The Apostle Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians provide ample testimony to his attitude towards Torah and Judaism, even if we may look in vain for complete consistency. Scrutinising these two letters closely, Australian scholar Father Brendan Byrne SJ finds that what made Paul so attractive to those who compiled and commissioned the canon of the New Testament – his putatively negative attitude towards both Torah and his native religion – is not as conspicuous as held to be by the early Church’s theologians nor, indeed, by the majority of their successors.
Some sections of this study were originally presented by Father Byrne to public meetings of the Council of Christians and Jews Victoria . Father Byrne later generously distributed his material for comment to Professor Frank Moloney SDB, AM, Sister Shirley Sedawie NDS, Rev Anne Amos, Rev Dr Colin Kruse and Rev Dr Nigel Mitchell. The Annotated Bibliography is the work of Rev Professor Emeritus Nigel Watson.
A fuller treatment of some of the study’s issues are in Father Byrne’s widely acclaimed commentary, Romans (Collegeville, Minnesota: Glazier, 1996).
To read Father Byrne’s study, please click here: Re-Reading Paul