The New Perspective On Paul
Cornelis P. Venema
The Contribution of E P Sanders (Part One)
In order to find our way through the thicket of literature on the
new perspective on Paul, we must give special attention to the figure of E. P.
Sanders. Even though Sanders was not the first to question the older, more
traditional understanding of the teaching of the apostle Paul, his writings
have become a kind of new benchmark for the development of the new view.
Figures like J. D. G. Dunn and T. F. Wright, whom we will consider in subsequent
articles, have built significantly upon Sanders' work. To the extent that we
may properly speak of a new perspective, Sanders is the figure whose arguments
dominate the debate and whose writings form a point of reference for the
ongoing discussion. Though Dunn and Wright do not fully agree with Sanders on a
number of points, as we shall see, their work is certainly dependent upon the
pioneering labor of Sanders. Were it not for Sanders and his arguments for a
new view of the apostle Paul's understanding of the gospel, we would not be
able to speak of something like a consensus or new perspective on Paul.
Important Forerunners to the
New Perspective
Before considering Sanders position, however,
it should be noted that Sanders work also stands in a longer line of
revisionist treatment of the writings of the apostle Paul. In the orbit of New
Testament studies m general and Pauline studies in particular, there has been a
long history of debate regarding the accuracy of the Reformation's
understanding of the apostle Paul.
Therefore, in order to appreciate Sanders' contribution to the
development of a perspective, we need to consider briefly several more recent
and important forerunners of his view.
Claude G. Montifiore
The first figure of note is the Jewish theologian Claude G.
Montefiore. In a highly influential
study written early in the twentieth century, Judaism and St. Paul: Two
Essays, Montefiore argued that the religion of Palestinian Judaism differed
greatly from the picture of Judaism that emerges from the apostle Paul's
writings. 1 Whereas Paul
portrays the Judaizers as proponents of a joyless, legalistic religion,
rabbinic Judaism of the first century "was a better, happier, and more
noble religion than one might infer from the writings of the Apostle."2 Based upon his study of rabbinic Judaism,
Montefiore claimed that it was a religion that emphasized God's mercy and love
as much as His holiness. Rabbinic Judaism taught that God gave the law to His
peculiar people, Israel, not that it might be a burden or means of salvation by
works, but that it might be a means of life and blessing. Rather than a religion that
encouraged pride and self-righteousness, rabbinic Judaism emphasized that
Israel would inherit the blessings of the covenant through God's grace and
mercy. Furthermore, the religion of
rabbinic Judaism made provision for God's gracious atonement of the sins of His
people, and emphasized the mercy of God in finally vindicating their cause. As
a result of this new evaluation of the teaching of Palestinian Judaism,
Montefiore concluded that the only feature of Judaism that conflicted with this
generally positive outlook was its particularism or tendency to exclude
non-Jews from the reach of God's grace.
Though some aspects of Montefiore's interpretation of rabbinic
Judaism are not embraced by proponents of the new perspective, the general
portrait of Judaism that he painted has become a significant element of the new
approach to Paul. Few New Testament students today agree with Montefiore' s
explanation of Paul's assessment of Judaism, namely, that Paul was not a
rabbinic Jew before his conversion but a member of diaspora Judaism, whose
religion was of a distinctly more legalistic or graceless cast. However, many believe that Montefiore
successfully refuted the traditional view of Judaism, and demonstrated the
importance of a proper understanding of first-century Judaism to a new interpretation
of the New Testament.
George Foot Moore
A second figure whose studies of Judaism have played an important
role in the emergence of the new perspective on Paul, is George Foot Moore, an
American rabbinics scholar. Moore, in a substantial and oft-quoted article in
the Harvard Theological Review, argued that the traditional Christian
interpretation of Judaism was largely distorted by polemical interests.3 Rather
than providing an accurate and fair assessment of Judaism, most traditional
views were improperly shaped by the desire to enhance some feature of Christian
on the one hand, and to refute Judaism on the other. As a result, Moore
maintained, Judaism was largely misunderstood by the Christian theological
tradition.
Moore's study of Judaism served two purposes, both of which are
evident in the new perspective. One purpose was to view Judaism in its own right, and not
in terms of the distinctive themes of Christian theology. The other purpose was to refute the
distortion of Judaism in traditional Protestant theology. Rather than viewing
Judaism through the lens of the New Testament letters of the apostle Paul,
Moore insisted that Judaism deserved to be an independent subject of study.
Such an independent study of Judaism sheds as much light upon the New Testament
as the New Testament sheds upon Judaism. Instead of taking the New Testament's
account of Judaism as our standard, we must view Judaism from a historical.
perspective, seeking to discover its character without the bias or influence of
Christian interests. Since the time of the Protestant Reformation, the
theological bias of interpreters has often distorted their view of Judaism.
Much of the study, for example, of Paul's writings, has served to support the
Protestant, and especially Lutheran, polemic against Roman Catholicism's
legalism. In this study, Roman Catholicism is regarded as little more than a
later expression of the same legalistic religion that characterized Judaism at
the time of the writing of the New Testament. Judaism is not viewed from the
standpoint of its own witnesses. Rather, Judaism serves as a kind of
"whipping boy" for the typical Protestant criticism of any religion
that views obedience to the law as the means of finding favor with God. In
Moore's study, as in Montefiore' s before him, this approach is strongly
rejected.
Albert Schweitzer
Unlike Montefiore and Foote, the next figure of note, Albert
Schweitzer, represents a tendency in New Testament studies to question the
centrality of the doctrine of justification in Paul's understanding of the
gospel. With the two previous writers we have considered, Montefiore and Moore,
the primary emphasis is upon a new and revised understanding of Judaism. Schweitzer represents a different emphasis.
