Bible
Jesus and the Law of Moses The Gospels and the Restoration of Israel within First-Century Judaism Paul T. Sloan Jesus regularly engaged the Law and its interpretation in his inter- actions with both crowds and other teachers. While many scholars have interpreted his teaching as criticizing legalism, nationalism, or externalism, in this study of Jesus and the Law in the Synoptic Gospels, Paul Sloan suggests an alternative. Sloan argues that the proper framework for understanding Jesus’s teaching is Israel’s Scripture and Second Temple expectations of the restoration of the covenant between God and Israel. Conse- quently, this book focuses on the Gospels’ depiction of Jesus as both the herald of this restoration and the authoritative interpreter of the Law. Within this perspective, Jesus’s legal disputes consti- tute intramural debate about the Law’s interpretation and his claim to be the divinely commissioned herald of the restoration. In ad- dition to examining legal disputes, Sloan interprets Jesus’s action in the temple and his crucifixion within this restorationist context, and he concludes by showing congruity between Jesus’s teaching of the Law and the use of the Law in Acts and in Paul’s Letters. This thorough yet accessible book contributes to the ongoing dis- cussion of Jesus and the Law in the first-century Jewish context. It will challenge students of the Gospels and readers of the broader New Testament to reconsider some common understandings of the Law and its reception in early Christianity.
AUGUST 2025 • 288 pp. • paper • $32.99 • 9781540966384
CONTENTS
Paul T. Sloan (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is associate professor of early Christianity at Houston Christian University. He is the author of Mark 13 and the Return of the Shepherd and the coeditor of Son of God: Divine Sonship in Jewish and Christian Antiquity, New Studies in Textual Interplay , and Visions and Violence in the Pseudepigrapha.
Introduction
1. Israel and the Law of Moses 2. How Shall We Return? Restoration Eschatology in Early Judaism 3. The Beatitudes and the Law 4. Conflict and Controversy 5. I Came to Call Sinners: The Restoration and Eschatological Nomism 6. The Temple and the Cross Conclusion: The Law in the New Testament Indexes
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