Corpus-Paul

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Russ P. Reeves [mailto:russ-reeves AT uiowa.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 1999 2:41 PM
> To: Corpus-paul
> Subject: RE: beginner's guide to 'new perspective' - some qns
>
>
> Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>
>
> > It is my understanding that the Palestinian Judaism of -200 to
> +200 did not
> > require Jews to observe the law to "stay in" the covenant. Nor
> does Sanders
> > say that it did.  According to Sanders, and according to
> everything I know,
> > you are in because you are born in. There is punishment for sin
> for those in
> > the covenant, but this punishment does not include
> excommunication nor is
> > the punishment eternal.
>
> So do you think N. T. Wright completely off base when he
> summarizes Sanders
> as follows:
>
> "Keeping the law within Judaism always functioned within a covenantal
> scheme.  God took the initiative, when he made a covenant with Judaism ...
> God's grace thus precedes everything that people (specifically,
> Jews) do in
> response.  The Jew keeps the law out of gratitude, as the proper response
> to grace - not, in other workds, in order to *get* into the covenant
> people,
This is correct up to here.

>but to *stay* in.

This is not correct. The Jew does not keep the covenant in order to "stay"
in.  The Jew is in.  He keeps the law because he is *commanded* to keep it.
God commands, and God rewards and God punishes, and God offers the
opportunity to repent. But all these, the rewards and the punishments, are
out of the covenantal relationship.  Being punished by God for
transgressions is part of the covenant. This is stressed by Sanders.
Sanders states that the only way a Jew can get out of the covenant is to
disavow it, to apostasize.  I wouldn't agree even with that.

Being 'in' in the first place was God's gift.
> This scheme Sander's famously labelled as 'covenantal nomism." (What St
> Paul Really Said, 19)
By "covenantal nomism" Sanders meant the nomism which is part of the
covenantal relationship. It is not to get in or to stay in.

Liz

>
>
>
> _____
> Russ Reeves
> russ-reeves AT uiowa.edu
>
>
>

>
Lisbeth S. Fried
Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
New York University
51 Washington Sq. S.
New York, NY 10012
lqf9256 AT is3.nyu.edu
lizfried AT umich.edu