An Overview of the New Perspective on Paul

On today's program I addressed the movement known as the "New Perspective on Paul." I gave an overview of the movement, detailing the views of the four major figures: Krister Stendahl, E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N.T. Wright.  I gave a brief critique of the major ideas involved in the movement, and pointed to helpful resources.

Here is the program.

Introduction to my Book

My Book "The Righteousness of One" is Now Available!

An updated version of my Masters Thesis The Righteousness of One: An Evaluation of Early Patristic Soteriology in Light of the New Perspective on Paul is now available to order at the Wipf & Stock site here. It will be available on Amazon in the near future.

In the forward, Peter Leithart writes that this book "should have a dramatic effect on the debate" regarding the New Perspective on Paul. He writes that,

"Cooper does not claim to pass final judgment on the New Perspective. What he offers is the opportunity to renew the debate in a more historically informed fashion. Having cleared the clutter, Cooper leaves us still with the task of grasping what St. Paul really said."

A Review of "Inhabiting the Cruciform God" by Michael J. Gorman

Michael J. Gorman's work Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul's Narrative Soteriology, is one in a number of works seeking to reinterpret Paul's theology. Rather than defending traditional Pauline interpretation, or getting on the New Perspective bandwagon, Gorman offers a proposal that transcends other interpretive grids.

For Gorman, the center of Pauline thought is not to be found in forensic justification (Luther), nor is it to be found in the concept of covenant community (Wright). Rather, "theosis is the center of Paul's theology." (171) Theosis, for Gorman, is a thoroughly Christological reality, and can be called "Christification." Gorman's concept of theosis shares similarities with the Eastern Orthodox approach, but is not synonymous. For Gorman, theosis is primarily cruciformity. God's nature is cruciform, and thus theosis is living the cruciform life, mirroring God's self giving love. Gorman proposes that the Carmen Christi of Philippians 2:6-11 is Paul's "master story." This text serves as a lens through which Paul's theology is to be read. Gorman argues, convincingly I think, that the phrase "although he was in the form of God" can be read "because he was in the form of God." In other words, the incarnation is not contrary to God's normal manner of acting, but is thoroughly consistent with God's character. In fact, it is the ultimate revelation of God's character. Thus, in contrast to human perceptions of divinity which are linked with political power, God's power in shown in weakness. It is of God's essence and character to be self-giving. In Gorman's words, "divinity has kenotic servanthood as its essential attribute."(31)

There is a redefinition of the term "Justification" in Gorman's writing. For Gorman, justification is not a purely forensic reality, but is thoroughly participatory. Trying to overcome the division common in Pauline studies between juridical and participationist soteriology, Gorman contends that "Paul has not two soteriological models (juridical and participationist) but one, justification by co-crucifixion, meaning restoration to right covenantal relations with God and others by participation in Christ's quintessential covenantal act of faith and love on the cross."(45) Justification is a covenantal category, and it involves participation in Christ's death and resurrection. The believer, through faith, is incorporated into Christ and is "co-crucified" with Jesus. Through this crucifixion, covenantal relations are restored. This involves both the restoration of one's relationship with God, and the restoration of the relationship one has with fellow man. Gorman discusses Galatians 2, in which Paul connects justification with participation in Christ's death. This causes Gorman to conclude that "Justification by faith, then, is a death-and-resurrection experience."(69)

The exegesis that Gorman provides is challenging, and does point to a connection between justification and the death and resurrection of the believer. However, it is not entirely convincing. Gorman contends that justification is not a judicial term, and does so through the text in Galatians 2. However, he does not spend time exegeting various texts which would seem to put this idea into doubt. For example, Romans 8:33-34 is a text that has been used since the Reformation to defend a legal reading of justification. Paul writes, "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?" In this text, Paul contrasts justification with condemnation; the assumption is that both are legal terms that can be contrasted with one another. Because of justification, no charge can be brought against the believer. A detailed exegesis of this text would have to be done for Gorman's thesis to hold, which would demonstrate that Paul is not using legal categories here. Another text, which Gorman mentions only in passing, is Romans 4:4-5. "Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness." The contrast between faith and works, as well as the language of crediting in contrast to earning, point to a thoroughly Reformational understanding of justification. This text simply doesn't fit many of the contemporary readings of Paul. It is usually passed over without a lengthy discussion.

It's my contention that Gorman is correct about a number of points in this work. First, it is part of God's nature to be self-giving. In contrast to the Reformed conviction that God's own glory is his ultimate concern, Paul would agree with Luther that salvation through self-donation is God's "proper work." Gorman has also demonstrated that there is a closer connection in Paul's theology between justification and participation in Christ, specifically in his death and resurrection, than many Pauline interpreters have been willing to allow. Justification does involve a death and resurrection as Gorman contends. However, I don't think there are grounds for simply dismissing the traditional forensic approach to justification in Paul. This is especially clear in Romans 4:4-5 and 8:33-34, but can also be demonstrated elsewhere in his epistles. I contend that justification includes legal and participationist categories. When justified, the believer is imputed righteous by the righteousness of Christ. However, in light of Paul's participationist theology, this justification also involves a death and resurrection of the sinner through mystical union with Chist's life, death, and resurrection.

Gorman's work is challenging, and is refreshing in that he avoids many of the typical false dichotomies presented in contemporary Pauline scholarship. However, like much of the New Perspective, Gorman's work ultimately privileges certain aspects of Pauline thought over others, and ultimately misses the Reformation's understanding of Paul, which I still believe (unpopular as it may be) to be exegetically warranted.

