It's the Fourth of July. You're savoring some baby back ribs your wife seasoned to perfection with her secret sauce-maple Dijon, cumin, chili powder, paprika, all the trimmings-which you expertly grilled to perfection. Lots of succulent pork chops are sizzling on your grill, the fat crackling and permeating slowly into the moist meat. Already on your fourth Bud, you suddenly recall your college French. With the loudest smack of your lips, you exclaim headily:
ça met l'eau à la bouche
! Makes your mouth water, you explain to your bemused kids. With that earthy, pungent aroma suffusing the hot summer air and curling its way from your grill all the way up to the heavens, you suddenly find yourself face-to-face with unexpected guests in your backyard-Jesus and Paul! All you can blurt out is an effete "Cool." Sheepishly, you hand each of them an ice-cold beer. "Hold my beer," Jesus says to you brusquely. "So, you were chowing down on swine with these Gentiles back in the day, huh?" snorts a visibly disgusted Jesus, even as he gives Paul the side-eye. "Hold up, Man. I had my Gentiles follow the Law. I did!" Paul cringes.
Imagine a world in which Christians observed Passover instead of Easter, kept Tabernacles in place of Christmas, and adhered to kosher laws strictly. Based solely on Paul's authentic letters, this carefully argued work proves that he did direct Gentile Christians to observe the Law, and he never purveyed a Law-free gospel at all. This volume proposes that Paul strategically used both praise of but also disdain for the Law to subtly convey to his Gentile converts his covert instructions not to worship Caesar as
Dominus et deus noster-
our Lord and God-the imperial cult being mandated for all in Empire under penalty of death.
The Paul-and-the-Law puzzle, which has perplexed scholars for two millennia, is finally solved in this transformative work. If you thought Paul's was a Law-free gospel, diving into this volume will turn your world upside down. Up for the challenge?