "mystery of his will;" no longer hidden, they now reveal the "mystery of godliness." I`Corinthians 2:7-8; Romans 16:25-26: Colossians 1:25-26; Ephesians 1:9; I Timothy 3:16