This Week's Podcast: Paul, Progressive Sanctification, and Molinism

I spent the entire program answering various listener questions. I talked about the nature of contemporary Pauline scholarship and the New Perspective on Paul, answered a question about progressive sanctification, discussed molinism as a supposed "middle ground" between Calvinism and Arminianism, and finally talked briefly about the reformation. Listen here.

This Weeks Episode: The Importance of the Reformation

This week episode is a special reformation edition of the podcast, in light of reformation Sunday this weekend. I didn't get to the discussion of limited atonement or listener questions, but discussed the importance of the reformation. I dealt specifically with attacks on the Lutheran understanding of Paul in recent years. Listen here.

This Week's Podcast: The NPP and Unconditional Election

On the third episode of the Just and Sinner podcast, I discussed the content of my upcoming book, answered a couple of listener questions, and then continued the discussion of Calvinism with the doctrine of unconditional election. Listen here.

My Upcoming Book

I just received word from Wipf & Stock that an edited version of my Masters Thesis will be published. The title of the work is The Righteousness of One: An Evaluation of Early Patristic Soteriology in Light of the New Perspective on Paul. I will keep you updated when I get a date for publication.

An Overview of the New Perspectives on Paul Part 6: Criticisms

Criticisms of the New Perspective
Though this perspective has been highly influential, it has not been whole-heartedly accepted through out New Testament scholarship. Many reject the movement altogether, while some accept some aspects as furthering our understanding of Paul within his first century context, at the same time rejecting other aspects of this perspective as exegetically unfounded. Sanders opinion that there was enough unanimity in Judaism to construct a basic soteriology has been hotly contested. Many have still found the so-called “Lutheran” Paul to be exegetically convincing.

When viewing the overwhelming amount of second temple literature, it seems as though Sanders idea of covenantal nomism fits much of the evidence. However, it does not necessarily fit all of it. Sanders admits that 4 Ezra contains a legalistic understanding of salvation where God weighs ones merits against his demerits. This he takes to be one exception to the rule. Richard Bauckham shows that this type of legalism was not foreign to apocalyptic literature. 2 Enoch has a similar picture of a weighing of deeds which will determine one’s final salvation. He also believes that in 2 Baruch, the author does not teach a theology of grace which then leads to good works as Sanders claims, but quite the opposite. “With reference to 2 Baruch, it would be more accurate to say not simply that God bestows mercy on the righteous, but that God has mercy on the righteous because of their good works.” (Justification and Variegate Nomism Volume 1 pg. 182)

It is worthy of note that there are a couple major figures within the period that Sanders does not extensively analyze: Josephus and Philo. Philo, Sanders does discuss to an extent, though not in my opinion as much as is deserved. Sanders simply concludes that Philo must held to covenantal nomism. It is understandable why Sanders would not use Philo as representative of Judaism simply because Philo’s ideas come from Greek philosophy. However it is unlikely that Philo was the alone in his Jewish/Platonic syncretism. In a Hellenized world, as first century Palestine was, there is bound to be some influence of Greek philosophy within ordinary religious life, at least in the minds of some. If this is the case, this type of Judaism does not fit Sanders categories. While Philo did have some idea of a national covenant, the importance lay, not on this covenant, but on the acquisition of virtue.

Josephus is surprisingly absent. Sanders utilizes him for historical purposes but never once seeks to analyze his theology. Josephus does see that there is a special covenant with the Jews. God chose Moses to be the mediator of his covenant rather than Pharaoh. As Spilsbury explains, “this trust gives the Jews privileged access to God’s favor, but only to the extent that they obey the law faithfully.” (ibid pg. 259) This is not to say that Josephus’ depiction of God had nothing to say of grace, or that God required complete perfectionism, but that God’s blessing to a man still did to some extent depend on obedience to the Torah.

These and several other examples prove that Sanders’ treatment of Judaism is lacking. It is not so much that Sanders was completely wrong in his evaluation, but that he went too far than was necessary. Scholarship of the second temple period had often been sloppy and too simplistic. Sanders proves sufficiently that there certainly is more to the picture than mere Pelagianism. That does not mean, however, that this grace centered approach to Judaism was universal. It is not right to speak of a universal “Judaism”, but of “Judaisms” in the second temple period.

Even if it were sufficiently proven that Sanders thesis was correct, would this negate a “Lutheran” interpretation of Paul? I do not think so. A Andrew Das argues that in Judaism, there was a place for forgiveness through the sacrificial system. However, without this system, Judaism became inherently legalistic. Paul, when coming to the realization that Jesus was the messiah, saw that his death negated all other sacrifices as atoning. Therefore, Paul saw only a legalistic system left in Judaism. Das supports his thesis by showing that when the temple was destroyed, this type of legalism predominated such as in 4 Ezra and Josephus. It also seems that the system of covenantal nomism itself does not negate legalism. If one is in the covenant from birth, and must remain in the covenant by works, can this not also become a legalistic system? Who is to say that entrance into the covenant constitutes salvation rather than one’s eschatological vindication? Martin Luther in the 16th century was not fighting against a system which denied grace altogether. The medieval church believed that one was in the church by baptism, thus not by ones own choice, and remained in this state of grace through keeping with penance. In all the effort to separate Paul’s situation from Luther’s, similarities between the two basic soteriological systems have become even more apparent.

The crucial exegetical points argued by Stendhal, Sanders, Dunn, and Wright have been contested by several New Testament scholars of varying backgrounds. Righteousness has been defined as God’s ‘covenant faithfulness’ by New Perspective proponents. Mark Seifrid analyzes the Old Testament background of righteousness, showing that it does not often appear in covenantal contexts. Though the word ‘righteousness’ is used 524 times, and ‘covenant’ 283 times, “in only seven passages do the terms come into any significant semantic contact.”(ibid pg. 423) God’s righteousness cannot be so narrowly defined. It is essentially a creational category. It signifies God’s justice and vindication, not necessarily though possibly connected to covenant. God is often seen as righteous in his acts when dealing with the gentile nations, with whom he had no special covenant. His righteousness vindicates and punishes.

