M.

CHRISTOPHER WHITE SCHOOL OF DIVINITY

PAUL AND THE LAW: THE NEW PERSPECTIVE

SUBMITTED TO DR. RON WILLIAMS

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

RELI625 NEW TESTAMENT SEMINAR

BY

THOMAS J. WHITLEY

21 APRIL 2009
 In 1963 Krister Stendahl, Swedish theologian and New Testament scholar, published a

paper that argued that the dominant Lutheran view on Paul and his theology was actually not

consistent with Paul’s own writings.1 Rather, Stendahl argued, the prevailing interpretations

were based more on mistaken assumptions about Paul’s beliefs than actual careful reading and

interpretation of his writings. As incendiary as this may seem, the so-called “New Perspective

on Paul” did not take off after this work. The work, instead, that is usually considered the

impetus of the new perspective is E. P. Sanders’ 1977 work, Paul and Palestinian Judaism.

Critiques have been issued and rejoinders made, but these will be discussed in more detail

below. The important point now is that for over four decades now, there has been a slow, but

steady change in Pauline studies.

Since James D. G. Dunn is credited for coining the term “new perspective on Paul,” it

should suffice for his definition to guide us in our discussion of this new trend in Pauline

studies. Dunn, in his recently revised The New Perspective on Paul, lays out very clearly what he

means when he uses the terminology, “the new perspective on Paul:”

1. It builds on Sanders’ new perspective on Second Temple Judaism, and Sanders’

reassertion of the basic graciousness expressed in Judaism’s understanding and practice
of covenantal nomism.
2. It observes that a social function of the law was an integral aspect of Israel’s covenantal
nomism, where separateness to God (holiness) was understood to require separateness
from the (other) nations as two sides of one coin, and that the law was understood as
the means to maintaining both.
3. It notes that Paul’s own teaching on justification focuses largely if not principally on the
need to overcome the barrier which the law was seen to interpose between Jew and

1
Krister Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” in The Harvard
Theological Review 56 no. 3 (July 1963): 199-215. Republished in Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, (Augsburg
Fortress Publishers) 1976.

1
 2

Gentile, so that the ‘all’ of ‘to all who believe’ (Rom. 1.17) signifies, in the first place,
Gentile as well as Jew.
4. It suggests that ‘works of the law’ became a key slogan in Paul’s exposition of his
justification gospel because so many of Paul’s fellow Jewish believers were insisting on
certain works as indispensible to salvation.
5. It protests that failure to recognise this major dimension of Paul’s doctrine of
justification by faith may have ignored or excluded a vital factor in combating the
nationalism and racialism which has so distorted and diminished Christianity past and
present.2

While Dunn’s definition is thorough and helpful, it nonetheless requires further explanation.

This paper, then will deal with each point in Dunn’s definition in depth.

As was previously mentioned, Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism is considered the

work that really started it all, as it were. The book, however, is mostly about Judaism. How,

then, does a book that is mostly about Judaism spark the fire that has become the new

perspective on Paul? The answer lies in what Sanders says and shows to be true about Judaism;

namely, that it was not and is not a legalistic, works righteousness religion as it has been so

disparagingly cast by much of Christianity. Many, if not most, Christians read Paul and his

critique of the law as an unambiguous critique of Judaism’s legalistic efforts to gain God’s favor.

Christianity, in large part, has survived and succeeded as it has by casting it as the antithesis of

Judaism. “Judaism is earthly, carnal, proud; Christianity is heavenly, spiritual, humble.”3 It is

certainly not uncommon to portray one’s enemy as all that is bad in your sight. I echo Mark

2
James D. G. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 16.
3
Mark Mattison, “A Summary on the New Perspective on Paul.” Mark Mattison.
http://www.thepaulpage.com/Summary.html (accessed 16 April 2009).
 3

Mattison at this point, though, that “it is a tragic irony that all of Judaism has come to be

viewed in terms of the worst vices of the sixteenth-century institutionalized church.”4

Sanders worked to let Judaism speak for itself, on its own terms; something that had

rarely been done to that point, especially by Christians. As Dunn correctly points out, what

Sanders initially brought to the table was a “new perspective on Second Temple Judaism.”5

Dunn describes, in lively fashion, Sanders’ approach:

