Paul’s former life in “Judaism”—whatever that was

Matthew Thiessen is keen to demonstrate that “Paul did not convert from an established religion called Judaism to a new religion called Christianity” (A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles, 57). We can agree on that.

His conversion was to a radical allegiance to the one whom he believed had been appointed by the living God to be Israel’s Messiah, the future judge and ruler of the nations. We somewhat disagree on that, I think—Thiessen’s account of Paul’s eschatology seems to me incoherent, but I’ll come back to that another day.

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