Matthew Thiessen. <i>A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles</i>

One of the earliest readers of Paul was perhaps the first to admit that some of Paul’s writings are difficult to understand (2 Pet 3:16). If this confession is true of an ancient reader, how much more for us today? And yet, this admittance is often lost on contemporary readers who—largely unwittingly—domesticate Paul, making him more like “us” than the ancient Jew that he was. To this concern, Matthew Thiessen, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at McMaster University, attempts to lean into this issue by demonstrating how Paul related to the Judaism of his day. In short, Thiessen offers “a brief account of Paul’s thinking in a way that seeks to situate him within and not against the Jewish world that was part of the larger ancient Mediterranean world” (p. 9).A Jewish Paul is divided into twelve chapters, bookended by an introduction and conclusion. The introduction establishes the need for the present volume and provides a brief survey of the diverse landscape of Pauline studies. Thiessen situates his own reading both within and against the various perspectives on Paul, ultimately aligning with the Paul within Judaism perspective (hereafter: PwJ).Chapter 1 sets out to make Paul weird again by challenging terminology (e.g., “Christian”) that is anachronistic and therefore misleading when considering Paul and the ancient world. It concludes with a brief discussion of methodology whereby Paul will be read within his first-century Jewish and non-Jewish contexts. Chapter 2 asks the reader to (re)consider a long-lost reading of Paul by demonstrating how Luke’s portrayal of a Torah-observant Jewish Paul coheres with the historical Paul of his letters. According to Thiessen, Paul should be read as “one Jew living his life and following his perceived calling amid the diversity and richness of first-century Judaism” (p. 35). Chapters 3 and 4, then, seek to locate Paul amid this diversity and richness. Thiessen highlights the pluriform nature of ancient Judaism, especially in relation to the question of gentile deliverance; and he demonstrates how Paul, who remained thoroughly Jewish, had, like other ancient Jews, his own set of convictions about the redemption of gentiles.Chapters 5–8 interrogate more specifically the question of gentile deliverance in view of the gentile problem. Chapter 5 identifies the plight of gentiles. Thiessen demonstrates how certain strands of ancient Jewish thinking and likewise Paul rendered the gentile problem as one of hopeless idolatry. Chapter 6 begins to unpack the solution: the work of Jesus, Israel’s Messiah. According to Thiessen, however, the work of Jesus naturally raises the question of how gentiles receive access to the promises made to Abraham and thus Israel’s Messiah if they are not Abraham’s progeny. Chapter 7 considers the way some ancient Jews answered this question, namely, proselyte circumcision. For Paul, however, proselyte circumcision was a nonstarter because it was not covenantal (eighth day). Chapter 8, then, proposes Paul’s solution, what Thiessen calls “pneumatic gene therapy,” whereby the pneuma of the Messiah enters gentiles, alters their DNA, and connects them to Abraham.Following this, chapters 9–12 explore the implications of the Messiah’s pneuma. Chapter 9 considers the gentiles’ connection to it, thus constituting and representing the Messiah’s body on earth. Thiessen is careful to demonstrate how pneumatically filled gentile bodies can represent the temple without replacing the Jerusalem temple. Chapters 10 and 11 highlight the pneumatic resurrected life, which releases Messiah followers from sin and evil, empowers them to oppose the flesh, and ultimately culminates in a bodily resurrection from the dead. This resurrection is, however, not of material flesh and blood bodies but the material of pneuma. Chapter 12 provides some reflection on how Paul’s logic would relate to Jews. Thiessen then concludes by challenging readers to read Paul as a first-century Jew and avoid the anti-Judaism that often accompanies the interpretation of his letters.Overall, A Jewish Paul is a welcomed contribution to the study of Paul as it opens several doors for further inquiry, especially for scholars who align with PwJ. But perhaps more importantly, it provides a much-needed introduction to PwJ for nonspecialists. And so, as a scholar who aligns with PwJ and is therefore largely sympathetic to Thiessen’s arguments and conclusions, I will limit my evaluation to two perceived limitations.First, when Thiessen turns his attention to his discussion of pneuma, my sense is that it will strike most readers as an abrupt shift. That is, Thiessen’s Jewish Paul seemingly morphs into a Stoic Paul without much rationale. This raises the question of whether Thiessen could have done more to demonstrate how Stoic ideas of pneuma, especially as they relate to the idea of gene therapy, truly reflect and substantiate the broader portrait of a Jewish Paul.Second, for a book written with nonspecialists in view, the discussion of pneuma becomes somewhat technical. It is likely that Thiessen’s explanation of material pneuma and pneumatic gene therapy will require more background knowledge than the average reader has, especially for it to be intelligible and appreciated. My suspicion is that, for the average reader, aspects of this discussion will confuse more than clarify.Putting these minor quibbles aside, A Jewish Paul provides an excellent introduction to Paul the Jew, even for nonspecialists. I have assigned it to my undergraduate students and will continue to do so. If you are looking for a clear and accessible approach to Paul within his Jewish symbolic universe, A Jewish Paul is an unrivaled starting point.