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

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  • From: Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Sanders and the "New" Perspective
  • Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 05:09:31 -0700 (PDT)


Karl wrote:

> In light of Qumran, specifically 4Q MMT, would
> members of our list
> continue to maintain that a beneficial way of
> understanding late Second
> Temple Judaism is via such categories as
> "covenantal nomism" and
> "boundary markers"? ... that what Paul himself
> was protesting was not individual human
> effort, but the assumption that
> ethnic origin and identity is a factor in
> determining the grace of God and its expression?

Yes, Karl, to your questions.

There will always be the exceptional texts which some
will persist in using to justify characterizing
2nd-Temple Judaism(s) as a religion of legalitic,
merit-amassing observances. The text you mention is
one of them. Paul himself made the crass analogy in
Rom. 4:4, where he likens "works of the law" to "wages
earned". But this is probably the only text in the
entire Pauline corpus which can be pressed into the
service of the older ("Lutheran") view that, for Paul,
works had to do with earning salvation by human
effort. We know that Paul's choice of analogies
weren't perfect. (In Rom. 7:1-6, for instance, a dying
husband is made parallel to the law. But Paul never
wanted to say that the law itself had died; rather
that believers have died to the law.) In the case of
Rom. 4:4, Paul may be playing on caricatures of
Judaism gleaned on his travels throughout the Gentile
world.

I think the "new perspective" is here to stay, but
it's certainly no monolithic perspective; it serves
only as a general starting point. Within it there's
still a lot of fog. The views of Gaston and Gager
(that Paul wasn't addressing the Jewish people at all
in disparaging "works") are hardly compatible with
those of Dunn and Wright (who, despite being sensitive
to certain caricatures, nonetheless share with the
older perspective the view that Paul faulted Judaism
for an inherent defect -- nationalism, in place of
legalism). Meanwhile, Esler and Nanos continue to butt
heads over the question of Paul's relationship to
Judaism, in particular, to the Christ-believers
vis-à-vis non-Christ-believers. Then too, Watson and
Esler envision a sharply sectarian Paul (but for quite
different reasons), while Nanos and Dunn see Paul as
remaining within the boundaries of mainstream Judaism.
As always, new frontiers are being explored. But I
think older anachronistic views about Paul's supposed
battle against legalism should be consigned to the
dustbin, once and for all.

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com



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