He objected in forthright polemical fashion that the traditional perspective on Judaism

from the side of Christian scholarship was simply wrong. He pointed out that Jewish
scholars had long been puzzled at what seemed to them a caricature of the Judaism
they were familiar with; how could Paul the Pharisee characterise the Judaism of his day
so misleadingly (they were, it should be said, reading Paul in the traditional terms of
Christian scholarship)?6

Sanders pointed out that Judaism was not fixated on works righteousness “as a way to secure

divine favour previously unknown.”7 Rather, Judaism’s theology of salvation began with God.8

For indeed, God has chosen Israel to be his people and had made his covenant with them. 9

Members of the covenant were not worried about “getting in,” as is often the case in

Christianity, or gaining the favor of God, instead they were already members of the covenant;

4
Ibid.
5
Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, 16.
6
Ibid., 5.
7
Ibid., 6.
8
Let it be noted that I understand that it is not at all accurate to use the singular “Judaism” here as if
there were only one Judaism during the Second Temple Period. However, speaking of “Israel’s theology” also
presents problems of its own. Thus, using the plural “Judaisms” is probably most accurate, but for the sake of
simplicity the singular will be used with the understanding that it does not imply one universal Judaism, as it were.
9
Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, 6.
 4

they were already counted acceptable to God. Sanders puts it this way: “obedience maintains

one’s position in the covenant, but it does not earn God’s grace as such.”10

It is at this point, that our discussions moves into what Sanders termed “covenantal

nomism.” Very succinctly, it is just what was said above: obedience is about staying in, not

getting in. Mark Mattison has a decent description of covenantal nomism in his essay, “A

Summary of the New Perspective on Paul:”

The meaning of "covenantal nomism" is that human obedience is not construed as the
means of entering into God's covenant. That cannot be earned; inclusion within the
covenant body is by the grace of God. Rather, obedience is the means of maintaining
one's status within the covenant. And with its emphasis on divine grace and forgiveness,
Judaism was never a religion of legalism.11

Sanders’ definition, however, is better still, even if a bit more technical, than Mattison’s:

“Covenantal nomism is the view that one’s place in God’s plan is established on the basis of the

covenant and that the covenant requires as the proper response of man his obedience to its

commandments, while providing means of atonement for transgression.”12 Sanders’ definition

is more adequate for a few reasons. First, it rightly recognizes that obedience is more than “the

means of maintaining one’s status within the covenant,” as Mattison says. It is that, to be sure,

but it is also, and primarily, “the proper response of man.” The second reason that Sanders’

definition is superior is that it notes that the covenant provided “means of atonement for

transgression.” Mattison never mentions this important aspect of covenantal nomism.

10
E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 420.
11
Mark Mattison, “A Summary on the New Perspective on Paul,” n.p.
12
Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 75.
 5

A common facet of Christianity’s caricature of Judaism is that, one the one hand, it

requires everyone to be perfect (understood from a Western worldview of being entirely

without fault or defect and not from a Hebrew, or Greek, worldview of being complete) and,

that on the other hand, the law is too difficult to be carried out anyway. In his appropriately

titled chapter, “The Law is Not an Entrance Requirement,” in his 1983 work, Paul, the Law and

the Jewish People, Sanders remarks just how un-Jewish it is “to think that the law is too difficult

to be fulfilled.”13 He quotes Philo, the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who was a contemporary

of Jesus and Paul, as saying, “the commandments are not too huge and heavy for the strength

of those to whom they will apply…”14 In the same vein, Paul says of himself that according to

righteousness under the law he was blameless (Phil. 3:6).

Sanders continues: “The common Jewish…view on the matters under discussion here

would be this: the law is not too difficult to be satisfactorily fulfilled; nevertheless more or less

everybody sins at some time or other; but God has appointed means of atonement which are

available to all.”15 Sanders is unmistakable on this point. Contrary to the common Christian

distortion of Judaism, the law is not impossible to fulfill and on top of that, God has provided

the means to deal with the sin that will likely happen. Understanding this aspect of covenantal

nomism is essential if one is to have an accurate understanding of Second Temple Judaism as it

