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Paul is one of the most influential figures in human history. He is also one of the most misunderstood.

For many people, Paul is remembered as the person who moved the Jesus movement away from Judaism and helped create what eventually became Christianity. But what if that framing misses something important?

In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Ryan Lambert sits down with New Testament scholar Dr. Anders Runesson to explore a radically different way of understanding Paul, the early Jesus movement, and the relationship between Judaism and the New Testament.

Drawing from his book Judaism for Gentiles, Dr. Runesson challenges many of the assumptions modern readers bring to Paul, the word “church,” the synagogue, and even the idea of Christianity itself.

Together, Ryan and Anders discuss:
• Whether Paul was a “Christian” in the later sense
• What Paul and his contemporaries would have understood by the word ekklesia
• Why translating ekklesia as “church” can be misleading
• How first-century synagogues functioned in the Greco-Roman world
• The relationship between synagogues and Greco-Roman associations
• The idea of “apostolic Judaism” and what life may have looked like for Gentile participants in the early Jesus movement

This conversation explores what it might look like to read Paul more carefully within his original Jewish context and why that matters for Jews and Christians today.

Part 2 coming soon.

Judaism for Gentiles is available as an open-access book at https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/judaism-for-gentiles-9783161619960/ 

Learn more about Dr. Anders Runesson at http://www.andersrunesson.com/

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Download the free PDF "Recovering the Jewish Paul: Three Keys to Understanding the Apostle and Building Bridges Between Jews and Christians" 

The Weird Apostle 
Ryan's book places the Apostle Paul in his Jewish and Greco-Roman context.

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