not convert in that sense. He remained a Jew but became a radically different kind of Jew: one convinced that the crucified Jesus had in fact been resurrected by Israel’s God and was therefore Messiah and Lord. Paul was now a “messianic Jew.” Yet not to call Paul’s experience a conversion is to deny the proverbial elephant in the room. Paul did what sociologists say a conversion entails: he changed convictions, conduct, and community.6 And he expected those whose conversion he facilitated to do the
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