Prof Mark Nanos is a Jewish theologian who has written
several books on the Apostle Paul. See www.marknanos.com for details. A skype video interview which also gives a little of an outline of Prof. Nanos' views is available here.
He believes that much of what the Christian world ‘thinks’
the Apostle Paul said, he didn’t say at all!
I agree with him.
He argues that everything the Apostle Paul said and wrote was
in the context of his being a Jew who upheld Torah and lived by Torah[1].
Nanos argues that the Apostle Paul’s main focus was on the
coming restoration of Israel. He argues that the Apostle Paul had had an encounter with Yeshua and this very impacting event and revelation led him to believe that the
Coming Age, the Kingdom of God was dawning.
So now, the Apostle Paul saw the resurrection of Yeshua and the Spirit of the Almighty being poured out on Gentiles, while still Gentiles (i.e. not after they had been proselytized to the faith of Israel), as proof that the Kingdom, the Coming Age was dawning.
So now, the Apostle Paul saw the resurrection of Yeshua and the Spirit of the Almighty being poured out on Gentiles, while still Gentiles (i.e. not after they had been proselytized to the faith of Israel), as proof that the Kingdom, the Coming Age was dawning.
Night was ending and the new day was dawning. The world was
in transition.
In the Age to Come the great prophecies of Isaiah would finally be fulfilled when the weapons of war would be turned into implements of agriculture and the lion would lie down with the lamb.
To quote Prof. Nanos: "The Apostle Paul emphasized that with the dawning of the Age to Come within the midst of the present age, it was important to learn to live in new, Age-to-Come ways even when they might run into opposition by those who did not accept this claim that it had arrived, since it was not self-evident."
The Apostle Paul believed that the best way for the
followers of Yeshua to demonstrate that this new Age was dawning, was to live
as if it were already here. This was what we read about in Acts, when the
community of the followers of Yeshua were selling all their possessions and
sharing them with each other.
The Gentiles, coming from the Greco-Roman culture, a culture
of inequality and brutality, a culture of slaves and free, of pagan idolatry, were
being inculcated into the Jewish world, a world of mercy and justice, a world
of true equality. The problem though was that the Apostle Paul believed that
the Gentiles needed to remain Gentiles if the prophecies to Abraham were to be
fulfilled and the Messiah of Israel was to be not only the Saviour of Israel,
but of the ‘Nations’ as well.
This meant that these Gentiles were really caught between a
rock and a hard place.
Today, some 2000 years later, when we are still living
between the night and the day, in the dawn of the Coming Age (this very long time period certainly raises some challenging questions).
Before, expanding
on what this meant then, and what it means now, I would recommend that you read
my book:
‘Defending the Apostle Paul: Weighing The Evidence’
- available as an ebook from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009TLLK0U
[1] Even the use
of the term Torah needs some explanation and clarification as it can have 4
main meanings. It can mean just the 5 Books of Moses (the Pentetuch); or just
the 10 Commandments (or 10 Words), or the whole of the Tanakh, or even the
customs of the Jews. Normally, when referring to the customs the terms ‘Written
Torah’ and ‘Oral Torah’ are used. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009TLLK0U
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