While interest in Paul's relationship to Judaism has been growing recently, this study adds an important aspect by comparing Paul’s practical instruction with the ancient halakha or Jewish traditional law. First Corinthians is found to be a source of prime importance, and surprisingly, halakha appears to be basic to Paul's instruction for non-Jewish Christians. The book includes thorough discussion of hermeneutic and methodological implications, always viewed in relation to the history of Pauline and Judaic study. Attention is also being paid to the setting within Hellenistic culture. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the texture of Paul's thought and these are applied to two ‘theological’ passages decisive for his place in Judaism. Historical and theological implications are vast, both regarding Paul's relationship to Judaism, his attitude towards Jesus and his Apostles, and the meaning of his teaching concerning justification and the Law.

It is a remarkable fact that the writings of Philo, the Jew from Alexandria, were preserved because they were taken up in the Christian tradition. But the story of how this process of reception and appropriation took place has never been systematically research. In this book the author first examines how Philo's works are related to the New Testament and the earliest Chritian writing, and then how they were used by Greek and Latin church fathers up to 400 c.e., with special attention to the contributions of Clement, Origen, Didymus, Eusebius, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, and Augustine. Philo in Early Christian Literature is a valuable guide to the state of scholarly research on a subject that has thus far been investigated in a rather piecemeal fashion.

This volume demonstrates that we should understand nascent Christianity and early Judaism as sharing to a large extent the same traditions. It throws fresh light on the Jewishness of the Two Ways teaching in Didache 1-6 as it presents a cautious reconstruction of the Jewish prototype of the Two Ways and traces the Jewish life situation in which the instruction could flourish. In the field of liturgical studies, a significant contribution is made to the discussion of Didache 7-10. It improves our understanding of the Jewish provenance and historical development of Baptism and Eucharist. The book also presents an intriguing look into the ministry of itinerant apostles and prophets (Didache 11-15) considering the larger environment of Jewish religious and cultural history.

An unprecedented rereading of the passages from the New Testament and other early Christian writings that ascribe saving significance to Jesus' death on the basis of an in-depth study of second-temple Jewish thought regarding atonement, sacrifice, suffering, and death. This 2-volume work is the result of over 40 years of research on the subject.

Goy: Israel's Others and the Birth of the Gentile traces the development of the term and category of the goy from the Bible to rabbinic literature. Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi show that the category of the goy was born much later than scholars assume; in fact not before the first century CE. They explain that the abstract concept of the gentile first appeared in Paul's Letters. However, it was only in rabbinic literature that this category became the center of a stable and long standing structure that involved God, the Halakha, history, and salvation. The authors narrate this development through chronological analyses of the various biblical and post biblical texts (including the Dead Sea scrolls, the New Testament and early patristics, the Mishnah, and rabbinic Midrash) and synchronic analyses of several discursive structures. Looking at some of the goy's instantiations in contemporary Jewish culture in Israel and the United States, the study concludes with an examination of the extraordinary resilience of the Jew/goy division and asks how would Judaism look like without the gentile as its binary contrast.

This book considers the early history of Jewish-Christian relations focussing on the fallen angels.

This work explores Paul's conception of maturity, paying special attention to the maturation process and the role of the local church in facilitating this process. Although central to Paul's theology, maturity is often overlooked in Pauline studies. An exegetical-theological study of the seven generally accepted epistles, this work makes heuristic use of three studies for the purpose of illuminating Paul's thoughts regarding maturity: a survey of modern psychology, and analyses of the communities of Qumran and of the Therapeutae. Samra argues that Paul understood his apostolic commission to involve delivering mature believers on the day of Christ. Samra suggests that the central motif of Pauline maturity is conformity of believers to the image of Christ and that believers' attitudes and actions become aligned with those exhibited by Christ, who provides the defining standard of maturity for Paul. For Paul there are five means used by the Spirit to conform believers to the image of Christ, which Samra presents and analyzes as components of the maturation process, namely: identifying with Christ, enduring suffering, experiencing the presence of God, receiving and living out wisdom from God, and imitating a godly example. Samra concludes by arguing that Paul expected the local church to facilitate maturation so that believers' participation in a local assembly would result in their being conformed to Christ. The church does this by facilitating the five components of the maturation process.

The present volume gathers up studies by Peter J. Tomson, written over thirty-odd years, that deal with ancient Jewish law and identity, the teachings of Jesus, the letters of Paul, and the historiiography of early Jews and Christians. Notable subject areas are Jewish purity laws, divorce law, and the use of the name 'Jews'. The author also examines Jesus' teachings as understood in their primary and secondary contexts, the various situations Paul's highly differentiated rhetoric may have addressed, and the causes contributing to the growing tension between Jews and Christians and the so-called parting of the ways.

Revised thesis (doctoral) - Norwegian Lutheran School of Theology, Oslo, 2005.