Jewishness disrupts categories of identity because it is not genealogical, or even religious, but all of these, in dialectical tension with one another. An exploration of these tensions in the Pauline corpus, argues the author lead us to an appreciation of our own cultural quandaries as male and female, gay and straight, Jew and Palestinian.

Acknowledgments  Introduction: Wrestling with Paul I. Circumcision, Allegory, and Universal "Man"  2. What Was Wrong with Judaism? The Cultural Politics of Pauline Scholarship  3· The Spirit and the Flesh: Paul's Political Anthropology  4· Moses' Veil; or, The Jewish Letter, the Christian Spirit  5· Circumcision and Revelation; or, The Politics of the Spirit  6. Was Paul an "Anti-Semite"?  7· Brides of Christ: Jewishness and the Pauline Origins of Christian Sexual Renunciation  8. "There Is No Male and Female": Galatians and Gender Trouble  9· Paul, the "jewish Problem," and the "Woman Question"  10. Answering the Mail: Toward a Radical Jewishness  Notes  Bibliography  Index 

"A splendid piece of work: learned, witty, wide-ranging in its understanding of religion as a cultural phenomenon, passionate in its concern for the ethical implications of our reading of ancient texts."—Richard B. Hays, author of Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul"Boyarin's bracing argument turns us into strangers to ourselves, as the first century comes uncannily close to the twenty-first century. The importance of this stimulating and controversial book lies in promoting an awareness of the possibilities of solidarity, justice, and liberation in the time of the culture wars."—Homi K. Bhabha, author of The Location of Culture"Brilliant, thought-provoking and outrageous (a compliment in my lexicon). Demonstrates very clearly the merits of a Jewish look at Paul (that is, a Jew looking at Paul in his Jewishness)."—Adele Reinhartz, McMaster University"Boyarin has mastered the literature of Paul in amazing detail and devastating understanding. His analytic skills are honed to perfection on the stone of critical theory. As a Jewish reader of a foundational Christian text, he has explained to Christians the power of Paul's thinking for Christians."—Burton L. Mack, author of Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins"This book is a polemic for difference based on genealogical memory as a creative force in the broadest human solidarity. In that sense it is a moral or philosophical tractate, what Boyarin calls cultural criticism, as well as an analysis of Paul's position. I have been greatly informed by a reading of this study."—Antoinette Wire, author of The Corinthian Woman Prophets"Boyarin weighs in with his usual éclat . . . reading the Epistles as if they were contributions to contemporary debates over the issues of feminism, multiculturalism, Zionism, identity politics, and deconstruction, and reading these as if they were germane to an understanding of the Epistles. The book is a tour de force of PoMo criticism, and required reading for anyone interested in the history of religion, Judaism, Christianity, Western culture, 'Orientalism,' identity politics, feminism—and the list could go on."—Hayden White, author of Metahistory