original readers primarily as characters in these literary texts, but what we learn about them as the implied author and implied readers can inform our reconstructions of the history behind the texts, though that is not the goal of this book.91 (To note a single example, the implied readers of these letters appear to be primarily Gentile Christians with an extensive knowledge of the LXX and an urgent interest in its interpretation.)92 Because we know the readers of Paul’s letters only through the