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matthew novenson & friends on paul
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# matthew novenson & friends on paul Canonical: https://fragments.ikon.io/pieces/a-symposium-on-paul Type: folio Published: 2026-08-28T12:00:00.000Z Published version created: 2026-08-28T17:12:39.779Z ## Summary Matthew Novenson's Paul and Judaism at the End of History, read chapter by chapter, against the objections six readers would raise and against what Paul's own letters say. ## Writing PAUL & JUDAISM AT THE END OF HISTORY Matthew V. Novenson Cambridge University Press, 2024 ❦ read chapter by chapter, against the hypothesized objections of Martin Luther · Albert Schweitzer · E. P. Sanders Paula Fredriksen · N. T. Wright · David Bentley Hart AND AGAINST THE LETTERS OF PAUL HIMSELF as hallucinated by Anthropic's Fable 5 “…upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” — 1 Corinthians 10:11 ❦ ## The book Novenson's wager, in his own words, is that Paul saw the end of history as present rather than future, and that this, rather than the founding of a new religion, accounts for what is strange in him. The nine chapters below take that argument in the book's own order, followed by the works it rests on. ## The method Each chapter states what Novenson argues and on what evidence, then sets out how six readers would answer. None of the six has responded to a book published in 2024, and three of them are dead, so their positions are reconstructed from their published work; where a chapter reconstructs rather than quotes, it says so and names the work it reconstructs from. Anything inside quotation marks is quoted from the source named beside it. Every chapter then closes with what Paul's own letters say on that chapter's question, and states where they say nothing. Paul cannot be asked about a monograph, and an answer invented in his voice is the one thing this account is arranged to avoid. ## An earlier version This was first written as a dramatised symposium. Each figure spoke in the first person in an imitation of his own voice, Paul answered every objection, and the whole was assembled with the help of a language model, as this rewriting of it was. It read well and it hid its seams: an invented sentence in Luther's mouth was indistinguishable on the page from a quotation out of the 1535 Galatians lectures, and a reader had no way to tell them apart. It was rewritten in the present form on 28 August 2026. What that cost is recorded on the sources page, because it was a real cost and not only a gain. --- [The same opening as a dialogue](/pieces/a-symposium-on-paul-prologue-as-dialogue) sets these positions in the participants' own voices, which is how this was first written. ## Contents 1. [1. the christian problem of paul & judaism](https://fragments.ikon.io/pieces/1-the-christian-problem-of-paul-judaism) [Machine view](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/1-the-christian-problem-of-paul-judaism) · [Markdown](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/1-the-christian-problem-of-paul-judaism/index.md) Relation: chapter Chapter summary: Paul and the author of 4 Ezra describe the same messiah and differ only in tense. Novenson's thesis and method, and the objections Luther, Hart, Wright and Schweitzer would raise against them. 2. [2. paul's former occupation in Ἰουδαϊσμός](https://fragments.ikon.io/pieces/2-paul-s-former-occupation-i-ioudaismos) [Machine view](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/2-paul-s-former-occupation-i-ioudaismos) · [Markdown](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/2-paul-s-former-occupation-i-ioudaismos/index.md) Relation: chapter Chapter summary: Ἰουδαϊσμός names a cause rather than a creed, and only gentiles judaize. What that settles about Paul's former occupation, and what it leaves unexplained about the man. 3. [3. who says justification from works of the law?](https://fragments.ikon.io/pieces/3-who-says-justification-from-works-of-the-law) [Machine view](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/3-who-says-justification-from-works-of-the-law) · [Markdown](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/3-who-says-justification-from-works-of-the-law/index.md) Relation: chapter Chapter summary: The position Paul attacks is attested nowhere in antiquity except in his attack on it. Novenson traces the phrase to Paul's own workshop, and 4QMMT turns out not to help. 4. [4. paul versus the gentiles](https://fragments.ikon.io/pieces/4-paul-versus-the-gentiles) [Machine view](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/4-paul-versus-the-gentiles) · [Markdown](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/4-paul-versus-the-gentiles/index.md) Relation: chapter Chapter summary: Who was actually promoting proselyte circumcision? Novenson answers that it was recent gentile converts, against an assumption the field inherited from Baur two centuries ago. 5. [5. the legalism of paul](https://fragments.ikon.io/pieces/5-the-legalism-of-paul) [Machine view](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/5-the-legalism-of-paul) · [Markdown](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/5-the-legalism-of-paul/index.md) Relation: chapter Chapter summary: Paul issues detailed halakhah and expects judgment according to works. Novenson uses the word the field reserves for other people, and Sanders, Luther, Hart and Wright answer. 6. [6. the ethnic chauvinism of paul](https://fragments.ikon.io/pieces/6-the-ethnic-chauvinism-of-paul) [Machine view](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/6-the-ethnic-chauvinism-of-paul) · [Markdown](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/6-the-ethnic-chauvinism-of-paul/index.md) Relation: chapter Chapter summary: Paul held that Jews are naturally decent and gentiles naturally sinners. Novenson argues that his doctrine of grace depends on it, and so does his conviction that the end had arrived. 7. [7. carnal israel](https://fragments.ikon.io/pieces/7-carnal-israel) [Machine view](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/7-carnal-israel) · [Markdown](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/7-carnal-israel/index.md) Relation: chapter Chapter summary: Paul never writes of a true Israel or a spiritual Israel. The supposed proof-texts taken one by one, and the pressure Wright still feels in an argument the lexicon does not settle. 8. [8. liberty & justice for all](https://fragments.ikon.io/pieces/8-liberty-justice-for-all) [Machine view](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/8-liberty-justice-for-all) · [Markdown](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/8-liberty-justice-for-all/index.md) Relation: chapter Chapter summary: Romans 5 to 8 as the moral experience of immortal beings: baptism as metamorphosis, freedom as benevolent domination, and a world Paul announced rather than worked towards. 9. [9. the end of the law and the last man](https://fragments.ikon.io/pieces/9-the-end-of-the-law-and-the-last-man) [Machine view](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/9-the-end-of-the-law-and-the-last-man) · [Markdown](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/9-the-end-of-the-law-and-the-last-man/index.md) Relation: chapter Chapter summary: The law was given to mortals, and people-in-Christ have already died. Origen's two righteousnesses, the rabbis on angels and commandments, and Christ as the end of human mortality. 10. [sources](https://fragments.ikon.io/pieces/sources) [Machine view](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/sources) · [Markdown](https://fragments.ikon.io/machine/sources/index.md) Relation: chapter Chapter summary: The book under review, the works each reconstructed position rests on, and a note on why the dramatised version was replaced by this one. 11. [paul within judaism](https://fragments.ikon.io/pieces/paul-within-judaism) Chapter summary: matthew novenson is so sensible. i find his work confirming, clarifying, illuminating.