Noting that a traditional understanding of Paul as "convert" from Judaism has fueled false and often dangerous stereotypes of Judaism, and that the so-called "new perspective on Paul" has not completely escaped these stereotypes, Frantisek Abel has gathered leading international scholars to test the hypotheses of the more recent "Paul within Judaism" movement. Though hardly monolithic in their approach, these scholars' explorations of specific topics concerning Second Temple Judaism and Paul's message and theology allow a more contextually nuanced understanding of the apostle's thought, one free from particular biases rooted in unacknowledged ideologies and traditional interpretations transmitted by particular church traditions. Contributors include Frantisek Abel, Michael Bachmann, Daniel Boyarin, William S. Campbell, Kathy Ehrensperger, Paula Fredriksen, Joerg Frey, Joshua Garroway, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, Isaac W. Oliver, Shayna Sheinfeld, and J. Brian Tucker.

This book provides various perspectives of leading contemporary scholars concerning Paul's message, particularly his expressed expectation of the end-time redemption of Israel and its relation to the Gentiles, the non-Jewish nations, in the context of Jewish eschatological expectation. The contributors engage the increasingly contentious enigmas relating to Paul's Jewishness: had his perception of living in a new era in Christ and anticipating an imminent final consummation moved him beyond the bounds of what his contemporaries would have considered Judaism, or did Paul continue to think and act "within Judaism"?