1

HINDUSTAN BIBLE INSTITUTE & COLLEGE, CHENNAI-10

Subject: Pauline Thought

The New Perspective on Paul

Submitted to: Dr. Sobanaraj Submitted by: R. Johnson M.Th NT 2nd

year

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Introduction:

Paul is an enigmatic individual and pastoral theologian. In the ocean of New

Testament Scholarship waves of studies had been done on Paul and his theology. Until the

beginning of 19th century the traditional understanding on Paul‘s theology was dominated the

New Testament world; but later in 19th

century the New Testament scholars began to see the

theology of Paul with newer lens with the arrival of the paradigm shift on Paul‘s teaching on

Law and justification by faith alone. In 1963 Krister Stedahl wrote the essay on ―The Apostle

Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West‖ in this essay he employed a new

approach1 against the traditional understanding on justification by faith alone; but his

approach was not popular until the influx of E.P. Sanders‘ ―Paul and Palestinian Judaism‖ in

1977. This paradigm shift on Paul‘s teaching on law paved the way for the New Testament

scholars to have a third eye on Justification by faith alone.

Traditionally in Protestant exegesis Judaism has been seen as the foil to Christianity,

as that which Christianity brought to an end, as that from which Paul was changed after his

Damascus experience. Read in that light the antitheses in Romans,2 particularly between sin

and grace, death and life, law and faith, though surprisingly less so between flesh and Spirit,

appeared as antitheses between Judaism and Christianity. ―The Jew‖ became the classic type

of religion gone wrong, of religion understood in terms of human achievement, rather than as

the expression of gratitude for, and response to, the initiative of divine grace.3 Recent few

decades have witnessed a change in views of Pauline theology.

A growing number of evangelicals have endorsed a view called the New Perspective

on Paul who significantly departs from the Reformation emphasis on justification by faith

alone.4 The new perspective on Paul had been initiated by E. P. Sanders‘s Paul and

1 The key insight of this essay is that the West has habitually interpreted Paul and his letters through the

lens of Martin Luther‘s psyche, with a strong nod to St Augustine of Hippo. That is, the church has assumed

that Paul, like Augustine and Luther, had a troubled hyperactive conscience, that Paul was therefore tormented

by guilt and inner conflict over not being able to meet the inflexible demands of Judaism. That is, until he was

converted on the Damascus Road, delivered from bondage to Judaism, and discovered a new religion of grace

and salvation by faith centered in Jesus of Nazareth. 2J.D.G. Dunn (Roman, Letter to the, DPL, 842 ) denotes that traditionally Romans has been treated as a

work of systematic theology, ―a compendium of Christian doctrine.‖ in Melanchthon‘s words, a more or less

timeless statement of what the gospel means. But the later recognition that the letter is related to the particular

emphases and circumstances of Paul‘s mission carries with it the consequence that the issues addressed in the

letter must also have been conditioned in greater or less measure by the same emphases and circumstances.

What is at stake in Romans is not the gospel in general or in the abstract, but the gospel in particular as

embodied by Paul‘s own life and work that is a Jewish gospel for Gentiles, and the strains and tensions which

stemmed from that basic conviction. This perspective on the letter has been reinforced by the new perspective

on Paul and on the Jewish context from which he emerged. 3 J. D. G. Dunn, ―Romans, the Letter to,‖ DPL, (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1993), 842.

4 F. David Farnell, ―The New Perspective on Paul: Its Basic Tenets, History, and Presuppositions,‖

TMSJ 16/2 (Fall 2005): 189.

2

Palestinian Judaism. The New perspective on Paul is in fact the phrase that James D. G.

Dunn himself coined for the new approach to the interpretation of Paul based on E. P.

Sanders‘s definition of Second Temple Judaism as covenantal nomism.5 J. Smith denotes that

the interpretations of the apostle Paul, and particularly of his doctrine of justification by faith,

have arisen that openly challenge the ―Reformed‖ or ―traditional Protestant‖ view. One of

these interpretations is now commonly known as ―the New Perspective‖.6 J. Smith says that

there are significant difficulties in addressing this subject. First, there are different nuances.

The leading advocates of this reassessment of Paul and the doctrine of justification don‘t

agree on every point. As J. Ligon Duncan puts it, ―There is no such thing as ‗the New

Perspective on Paul‘ if you mean a unified, uniform, comprehensive theory or mode of

interpretation about which there has come to be broad consensus agreement. There is a sense

in which we could refer to ―New Perspectives‖ rather than to ―the New Perspective.‖ At the

same time, there are similarities of opinion, shared assumptions, and common traits that are

characteristic of what may be called a ―developing perspective.‖ In that sense, a person may

refer to ―the New Perspective,‖ as long as he/she recognize that the human being associated

with this movement put differing twists on the details of their new way of understanding

Paul.

A second difficulty is space limitation.7 But Davina C. Lopez says the new

perspective in Pauline studies has considered a shift in focus from conversion in light of a

reassessment of Paul in light of first-century intra-Jewish, and not modern Protestant-

Catholic or Christian- Jewish, conflicts.8 The best-known spokesmen for the New Perspective

on Paul are E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn, and N. T. Wright.9 When discussing the rise of

the New Perspective on Paul, few theologians carefully scrutinize its historical and

presupposition antecedents. Thus this paper ventures to discuss about the basic

presupposition of the scholars in approaching New Perspective, change of scholars approach

in view of Pauline thought and how do they authenticate their arguments?

Leading Proponents of the New Perspective

It is inevitable to undertake the study on leading proponents of the New Perspectives

on Paul such as, E.P. Sanders, James D.G. Dunn, Nicholas Thomas Wright, Heikki Raisanen,

Seyoon Kim, Krister Stedahl, and J. C. Beker. The study on above mention proponents will

enable the readers to have a better understanding on the New Perspective on Paul.

E.P. Sanders

5 S. J. Hafemann, ―Paul and His Interpretaters,‖ DPL, (Downer‘s Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 673.

6 Jeffery smith, ―An overview and critique of the new perspective On paul's doctrine of justification‖

RBTR: 78-79. 7 J. Smith, ―The new perspective On Paul's doctrine of justification‖ RBTR: 86.

8 Davina C. Lopez, Apostle to the Conquered: Reimagining Paul’s Mission (Minneapolis: Fortress,

2008), 121. 9 F. David Farnell, ―The New Perspective on Paul,‖ 189.

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E.P Sanders was formerly professor of exegesis at Oxford and is now a member of the faculty

at Duke University. His hypothesis10

is that the Judaism of Paul‘s time was not a religion in

which one must seek to gain acceptance with God through acquiring personal merit through

good works. Instead, the Jews of Paul‘s day were taught to keep the law out of gratitude to

God for His mercies. This was not in order to gain acceptance with God or in order to enter

into a covenant relationship with Him. That acceptance and covenant relationship was

understood as freely bestowed on them by God‘s grace. Rather the keeping of the law was in

order to maintain that acceptance.11

Sanders posits that ―Getting in‖ is purely by God‘s grace,

but ―staying in‖ involves grateful obedience to the law-not sin less obedience but ―the

intention and effort to be obedient. Obedience does not earn acceptance; it simply maintains

acceptance.12

This pattern of religion is called ―covenantal nomism.‖13

According to sanders by getting in, Paul meant how one gets into the body of those

who saved by faith in Christ Jesus and by staying in Paul meant how one stays in the body of

those who saved by faith in Christ Jesus. In discussing how one gets in, he says it is not by

works of the law or observing the Torah but by faith in Christ Jesus and in discussing how

one stays in, he says by keeping the law. Thus, he is not completely denying the role of the

Law in a Christian‘s life. But, his argument is that one cannot ‗enter‘ or ‗get into‘ the body of

those who would be saved by means of observing the law but solely by grace through faith in

Christ Jesus.14

For Jews, salvation is dependent on their covenant relationship with God not

by observing the Law. But, they (covenant people) were required to obey the Law in order to

stay in that covenant relationship.15

They did not obey the Law in order to get in to the

Covenant relationship with God. Thus, he says, the statement ‗no one is righteous by works

of law‘ can be understood as directed against the Jewish understanding of salvation, against

Paul‘s Christian opponents (whether Jewish or Gentile), or both.16

Therefore, it is not

necessary to be a Jew in order to be ―righteous‖.17

On the other hand J.M. Hamilton supposes

that E.P. Sanders interprets Paul in light of his findings regarding the milieu in which Paul

lived. More specifically, in light of his study of the sources, Sanders writes as though he has a

better understanding of the disagreement between Paul and his contemporaries than Paul had.

