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  • From: "Karl P. Donfried" <kdonfrie AT email.smith.edu>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Sanders and the "New" Perspective
  • Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 09:44:43 -0400


Sorry for not having transliterated the Greek and the Hebrew. That
should cause a problem because the texts are cited and a literal English
translations is present. If it does, let me know.

K

Loren Rosson wrote:
>
> 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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--


Karl P. Donfried
Elizabeth A. Woodson Professor
of Religion and Biblical Literature
Neilson Library A10
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063

kdonfrie AT smith.edu
413 585-3669 (phone)
413 256-6202 (fax)




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