In this recent study on Paul and the significance of the Gentile mission associated with him, Paula Fredriksen analyzes the decisive role that intra-Jewish debate over the status of Gentiles played in the development of the early Jesus movement during the lifetime of Paul. In the process, her study adds an important entry to the list of contemporary scholarship that seeks to contextualize Paul's remarks on Torah observance as it relates to Gentiles squarely against the prophetic backdrop of the eschatological vision of the ingathering of Gentiles at the close of the age.

A key feature in the study is the proposal that the Gentile adherents to Jesus targeted by Paul in his letters occupied a liminal, and highly unstable identity vis à vis their surrounding Jewish and Greco-Roman socio-religious contexts. Previously affiliated with synagogue communities in the diaspora, and selectively observing some Jewish customs, these Gentiles were neither required nor expected by their Jewish hosts to abandon their pagan ancestral religious traditions; rather, it was assumed that they would continue to worship their own familial and civic cults and remain ethnically, as well as religiously, pagan. The epigraphical evidence that Fredriksen marshals in support of this inclusive stance demonstrates not only that Jewish communities were fully integrated in diaspora cities but that they also welcomed Gentiles as worshipping pagans within their places of prayer, study, and communal gathering spaces.

Dismantling the delicate social and religious equilibrium between Jews and non-Jews in the diaspora synagogues were Jewish Jesus adherents who, in the context of their missionary work to Gentiles in diaspora synagogues, demanded of the latter the complete renunciation of their ancestral worship, without, however, insisting on circumcision for males. Requiring Gentile adherents to Jesus to renounce their idols without, however, insisting on full-blown proselyte conversion, effectively made such gentile God-fearers neither pagans nor Jews. Instead, what emerged was a completely new and therefore socially and religiously deviant category of persons whose deviancy posed real risks to both the surrounding Greco-Roman and Jewish communities.

Although this proposal is intriguing, Fredriksen does not entirely succeed in offering an altogether persuasive account for why the requirement to renounce idol worship was placed on Gentiles in the first place. She argues that the earliest Jewish missionaries associated with Jesus in Palestine likely inherited Jesus's nonconcern for Gentiles; as a result, they naturally focused on missionizing fellow Jews once they began their missionary outreach in the diaspora. Fredriksen argues that the willingness of Gentiles to renounce their idols in response to the Gospel proclamation was an unexpected occurrence; as such, it elicited what she describes as an “improvised policy” for regulating Gentile membership in the new ecclesia. Integral to this policy was the conscious eschewing of the traditional diaspora synagogue practice that permitted Gentiles to attend the local synagogue without renouncing their pagan ancestral customs. In its place was instituted the more stringent requirement forbidding idol worship. But if Fredriksen is correct in her claim that these Jewish missionaries from Palestine were nurtured by the eschatological vision of Gentiles turning to the God of Israel, why then were these missionaries surprised when they encountered the apparent fulfillment of this prophetic hope? Moreover, what was it about the proclamation of the crucified and risen Jesus that elicited this unexpected response to begin with? Fredriksen never quite provides consistent answers to these questions. Overall, Fredriksen has provided the reader with a well-argued and engaging study that attends thoughtfully and provocatively to the apocalyptic context of Paul's letters. Her study also helpfully builds upon the still relevant sociological insight made some time ago by Krister Stendahl concerning the need to interpret Paul's statements on Torah observance against the backdrop of the eschatological vision of full Gentile admittance into the covenant people of God.