Paul himself often formulated his critique of Judaism as having to do with the means of

attaining righteousness, ―by faith and not by works of law,‖ and this formulation has been

held to be accurate: Paul agreed on the goal, righteousness, but saw that it should be received

by grace through faith, not achieved by works. But this formulation, though it is Paul‘s own,

10

J. Smith (―The New Perspective on Paul,‖ RBTR: 89) denotes Sanders argues out of his lengthy

survey that in 1977, he published Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Although others before him had made some of

the same points, Sanders received a wider hearing than his predecessors. This is the foundational book out of

which the NP has arisen. Sanders examines a wide variety of Jewish sources. He first surveys the early Rabbinic

literature from the period between the fall of Jerusalem (AD 70) and the compilation of the Mishnah (AD 200).

He then looks at portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a selection of material from apocryphal and

pseudepigraphical writings. 11

E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 7. 12

Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism,511. 13

Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 512. 14

E.P.Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985). 15

Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 180. 16

Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 17. 17

Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 46.

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actually misstates the fundamental point of disagreement.18

Kim states Sanders testimony is

taken as evidence against the traditional interpretation: Paul clearly thought that it was

possible to keep the law so as to have ―blameless‖ righteousness; and therefore it is quite

improbable that Paul would argue in Galatians 3:10 that no one can keep the law perfectly so

that ―all those of works of the law are under a curse.‖ Such a consideration has led many to

attempt to interpret Galatians 3:10 without this premise. According to Sanders, Paul‘s

Christological decision that salvation is only in Jesus Christ led him to see Judaism as

problematic.19

J. Smith thinks, argument of Sanders that the contrary to the view of Protestant

interpreters generally, first-century Palestinian Judaism was not a works-righteousness

religion, in which men acquired personal merit in order to gain acceptance with God. No, it

was essentially a religion of grace, i.e., a religion in which acceptance into covenant

relationship with God is the gift of God‘s grace, not something earned by keeping the law.

Attempting to keep the law,20

and availing oneself of repentance and various other means of

atonement for one‘s sins, is necessary in order to maintain covenant status, but it is not the

way in which we acquire covenant status. Palestinian Judaism saw that status as being given

by grace. So the main point for now is that Sanders draws the conclusion that traditional

Protestantism has been guilty of wrongly understanding Palestinian Judaism as a religion of

works-righteousness.21

S.J. Hafemann quotes the definition of covenantal nomism from Sanders as:

Covenantal nomism is the view that one‘s place in God‘s plan is established on the basis of

the covenant and that the covenant requires as the proper response of man his obedience to its

commandments, while providing means of atonement for transgression.22

Sanders

summarizes the structure of covenantal nomism as:

(1) God has chosen Israel and (2) given the law. The law implies both (3) God‘s promise to

maintain the election and (4) the requirement to obey. (5) God rewards obedience and

punishes transgression. (6) The law provides for means of atonement, and atonement results

in (7) maintenance or re-establishment of the covenantal relationship. (8) All those who are

maintained in the covenant by obedience, atonement and God's mercy belong to the group

which will be saved. An important interpretation of the first and last points is that election

and ultimately salvation are considered to be by God‘s mercy rather than human

achievement.23

Based on this structure there are scholars like D.G. Dunn and N.T. build their

observation on the new approach to the concept of work righteousness.

18

S. J. Hafemann, ―Paul and His Interpretaters,‖ DPL, 673. 19

Seyoon Kim, Paul and the new perspective: second thoughts on The origin of Paul’s gospel (Grand

Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002), 131 20

Willis P. DeBoer quotes from kim‘s argument on Sanders that Sanders proposed that Second Temple

Judaism is to be understood as "covenantal nomism"—basically, a salvation by God's covenantal grace. The law

did not earn salvation, but was a way of responding to salvation, the way of staying saved. Such an

understanding of Judaism seemed totally at odds with centuries of understanding of first century Judaism, at

least as represented by the Apostle Paul. Pauline studies have been in ferment ever since. 21

J. Smith, 84. 22

S.J. Hafemann, 673. 23

Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judiasm, 423.

5

D.G. Dunn says that Sanders‘ key formula, ‗covenantal nomism‘, has come under

particularly heavy criticism. Dunn supposes that the formula should also be given more credit

than it has so far received. It implies a necessary inter-relationship, as Sanders clearly saw,

between divine initiative and grace (covenant) and human obedience of the (nomism).24

Dunn

denotes that no doubt is that case, that some of Sanders‘ statements are imbalanced in that

they overstate the covenant side of the inter-relationship. When a previous imbalance is being

corrected, that will often happen, particularly if previous attempts to correct the imbalance

were largely ignored. Dunn syas that his point is however, is that Sanders‘ own key formula,

‗covenantal nomism‘, already indicated both that the two sides of the inter-relationship

needed to be recognized and the broad terms of that inter-relationship: covenant as

presupposition for nomism; but covenant as still in an important sense dependent on

nomism.25

And J. Smith argues against Sanders that If Sanders‘ understanding of first-century

Palestinian is correct, this presents a problem for the traditional interpretation of Paul,

particularly for his doctrine of justification. How is that? If the Judaism of Paul‘s time was

not a religion that sought to gain acceptance with God by good works or by keeping the law,

why does Paul so strongly affirm over and over that by the works of the law no flesh shall be

justified? As all agree, Paul argues in Romans and in Galatians especially that works of the

law cannot justify. But if the Jews of his time were not trying to be justified by keeping the

law, what was the point of Paul‘s argument? As Douglas Moo frames the dilemma, ―If no one

in first-century Judaism really believed that a person could be justified by doing the law,‖

then why deny it? Moo claims that if there is nothing then what would we deny? And Smith

denotes those who accept Sanders‘ view of first-century Judaism offer various answers to this

question.26

Some argue that Paul misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented Judaism for

polemical purposes, that he meant to imply that the Jews were seeking justification and

acceptance with God by means of law keeping, and thus that the traditional understanding of

Paul is right. The problem then is that Paul himself was wrong in his representation of the

Judaism of his day. It has been argued then that Paul‘s teaching about the law is incoherent

and inconsistent and that he was willing even to distort his opponent's position for polemical

purposes.27

James Dunn affirms that the value of Sanders‘ work is allowed the fundamental

problem of the relation of Christianity to Judaism and of Paul‘s theology to his Jewish

heritage to reemerge on centre stage.