So what does Paul mean when he argues that justification is not by works of the law but by faith? Are these works boundary markers, or legalistic attempts to earn salvation? It seems that Paul is arguing against both conceptions. The law is opposed to the gospel because it requires works, whereas the gospel requires faith. It also opposes the gospel because it was given in some sense to Jews alone while the gospel is universal in scope. Paul makes this contrast clear when he states in Galatians 3:18 that the law does not rest upon faith. Law and faith are contradictory messages. One requires works, whereas the other accepts that one can do no works. Paul does not say here that a distortion of the law does not rest on faith but the law itself. The argument of Romans 4 contrasts one who tries to earn and one who does not work. Clearly the one who does not work is the one who does not try to earn his wages, but accepts the reward as a gift. The definition of law as a mere boundary marker simply does not fit the argument. The gospel is opposed to all kinds of boasting, whether it is in one’s meritorious deeds or in one’s nationality, or in one’s own wisdom. Is it not probable that Paul was arguing against all of these conceptions at once? Anything that puts one’s trust into something that is not God’s vindication in Christ is opposed to the gospel.

An Overview of the New Perspectives on Paul Part 5: NT Wright

N.T. Wright
Bishop N.T. Wright, one of the most prominent New Testament scholars of today, did much to bring this “new perspective” to a popular audience. His volume What Saint Paul Really Said in 1997 was a compact treatment of Paul’s beliefs as influenced by expectations of the second temple period. Wright accepts Sanders’ idea of covenantal nomism as generally applicable to the theology of the second temple texts. He believes that as Protestants we have become too stuck in our Protestant traditions and must be open to a fresh look at the Pauline material.

For Wright, Paul is essentially working within a narrative structure. This narrative is the story of God’s dealings with man through Israel, now fulfilled through the coming of Christ. God created Adam as the first of all humanity to live in obedience to himself. Adam rebelled, as did all men after him. This is the beginning of the story. God called out Abraham so that he might be a light to the world and undo the problem that came through the sin in the garden. “The canonical Old Testament frames the entire story of God’s people as the divine answer to the problem of evil: somehow, through his people, God will deal with the problem that has effected his good creation in general and his image-bearing creatures in general.” (Paul in Fresh Perspective pg 109) Israel is chosen out of pure grace, and is given the Torah and temple as a means toward redemption. However, rather than fixing the problem of sin and evil in the world, Israel became a part of the problem.

Wright promotes the idea that when the exile in Babylon ended, and the Israelites were brought back into the land, the majority of Jews still believed themselves in exile. Wright particularly defends this thesis in his 1991 volume the Climax of the Covenant. Israel, after the exile, had not gained all of the land that was expected by the prophets. They were still under foreign oppressors. The real ending of the exile would occur when Israel once again became an autonomous nation, and God directly ruled over them through a Davidic king. This idea was in Paul’s mind when he wrote his epistle to the Galatians. Galatians 3:10 has historically been used to promote the doctrine of penal substitution. The curse Christ paid for was the penalty of breaking God’s perfect law. Wright takes this verse in a different direction by seeing the curse Christ paid for as the exile. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, Israel’s exile has finally come to an end. The kingdom has been inaugurated.
Perhaps Wright’s most controversial contribution to Pauline theology is his attack on the Protestant definition of justification as promoted by Martin Luther. He contends, along with Stendhal and Dunn, that Paul was not fighting against legalism in Galatians and Romans. The ‘justification by works’ Paul writes against is not “individual Jews attempting a kind of proto-Pelagian pulling themselves up by their moral bootstraps”. (What St. Paul Really Said pg 119) Rather it is that Jews excluded gentiles from fellowship within the kingdom. Justification for Paul is a legal term. However, it is not a term about ‘getting in’, but it is a term about ‘who is in’ the covenant. “Justification in Galatians, is the doctrine which insists that all who share faith in Christ belong to the same table, no matter what their racial differences, as together they wait for the final creation.” (ibid pg 122) When God declares one to be justified, he is declaring them to be among his people. It does not involve the imputation of righteousness. “If we use the language of law court, it makes no sense whatever to say the judge imparts, imputes, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either plaintiff or the defendant.” (ibid pg 98)

For Wright, the righteousness of God is his covenant faithfulness. It is not an abstract attribute which all men are required to live up to. It is not something to be imputed to man. It is his faithfulness in dealing with and saving his people. This underlies Wright’s redefinition of justification. It is founded in the Jewish idea of covenant. This is why several Psalmists are able to ask God to deliver them in his righteousness. In this context it certainly means deliverance, not imputation.

