The “Continuous Covenant”: Reevaluating Jewish Identity in Dialogue with the “Paul within Judaism” School

Abstract

This paper reexamines the apostle Paul’s Jewish identity through the interpretive lens of the “continuous covenant,” with particular attention to developments in contemporary Pauline scholarship associated with the “Paul within Judaism” (PWJ) movement. Traditional Christian interpretation often portrayed Paul’s encounter with Christ as a decisive departure from Judaism and understood his theology as a rejection of Jewish law and covenantal particularity. However, twentieth-century scholarship, particularly the work of Krister Stendahl and E. P. Sanders, challenged this paradigm by demonstrating the importance of Paul’s Jewish context and the covenantal character of Second Temple Judaism. Building on these developments, PWJ scholars such as Mark D. Nanos, Paula Fredriksen, Caroline Johnson Hodge, Magnus Zetterholm, and Matthew Thiessen argue that Paul should be understood as a Jewish apostle who continued to affirm Israel’s covenantal identity while proclaiming the inclusion of Gentiles through faith in the Messiah. The study explores the concept of continuous covenant and its implications for understanding Paul’s Jewish self-conception, his relationship to Torah, and his mission to the nations. It further examines the diversity within PWJ scholarship and assesses the extent to which Paul’s theology represents covenantal continuity rather than covenantal replacement or abandonment. The paper argues that Paul’s engagement with Gentiles is better understood as an expansion of God’s covenantal purposes than as the dissolution of Jewish identity. Consequently, Paul’s theology preserves the significance of Israel while envisioning the incorporation of Gentiles into God’s redemptive purposes without requiring the erasure of Jewish particularity. The study concludes that the continuous-covenant perspective offers a significant corrective to supersessionist interpretations and provides a constructive framework for contemporary Christian reflection on Jewish identity, covenant, and Jewish-Christian relations.