The protestant Paul had always been a puzzle to Jewish scholars who tried to take

him seriously, and equally to those from the Christian side who immersed themselves in

Jewish tradition. The Judaism which New Testament scholarship posed as the foil to Paul‘s

theology was not one they recognized. The best solution they could think of was that Paul

must have been reacting against some form of Judaism of which no real trace now remains,

except in his letters that a Diaspora Judaism, different from Palestinian Judaism. Variations

24

Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism,513. 25

Dunn, New Perspective of Paul, 56. 26

Douglas Moo, 27

J. Smith, 84.

6

of this hypothesis28

continue to be offered by those who find the evidence of Paul‘s own

polemic to be explicable in no other terms. Sanders himself did not offer much help here,

since in the light of the new perspective on Second Temple Judaism he could only see an

incoherent and inconsistent Paul.29

Though Sanders did lot research and come to the

conclusion that Second Temple Judaism or Palestinian Judaism as a religion of works-

righteousness, it shows purposely neither Paul talking against law or Paul was incoherent and

inconsistent in his thought.

And Gregory K. Beale quotes that D. A. Carson‘s conclusion about Sanders's concept

of ―covenantal nomism‖ was ―too doctrinaire, too unsupported by the sources themselves, too

reductionistic, too monopolistic.‖

James Dunn, for example, criticized Carson‘s comments for

being too extreme and not adequately representing the essays in that first volume. Dunn says

that ―the findings of most of the contributors to this volume are in effect that ‗covenantal

nomism‘ serves well as a summary phrase, so long as one recognizes the variations in

emphasis, depending on different styles and circumstances.‖

Carson responds to this kind of

criticism in the second volume by saying that the assessment fails to recall Sanders's all-

encompassing claim that "covenantal nomism is endemic to all the relevant literature of

Second Temple Judaism and therefore that Paul must be read against that background".

This

does not mean for Carson that "new perspective" readings of Paul are necessarily wrong but

that they must not be presumed to be correct. A close examination of Paul must be conducted

to decide whether or not Sanders's model is a fitting lens for understanding the apostle's

writings, and this is the motive for writing the second volume of Justification and Variegated

Nomism.30

Gregory K. Beale denotes that Dunn sees different emphases of Sanders's "getting

in and staying in" pattern in Judaism, whereas Carson sees not only different emphases but

also different theological patterns. When does a different emphasis of an idea become a

distinctly different idea? Carson thinks that what Dunn would often term a "different

emphasis" of the "covenantal nomism" concept stretches so far as to become a different

concept.

This debate over whether some sectors in Judaism express a mere different emphasis

of the "covenantal nomism" notion or a radically different concept is also a constant criticism

alluded to by some of the contributors at points throughout vol. 2.

This Baker says that I see

to be one of the crucial differences between those who hold to the "new perspective" and

those who do not.31

G.K Beale states this dispute over what is a different emphasis of Sanders‘s

covenantal pattern of religion or a different concept is a difficult issue to evaluate because it

demands such a wide grasp of Second Temple Jewish literature, which few possess, but, in

my view, Carson and company have the better of the argument. While some likely wish that

Carson could have recognized more of what Dunn criticizes him for not acknowledging, it

needs to be remembered that, in fact, he does repeatedly recognize throughout his concluding

chapter those contributors who saw Sanders's "covenantal nomism" to be fitting in some of

28

The hypothesis that Paul was reacting against some form of Judaism which taught justification by

good works. 29

James D. G. Dunn, The theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans,

1998), 339. 30

Gregory K. Beale, ―The Overstated ―New‖ Perspective?‖ BBR 1(2009): 86. 31

G. K. Beale, 86-87.

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the literature they surveyed. Thus, Carson's final conclusion is tempered by these earlier

acknowledgments. But many of these contributors also had major qualifications about the

way Sanders's view fit. Especially significant is Carson's evaluation that Sanders's thesis is so

broad and plastic that it leaves room for not merely different emphases but different ideas.

So

many adjustments and qualifications need to be made in the model that the model itself needs

reformulation.

For example, O'Brien acknowledges that, while Sanders has set up covenantal

nomism as the antithesis to Jewish merit theology, ―his construct is so flexible that it actually

includes a great deal of merit theology.‖32

But Colin G. Kruse says that Sanders‘ work also describes the pattern of Paul‘s

religion. The results of his investigation lead him to conclude that Paul‘s religion, unlike that

of Palestinian Judaism, cannot be described as covenantal nomism, but is best understood as

participationist eschatology. C. G. Kruse quotes Sanders‘ statement that the heart of Paul‘s

thought is not that one ratifies and agrees to a covenant offered by God, becoming a member

of a group with a covenantal relation with God and remaining in it on the condition of proper

behavior; but that one dies with Christ, obtaining new life and the initial transformation

which leads to the resurrection and ultimate transformation, that one is a member of the body

of Christ and one Spirit with him, and that one remains so unclean so unless one breaks the

participatory union by forming another. And Kruse utters that Sanders‘ work describes some

features which do and do not specifically differentiate Palestinian Judaism33

from Pauline

Christianity. The true contrast is not to be found in the matter of grace and works or in Paul‘s

expectation of an imminent end. It is predominantly his understanding of righteousness which

distinguishes Christianity from Judaism.34

Robert P. Seesengood quotes that Sanders argued that Pauline Scholarship had been

too overwhelmed by Luther‘s reading and context.35

As such, it tended to the view that Paul

was arguing that Christianity had replaced Judaism because Judaism was an inferior religion

based on legalism and empty ritual. The central tensions in Paul‘s letters were election versus

will and law versus grace.36

Pauline scholarship, Sanders argued, was presenting a superficial

32

Dunn says the volumes edited by D.A. Carson, P.T.O‘Brien and M.A. Seifrid sets out to examine the

inter-relationship in much finer details (as Sanders‘ work warranted), and its findings largely concur: that such

an inter-relationship does need to be recognized, even if Sanders did not state it adequately at various points. 33

In the same time Colin G. Kruse quotes Sanders‘ statement that ‗In short, this is what Paul finds

wrong in Judaism: it is not Christianity. 34

Colin G. Kruse quotes (Paul, the Law and Justification, 36) from Sanders that, to be righteous in

Jewish means to obey the Torah and to repent of transgression, but in Paul it means to be saved by Christ. Most

succinctly, righteousness in Judaism is a term which implies the maintenance of status among the group of the

elect; in Paul it is a transfer therm. In Judaism, that is, commitment to the covenant puts one ‗in‘, while

obedience (righteousness) subsequently keeps one in. In Paul‘s usage, ‗be made righteous (‗be justified‘) is a

term indicating getting in not staying in the body of the saved‘. Thus when Paul says one cannot be made

righteous by works of law, he means that one cannot, by works of law, ‗transfer to the body of the saved‘. When

Judaism said that one is righteous who obeys the law, the meaning is that one thereby stays in the covenant. 35

Dunn (New Perspective on Paul, 95) utters that he find Sanders‘ Paul little more convincing which is

less attractive than the Lutheran Paul. He is not convinced that we have yet been given the proper reading of

Paul from the new perspective of first century Palestinian Judaism opened up so helpfully by Sanders himself.

On the contrary, he believes that the new perspective on Paul does not make better sense of Paul than either

Sanders or his critics have so far realized. And, if he may He would like in what follows to make a beginning to

an exegesis and description of Paul‘s theology from this perspective. 36

G.K. Beale (―The Overstated ―New‖ Perspective?‖ BBR 1) supposes that Sanders might say that this

sort of response is, at least, over analysis, and he would merely respond generally and assert that obedience is

necessary for faithful conformity to God's gracious revelation of the law (within the framework of God's

8

picture of Jewish doctrine and faith and passing that reading off as Paul‘s own. Sanders‘

monography offered a withering critique of prior scholarship, bouncing current work off

Paul‘s writing and contrasting commonly argued perspectives on Judaism against Jewish

texts. Sanders argued that Paul would never have held such views. R. P. Seesengood quotes

Sanders argument on ‗new perspective‘ on Paul, where Paul‘s Jewishness was foregrounded.

