Paul Among the Gentiles: A "Radical" Reading of Romans

The book presents a "radical" new interpretation of Paul's letter to the Romans. The author reads Romans as addressed exclusively to gentiles, since Paul presents himself unequivocally as "apostle to the gentiles" (Rom 11:13). He perceives Romans to be (primarily) a dialogue between Paul and a gentile interlocutor who "calls himself a Jew" (Rom 2:17) even though he is a gentile. This gentile interlocutor represents the Roman audience. By reading Romans in this way, the study creates a continuous and unified interpretation.

This exciting new interpretation of Paul's Letter to the Romans approaches Paul's most famous letter from one of the newest scholarly positions within Pauline Studies: The Radical New Perspective on Paul (also known as Paul within Judaism). As a point of departure, the author takes Paul's self-designation in 11:13 as "apostle to the gentiles" as so determining for Paul's mission that the audience of the letter is perceived to be exclusively gentile. The study finds confirmation of this reading-strategy in the letter's construction of the interlocutor from chapter 2 onwards. Even in 2:17, where Paul describes the interlocutor as someone who "calls himself a Jew," it requests to perceive this person as a gentile who presents himself as a Jew and not an ethnic Jew. If the interlocutor is perceived in this way throughout the letter, the dialogue between Paul and the interlocutor can be perceived as a continuous, unified and developing dialogue. In this way, this interpretation of Romans sketches out a position against a more disparate and fragmentary interpretation of Romans.

Autorentext

Jacob P.B. Mortensen received his Masters Degree in Theology and a secondary Master in Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen. He finished his doctoral studies in 2014 from Aarhus University.
He is currently executing post-doctoral research on the Gospel of Mark at Aarhus University and has published articles on Philosophy of Religion, Old Testament Theology, the Pseudepigrapha, Greco-Roman rhetoric and, primarily, New Testament subjects.

Klappentext

This exciting new interpretation of Paul's Letter to the Romans approaches Paul's most famous letter from one of the newest scholarly positions within Pauline Studies: The Radical New Perspective on Paul (also known as Paul within Judaism). As a point of departure, the author takes Paul's self-designation in 11:13 as "apostle to the gentiles" as so determining for Paul's mission that the audience of the letter is perceived to be exclusively gentile. The study finds confirmation of this reading-strategy in the letter's construction of the interlocutor from chapter 2 onwards. Even in 2:17, where Paul describes the interlocutor as someone who "calls himself a Jew," it requests to perceive this person as a gentile who presents himself as a Jew and not an ethnic Jew. If the interlocutor is perceived in this way throughout the letter, the dialogue between Paul and the interlocutor can be perceived as a continuous, unified and developing dialogue. In this way, this interpretation of Romans sketches out a position against a more disparate and fragmentary interpretation of Romans.

Inhalt
1 State of Research - the radical new perspective 2 Terminology: jews, gentiles, Christians, or something else? 3 Introductory Questions - Gentile addressees 4 A fictive gentile interlocutor 5 Romans 1:18-32 6 Romans 2:1-29 7 Romans 3:1-31 8 Romans 4:1-25 9 Romans 5:1-21 10 Romans 6:1-7:6 11 Romans 7:7-25 12 Romans 8:1-39 13 Romans 9-11 14 Romans 12-15 and the relation between the theological and the paraenetic part of the letter