Although Paul is the one who introduced this “new creation” vocabulary into the primitive Christian assemblies, this language was being used by Paul’s Jewish contemporaries in a variety of ways. Following Isaiah, the prophetic visionaries responsible for the Jewish apocalypses written during this era looked forward to God’s “new creation” of heaven and earth, when Israel would be vindicated and the oppressing Gentile nations would be finally overthrown (e.g. Jubilees 1:29; see Isa. 66:22). Closer to Paul’s usage here is the imagery found in Joseph and Aseneth, a Hellenistic romance of Diaspora Judaism. In this fictitious work roughly contemporary with the New Testament, the patriarch Joseph prays for the conversion of the beautiful Aseneth, whom he would later marry (Gen. 41:45). The words of Joseph’s prayer bear a striking resemblance to the themes found in 2 Cor. 3-5:
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