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corpus-paul - Re: justification: a pre-Pauline doctrine?

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  • From: Jim West <jwest AT highland.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: justification: a pre-Pauline doctrine?
  • Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 15:31:12 -0400


At 02:09 PM 6/17/99 -0500, you wrote:

>Perhaps I was unclear. What I thought Hunter was claiming -- and certainly
what *I*
>was trying to say -- is that there seems to be grounds for saying that what
we take to
>be **Paul's** "doctrine" of justification, namely, that Gentiles as well as
Jews
>become or are recognized as the people of God not through "works of the
Law" but
>through/by imitating the faithfulness of Jesus, **was not original to
Paul**, that
>the "Christian" form of the doctrine was something he inherited and/or was
already
>known among believers "before" Paul.
>
>Yours,
>
>Jeffrey

I must humbly disagree. Part of the utter brilliance of Paul was precisely
at the point where he moved away from the notion of justification by works
(greatly attested at Qumran as a clear first century example) to the idea of
justification by faith. His Abrahamic example turns the patriarch on his
head- for there is no doubt when one reads Genesis that Abraham was
justified by what he did rather than some vague feeling he had (which in any
event is never described!).

Paul took one of the pillars of Judaism and tore it down. Small wonder that
he was seen as a heretic by his Jewish brethren and that he is seen as the
founder of Christianity by some.

We, again, have been so taken by Luther's interpretation of Paul that we can
hardly hear his revolutionary voice any more. But he was precisely that- a
revolutionary.

Best,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
email- jwest AT highland.net
web page- http://web.infoave.net/~jwest





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