Sanders asserted that Paul was seeking a new way of remaining Jewish which includes

gentiles, in the light of the messiah. He challenged the dichotomies of law and grace,37

showing that Paul invoked both and did so as many other Jewish teachers and thinkers of his

day would have done as well. For Sanders, the pivotal moment in Pauline thinking was his

vision of the resurrected Jesus. After this event, Paul began trying to reason through a new

image of God that recognized the messiah‘s arrival and found ways to spiritually (or

metaphorically) deal with Hebrew Bible passages about the messianic age.38

Smith quotes others have given Paul more credit, arguing that the problem in

reconciling Sanders‘ picture of Palestinian Judaism with Paul‘s teaching is a failure to

properly understand exactly what Paul means by ―the works of the law.‖ Supposedly

understanding what he really means by this gives the clue to the true meaning of Paul‘s

doctrine of justification and helps us to understand the real battle that Paul was fighting.39

And Heikki Raisanen also accepts Sanders‘ strictures on Paul: Paul does misrepresent and

distort the Judaism of his own day. He has separated law from covenant and adopted a

Gentile point of view. Having ―become internally alienated from the ritual aspects of the law‖

over the years he has branded ―the covenantal theology of his Jewish-Christian opponents as

salvation by works of the law‖, thus attributing to the law a different role than the Jewish

Christian themselves did.40

Dunn accepts fully Sanders‘ interpretation of Palestinian Judaism.

He believes that Sanders proved conclusively that first-century Judaism did not teach a

doctrine that salvation is earned by the merit of good works. Thus he agrees with Sanders that

the Reformation understanding of Paul‘s doctrine of justification was wrong.41

This argument

remains unless we understand the right meaning of what Paul refers when he speaks of the

works of the law.

James D.G. Dunn

Dunn currently serves as the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the University of

Durham. He coined the term ―New Perspective‖ in a 1982 lecture that was later published in

election of Israel), and this obedience is linked to God's grace in that it is carried out within the larger context of

God's gracious election and the covenant,

within which he has also provided for forgiveness of sins through

atoning sacrifices. 37

Hawthorne quotes that (Paul and His interpretation,‖ DPL,673) Robert H. Gundry also provided a

meticulous and "penetrating review of Sanders' methods, exegesis and conclusions Gundry demonstrates that

though Sanders frames Judaism as a religion of grace, that brand of grace is altogether unlike the sort of grace

championed by Paul. Gundry's experience in being expelled from the Evangelical Theological Society would

also seem to remove him from liability to the charge of being "desperately concerned to maintain" perceived

orthodoxy. 38

Robert P. Seesengood, Paul: A Brief History (West Sussex: Wiley-Black well, 2010), 199. 39

J. Smith, 84-85. 40

J. D. G. Dunn, New Perspective on Paul, 94. 41

J. Smith, 85.

9

his Jesus, Paul, and the Law: Studiesin Mark and Galatians.42

Paul Foster says that James

Dunn‘s contribution to the so-called ‗new perspective‘ on Paul is both well-known and

voluminous-literally. Although primarily a collection of previously published papers, it does

contain two new pieces, the introduction, and a study of Phil. 3.2-14. The introduction (88

pages in length) is strikingly biographical, relating Dunn‘s thought processes and intellectual

development in wrestling with the ever-enigmatic figure of Paul.43

J. Smith states that

Building on Sanders‘ work, Dunn's major contribution to the new perspective is his answer to

the question, ―What then was Paul's controversy with the Jews about?‖ If the Jews were not

trying to gain acceptance with God on the basis of obedience to the law, why does Paul keep

insisting in his epistles that we are justified by faith and not by the works of the law? Dunn

argues that this question's answer is found in rightly understanding what Paul is referring to

when he speaks of the works of the law.44

Where Dunn shifted things was with Paul, and he argued at first that, Paul‘s problem

with his Judaizing opponents (not the same as ―Judaism‖ as a whole) was that they were

constructing a nation-based righteousness, a nationalistic righteousness, that kept Gentiles out

because it was simply a nation‘s faith. It is obvious that the nationalistic righteousness which

keeps gentiles out from the God‘s universal salvation is against Paul‘s Damascus revelation.

But James D. G. Dunn's version that the Damascus revelation45

contained only Paul's

commission to go to the Gentiles and that Paul's doctrine of justification was the result of

later controversies regarding the social situation at Antioch, Kim's thesis in Origin was

quickly recognized as providing substantial opposition to this new perspective. Dunn,

therefore, responded to Kim's ideas in several articles promoting his own version of the new

perspective.46

Kim argues that Dunn concludes it is simply to affirms that the primary thrust

and cutting edge of the doctrine of justification as it emerges in Paul‘s writings is as an

expression of his Damascus-road-given insight that God‘s covenant grace is also for the

gentiles as Gentiles, that the eschatological fulfillment of the promise through Abraham does

not require Gentiles to merge their ethnic identity into that of the Jewish people.47

And Kim

states, Dunn recognizes that the traditional interpretation of Romans 4:4-5 as good works

done in an attempt to gain righteousness is ―wholly understandable‖ and that the Deutero-

Pauline epistles confirms this interpretation (Eph 2:8-9; 2 Tim 1:9; Tit 3:5). Nevertheless,

Dunn labors hard to reject this interpretation, but his argument is quite misty. Commenting on

42

J. Smith, 85. 43

Paul Foster, The New Perspective on Paul: Collected Essays:James D.G. Dunn, WUNT 185;

(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 77. 44

J. Smile, 86. 45

Robert Keay quotes that Kim's first essay, "Paul's Conversion/Call, James D. G. Dunn, and the New

Perspective on Paul," is the longest in the book (pp. 1-84) and functions as an orientation for the whole. In it he

argues that Dunn's restriction of the Damascus event to Paul's commission to go to the Gentiles cannot be

sustained, but that four elements are outstanding—the revelation of the gospel of Jesus, the apostolic call to the

Gentiles, endowment with the Holy Spirit, and the revelation of the mystery of Israel's hardening. Kim states,

"Against Dunn's exclusive stress on Paul's call to the gentile mission, I would conclude that hot that element

alone but the four elements combined together made a passionate apostle of Christ to the gentiles out of a

Pharisee and 'zealot' for the law and Judaism". He shows that the first two elements were received immediately

while the last two elements were received mediately by reflection on Isa 42 and Isa 6 and 49. 46

Robert Keay, ―Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on the Origin of Paul's Gospel, by

Seyoon Kim,‖JBL: xv, 336. 47

Seyoon Kim, Paul and The New Perspective, 20.

10

Romans 4:6 which talks about David speaks of the blessedness of the person to whom God

reckons righteousness without works, Dunn says: ―David‘s righteousness was to be

understood in terms of his being forgiven, of his sins not being reckoned (4:7-8), rather than

in terms of his being circumcised and practicing the other works of the law.‖ Kim says that it

is quite revealing that to explain ―works‖ in Romans 4:6, Dunn has to add ―practicing the

other works of the law‖ here. Clearly Dunn cannot see ―work‖ here referring only to the

Jewish covenant distinctive such as circumcision and the food laws! But why is he

nevertheless insisting that with ―works of the law‖ Paul refers only to the Jewish covenant

distinctive? Why does he not take into account his own insight that Paul generalizes the

doctrine of Justification in Romans 3-4? It is a puzzle how Dunn is able to see ―works‖ in

Romans 9:11b refer to the Jewish covenant distinctive when it clearly refers to ―doing

something good or bad‖ in the foregoing clause (v. 11a), in contrast to God‘s election of

grace. 48

Scot McKnight denotes, Dunn utters that this is what I mean and still mean when I

speak of ‗the new perspective49

on Paul‘, as I attempted to work it out in fuller detail some

years later in my Theology of Paul. In summary: (a) it builds on Sanders‘ new perspective on

Second Temple Judaism, and Sanders‘ reassertion of the basis graciousness expressed in

Judaism‘s understanding and practice of covenantal nomism. (b) It observes that a social

function of the law was an integral aspect of Israel‘s covenantal nomism, where separateness

to God (holiness) was understood to require separateness from the other nations as two sides

of the one coin, and that the law was understood as the means to maintaining both. (c) it notes

that Paul‘s own teaching on justification focuses largely if not principally on the need to

overcome the barrier which the law was seen to interpose between Jew and Gentile, so that

the ‗all‘ of ‗to all who believe‘ (Rom. 1:17) signifies in the first place, Gentile as well as Jew.