An Overview of the New Perspectives on Paul Part 4: James Dunn

James Dunn
James Dunn differs from Sanders in that he claims to be a devout Christian. He is important to the movement because he is the first writer to produce commentaries of Paul’s epistles through this framework. He also formulated the term “the new perspective on Paul.” He essentially agrees with Sanders’ view of second temple Judaism by seeing it as a religion of grace rather than a Pelagian type of legalism. He accepts Stendhal’s criticism which sees the Protestant doctrine of justification as having forced Luther’s own controversy back into the text of Paul. However, agreeing with earlier writers on certain points, he still sees Sanders’ Paul as inadequate. “I am not convinced that we have yet given the proper reading of Paul from the new perspective of first-century Palestinian Judaism opened up so helpfully by Sanders himself.” (The New Perspective on Paul pg.95)

From here, Dunn formulates his own opinions about what Paul is saying in Romans and Galatians. Dunn centers his argument around Galatians 2:16 which is the earliest explicit reference to the doctrine of justification. In this passage, Paul is primarily dealing with the issue of Jew and Gentile fellowship. Justification was apparently seen as something that belonged to Jews but not gentiles since Paul calls them, rhetorically, “sinners.” Paul argues against this notion, showing justification to be valid for both Jews and Gentiles since it is by faith. Dunn does not accept the historical understanding of justification as a term which describes the beginning of a man’s relation toward God. “Justification is rather God’s acknowledgement that one is in the covenant-whether that is an initial acknowledgment, or a repeated action of God (God’s saving acts), or his final vindication of his people.”(pg.97) Dunn sees Paul as working within a Jewish framework. Those whom Paul is countering in Galatia see their Christianity as an extension of Judaism. As such, justification by faith is a Jewish teaching which his readers already understood. Both Judaism and Christianity saw their salvation as based upon God’s gracious initiative.

Dunn, accepting Sanders critique that Paul was not arguing against Jewish legalism writes that “works of the law” in Paul refer to “works related to the covenant [and] works done in obedience to the covenant.”(pg. 98) Thus, when Paul speaks of works of the law he does not refer to good works in general, or even good works as conforming to the Decalogue. These works are primarily those which separate Jews from gentiles which would include the Sabbath, food laws, and other boundary markers that differentiated Jew from gentile. The phrase “works of the law” itself is nationalistic in focus, “the law and the Jewish people are coterminous; the law identifies the Jew as Jew and constitutes the boundary which separates him from the gentiles.”(pg. 118)

Paul does not invalidate the Covenantal Nomistic soteriology of the Judaism of his day. However, he redefines this in light of the resurrected messiah. The question Paul needed to deal with was, “How do we Jewish believers relate our Covenantal Nomism, our works of the law, our obligations under the covenant to our new faith in Jesus as the Christ?”(pg.103) The elect were, in the national covenant, those who had the marks of circumcision, food laws, Sabbath, etc. After Christ has come, Paul sees the elect redefined as those who have faith. The mark or “badge” of those in the covenant was now faith in Christ only.

Like the other writers embracing this new understanding of Paul, Dunn argues that the law/gospel or faith/works contrast as traditionally understood within Protestantism is wrong. “Paul is not arguing here for a concept of faith which is totally passive because it fears to become a ‘work.’” (pg.105) Dunn also argues that there is not a necessary dichotomy between ritual and faith. He is not arguing against ritual as such, but that which excludes gentiles from the covenant. “What he is concerned to exclude here is the racial, not the ritual expression of faith; it is nationalism he denies not activism.”(pg.105) What Paul sees as new about the covenant is not that now an alternative to legalistic works has appeared making salvation a matter of passive faith, but that gentiles are now included within God’s people.

An Overview of the New Perspectives on Paul Part 3: E.P. Sanders and Paul

Sanders gave a much fuller treatment of Paul in his 1983 book Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People. In this book, like in the previous, Sanders contends that contrary to Protestant ideas Paul did not see the law as impossible to fulfill. The usual proof text for this idea has been Galatians 3:10, “Cursed is the man who does not continue to do all things written in the book of the law.” According to Sanders, Paul, after connecting blessing with faith, looks for a verse in the Old Testament that he can use to connect “curse” with “law.” This happens to be the verse he finds. The focus is not on “all” rather, it is on the fact that the law brings a curse. This reinforces Paul’s main idea that salvation comes by faith in Christ and not the Jewish law. Paul at times upholds the possibility of perfection under the law, but at other times makes it clear that all men in one way or another do sin. Paul never understood that these ideas might be mutually exclusive.

In Galatians 5:3, Paul does make some use of the word “all” in Deuteronomy 27:26. The point that Paul is making is that if one is circumcised, as the Judaizers demanded, he must obey the entirety of the ceremonial law. What Paul sees as wrong with the law as a way to righteousness is not that it is impossible to fulfill, but that it is not the correct kind of righteousness, which is faith in Christ.

Sanders agrees with Stendhal’s reading of Romans in seeing it’s theme as the relation between Jew and Gentile rather than individual salvation. He agrees with most Protestant exegetes in viewing Romans 1:16 as the theme of the rest of the book, however Sanders “would put more emphasis on the second part of the verse (to all who have faith, the Jew first and also the Greek)”(pg 30) While righteousness is an essential aspect, it is essential because it expresses the unity between Jew and Gentile. Sanders evaluates Romans 3-5, which is usually used to defend the “Lutheran” idea that the law leads to boasting because, in a Pelagian sort of fashion, one thinks he can save himself by his own obedience. Sanders believes that this boasting is not connected to any sort of legalism, but to status as a Jew. The law leads to boasting in one’s ethnicity and status as among the covenant people of God. Romans 10:3 had often been used to support the legalistic understanding of Judaism where Paul contrasts a righteousness of “their own” with that “of God.” Sanders sees “their own” righteousness not as something they did to merit salvation, but the righteousness of Israel which excluded gentiles. Sanders sees Paul’s righteousness of “my own” in Philippians 3 in the same way. It was Paul’s righteousness as a zealous Jew who believed himself to be of the covenant people of Israel, separated from Gentiles.

