Did Paul instigate Christianity's separation from Judaism, if one considers the stark polemical contrasts of 'new' and 'old' covenant in 2 Cor 3? Emmanuel Nathan argues that Paul reconfigured traditions and memories shaping the identity of his community at Corinth.

Emmanuel Nathan's study is driven by the hermeneutical question of whether the covenantal contrasts in 2 Cor 3, in which Paul's use of 'new covenant' in 2 Cor 3:6 is set in stark polemical antithesis to an 'old covenant' (2 Cor 3:14), lie at the origin of the later Christian self-understanding as members of a new covenant that replaced the old. In other words, can Paul be said to be the founder of formative 'Christianity', even if one nuances the term 'Christianity' as a sect within the Judaisms of Paul's time? Using social memory theory, the author reframes the larger question of Paul's continuity or discontinuity with Judaism and seeks instead to examine the ways in which Paul refracted, redeployed, and reconfigured existing traditions in service of local needs, among them the formation and transformation of character among his community at Corinth.

Autorentext
Born 1975; 2001-10 BA, MA, STB, STL, PhD, STD, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; currently Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies and Comparative Theology, School of Theology, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, Australian Catholic University, Sydney, Australia.