(d) It suggests that ‗works of law‘50

became a key slogan in Paul‘s exposition of his

justification gospel because so many of Paul‘s fellow Jewish believers were insisting on

certain works as indispensable to their own (and others?) standing within the covenant, and

therefore as indispensable to salvation. (e) It protests that failure to recognize this major

dimension of Paul‘s doctrine of justification by faith may have ignored or excluded a vital

48

Seyoon Kim, 59. 49

Dunn‘s new perspective is not set this understanding of justification by faith in antithesis to the

justification of the individual by faith. It is not opposed to the classic Reformed doctrine of Justification. It

simply observes that a social and ethnic dimension was part of the doctrine from its first formulation, was

indeed integral to the first recorded exposition and defense of the doctrine – ‗Jew first but also Greek‘. These are

the slogans which we should use to summaries Paul‘s gospel – ‗to all who believe, Jew first but also Greek‘, ‗no

distinction between Jew and Greek… to all who call upon him‘ (Rom. 1:16; 10:12) – not the dogmatically

logical ‗from plight to solution‘, still less Sanders‘ somewhat contrived antithesis, ‗from solution to plight‘. This

is the lost theological dimension of the doctrine which needs to be brought afresh into the light, not to diminish

the traditional doctrine, but to enrich the doctrine from its biblical roots and to recover the wholeness of Paul‘s

teaching on the subject. 50

Colin G. Kruse quotes (Paul, the Law and Justification, 41) Dunn‘s words that the phrase ta evraga

tou nomoj belongs to a complex of ideas in which the social function of the law is prominent. The law serves

both to identify Israel as the People of the covenant and to mark them off as distinct from the other nations.

‗Works of the law‘denote all that the law requires of the devout Jew, but precisely because it is the law as

identity and boundary marker which is in view, the law as Israel‘s law focuses on these rites which express

Jewish distinctiveness most clearly. ‗The work of the law‘ refers not exclusively but particularly to those

requirements which bring to sharp focus the distinctiveness of Israel‘s identity.

11

factor in combating the nationalism and racialism which has so distorted and diminished

Christianity past and present.51

J. Smith quotes on M. Thompson‘s (New Perspective on Paul, 10) summary of Dunn's

teaching: Dunn's major contribution consists in his view that the "works of the law"52

Paul

opposed in Galatians primarily referred to circumcision, keeping the religious calendar and

observing the dietary laws that distinguished Jews from Gentiles. Drawing on insights from

sociology, Dunn calls these particular "works of the law" the badges or boundary markers of

Judaism. Paul opposed these practices because they functioned to separate people whom

Christ died to bring together. In short, Paul's target was not an insistence on basic moral

behavior, but on particular religious practices that differentiated Jews from Gentiles,

demonstrating the former group's status as members within God's covenant.53

To summarize, Dunn agrees that the problem Paul is addressing in his doctrine of

justification is not the problem of legalism. He argues that here the Reformation was wrong.

Paul's antagonists were not trying to earn acceptance with God on the basis of good works.

The problem that Paul is addressing is Jewish exclusivism expressed in the insistence that

Gentile Christians adhere to certain boundary marking regulations such as circumcision,

Sabbath, and food laws. Also, Dunn has no place in his understanding of justification for a

righteousness imputed to the believer as the basis of his acceptance with God. Justification is

not about answering the question, "How can I, a lost sinner, be accepted by a Holy God?"

Justification is about erasing ethnic boundaries between Jews and Gentiles by declaring that

all who believe in Christ and are faithful to Him are in the covenant. 54

N.T. Wright denotes that when Jimmy Dunn added his stones to the growing pile I

found myself in both agreement and disagreement with him. His proposal about the meaning

of ‗works of the law‘ in Paul – that they are not the moral works through which one gains

merit but the works through which the Jew is defined over against the pagan. I regard as

exactly right. It has proved itself again and again in the detailed exegesis; attempts to deny it

have in my view failed. But Dunn, like Sanders (and like some other New Perspective writers

such as John Ziesler) has not, I think, got to the heart of Paul. Wright says; Again, much of

my writing on Paul over the last twenty years at least has been in at least implicit dialogue

with him, and I find his exposition of justification itself less than satisfying. For one thing, he

never understands what I take to be Paul‘s fundamental covenant theology; for another, his

typically protestant anti-sacramentalism leads him to miss the point of Romans chapter 6.55

Andrew Das utters that Dunn recognizes both poles in Jewish thought: the demand for

obedient works as well as the gracious framework of this demand.

He consequently struggles

51

Dunn, New Perspective on Paul, 15. 52

S. Kim (Paul and The New Perspective, 132) denotes that according to Dunn, the phrase ―work of

the law‖ is ―Paul‘s code for those requirements of the law in particular which brought to the sharpest focus

israel‘s claim to be distinctive from others as God‘s convenant people.‖ So by the phrase ―those of works of the

law,‖ according to Dunn, Paul refers to the Jews who, emphasizing their distinctive from gentiles and restricting

covenant grace to themselves, ― their confidence in Israel‘s ‗favoured nation‘ status.‖ Kim describes that Dunn

says, quite correctly, that ―Paul intends ‗the curse of the law‘ ― in Galatians 3:13 ―to be understood in the light

of v. 10,‖ and interprets the idea of interchange here in terms of ―the law printing its curse on Jesus, as it were,

so that in his death the force of the curse was exhausted, and those held under its power were liberated.‖ 53

J. Smith, 86. 54

J. Smith, 87. 55

N.T Wright, New Perspective on Paul, 3

12

to comprehend why Paul, as a Second Temple Jew, would contrast grace and works in Rom

4:4-5. The same Paul who wrote Rom 4:4-5 affirms the value of works in Rom 2:10,13 and 1

Cor 3:8,14. Dunn concludes that Paul must be speaking of different types of works. Romans

4:4-5 must be referring to the "works of the Law," which Paul views negatively, whereas

Rom 2:10, 13; must be referring to works in general, which may have a positive role. Romans

4:4-5, however, does not actually identify circumcision or any other boundary-marking

feature of the Law, but refers more generally to works/wages.56

And Colin G. Kruse

concluded about Dunn that Dunn‘s approach to Paul and the law is one that modern

interpreters of Paul must take seriously. It is a more sympathetic reading of Paul. It is one

that has the apostle interacting in a meaningful fashion with first-century Judaism, and one

which does not simply dismiss the apostle‘s statements about the law as inconsistent.57

Therefore Dunn approach to Paul‘s understand of the work of law help us to come to the

stand that ‗works of the law‘ in Paul does not mean the moral works through which one gains

merit but the works through which the Jew is defined over against the pagan which became

the polemic cause for Paul to speak and write against Jewish law.

