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  • Jews, Gentiles, and Ethnic Reconciliation: Paul’s Jewish Identity and Ephesians by Tet-Lim N. Yee
  • Terrance Callan
Jews, Gentiles, and Ethnic Reconciliation: Paul’s Jewish Identity and Ephesians. By Tet-Lim N. Yee. Cambridge University Press, 2005. 302pages. $75.00.

This is a slightly revised version of Yee’s doctoral thesis submitted to Durham University in 1999. It was written under the direction of James D. G. Dunn, who has contributed a foreword to the book.

Almost two-thirds of the book is devoted to a thorough discussion of Ephesians 2:11–22 divided into three parts: 2:11–13 (chapter 3); 2:14–18 (chapter 4); and 2:19–22 (chapter 5). This central section is preceded by an introduction (chapter 1) and a discussion of Ephesians 2:1–10 (chapter 2); it is followed by summary and conclusions (chapter 6), bibliography, and indexes (of subjects and of scriptures and other ancient writings). As one would expect from a doctoral thesis, the book helpfully summarizes previous research on Ephesians and indicates the main issues in dispute among scholars, in addition to arguing its own interpretation.

The main purpose of the book is to apply to Ephesians the “new perspective on Paul,” developed especially by E. P. Sanders and J. D. G. Dunn. The extensive scholarly discussion aroused by the “new perspective” has mainly focused on Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians; Ephesians has received much less attention. This book supplies that lack.

As Dunn observes in his foreword (xi), the principal reason for the previous lack of attention to Ephesians is probably uncertainty that Paul wrote it. This issue requires more explicit attention than Yee has given it. He adverts to the uncertainty about the identity of the author of Ephesians (34 n 1). However, he does not argue that Paul is its author, nor does he give any explanation of the Pauline character that he presumes Ephesians has. In view of [End Page 427] this, the book’s subtitle “Paul’s Jewish Identity and Ephesians” is at least puzzling and perhaps rather misleading.

The main focus of the book is the Jewish attitudes toward the Gentiles that are expressed in Ephesians. Yee finds such attitudes expressed directly in Ephesians 2:1–2 and 11–12 and proposes that these attitudes are based on an ethnocentrically exclusive understanding of Judaism. Dunn has argued that Paul’s opposition to the law is opposition to it insofar as it separates Jews and Gentiles. Yee applies this “new perspective” to Ephesians by arguing that it expresses an understanding of Judaism like the understanding of the law rejected by Paul in Romans and Galatians. This understanding is not explicit in the text, but Yee argues that it underlies what Ephesians says about Gentiles.

In making this argument, Yee does not consider sufficiently what possible understanding of Judaism might not be ethnocentrically exclusive. If it is legitimate for Jews to understand themselves as a people chosen by God, is such an understanding possible without Jews’ defining themselves as different from other peoples?

Yee further proposes that the author of Ephesians rejects the understanding of Judaism that underlies what Ephesians says about the Gentiles. Like the understanding of Judaism itself, this rejection is not explicit in the text. The text of Ephesians does clearly say that Christ has overcome the separation between Jews and Gentiles. Yee argues that the author of Ephesians considers this a rejection of the ethnocentrically exclusive understanding of Judaism expressed in Ephesians 2:1–2, 11–12. However, the author of Ephesians gives no indication that the view of Gentiles he expresses is not simply his view. He argues that Christ has changed the Gentiles’ situation, but does not indicate that Christ has done this by eliminating an ethnocentrically exclusive understanding of Judaism. This can certainly be considered implicit in the argument, but Yee seems to understand the rejection of this understanding as the author’s immediate purpose.

Yee argues correctly that Ephesians is Jewish in its character. But on his reading, the main thrust of Ephesians is to counter an ethnocentrically exclusive understanding of Judaism. Yee’s thesis has the odd effect of turning the...

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