With all this being said, it might seem as though Paul did not have a view of universal sinfulness. To the contrary, Paul does believe in universal sinfulness and does use it in his argument. However, it is only used as a backdrop to explain why righteousness comes through faith to both Jew and Gentile. “Yet it is apparent that the argument is based on the conclusion, rather than the conclusion on the argument.” (pg 35) Paul contradicts himself in Romans 2 and 5. In chapter two he assumes that it is the same law that judges everyone, yet in Romans 5 he sees the law that condemns only the Mosaic Law, as sin was not imputed until the Mosaic Law came. This inconsistency can be explained because Paul’s purpose was not primarily to explain the plight of man, but the solution.

All of this shows that Paul was in a dilemma about the role of the law in salvation history. He attempted to somehow connect the law with sin and the curse, rather than salvation. Though he recognized that in the sense of the Old Testament, Jews would not have been considered sinners, “observant Jews are not in fact sinners by the Biblical standard” (pg 68) He sought to explain the law as serving a pedagogical purpose for the Jewish people. Paul, after explaining that gentiles are imprisoned by stoicheia, beings they worshipped which are not gods, shows that the law did essentially the same thing. This is why in Galatians, he can discuss the “we” and “us” that have been imprisoned, including both Jew and Gentile. All of this shows that Paul rejected his covenantal nomistic past as he did not see righteous, law abiding Jews as among the people of God, but saw them in the same predicament as gentiles.

With all this negativity toward the law in Paul, how do his positive statements about the law fit into his own theology? He sees the law as something that both Jew and Gentile must die to. He does not carefully distinguish the categories of moral, civil, and ceremonial law, as did the medieval scholastics. Christ is the end of the whole law. Paul therefore, sees the law as given purposefully by God, never as a means of salvation, but with a view toward the faith to come. In the end Sanders states, “All Paul’s statements cannot be organized into a logical whole.” (pg 86)
Paul does see Christians as having a duty to fulfill the law. Though he did not “work out a full halakic system,” (pg 95) Paul does give ethical commands in his epistles, which are often connected with Old Testament principles. However, it is not so simple as to say that Paul was urging his gentile converts to adopt a Jewish lifestyle apart from certain rituals of course. Not all the ethical principles Paul adopts are necessarily Jewish, although he does use Old Testament references to defend himself. So which of the Old Testament laws does Paul expect Christians to follow? The distinction between moral and ceremonial law does have some merit in Paul, as he seems to reject those aspects of the law that, “created a social distinction between Jews and other races in the Greco-Roman world.” (pg 102) This again goes back to his central conviction that salvation comes only by faith in Christ through Jew and Gentile alike, thus any barriers between these two people groups must be removed.

An Overview of the New Perspectives on Paul Part 2: E.P. Sanders and Second Temple Judaism

E.P. Sanders
In 1977, E.P. Sanders published Paul and Palestinian Judaism, which agreed with the central thesis of Stendhal and developed it through looking at sources from second temple Judaism. In this volume, Sanders briefly overviews the different evaluations of second temple Judaism which scholars have promoted in the recent past. In the 19th century, due to the work of F. Weber, it was generally understood that Judaism of the second temple period was a religion of "works righteousness." Jews supposedly believed that God would weigh one's good deeds against his bad to determine the fate of that man. One could gain extra merit through a "treasury of merits" of sorts. Sanders concludes that Weber's evaluation was deeply flawed, though remained somewhat unchallenged in his day. This same view of Judaism was promoted by Bousset, Schurer, and Bultmann. Many Jewish scholars refuted Weber's claims, and Sanders believes successfully, yet their work was not of much effect. Weber's view still was the majority opinion.

Sanders attempts to prove that Weber's view is flawed by evaluating the writings of the second temple period extensively. According to Sanders, there was an overall coherence of a "pattern of religion" in Judaism. “A pattern of religion does not include every theological proposition or every religious concept within a religion. The term ‘pattern’ points toward the question of how one moves from the logical starting point to the logical conclusion of the religion.” (Paul and Palestinian Judaism pg. 17) This can be loosely placed under the rubric of soteriology. Though there were certainly diverging views of Judaism in the second temple period, there was an overall basic soteriology which permeated the majority of second temple literature. Sanders labels this soteriology "covenantal nomism." Covenantal nomism is the idea that the Jews believed themselves to be in the covenant by grace, but maintained their status in the covenant by obedience. In other words, the emphasis was on God's electing grace rather than on strict law-keeping. God chose the nation of Israel to be His own, thus one was in the covenant by God's choice, not by works. The role of law-keeping was one of maintaining status, rather than gaining status. One could lose "salvation" by breaking the commandments, yet one could not gain "salvation" by keeping commandments.

The question naturally comes as to why God elected the nation of Israel. Sanders posits that there were three different answers to this question in second temple literature. One answer was that the covenant was offered to all nations, yet Israel was the only one to accept it. The second opinion was that the nation was chosen because of the merits of the patriarchs. The third was that God elected the nation simply because he chose to; it was a matter of pure grace. The first two answers still put the covenant in the hands of human merit, yet Sanders does not see this as harmful to his thesis. It does not matter how or why the covenant was initiated in the first place. What matters is that those in the covenant in the second temple period were personally initiated apart from what they had done.

In the second part of this book, Sanders evaluates the theology of Paul in light of the pattern he has uncovered in Second Temple literature. Sanders works from the epistles of Paul which he sees as undisputed. These include: Romans, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians. In Sander's view, Paul argued from solution to plight. Paul saw Christ as the solution, thus realizing that there must be a problem that man needs to be saved from. First came his conviction of redemption in Christ and then came his view of the law. “Paul’s logic seems to run like this: in Christ God has acted to save the world; therefore the world is in need of salvation; but God also gave the law; if Christ is given for salvation, it must follow that the law must not have been.” (pg 475) Agreeing with Stendhal, Sanders observes that in his description of himself in Philippians 3, Paul calls himself "blameless." Under the law he did not have a deep inward struggle with sin. When Paul preached, he most likely did this the same way. The content of his preaching was not the conviction of sins and then redemption in Christ, but instead began with the message of salvation through Christ.

