My article ‘The formation of gentile Christ-believing identity vis-à-vis Israel in Ephesians and Barnabas’ has now been published by the journal Biblica et Patristica Thoruniensia 11/4 (2018): 377–90. The full text of the article can be found here.
Abstract
Ephesians is frequently located at a mid-point on a trajectory in early Christianity between Paul’s earlier struggles to forge unity between Jewish and gentile Christ-believers and later replacement theologies. The author of the present article tests this trajectory through a comparative analysis of Ephesians and Barnabas, investigating the way in which the two epistles respectively shape a collective memory for their recipients with respect to Israel, its Scriptures and its symbols. Examining the two epistles from this perspective highlights their differences strikingly, calling into question the posited trajectory. In this respect, Ephesians is generally consonant with the undisputed Pauline epistles.
Keywords
Ephesians; Barnabas; Israel; replacement theology; collective memory; ethnic identity.