Since the 1970s, scholars have sought to place Paul the Apostle within his historical context in Second Temple Judaism. Paul's relationship to Judaism involves topics including the status of Israel's
Valentin de Boulogne: Saint Paul Writing His Epistles (c. 1618–1620), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas. Nowadays, biblical scholars believe that the Apostle Paul actually dictated his letters to a secretary (e.g., Romans 16:22).
Circumcision of Christ, sculpture in the Cathedral of Chartres.
Rembrandt: The Apostle Paul, circa 1657 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)
Rembrandt's Two old men disputing, 1628. This painting has been thought to depict Peter and Paul.
God-fearers or God-worshippers were a numerous class of Gentile sympathizers to Hellenistic Judaism that existed in the Greco-Roman world, which observed certain Jewish religious rites and traditions
Sardis Synagogue (3rd century, Turkey) had a large community of God-fearers and Jews integrated into the Roman civic life.
James the Just, whose judgment was adopted in the Apostolic Decree of Acts 15:19–29, c. 78 AD: "we should write to them [Gentiles] to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood..." (NRSV)