Salvation in Paul is predominantly seen as a future event which he mistakenly thought to be soon. “It is further to be observed that the verb “save” in Paul is generally future or present but only once past (aorist) tense.” (pg 449) Sanders sees Paul's motifs of salvation as more participationist than juristic. The reformation overemphasized the judicial categories of forgiveness and escape from condemnation, while ignoring the real heart of salvation, which is a mystical participation in Christ. Paul shows this in his argument in his first epistle to the Corinthians when arguing against sexual immorality. It is wrong because it affects one's union with Christ by uniting himself to a prostitute. Sin is not merely the violation of an abstract law. This participationist language is also used in Corinthians in the discussion of the Lord's Supper wherein one participates in the body and blood of Christ.

Unlike many later proponents of the New Perspective, Sanders sees justification as transfer language. It describes one’s entrance into the people of God. However, this is not so much about one's legal status. Paul indeed adopted the earlier Christian view that Christ's death was expiatory and that man was forgiven of his sins. However, when Paul uses this language he is only expressing accepted Christian tradition, not his own point of view. Paul's own thought emphasizes the death of Christ as delivering us from the old aeon and bringing us into the new. His death involves a changing of Lordship and causes us to die not to the penalty of sin, but to the power of sin. “Christ came to provide a new Lordship for those who participate in his death and resurrection.” (pg 499)

For Sanders, Paul did not see the law as something which was impossible to fulfill. As previously mentioned, he said himself that he was blameless under the law. The problem with the law was not that it did not offer righteousness, but that it offered the wrong kind of righteousness. Paul came to the realization that man must be righteous by faith in Christ, thus all other righteousness is excluded, meaning it cannot come by the law. He saw the problem that both Jews and Gentiles were to be “righteoused” by faith, purporting that law could not make one righteous, since it excluded gentiles.

Paul believed, as is evident in Romans 6, that men are under the Lordship of sin. He did not come to this conclusion by any inner struggle, rather by the fact of the lordship of Christ. Since to be saved one must come under the lordship of Christ, he must have previously been under the lordship of something else; that something else is sin. This takes him so far as to overemphasize man's sinfulness in Romans 7 which almost equates the law itself with sin.

Does Paul accept the covenantal nomism pattern which he had received as a Pharisee? Sanders says in some sense yes, and in some ways no. In many ways, his categories were much different. For example, he discusses the new exodus, not in covenantal categories, but instead as the escape from one aeon to another. Paul does accept the basic idea that in the new covenant there is salvation, and those outside of the covenant will not receive salvation. One enters into the new covenant by baptism, through grace, and must keep with repentance to stay within the covenant. This is seen as he often talks about justification by grace in the past tense, but in Romans 2 is able to speak of a future justification by works. However, he differs in his description of personal transgression. Transgression for Paul is not seen as something which will exclude one from the covenant, but as something which affects one's mystical union with Christ. While Paul does sometimes speak in covenantal language, the covenantal nomism category does not fit his emphasis on the new creation. Essentially, while Paul accepts some aspects of Jewish soteriology, it is inconsistent with his participationist categories, “the primary reason for which it is inadequate to depict Paul’s religion as a new covenantal nomism is that the term does not take account of his participationist transfer terms, which are most significant terms for understanding his soteriology.” (pg. 514)

An Overview of the New Perspectives on Paul Part 1: Krister Stendahl

I want to thank everyone who has been giving me suggestions and encouraging me in my search for a Lutheran church body. I am going to discuss the issue with my pastor this week. I would appreciate your continued prayers. I am going to do a series of posts giving the historical background and brief refutation of the "New Perspective on Paul."

The latter half of the twentieth century saw a major shift in Pauline studies, particularly in Paul’s relation to Judaism and the law. From the 16th century throughout much of the 20th, Martin Luther’s interpretation of Paul was widely accepted by most within Protestantism. While not always agreeing with Luther completely, exegetes had accepted his basic premise that Paul in his epistles to the Galatians and Romans was fighting against Jewish legalism of sorts. Paul’s argument was primarily soteriological. Going back even farther, the entire western church had accepted Paul’s polemics against the Judaizers to be soteriological since Augustine’s controversy with the Pelagians in the 5th century.

The so-called “Lutheran Paul” of the west stressed justification by faith alone as the center of his gospel. This doctrine was ultimately aimed at the comforting of the conscience of the man, who, being struck by the perfection required in God’s Holy law, needed a means of forgiveness. This idea of Paulinism was certainly not universal, as men like Herman Ridderbos found the center of Paul’s thought, not in justification, but in the broader theme of union with Christ. Geerhardus Vos sought to emphasize the narrative aspects of Paul’s thought rather than the mere systematic categories that had often been applied. The “Lutheran Paul” found its ultimate expression in the writings of Rudolph Bultmann. Bultmann, using existentialist philosophy as a backdrop saw Paul as answering the plight of everyman which emphasizes the complete dependence of man upon God. This complete dependence was not rooted in the historical figure of Jesus, but in a universal principle which answers man’s existential plight. Paul spoke unilateral truth, not necessarily grounded within history. Paul distanced himself from the Judaism of his past, seeing it as nothing more than pure legalism. In Judaism, God weighed one’s merits against his demerits in order to determine final salvation. Bultmann emphasized the distinction between the law and the gospel farther than Martin Luther himself would have imagined. Luther saw the law and the gospel as both given by God, present in the old and new testaments, and as good things which both aimed at the salvation of God’s people. The law showed the need for salvation, and the gospel provided it. Other writers saw Paul as much more consistent with historical events and his Jewish past, as even Bultmann’s student Gunther Bornkamm showed the necessity of the historical person of Jesus in Paul’s theology while agreeing with Bultmann on the centrality of the doctrine of justification in Paul’s thought. W.D. Davies showed convincingly that Paul’s theology was largely influenced by Judaism and the break between Paul and Judaism was not as great as many had assumed it to be.