13
E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law and the Jewish People, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1983), 28.
14
Philo, De Praemiis et Poenis, 80 as quoted in E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law and the Jewish People,
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1983), 28.
15
Sanders, Paul, the Law and the Jewish People, 28.
 6

is at the heart of “the basic graciousness expressed in Judaism’s understanding and practice of

covenantal nomism.”16

Sanders uses the clash in Galatians as an example of how covenantal nomism can be

understood within the context of Second Temple Judaism:

The dispute in Galatians is not about “doing” as such. Neither of the opposing factions
saw the requirement of “doing” to be a denial of faith. When Paul makes requirements
of his converts, he does not think that he has denied faith, and there is no reason to
think that Jewish Christians who specified different requirements denied faith. The
supposed conflict between “doing” as such and “faith” as such is simply not present in
Galatians. What was at stake was not a way of life summarized by the word “trust”
versus a mode of life summarized by “requirements,” but whether or not the
requirement for membership in the Israel of God would result in there being “neither
Jew nor Greek”…There was no dispute over the necessity of trust God and have faith in
Christ. The dispute was about whether or not one had to be Jewish.17

Sanders clearly recognizes the dispute in Galatians, but also recognizes that the dichotomy has

incorrectly been labeled as “works” and “faith.” This dichotomy is typically associated with the

“old perspective” or with “Lutheranism.” While this is mostly true, it should also be noted that

the dichotomy in question should hold “Lutheranism” and “old perspective” as synonymous. 18

Nevertheless, the traditional view that “works” and “faith” are mutually exclusive is directly

challenged by Sanders’ new perspective on Second Temple Judaism and, as such, by the new

perspective on Paul. After analyzing Sanders’ understanding of covenantal nomism and

Sanders’ reading of Paul, Mattison concludes that

16
Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, 16.
17
Sanders, Paul, the Law and the Jewish People, 159.
18
See Dunn’s discussion in The New Perspective on Paul, 95.
 7

in Sanders' view Paul's letters do not provide a consistent view of the law. Paul's central
conviction -- the universal aspects of christology and soteriology, and Christian behavior
-- led Paul to give different answers about the law, depending on the question. “When
the topic changes, what he says about the law also changes.” When the topic is
entrance requirements, the law is excluded. When the topic is behavior, the law is to be
fulfilled.19

While this quote reaches a bit beyond simple covenantal nomism it offers further insight into

the mind of Paul and why the traditional dichotomy of “law” and “faith” is erroneous and, in

truth, detrimental to understanding Paul.

This fresh understanding of covenantal nomism is helpful when subsequently looking at

the law and its role within Judaism. The second aspect of Dunn’s definition of the new

perspective on Paul “…observes that a social function of the law was an integral aspect of

Israel’s covenantal nomism, where separateness to God (holiness) was understood to require

separateness from the (other) nations as two sides of one coin, and that the law was

understood as the means to maintaining both.”20 This aspect of the new perspective allows the

student of Paul to broaden her understanding of the role of the law. A new understanding is

important, because the “old perspective” saw the law as simply a list of rules and regulations

that one was required to meet to gain favor with God, yet was unable to meet by their very

nature. Instead, Dunn recognizes that the law had a social, as well as religious, function.

To make this point, Dunn leans on anthropology and sociology, nothing that the two

disciplines “have made us aware of the fact that any social grouping will inevitably have various

features and characteristics which provide the group’s self-definition (consciously or

19
Mark Mattison, “A Summary on the New Perspective on Paul,” n.p.
20
Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, 16.
 8

unconsciously) and mark it off from other groups.”21 The group, consequently, begins to be

thought of in terms of these features and characteristics by its members. The features and

characteristics then aid in the creation and preservation of identity and boundary.22 Dunn

quotes Hans Mol as saying that “it is precisely the boundary … which provides the identity.” 23

The members of the group, naturally, desire to protect their identity and thus, “the more a

group or society feels itself under threat, the more it will tend to emphasize its boundaries.” 24

Judaism has a history of emphasizing its boundaries when their national and religious

identity was being threatened. First Maccabees recounts one famous example of this:

According to the decree, they put to death the women who had their children
circumcised, 61 and their families and those who circumcised them; and they hung the
infants from their mothers' necks. 62 But many in Israel stood firm and were resolved in
their hearts not to eat unclean food. 63 They chose to die rather than to be defiled by
food or to profane the holy covenant; and they did die. (1 Macc. 1:60-63)

The two main issues for the Jews described in this passage were circumcision and food laws.