Nicholas Thomas Wright

N.T. Wright says that in his early days of research, before Sanders had published Paul

and Palestinian Judaism in 1977 and long before Dunn coined the phrase ‗The New

Perspective on Paul‘, he was puzzled by one exegetical issue in particular, which he here

oversimplify for the sake of summary. If he read Paul in the then standard Lutheran way,

Galatians made plenty of sense, but he had to fudge (as he could see dozens of writers

fudging) the positive statements about the Law in Romans. If he reads Paul in the Reformed

way of which, for me, Charles Cranfield remains the supreme exegetical exemplar, Romans

made a lot of sense, but he had to fudge (as he could see Cranfield fudging) the negative

statements about the Law in Galatians. For him then and now, if he had to choose between

Luther and Calvin he would always take Calvin, whether on the Law or (for that matter) the

Eucharist. But as he struggled in this way and that with the Greek text of Romans and

Galatians, it dawned on me, he thinks in 1976, that a different solution was possible. In

Romans 10.3 Paul, writing about his fellow Jews, declares that they are ignorant of the

righteousness of God, and are seeking to establish ‗their own righteousness‘. The wider

context, not least 9.30–33, deals with the respective positions of Jews and Gentiles within

God‘s purposes – and with a lot more besides, of course, but not least that. Supposing, he

thought, Paul meant ‗seeking to establish their own righteousness‘, not in the sense of a moral

status based on the performance of Torah and the consequent accumulation of a treasury of

merit, but an ethnic status based on the possession of Torah as the sign of automatic covenant

membership. He saw at once that this would make excellent sense of Romans 9 and 10, and

would enable the positive statements about the Law throughout Romans to be given full

weight while making it clear that this kind of use of Torah, as an ethnic object, was an

56

Andrew Das, ―Paul And Works Of Obedience In Second Temple Judaism: Romans 4:4-5 As A "New

Perspective" Case Study,‖ CBQ 71, (2009), 811. 57

Colin G. Kruse, 43.

13

abuse.58

He was reading through Galatians and saw that at point after point this way of

looking at Paul would make much better sense of Galatians, too, than either the standard

post-Luther readings or the attempted Reformed ones.59

Hamilton quotes on Wright that he

needs hardly say that he never embraced either Sanders‘s picture of Paul or the relativistic

agendas which seemed to be driving it. Indeed, for the next decade much of what he wrote on

Paul was in debate and disagreement with Sanders,60

not least because his proposals lacked

the exegetical clarity and rootedness which Wright regarded and regard as indispensible.61

N.T Wright reinforces his view that the Judaism that Paul knew was not "a form of

the old heresy Pelagianism (the theory denying the doctrines of original sin and

predestination), according to which humans must pull themselves up by their moral

bootstraps and thereby earn justification."

Wright is careful with his words, and so we can

conclude that the repeated collocation of the phrases "moral bootstraps" and "Pelagianism" is

no accident. E.P Sanders also agree with N.T. Wright and he says that Saul was a proto-

Pelagian, who thought he could pull himself up by his moral bootstraps. Hamilton denotes

E.P. Sanders statement that this is both radically anachronistic (this view was not invented in

Saul's day) and culturally out of Ime (it is not the Jewish way of thinking). To this extent, I

am convinced, E. P. Sanders is right: we have misjudged early Judaism, especially

Pharisaism, if we have thought of it as an early version of Pelagianism.62

N.T Wright says all

this to make it clear that there are probably almost as many ‗New Perspective‘ positions as

there are writers espousing it – and that he disagrees with most of them. Where he agrees is

as follows. It is blindingly obvious when we read Romans and Galatians – though we would

never have known this from any of the theologians. He says that whenever Paul talks about

justification he does so in the context of a critique of Judaism and of the coming together of

Jew and Gentile in Christ. As an exegete determined to listen to scripture rather than abstract

my favourite bits from it cannot be ignored. The only notice that most mainstream theology

58

N.T Wright, states that (New Perspective on Paul, 10th Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference: 25–28

August 2003) the reason I‘m telling you this is to show that I came to the position I still hold (having found it

over the years to be deeply rewarding exegetically right across Paul; I regard as absolutely basic the need to

understand Paul in a way which does justice to all the letters, as well as to the key passages in individual ones) –

that I came to this position, not because I learned it from Sanders or Dunn, but because of the struggle to think

Paul‘s thoughts after him as a matter of obedience to scripture. This brings me to the complexity of the so-called

New Perspective and of my relationship to it. 59

N.T Wright, New Perspective on Paul, 10th Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference: 25–28 August 2003 60

F. David Farnell (The New Perspective on Paul: Its Basic Tents, History, and Presuppositions, 221-

222), denote that Wright contends, ―Sanders‘ main thesis that the picture of Judaism assumed in most Protestant

readings of Paul is historically inaccurate and theologically misleading.‖ He ―strongly disagrees with Sanders on

some points, and wants to go a good deal further than him on some others.‖ Wright also criticizes Sanders for ―a

somewhat unsystematic treatment of different Pauline themes. Nor has he [Sanders] offered very much verse-

by-verse exegesis.‖ He concedes, ―Sanders‘ proposal had its own agenda at the level of the study of religions

and indeed was in some ways a plea to see Christianity from a modernist comparative-religion perspective

rather than a classical theological one.‖ Such admissions from Wright are telling because they reveal that the

NPP is as guilty of a priori thinking as the Protestant-Lutheran traditions so heartily Condemned by the New

Perspective on Paul, and perhaps more so. Wright also admits that no fundamental agreement exists in Pauline

studies: ―The current situation in Pauline studies is pleasantly confused. Wright also contends that Paul should

be absolved of any charge of anti-

Semitism (being a self-hating Jew). Paul was not criticizing Jews for using the law, as falsely charged by

Lutheranism. 61

N.T Wright, New Perspective on Paul, 3 56

J. M. Hamilton, ―Ν. T. Wright and Saul's Moral bootstraps: Newer light on "the New Perspective,"

140.

14

has taken of this context is to assume that the Jews were guilty of the kind of works-

righteousness of which theologians from Augustine to Calvin and beyond have criticized

their opponents; and, though Sanders‘s account of Judaism needs a lot more nuance, N.T.

Wright regards the New Perspective‘s challenge to this point as more or less established.

What he miss entirely in the Old Perspective, but find so powerfully in some modern Pauline

scholarship, is Paul‘s sense of an underlying narrative, the story of God and Israel, God and

Abraham, God and the covenant people, and the way in which that story came to its climax,

as he says, ‗when the time had fully come‘ with the coming of Jesus the Messiah. How all

this works out is still very controversial within the New Perspective. But at these points, for

good exegetical and historical reasons, N.T. Wright utters that he find himself saying Here I

Stand. 63

David Farnell denotes, Wright says that Paul was not criticizing Jews for legalism, but

presents ―a detailed and sensitive critique of Judaism as its advocates present it‖ ( Rom 3:27-

29; 9:30–10:13; Galatians 2–4; Phil 3:2-11). Paul‘s critique centers on (1) Jewish boasting

about being the exclusive chosen people of God, (2) Jewish breaking of the law (or sin), not

legalism, (3 ) Paul is positive about God‘s law itself, for he focuses his attack on the ―abuse‖

of the law claiming national righteousness (not legalism), and (4) Paul‘s attack against Jewish

trust in the law and circumcision as badges of national privilege rather than ―‗true

circumcision‘ which keeps the law from the heart.‖64

Daniel Farnell states that Wright also

changes traditional understanding of the ―righteousness of God.‖ He rejects the traditional

Protestant view of imputation of righteousness ―as denoting that status which humans, on the

basis of faith, as a result of the gospel,‖ or as Luther believed, ―God‘s moral activity of

punishing evil and rewarding virtue.‖ For Wright, the Protestant view describes more of a

