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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: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 12:11:08 -0400


Dear Terrry,

Thanks for an array of interesting comments.

Yes, with regard to Qumran there are references to doing the Law beyond
the two that you sight. I have them in my office if you wish them (I
return Aug 6 after the SNTS meetings). However, a critical one is in
4QMMT. In 4QMMT C 30-31 the emphasis falls on the correct practice of
these deeds (“in your deed you may be reckoned as righteous”). What does
that mean? Is that not exactly the same connection that Paul makes
between work/deed and being reckoned as righteous, say in Rom 4:3ff.?
At this point I still find Abegg moving in the right direction, “Unlike
Paul, however, the Qumran author does not offer righteousness on the
basis of his reader’s belief, but rather ‘in that you had done what is
right good before Him.’ For MMT’s author, it is the ‘works of the law’
that fuel such a reckoning.” (BAR 20/6 (1994) 54). Clearly Paul battled
less for a boundary than for a basis. He was infuriated by those who
claimed a prerogative based upon doing the Law rather than faith.

Also, the fact that Qumran uses Gen 15:6 in a diametrically opposed way
that Paul does in Romans and Galatians suggests that the issue is far
more pronounced than boundaries between Jews and Gentiles and the issue
of circumcision alone. Circumcision may have triggered the issue in
Galatians but that discussion has a far more profound deep structure as
can also be seen in the classically different interpretation that Paul
and Qumran give to Habakkuk 2:4b. The relationship of Jew and Gentile
to Jesus Christ is through faith in him and that simply changes
dramatically the role of the law in the life of the believer in Christ.
It is a far more wide-ranging difference that simply boundary markers
between Jews and Gentiles. For you to say that “’It is not ‘works’ per
se that concern him” misses the dynamic of the Pauline argument.

It would be helpful for all us to stop using the term “Lutheran” or
“classical Reformation” for those of us who oppose the positions of
Sanders and Dunn. I, too, believe, against Luther, that the telos of Rom
10:4 is the intention of the Law and that the Law continues to play a
positive role in Paul’s theology, as in Rom 8:1 ff. Etc. In fact, I
would assert that neither salvation nor justification by faith exclude
obeying commandments. However, the Law does not “rightwise” (i.e.
justify”) but the rightwised in Christ does “the Law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus…”

By the way, is there a text where Paul completely rejects circumcision,
or is he merely rejecting a misunderstood and misapplied circumcision?

Thanks,
Karl



Terence Donaldson wrote:
>
> Greetings,
>
> I have been reading with interest the recent thread concerning the "new
> perspective" and "works of the law." While I think it is not without
> significance that the equivalent Hebrew phrase has appeared in the
> Qumran material (4QMMT and, I'm inclined to think, in 4QFlor as well), I
> do not think that it is determinative for understanding Paul's use of
> the term. The distinctive thing about Paul's use of the phrase, it seems
> to me, is that the only "works of the law" about which he gets agitated
> are those that differentiate Jews from Gentiles (circumcision, kashrut,
> etc.). Where this is not the issue, he can enjoin his converts to "do"
> all sorts of things (contribute to his collection project, show
> hospitality, comport themselves in worship in particular ways, etc.)
> without ever feeling it necessary to warn them about any concomitant
> dangers of "justification by works." It is not "works" per se that
> concern him. Likewise, he himself apparently is quite prepared to
> observe aspects of the law when in Jewish contexts (1 Cor 9:20),
> indicating that the issue for him is not law observance in itself. What
> gets his tunic in a knot is the suggestion that, as a condition of
> membership "in Christ," Gentiles be required to take on those aspects
> of the Torah that are characteristically Jewish, i.e., that would turn
> Gentiles into Jews. To this extent I think that Sanders and Dunn are
> correct: "works of the law" has to do with boundary markers, not with
> "works righteousness" in the classical Reformation sense of the term.
> The question then becomes one of understanding how Paul arrived at this
> position. Why was it that he wanted to see his Gentile converts as the
> sperma of Abraham (Gal 3:29; Rom 4:16), while at the same time rejecting
> the biblical definition of how Abraham's sperma are to be recognized
> (i.e., by circumcision; LXX Gen 17:1-14)?
>
> Pax,
> Terry Donaldson
> Wycliffe College
> Toronto
>
> ---
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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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