This book explores the historical context of Paul and the way Paul's Jewish heritage was received, including the specifics of contemporary Jewish phenomena, within the successive generations of Jesus-followers during the first two centuries CE (in and outside the corpus of New Testament writings).

Receptions of Paul during the First Two Centuries: Exploration of the Jewish Matrix of Early Christianity examines the historical context of Paul and the way Paul's Jewish heritage was received. Contributors take into consideration the aftermath of the Jewish War and its impact on the development of the Jesus movement and early Christian-Jewish relations in the following period. The chapters come to the conclusion that after the Jewish War, the reception of the authentic Paul was transformed more and more into the tradition about Paul, based and established by the second and third generations of Jesus-believing Gentiles, which perceived Paul as a convert from what is labeled "Judaism" (¿ουδäσμ¿ς) to the complete opposite of it, "Christianity" (Χριστιaνισμ¿ς).