This grant project will support the writing of my book, tentatively titled, Left Behind: The Apostle Paul on Jews, Gentiles, and Who Gets Saved (under contract with Fortress Press). Left Behind introduces readers to Paul as someone who theologized Jesus from within his own Judaism. Paul’s belief in Jesus as the Christ did not counter his own Judaism; rather, it added to it. Paul, ever the apocalyptic thinker, believed Jesus was the Jewish messiah who would usher in the Jewish God’s everlasting kingdom in the end of days. Contra some post-Holocaust orientations, however, it also argues that, according to Paul, only believers in Christ would be welcomed. Jews and Gentiles who did not believe in Christ would either be forced to change their faith (via God’s own might, no less) or be left behind from the messianic age. Such exclusivism, moreover, stems from Paul's Hellenistic Jewish worldview.

This is a difficult argument to make, not for historical or textual reasons but rather for ethical ones. As a Jewish New Testament scholar—one who does not orient their world to Jesus as the Christ—I am excluded from Paul’s understanding of the end times. Naming Paul's ethnocentrism as part of his Judaism also carries the risk of furthering anti-Jewish hate. History has certainly shown the effects of this kind of thinking. With the weight of the Shoah remaining on New Testament scholarship, which is haunted by centuries of Christian anti-Judaism, my book thus also investigates the ethical stakes of my analysis. Have thinkers, for example, manipulated the biblical text so as to make it "good" for modern Jews? If so, is this the most ethical move? Or does it whitewash history and bypass hard conversation? This project culminates in interviews with a variety of Jewish and Christian thinkers (as well as persons from other or non-faith traditions) on my thesis and such questions, and in turn invites readers to consider the impact of biblical analysis and meaning-making for themselves.