Krister Stendhal
In 1963, Krister Stendhal published an influential article which challenged previous views of Paul and his relation to the law. Stendhal argued that since the reformation we have read Luther’s experience back into the writings of Paul, rather than seeing Paul on his own terms. Our conception of Paul is a product of medieval thought in the western world that would have been completely foreign to those in the period of second temple Judaism. Paul himself did not have a troubled conscience as did Augustine, Luther, or Wesley. He in fact had a “robust conscience.” In Philippians Paul described his former life in Judaism as one of “blamelessness,” not of a failing struggle to obey the law. When Paul talks of the perfect obedience required in the law, it has a more corporate than individual meaning. The nation of Israel of a whole failed to keep the law that was required of them as Paul describes in Romans 2. Paul’s discussions about the failure of the law are not to provoke the conscience of his readers, but are aimed at defining the relationship between Jew and Gentile.
It has been assumed that Paul’s experience on the Damascus road was a conversion to a new way of life. He was a Jew who struggled to obey the whole law, realized he could not, and then converted to faith in Christ. This idea comes from the autobiographical reading of Romans 7. On the contrary, Stendhal believes, “There is not-as we usually think- first a conversion, then a call to apostleship; there is only the call to work among the gentiles.” (“The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.” In Paul Among the Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays, 78-96. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976.Pg.84-85)

Paul’s break from Judaism was not much of a break at all, but instead it was a new understanding. Paul’s purpose from this point forward was to work out the relation between Jewish Christians and gentile Christians. For Luther, Calvin and other exegetes, chapters 3 and 4 were the central discussion of Paul’s epistle to the Romans. The theme was seen as the righteousness of God expressed in justification. This incidentally led to the discussion of the relationship between Jew and gentile in chapters 9-11. On the contrary, according to Stendhal, the center of Paul’s epistle to the Romans is chapters 9 through 11. The discussion of justification served only as a backdrop for this part of Paul’s argument. The protestant idea of justification has been a non-historical one which sees Paul’s doctrine as solving a universal problem for men of all times, rather then understanding the context of Paul preaching to a Jewish audience of the Messiah. The law Paul speaks of is the Mosaic Law given to Israel, not a set of universal rules to be obeyed by everyone. The so-called “second use of the law” as applied to converting all men, Jew and Gentile alike, to faith in Christ, is a complete misuse of Paul.

Paul certainly does talk of sin in his epistles. When he writes of his own sin, he is not discussing his burdened conscience. Rather, he speaks of the sin of persecuting the church of God which he had now made up for. All of this does not mean that Paul held the view that after baptism man becomes sinless. He accepts that Christians do struggle. However, the focus of his discussion of struggle is not one of despair but of victory over that sin. After his so-called conversion, Paul was not troubled in his conscience as he testifies in Acts 23:1 among other places. He does speak of “weakness” as the thorn in the flesh, but these weaknesses are unconnected to indwelling sin. “But there is no indication that Paul ever thought of this and his other “weaknesses” as sins for which he was responsible.” (ibid pg 91)

Paul and Palestinian Judaism Part 2

Part 2: Paul

Sanders treatment of second temple Judaism is by far the more important part of his work, as not many scholars have completely agreed with Sander's interpretation of Paul. It also only takes up a relatively small portion of the book. Sanders later revisited the subject of Paul in more detail in his book Paul, the law and the Jewish People.

Sanders works from the epistles of Paul which he sees as undisputed which include Romans, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Philippians and 1 Thessalonians. Sanders sees the rest of the epistles ascribed to him and his speeches in acts as inauthentic. In Sander's view, Paul argued from solution to plight. Paul saw Christ as the solution, thus realized that there must be a plight man needs to be saved from. First came his conviction of redemption in Christ, then came his view of the law. In his description of himself in Philippians 3, Paul calls himself "blameless", thus under the law he did not have a deep inward struggle with sin and the law. When Paul preached, most likely he did this the same way. The content of his preaching was not the conviction of sins and then redemption in Christ, but began with the message of salvation through Christ.

Salvation in Paul is largely seen as a future event, which he mistakenly thought to be soon. Sanders sees Paul's motifs of salvation as more participationist than juristic. The reformation overemphasized the judicial categories of forgiveness, and escape from condemnation, while ignoring the real heart of salvation, which is a mystical participation in Christ. Paul shows this in his argument in his first epistle to the Corinthians when arguing against sexual immorality. It is wrong because it effects one's union with Christ, by one uniting to a prostitute. Sin is not merely the violation of an abstract law. This participationist language is also used in Corinthians in the discussion of the Lord's Supper wherein one participates in the body and blood of Christ.

Unlike later proponents of the New Perspective, Sanders sees justification as transfer language. It describes one entrance into the people of God. However, one's entrance into the people of God is not so much about one's legal status. Paul indeed adopted the earlier Christian view that Christ's death was expiatory and that man was forgiven of his sins. However, when Paul uses this language he is only expressing accepted Christian tradition, not his own point of view. Paul's own thought emphasizes the death of Christ as delivering us from the old aeon and bringing us into the new. His death involves a changing of Lordship. It causes us not to die to the penalty of sin, but to the power of sin.

