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corpus-paul - Re: Sanders and the "New" Perspective

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  • From: Terence Donaldson <terry.donaldson AT utoronto.ca>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Sanders and the "New" Perspective
  • Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 10:27:25 -0400


Greetings,

I have been reading with interest the recent thread concerning the "new
perspective" and "works of the law." While I think it is not without
significance that the equivalent Hebrew phrase has appeared in the
Qumran material (4QMMT and, I'm inclined to think, in 4QFlor as well), I
do not think that it is determinative for understanding Paul's use of
the term. The distinctive thing about Paul's use of the phrase, it seems
to me, is that the only "works of the law" about which he gets agitated
are those that differentiate Jews from Gentiles (circumcision, kashrut,
etc.). Where this is not the issue, he can enjoin his converts to "do"
all sorts of things (contribute to his collection project, show
hospitality, comport themselves in worship in particular ways, etc.)
without ever feeling it necessary to warn them about any concomitant
dangers of "justification by works." It is not "works" per se that
concern him. Likewise, he himself apparently is quite prepared to
observe aspects of the law when in Jewish contexts (1 Cor 9:20),
indicating that the issue for him is not law observance in itself. What
gets his tunic in a knot is the suggestion that, as a condition of
membership "in Christ," Gentiles be required to take on those aspects
of the Torah that are characteristically Jewish, i.e., that would turn
Gentiles into Jews. To this extent I think that Sanders and Dunn are
correct: "works of the law" has to do with boundary markers, not with
"works righteousness" in the classical Reformation sense of the term.
The question then becomes one of understanding how Paul arrived at this
position. Why was it that he wanted to see his Gentile converts as the
sperma of Abraham (Gal 3:29; Rom 4:16), while at the same time rejecting
the biblical definition of how Abraham's sperma are to be recognized
(i.e., by circumcision; LXX Gen 17:1-14)?

Pax,
Terry Donaldson
Wycliffe College
Toronto





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