―legal fiction‖ of imputation. It is not ―something that ―‗counts before‘‖ God‖ or ―avails with

God.‖ Instead, he argues that, the term refers to ―God‘s faithfulness to his promises, to his

covenant,‖ having a qualitative idea rather than a status. It is righteousness as a moral quality

(genitive of possession). On Paul‘s comments in Phil 3:9 where Paul states, ―and may be

found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is

through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,‖ he

remarks, First. It is membership language. When Paul says he does not have a righteousness

―of my own‖, based on Torah, the context of the previous verses must mean that he is

speaking of a righteousness, a covenant status, which was his as a Jew by birth, marked with

the covenant badge of circumcision, and claiming to be part of the inner circle of that people

by being a zealous Pharisee. That which he is refusing in the first half of the verse 9 is not

moralistic or self-help righteousness, but the status of orthodox Jewish covenant

membership.65

Heikki Raisanen

Heikki Räisänen was born in 1941. He became Doctor of Theology in 1969 having

written his thesis Die Muller Jesu im Neuen Testament. From 1975, he has been Professor in

63

N.T Wright, New Perspective on Paul, 3 64

F. David Farnell, 222-223. 65

F. D. Farnell, 225.

15

New Testament Exegesis at the University of Helsinki, while he has been Research Professor

at the Finnish Academy from 1984 until 1994. In 1990, he received an honorary degree of

Doctor of Divinity from the Universily of Edinburgh.66

Räisänen in his work on ―Paul and the Law‖ comments that Paul is neither a

systematic nor a consistent thinker.67

It is very palpable in Paul‘s teaching on the Law. He

says, ―Paul‘s view of the Law is a very complex and intricate matter which confronts the

interpreter with a great many puzzles.‖68

There are logical and other problems in Paul‘s

theology of the Law. He calls this as contradictions in Paul‘s view of the Law.69

Räisänen

enumerates several contradictions in Paul‘s teaching on the Law. These contradictions are

expressed in his book ―Paul and the Law‖ as ‗anomalies‘, difficulties, ‗tensions‘ or ‗(self-)

contradictions‘. Räisänen states that Paul did not succeed in making theological statements on

the law in a consistent way.

Colin G. Kruse quotes Räisänen‘s ten anomalies in Paul‘s thought that (1) The

concept of law oscillates between the Torah and something else (2) The law is discussed as

an undivided whole, yet it is often practically reduced to a moral law. (3) The law has been

abrogated, nevertheless its ‗just requirement‘ (Rom 8:4) is still in force and is met by

Christian. (4) Nobody can fulfill the law, and yet its requirements are fulfilled even by some

non-Christian Gentiles. (5) The power of sin in the world is ascribed to Adam‘s fall on the

one hand (Romans 5) and to the law on the other (Rom 7). (6) The law was given ‗for life‘

(Rom 7:10), yet it lacked, even theoretically, life-giving power (Rom 8:3; Gal 3:21) (7) The

law was only a temporary addition to God‘s ‗testament‘ (Gal 3:15ff), yet a dramatic act on

God‘s part was needed to liberate men from its curse (Gal 3:13). (8) Paul‘s interpretation of

the Old Testament in support of his position is arbitrary. (9) The statement that the law (and

only the law, as opposed, say, to the apostolic paraenesis) calls forth and multiplies sin, is

problematic, to say the least. (10) Why should one have to fulfill the whole law in order to

avoid the curse? Why is the possibility of repentance and forgiveness excluded?70

Seyoon Kim

Probably the basic difference between Kim and Dunn is over the nature and extent of

the revelation made to Paul in his Damascus road experience. Dunn finds it to be a call to go

to the Gentiles with the good news that Jesus is the Messiah and Lord. Kim agrees with that,

but he finds this to be only the barest beginning. From the Damascus road incident comes the

revelation of a new way of salvation—by believing and accepting, and not on the basis of

what one has done. This radical insight lies implicit in the experience that a zealous

persecutor of Christ and his people is confronted by that Christ and commissioned to become

his ambassador in a world-changing assignment. The Damascus revelation of Christ

occasions a greatly enriched Christology for Paul: Christ is the image of God, the new Adam,

and the wisdom of God—all of them particularly Pauline emphases. Paul's sense of

66

T. E. Van Spanje, Inconsistency in Paul?: A critique of the work of Heikki Räisänen

(Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe110; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 2. 67

Heikki Räisänen, Paul and the Law (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament vol.

29, 2nd

ed; Tubingen: Mohr, 1987), XI. 68

Räisänen, Paul and the Law, XII. 69

Räisänen, Paul and the Law, XII. 70

Colin G. Kruse, 38-39.

16

endowment with the Holy Spirit traces back to this revelation experience. Also, as Paul works

through the similarity of his call as apostle to the Gentiles to the Old Testament prophetic

calls of Isaiah, or the Servant of the Lord, or Jeremiah, he will discover the seed for insight

into God's salvation plan (Kim prefers the German hälsplan). The mystery of Romans 11:25-

26 is already latent in the Damascus revelation: Israel is temporarily hardened and Paul is

being sent to bring in the full number of the Gentiles. Kim concludes that almost all facets of

Paul's teaching and theology are latent already in the Damascus experience.71

Kim denotes that I would like to modify my fundamental thesis: Paul's gospel

originated from both the Damascus revelation and the Jesus tradition. It needs further, more

comprehensive study to determine more precisely how the Damascus revelation, the Jesus

tradition, the Scriptures, and the early church kerygma were brought into interplay to produce

various Pauline theological conceptions. But still the present study... leads me to submit the

above thesis for further discussion.72

Willis P. DeBoer quotes that Kim has written a vigorous and thorough defense of "the

old perspective on Paul," the traditional perspective, at least since the days of Martin Luther.

He also has brought to light some major flaws in the new perspective. He calls attention to

early Jewish sources which Sanders has not reckoned with, and observes, "It seems that

'covenantal nomism' as Sanders has defined it needs to be modified to accommodate the

strands of thought in Second Temple Judaism that accorded saving value to deeds of the law

beyond Sander's sense of merely 'staying in' the covenant." Kim notes that he has had to

qualify some of his proposals in the light of insights from the "New Perspectives." He also

finds them sometimes qualifying some of their proposals. Are we doomed to having two

distinct perspectives on Paul, each impervious to the other, and unable to learn from the

other's insights? Dunn has recently again dismissed Kim (based on the doctoral dissertation)

with: "Kim... substantially overstates his case" (Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle

[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], 179 η 89). Can Dunn recognize his own positions in Kim's

critique of them, or has Kim misunderstood him? If Kim has understood and represented

Dunn correctly, some of Kim's critiques are devastating. We may thank Seyoon Kim for his

excellent defense and exposition of "the old perspective." It is not as passé and indefensible

as some new perspectives would have us believe. It demonstrates what rich veins still await

mining in the old perspective on Paul. It calls for careful study, repeated probing and testing,

and genuine attempts to understand one another in our varying perspectives. As the debate

goes on, may we be spared from reactions that manner ridicule the other's positions. The new

and the old must learn ways of seriously and humbly engaging each other. Kim has produced

a very valuable exposition of Paul from a traditional perspective. It deserves concentrated

attention not only from those sympathetic to the traditional stance. May it receive careful

attention and conscientious critiquing from those inclined to the new perspective as well.73

J. C. Beker

71

Willis P. DeBoer, ―Book Revive on Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on the Origin

of Paul's Gospel by Seyoon Kim.‖ CTJ: 157. 72

Willis P. DeBoer 157. 73

Willis P. DeBoer, 158.

