Image Details

Giraudon/Art Resource, NY

“He is the son of God” (Acts 9:20), Paul proclaims to the Jews gathered in the synagogue of Damascus, as depicted in this 12th-century mosaic from the cathedral of Monreale, in Sicily. According to author Ben Witherington, Paul believed that Jesus was the Messiah of both Jews and Christians. In a December 1998 BR article, however, John Gager of Princeton University argued that Paul preached the gospel of Jesus as the means of salvation for gentiles alone and that he never intended for Jews to abandon the Mosaic Law (see “Paul’s Contradictions,” BR 14:06). In this response, Witherington maintains that Paul felt the Law had been eclipsed—for both Jews and Christians—by the new covenant with Jesus.