John Sanders

Paul between Jews and Gentiles in Corinth

In 1 Corinthians, Paul advised Christians that they should not be polytheists (idolaters) and that they must confine sex to marriage. He thus took a normal Jewish stance toward Graeco-Roman culture. Yet he did not seek to make Gentile Christianity merely one form of Judaism, for he elsewhere vigorously opposed Jewish principles. The modern sociological study of religion allows us to realize that Paul was engaging in boundary definition for nascent Christianity. In this boundary definition he was, unlike other wings of early Christianity, successful.

Whence the First Millennium? The Sources behind Revelation 20

Many scholars in a former generation thought that Zoroastrian ideas had influenced the concept and structure of the millennium in Rev 20. More recently, however, nearly all scholars who deal with Revelation think rather that Ps 90.4 was responsible for the formulation in Rev 20. A careful review of both Jewish and Zoroastrian texts that bear on the issue, however, shows that, while absolute proof may be lacking, we should still give very serious consideration to the likelihood of a Zoroastrian background.

Who Is a Jew and Who Is a Gentile in the Book of Acts

It has been now nearly a quarter century since W. C. van Unnik labelled the two-volume work to which we refer in abbreviated form as Luke–Acts as ‘a storm center in contemporary scholarship’. He referred in particular to the issues of redaction criticism, of the purpose of Acts, of the theological approach in Luke–Acts to the problem of the delay of the parousia, of the authors treatment of Paul, of the character and function of the speeches in Acts, and of whether it was proper to refer to the theological position of Luke–Acts as ‘early Catholic’ and therefore, in the minds of the German Lutheran theologians who were raising that question, as degraded, fallen from the early purity of Pauls Christianity, and unworthy of theological consideration today.