Paul, a New Covenant Jew, by Brant Pitre, due August 2019

Dr. Brant Pitre kicks off my new series, Books I Want Right Now. Dr. Pitre has become one of my favorite Catholic author-speaker-teachers and his new book is due out in August 2019,* Paul, a New Covenant Jew: Rethinking Pauline Theology. (Links at the end of this post.)

Protestants have tended to think of Paul as a proto-Protestant, because he rebuked Peter once, though they tend to ignore the fact that he submitted to Peter before he set out to preach. He allowed himself to be sent, in other words, by the Church which, yes, was already in existence before he was sent to preach and before he began to write probably the earliest of the New Testament writings. And because they misinterpret things he wrote about faith, grace and works. Paul was (and, as he is a saint and alive in Christ, is) Catholic and as far from being a Protestant as it is possible to be.**

From the description on Amazon:

“After the landmark work of E. P. Sanders, the task of rightly accounting for Paul’s relationship to Judaism has dominated the last forty years of Pauline scholarship. Pitre, Barber, and Kincaid argue that Paul is best viewed as a new covenant Jew, a designation that allows the apostle to be fully Jewish, yet in a manner centered on the person and work of Jesus the Messiah. This new covenant Judaism provides the key that unlocks the door to many of the difficult aspects of Pauline theology.
Paul, a New Covenant Jew is a rigorous, yet accessible overview of Pauline theology intended for ecumenical audiences. In particular, it aims to be the most useful and up to date text on Paul for Catholic Seminarians. The book engages the best recent scholarship on Paul from both Protestant and Catholic interpreters and serves as a launching point for ongoing Protestant-Catholic dialogue.

I’ve been searching for interviews or articles about Dr. Pitre’s forthcoming book on Paul but I haven’t found anything yet. Hopefully there will be some activity closer to the time of publication. When I find something I’ll let you know. If you find something before I do, let me know.

To get ready to read it I’ll probably give another listen to his course, The Apostle Paul: Unlocking the Mysteries of his Theology. LINK

Thank you for visiting and reading. Until next time, may the Lord bless you richly and may His peace be always with you.

This has been a post in the Books I Want Right Now series.

Links

*I’ve seen two different dates for publication of Dr. Pitre’s book on Paul. Amazon says August 1 and Eerdman’s says August 8. So I’m just gonna say August and leave it at that.
**A good book to read about this is Dr. Taylor Marshall’s Catholic Perspective on Paul. Paperback. Kindle.
- Book and podcast site for the Catholic Perspective on Paul (give it time to load, it’s worth the wait). Updated link: The separate site for the book and podcast are not showing up today, June 10 2019, but I saw them just a few days ago. The podcast is still up, for now anyway, at iTunes.
Very helpful and highly recommended is this course by Dr. Pitre, The Apostle Paul: Unlocking the Mysteries of His Theology. Available on CD or as MP3 download. 19 hours 53 min. (17 CDs / MP3). Scroll down for the PDF exceprt and audio sample. I’ve listened to this all the way through a few times now and I enjoy it more each time.

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