For Sanders, Paul did not see the law as something which was impossible to fulfill. As was previously mentioned, he said himself that he was blameless under the law. The problem with the law was not that it did not offer righteousness, but that it offered the wrong kind of righteousness. Paul came to the realization that man must be righteous by faith in Christ, thus all other righteousness is excluded. Thus it cannot come by the law. He saw the problem that both Jews and Gentiles were to be righteoused by faith, thus law could not make one righteous, since it excluded gentiles.

Paul believed, as is evident in Romans 6 that men are under the Lordship of sin. He did not come to this conclusion by any inner struggle, but by the fact of the lordship of Christ. Since to be saved, one must come under the lordship of Christ, he must have previously been under the lordship of something else. That something else is sin. This takes him so far as to even overemphasize man's sinfulness in Romans 7 and almost equates the law itself with sin.

Does Paul accept the covenantal nomism pattern which he had recieved as a Pharisee? Sanders says in some sense yes, and in some sense no. In many ways, his categories were much different. For example, he discusses the new exodus, but does not see it in covenantal categories, but as the escape from one aeon to another. Paul does accept the basic idea that in the new covenant there is salvation, and those outside of the covenant will not recieve salvation. One enters into the new covenant by baptism, through grace, and must keep with repentance to stay within the covenant. This is seen as he often talks about justification by grace in the past tense but in Romans 2 is able to speak of a future justification by works. However, he differs in his description of personal transgression. Transgression for Paul is not seen as something which will exclude one from the covenant, but as something which effects one's mystical union with Christ. While Paul does sometimes speak in covenantal language, the covenantal nomism category does not fit his emphasis on the new creation. Essentially, while Paul accepts some aspects of Jewish soteriology, it is inconsistent with his participationist categories.

Paul and Palestinian Judaism

I am currently doing an independant study on the so called, "new perspectives on Paul." Pauline theology is one of my greatest interests, and I hope to someday be a scholar who will be able to offer something in this debate. I am going to give a brief overview of each section of E.P. Sander's Paul and Palestinian Judaism, the first important volume in this movement. I know many do not have the time to read through this much material themselves, so I am hoping to be of aid to those who would like to understand this movement.

Part 1: Palestinian Judaism
Sanders briefly overviews the different evaluations of second temple Judaism which scholars have promoted in the recent past. In the 19th century, due to the work of F. Weber, it was generally understood that Judaism of the second temple period was a religion of "works righteousness." Jews supposedly believed that God would weigh one's good deeds against his bad to determine the fate of that man. One could gain extra merit through a "treasury of merits" of sorts. Sanders concludes that Weber's evaluation was deeply flawed, though remained somewhat unchallenged in his day. This same view of Judaism was promoted by Bousset, Schurer, and Bultmann. Many Jewish scholars refuted Weber's claims, and Sanders believes succesfully, yet there work was not of much effect. Weber's view still was the majority opinion.

Sanders wants to prove that Weber's view is flawed by evaluating the writings of the second temple period extensively. According to Sanders, there is an overall coherence of the "pattern of religion" in Judaism. Though there were certainly diverging views of Judaism in the second temple period, there was an overall basic soteriology which permeated the majority of second temple literature. Sanders labels this soteriology "covenantal nomism." Covenantal nomism is the idea that the Jews believed themselves to be in the covenant by grace, but maintained there status in the covenant by obedience. In other words, the emphasis was on God's electing grace, rather than on strict law-keeping. God chose the nation of Israel to be His own, thus one is in the covenant by God's choice, not by works. The role of law-keeping was one of maintaining status, rather than gaining status. One could lose "salvation" by breaking the commandments, yet one could not gain "salvation" by keeping commandments.

The question naturally comes as to why God elected the nation of Israel. Sanders writes that there were three different answers to this question in second temple literature. One answer is that the covenant was offered to all nations, yet Israel was the only one to accept it. The second opinion is that the nation was chosen because of the merits of the patriarchs. The third, was that God elected the nation simply because he chose to. It was a matter of pure grace. The first two answers still put the covenant in the hands of human merit, yet Sanders does not see this as harmful to his thesis. It does not matter how or why the covenant was initiated in the first place. What matters is that those in the covenant in the second temple period, were personally initiated apart from what they had done. It seems to me that the first two responses do not coincide well with Sanders overall thesis. Whether or not the merit of the descendents of the patriarchs gained the covenant, it was still gained by human merit. I find it interesting that some thought the covenant was initiated because of the merits of the patriarchs. This means that it would not be an idea foreign to Judaism for Paul to say that we are saved by the righteousness (or merit) of another, namely the Godman Jesus Christ. Perhaps this framework allowed Paul to frame his ideas in such a way as to be understandable to a Jewish audience.

Sanders certainly is right in showing the sloppiness of much scholarship dealing with the second temple literature. Often no differentiation was made between Tannaitic and Amoraic material, and it had been simply assumed that Rabbinic Judaism was identical to Pharisaic Judaism. Sanders convincingly shows that there is more to Jewish soteriology than a simple weighing of merits. One would try his best, and when he failed there was the system of atonement in the law which would restore him, and assure him that his sins had been forgiven. One is often said to be rewarded for his goodness, and for his deeds, yet it is not that one earns salvation through these merits, but that one maintains his status and proves himself through these merits. The just God must reward righteousness, and punish evil, yet not in such a way as to say that a man earns that status. He is only aided to righteousness by God grace. When Sanders runs into a passage that seems to contradict his idea, he resorts to saying that they were no systematic theologians, thus were not careful and could be inconsistent.