The Apostle Paul in the Jewish Imagination: A Study in Modern Jewish-Christian Relations. By DANIEL R. LANGTON.

Abstract

We stand in what has been described as a ‘new moment' in the intellectual history of the Apostle Paul. Across subject areas which traditionally have had little or no cause to trouble scholarly readers of the New Testament, and on the part of individuals who have had little reason to engage with the Apostle previously, a burgeoning interest in the Apostle to the Gentiles can be observed. Langton's latest book, a work continuing his studies into modern Jewish thought after his earlier biography of Claude Montefiore (2002), sets out to explore the figure of Paul in modern Jewish thought. At least one consequence of his study therefore is the reminder that Jewish readings of the Apostle feature at the heart of this Pauline ‘moment', and that sustained Jewish engagement with the Apostle is a distinctly modern phenomenon (p. 19)—reasons for which Langton seeks to explore. An introduction makes clear Langton's goal, which is to describe Jewish readings and constructions of Paul and the function of those readings within shifting Jewish self-understandings and understandings of Jewish and Christian relations more broadly (pp. 12–17). The study proceeds to survey a remarkable number of commentators on Paul (at least 39) in turn. They are ordered by classification into popular, theological, artistic, literary, philosophical, and psychoanalytic approaches. A conclusion draws together the results of this survey, in which Langton suggests reading Paul has provided these Jewish commentators with the means of working out their own Jewishness in the modern world.