17

J.C. Beker articulated a division of Pauline studies between ―coherence‖ and

―contingency.‖ Each of Paul‘s letters was written to a particular specific context (the situation

at Corinth, the concerns at Galatia etc.). Paul remarks were aimed specifically at those

contexts. At times, his views may seem to contradict one another. Beker argued that such

moments were expressions of ―contingent‖ thought in Paul. Paul‘s arguments and wording in

each letter were subject to the context, and so were contingent upon that context. Beneath all

Paul‘s letters, however, one could assume a ―coherent‖ core of Pauline thought. Readers need

to separate the ―coherent‖ from the ―contingent,‖ to find the underlying themes and beliefs of

Paul and keep these distinct from context-specific instructions. R. P. Seesengood denotes in

some ways Baker‘s suggestion awakened a withering onslaught of study into the historical

context of Paul‘s letters. A variety of ―coherent‖ theologies, or ―cores‖ to Pauline thought,

have been suggested. The quests for a Pauline core74

overlap greatly with studies of Paul‘s

relationship to Judaism that the focus of the ―new perspective‖ on Paul and studies of Pauline

biography.75

Krister Stedahl

Krister Stendahl is a Lutheran scholar who, in his influential essay, The Apostle Paul

and the Introspective Conscience of the West, 9 argued that the tendency of western culture

since the days of Augustine has been to misread Paul as though he developed his doctrine as

the answer to a troubled conscience. Stendahl saw a variety of problems with this approach,

chief among them being that Paul was not Augustine or Luther, and far from having an

overactive and troubled conscience, Paul had a robust conscience. Paul was able to say that

as to righteousness under the Law, he was blameless. If this doesn‘t sound like a troubled

conscience to you, then you are right: Paul was NOT Augustine, nor was he Luther. Of the

latter, Stendahl says this:

―Luther‘s inner struggles presuppose the developed system of Penance and Indulgence, and it

is significant that his famous 95 theses take their point of departure from the problem of

forgiveness of sins as seen within the framework of Penance: ―When our Lord and Master

Jesus Christ said: ‗Repent (penitentiam agite) . .. ,‘ he wanted the whole life of the faithful to

be a repentance (or: penance).‖

He writes: This problem becomes acute when one tries to picture the function and

manifestation of introspection in the life and writings of the Apostle Paul. It is more acute

since it is exactly at this point that Western interpreters have found the common denominator

between Paul and the experience of man, since Paul's statements about 'justification by faith'

have been hailed as the answer to the problem which faces the ruthlessly honest man in his

practice of introspection. Especially in Protestant Christianity which however, at this point

has its roots in Augustine and in the piety of the Middle Ages the Pauline awareness of sin

has been interpreted in the light of Luther's struggle with his conscience. But it is exactly at

that point that we can discern the most drastic difference between Luther and Paul, between

the 1st century and the 16

th and perhaps between Eastern and Western Christianity.

76

74

R.P. Seesengood denotes that Daniel Boyarin suggested that Paul‘s ―coherent‖ center and

―perspective‖ on Judaism arose from Paul‘s own cultural location as a diaspora Jaw. Paul was, in Boyarin‘s

terms Jewgreek/Greekjew. 75

R.P. Seesengood, 199-200. 76

J. Smith, 81.

18

Stendahl argues that the interpretation of Paul imposed on the Scriptures by the so-

called introspective conscience of the West‖ has produced a misunderstanding of Paul's

doctrine. Paul spoke of justification, not as the answer to the problem of a bad conscience

before God, but to ―explain why there is no reason to impose the law on the Gentiles,77

who

now, in God‘s good Messianic time, have become partakers in the fulfillment of the promises

to Abraham. According to Stedahl, a main criticism of traditional Christian theological

perspectives concerning Paul‘s life-change is that such work has paid less attention to the

texts themselves and more attention to Luther‘s interpretation and the psychological tradition,

which he terms the ―introspective conscience of the west.‖ For Stendahl, in the new

perspective‘s outlook, Paul is called, as were prophets before him. The content of Paul‘s call

is to bring the good news of a crucified Jewish messiah to differing communities where he is

certainly ―among Jews and Gentiles.‖ He is chosen by the God of Israel to go among the

Gentiles, in particular, and declare the restoration of Israel (Jer 1:5; Isa 42:1). Paul is

reconfigured as someone who stays Jewish and expands his Judaism to include Gentiles/non-

Jews in a messianic religious assemblage. This Paul brings the monotheism of Israel to the

polytheistic, pagan Gentiles, who are then ―grafted‖ onto the Jewish tree under the one God

(Rom. 9-11).78

Conclusion

The ongoing study on the new perspective of Paul arrives at various conclusions. R.P.

Seesengood concludes Paul the Jew wanted a way to affirm traditional Jewish text, values,

and hopes. Paul the Greco-Roman citizen wanted a way to affirm a basic ―oneness‖ or unity

among all people, Jew and gentile. He also wanted to be able to embrace what he regarded as

the best in contemporary culture and philosophy. He found a way to unite these disparate

interests in his teaching about Jesus as messiah. At present, scholars are still unable to reach a

consensus on exactly what is at the core of Paul‘s thought or how to understand his views of

Judaism.79

Dunn suggests that it is worth saying at once that the discussion should focus on

the central thrust of the case and not allow itself to be distracted by phrases which might have

been chosen more carefully, or by specifically directed comments taken out of context. (1)

The new perspective was set up in antithesis to and as a repudiation of the traditional

Reformation doctrine of justification by faith. (2) Dunn utters that he had reduced ‗works of

the law‘ to a few ‗boundary markers‘, (3) I had reduced Paul‘s objection to the law to merely

a (Jewish) ‗attitude‘ to the law (4) He had delayed Paul‘s formulation of the doctrine of

Justification until his response to the Antioch incident and thereby denied its fundamental

importance to Paul‘s gospel and reduced it the status of a pragmatic solution to a problem of

relationships among Christians.80

Sanders draws the conclusion that traditional Protestantism has been guilty of

wrongly understanding Palestinian Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness. Dunn: Paul

77

J. Smith utters that where Paul was concerned about the possibility for Gentiles to be included in the

messianic community, his statements are now read as answers to the quest of assurance about man's salvation

out of a common human predicament. 78

Davina C. Lopez,121-122. 79

R.P. Seesengood, 201. 80

Dunn, The New Perspective, 16

19

opposed these practices because they functioned to separate people whom Christ died to

bring together. In short, Paul's target was not an insistence on basic moral behavior, but on

particular religious practices that differentiated Jews from Gentiles, demonstrating the former

group's status as members within God's covenant. The problem that Paul is addressing is

Jewish exclusivism expressed in the insistence that Gentile Christians adhere to certain

boundary marking regulations such as circumcision, Sabbath, and food laws. Also, Dunn has

no place in his understanding of justification for a righteousness imputed to the believer as

the basis of his acceptance with God. Justification is not about answering the question, "How

can I, a lost sinner, be accepted by a Holy God?" Justification is about erasing ethnic

boundaries between Jews and Gentiles by declaring that all who believe in Christ and are

faithful to Him are in the covenant. Dunn His proposal about the meaning of ‗works of the

law‘ in Paul – that they are not the moral works through which one gains merit but the works

through which the Jew is defined over against the pagan. And Kim concludes differ from

Dunn that almost all facets that Paul's teaching and theology are dormant already in the

Damascus experience. This New Perspective on Paul helps us to understand that Paul was not

against the Jewish law but he was against the intension of Jewish because of their approached

to the law was hindered to the gentile nation to come under the salvation of the Lord Jesus

Christ.

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20

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