A new perspective on Paul and his relation to his Jewish heritage has recently emerged, particularly in the interpretation of Romans. The author, in dialogue with recent international scholarship, explores the context and theology of Paul's most influential letter. Paul's strategy, when faced with the divisions in the house-churches, is to stress the continuity between the new messianic faith and the faith of Israel. In Christ, in the renewed convenant, Israel's election is both confirmed and transformed. In view of the inalienable place of Israel, Christian identity cannot now be defined in anti-Jewish or in purely Gentile terms. Paradoxically, although Paul argues 'there is no distinction in Christ between Jew and Gentile', socially he is prepared to recognize abiding differences in life-style, and he does not advocate that Christian Jews separate from the synagogue. Paul's challenge is to accept one another as different, but as equals in Christ, until the full realization of God's purpose for Israel and the world. Paul's gospel is a gospel of hope, both for Israel and the 'nations'. He is confident that God has the power to fulfil his purposes and achieve his covenant goal for all humanity.

This work suggests that it is possible to maintain that Paul had a lively interest in the salvation of the individual, without having to revert to traditional Lutheran interpretations of the text. It focuses on three important texts in Romans.

The legacy of Pauline scholarship, from ancient to modern, is characterised by a surfeit of unsettled, conflicting conclusions that often fail to interpret Paul in relation to his Jewish roots. William S. Campbell takes a stand against this paradigm, emphasising continuity between Judaism and the Christ-movement in Paul's letters. Campbell focusses on important themes, such as diversity, identity and reconciliation, as the basic components of transformation in Christ. The stance from which Paultheologises is one that recognises and underpins social and cultural diversity and includes the correlating demand that because difference is integral to the Christ-movement, the enmity associated with difference cannot be tolerated. Thus, reconciliation emerges as a fundamental value in the Christ-movement. Reconciliation, in this sense, respects and does not negate the particularities of the identity of Jews and those from the nations. In this paradigm, transformation implies the re-evaluation of all things in Christ, whether of Jewish or gentile origin.

Douglas Campbell gives a clear account of why much current description of Paul's theology, and of his gospel and of his theory of salvation, is so confused. After outlining the difficulties underlying much of the current debate he lays out some basic options that will greatly clarify the debate. He then engages with these options and shows how one offers far more promise than the others, sketching out some of its initial applications. Campbell then shows in more detail how another option -- the main alternative, and the main culprit in terms of many of our difficulties -- can be circumvented textually, in a responsible fashion. That is, we see how we could remove this option from Paul's text exegetically, and so reach greater clarity. Finally, he concludes with a 'road-map' of where future, more detailed, research into Paul needs to go if the foregoing strategy is to be carried out thoroughly. Campbell believes that by utilising this strategy Paul's gospel will be shown to be both cogent and constructive. This is volume 274 in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement series.

This book provides various perspectives concerning Paul's message in the context of Jewish eschatological expectation, particularly the notions of the end-time redemption of Israel and its relation to the Gentiles, the non-Jewish nations.

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The apostle Paul has long been championed, or criticized, as a Christian thinker, as a brilliant theological genius, or an enthusiastic convert who spun arguments to justify his new allegiances. In these essays, Neil Elliott engages some of the most provocative currents in contemporary scholarship, including Paul and the nature of violence; the presumptions of religious, cultural, or national innocence in particular interpretations of the apostle; the recent enthusiasm for Paul in some streams of Marxist thought; competing construals of economic realities in Paul’s day (and our own); and questions surrounding Paul’s legacy today.