Whatever our interpretation of Judaism, Schweitzer illustrates a trend in
biblical studies that calls into question the Reformation's insistence that
justification was the center of Paul's religious thought. Contrary to Luther
and Calvin's opinion that the gospel is principally a message about the sinner's
free acceptance with God on account of the righteousness of Christ (and not the
righteousness of works performed in obedience to the law), Schweitzer and
others argue that this is at best a secondary feature teaching of the gospel.
In his book The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, Schweitzer
maintained that Paul’s primary emphasis was upon the believer’s union with
Christ.4 With the coming of
Christ , the law no longer remains in force as before. Though Paul argued
for a
kind of status quo position on the role of the law-it remains to be observed by
Jews who become Christians, but it has no binding force for Gentiles-his real
concern lies, not with observance or non-observance of the requirements of the
law, but with the believer’s salvation through mystical union with the
crucified and risen Christ. Within the context of Paul's primary emphasis upon
union with Christ, the problem of justification is really only a minor and
subordinate one. Justification solves the issue of how Gentiles could be of
members of Christ without having to obey the requirements of the law. But it
plays no other role. Consequently, Schweitzer concluded that "the doctrine
of righteousness by faith. is a therefore a subsidiary crater [in Paul’s
thought], which has. formed within the rim of the main crater--the mystical
doctrine of redemption through the being-in-Christ.”5
Krister Stendahl
The last figure who deserves mention is Krister Stendahl. Though a
theologian in the Lutheran tradition, Stendahl has played a significant role in
questioning the traditional Reformation conviction that the apostle Paul's
thought was dominated by the doctrine of justification. In a highly influential
article, "Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,"
Stendahl challenged the entire western tradition's reading of the apostle Paul.6 According to Stendahl, this tradition,
beginning with Augustine through Luther and Calvin and including the work of
many Protestant scholars to the present day, has misread Paul as though he
developed his doctrine of justification to solve the problem of his troubled
conscience. In this traditional reading of Paul, Luther's struggle with a
stricken conscience before God which was born of his awareness that he could
never keep the law perfectly enough to assure himself of God's favor,
justification answers the problem or predicament of human sin. No one can find
justification or acceptance with God on the basis of works performed in
obedience to the law. Paul's doctrine of justification, in this traditional
understanding, is the pivot or center of his teaching. Justification, which is
the chief article of the Christian faith, reassures anxious and stricken
consciences that there is acceptance with God, not on the basis of the works of
the law, but on the basis of Christ's perfect righteousness.
Stendahl argues that this is a basic misreading of Paul's
writings: "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 for assurance about man's salvation out of a common human
predicament,"7 The
Western tradition, and particularly its Protestant expression, has wrongly read
the apostle Paul through the experience of those who ar~ grappling with the
problem of finding assurance of God's favor in the face of the reality of human
sin and brokenness. This tradition reads Paul's account of the doctrine of
justification, accordingly, not as Paul intended it, but as the experience of
an introspective conscience requires. In Stendahl's reading of Paul, however,
the apostle exhibited little or no unease of conscience before God. As a matter
of fact, Stendahl insists, Paul had a robust and confident conscience before
God, and exhibits little or none of the anxiety about human salvation from sin
that has characterized the western view of salvation. When Paul spoke of
justification, therefore, he as not attempting to solve the problem of an
uneasy conscience, but to account for how Gentiles are included with Jews among
the people of God.
Conclusion
I have taken the trouble to consider briefly these forerunners of
the new perspective, since they are characteristic of developments in New
Testament and Pauline studies that form the background to the work of E. P.
Sanders and other leading proponents of the new view. Though Sanders is
undoubtedly the leading figure in the formation of a new perspective on Paul,
he has acknowledged his indebtedness to the pioneering work of others. Sanders'
own argument against the older view of Judaism, together with its implications
for an interpretation of Paul' s understanding of the gospel, builds upon what
might be regarded as a significantly new tradition of Pauline studies.
When we consider Sanders' contribution to the new perspective in
our next article, it will be evident that he stands in the line of those who
believe the traditional Protestant view of Paul's gospel is mistaken. This view
is mistaken in part because it is based upon a misreading or misunderstanding
of the nature of Palestinian Judaism. Contrary to claim of many Protestant
interpreters., .Judaism, at the time of the writing of the New Testament, was
not a legalistic religion that taught salvation by works rather than faith.
Judaism was a religion marked by clear emphasis upon God's grace and electing
initiative in the salvation of his people, Israel. But this view is also mistaken in its interpretation of
the importance and meaning of Paul' s understanding of justification. Justification was neither the central point
in Paul's understanding of the gospel nor the answer to the problem of
legalism. Justification, so far as it plays a role in Paul's understanding of
the gospel, was a subordinate theme. The theme of Justification in Paul’s
thought was only aimed at explaining how in the new covenant Gentiles are also now
Included among the number of God's covenant people.
Notes
1 London: Max Goschen, 1914.
2 Judaism and St. Paul, p. 87.
3 "Christian Writers on Judaism " Harvard Theological
Review (1921) pp. 197-254
4 London: A. and C. Black, 1931.
5 The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, p. 225
6 In Paul Among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays (London: SCM, 1977), pp. 78-96
7 “Paul and the Introspective Conscience, p. 86.
Dr. Cornel
Venema is the President of Mid-America Reformed Seminary where he also teaches
Doctrinal Studies. Dr. Venema is a
contributing editor to The Outlook.