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  • From: "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT mailhost.chi.ameritech.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: justification: a pre-Pauline doctrine?
  • Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 14:48:44 -0500


Jim West wrote:

> 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

I still feel as if my question is being misunderstood. I am not denying that
Paul
"moved away from" the notion of justification by works and in its place
emphasized
justification by/through imitation of the faithfulness displayed by Jesus
(you can see
what side of the PISTIS CRISTOU debate I come down on). I am only asking
whether
within the early Christian movement Paul was *the first* to make this move.
It seems
to me that if we take seriously the evidence from Gal. regarding the grounds
on which
Paul criticized Peter/Cephas in the Antioch incident, the answer would be
*no*. Peter,
Paul seems to note, was, before the incident, not only already aware of the
(from the
Christian perspective) "true" grounds of justification; but there is no hint
from Paul
that Peter's awareness of this notion was something *derived* from Paul, as
Paul could
claim here if it were.

Yours,

Jeffrey
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson
7423 N. Sheridan Road #2A
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000 AT ameritech.net






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