Pauls Gentile-Jews: Neither Jew nor Gentile, but Both [Paperback]

Drawing upon the concepts of cultural and linguistic hybridity developed by Homi Bhabha, Salman Rushdie, Mikhail Bakhtin, and others, Garroway suggests that the first generation of Gentile converts were uncertain whether they had become Jews or remained Gentiles in the wake of their baptism into Christ.Introduction PART I The Gentile-Jew Paul's 'Christians' as 'Gentile-Jews' PART II Paul's Epistle to the Romans: Purpose and Audience Romans 4:1-12 : Gentiles as Descendants of Abraham 'According to the Flesh' Rom. 15:7-13 : The Circumcision of Christ 6 Romans 9-11: Israel, (Un)naturally Conclusion Bibliography

This is a field-changing book. Garroway has solved the problem of what to call the members of the communities Paul founded, in our language but from Paul's point of view: they are an unstable hybrid, Gentile-Jews, a category that played a significant role in the later emergence of Christianity as a third entity. He has also shown that Paul, even as a cultural critic, did not attempt to eliminate the ethnocentricity or nationalism in the definition of 'the Jew' - rather, Gentiles had to be Jews to enter the redefined 'Israel.' Faith made them really Jews, though in an unstable way. Anyone interested in Paul should read this engaging study. - Adela Yarbro Collins, Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, Yale University Divinity School

Paul's Gentile-Jews is a clear, lucid, creative, and provocative read. Using the work of Homi Bhabha and Mikhail Bakhtin, Garroway argues for an entirely new way to understand the transformed identity of those Gentiles who accepted Paul's message about Christ. Given the number of studies on Paul, it is hard to avoid hackneyed discussion. But Garroway's work is highly original, worth the time of anyone interested in Paul for that matter, anyone interested in the early identity formation of those whom we would later call Christians. - Pamela Eisenbaum, associate professor of BiblĂ*