circumcised as well. Paul objected strongly to the insistence on keeping all of the Jewish commandments, considering it a great threat to his doctrine of salvation through faith in Jesus. According to Paula Fredriksen, Paul's opposition to male circumcision for Gentiles is in line with the Old Testament predictions that "in the last days the gentile nations would come to the God of Israel, as gentiles (e.g., ), not as proselytes to Israel." For Paul, Gentile male circumcision was therefore an affront to God's intentions. According to Larry Hurtado, "Paul saw himself as what Munck called a salvation-historical figure in his own right", who was "personally and singularly deputized by God to bring about the predicted ingathering (the “fullness”) of the nations ()." For Paul, the sacrifice of Jesus solved the problem of the exclusion of Gentiles from God's covenant, since the faithful are redeemed by participation in Jesus' death and rising. According to and Acts chapter 15, Paul discussed the issue with the leaders of the Jerusalem ekklēsia, agreeing to allow Gentile converts exemption from most Jewish commandments, which opened the way for a much larger Christian Church, extending far beyond the Jewish community. Hurtado notes that Paul valued the linkage with "Jewish Christian circles in Roman Judea", which makes it likely that his Christology was in line with, and indebted to, their views. Hurtado further notes that "[i]t is widely accepted that the tradition that Paul recites in must go back to the Jerusalem Church." New Perspective on Paul E. P. Sanders introduced a new perspective on Paul with his 1977 publication Paul and Palestinian Judaism. According to Sanders, Western theology has misunderstood the Judaic context of Paul's religious views. Law-keeping and good works were not means to enter the covenant (legalism), but a sign of being in, and a means of keeping, the covenant. Sanders called this pattern of religion "covenantal nomism". Sanders' perspective calls the traditional Protestant understanding of the doctrine of justification into serious question. Sanders' publications, such as Paul and Palestinian Judaism in 1977 and Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People in 1983, have since been taken up by Professor James D. G. Dunn, who coined the phrase "New Perspective on Paul";<ref>J.D.G. Dunn's Manson Memorial Lecture (4.11.1982): 'The New Perspective on Paul' BJRL 65 (1983), 95–122.</ref> and by N. T. Wright, then Anglican bishop of Durham. Wright notes the apparent discrepancy between Romans