Interestingly, though not surprisingly, these two issues are the two main ones Paul deals with in

Galatians (Gal. 2:1-14). These two issues became “fundamental to the devout Jew’s identity as a

Jew.”25 As important as these two rituals became, though, they were not the only identifying

markers nor were they the boundary makers. According to Dunn, the law itself fulfills the

21
Ibid., 122.
22
Ibid.
23
Hans Mol in Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, 122.
24
Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, 122.
25
Ibid., 123.
 9

“identityaffirming boundary-marking function.”26 “After all,” says Dunn, “had not the law been

given to Israel as Israel’s special prerogative, given to the chosen people as a mark of God’s

favour and thus to distinguish them from the other nations?” 27

This perspective can be seen very clearly in Baruch and Aristeas, both sources quoted by

Dunn. The Aristeas passage, however, is a much clearer proponent of this perspective than is

Baruch, so it has been quoted below:

[Moses] fenced us round with impregnable ramparts and walls of iron, that we might
not mingle at all with any of the other nations, but remain pure in body and soul … he
hedged us round on all sides by rules of purity, affecting alike what we eat, or drink, or
touch, or hear, or see.28

What serves as the ramparts and the walls of iron are the rules of purity. The connection to the

law is obvious. Thus, it is sensible and right when Dunn speaks of the Jewish understanding of

the law acting as the identity-maker and boundary-marker. So, while some particular

regulations were often placed in the foreground when identity and boundaries were

concerned, they were not important in and of themselves, but rather because “they focused

Israel’s distinctiveness, made visible Israel’s claims to be a people set apart, and were the

clearest points which differentiated the Jews from the nations.”29

The law, then, provided rules and regulations about how to be in covenant with God,

but also served to fulfill their command to be holy, where holiness (separateness to God) was

26
Ibid., 124.
27
Ibid.
28
Aristeas 139, 142 as quoted in Dunn, The New Perspective, 125.
29
Dunn, The New Perspective, 125.
 10

understood to require separateness from the (other) nations.30 The issue was immensely

important to the Jews of Paul’s day. The law was a given for the Jews of Paul’s day. Judaism and

the law were inseparable. Further, the law served to maintain the religious, social, national and

racial boundaries; boundaries that to most Jews were right and represented to the will of God,

yet also boundaries that Paul was attempting to tear down. Paul’s message was resisted by

many Jews with good (apparently) reason. Understanding this tension is imperative if one is “to

achieve an exegesis of Paul’s treatment of the law which pays proper respect to historical

context.”31

So, the law served as identity and boundary for the Jewish people, yet Paul wanted to

tear down some of these boundaries. The gospel that Paul preached “did threaten the 'peculiar

identity' of Israel.”32 The new perspective on Paul “notes that Paul’s own teaching on

justification focuses largely if not principally on the need to overcome the barrier which the law

was seen to interpose between Jew and Gentile, so that the ‘all’ of ‘to all who believe’ (Rom.

1.17) signifies, in the first place, Gentile as well as Jew.”33 This aspect of Paul has already been

touched on briefly with the quote from Sanders about the dispute in Galatians, specifically

when he said that what was at stake in Galatians was “whether or not the requirement for

membership in the Israel of God would result in there being ‘neither Jew nor Greek.’” 34 The

30
Ibid., 16.
31
Ibid., 125.
32
Wan Chee Kong, “Not Either/Or but Both/And.” Mark Mattison.
http://www.thepaulpage.com/Keong.html (accessed 16 April 2009).
33
Ibid., 16.
34
Sanders, Paul, the Law and the Jewish People, 159.
 11

insistence that the “‘all’ of ‘to all who believe’ (Rom. 1.17) signifies, in the first place, Gentile as

well as Jew” was central to Paul. Dunn even says that “the issue of whether and how Gentiles

can be accepted by God is at the heart of Paul’s theology.”35 This belief, I am convinced,

influenced Paul’s views, opinions, actions, etc. more than any other single belief. It was not an

easy position to hold as the previous discussion on the role of the law made clear. Jews were

supposed to be set apart from other nations, the Gentiles, yet Paul was calling them to accept

Gentiles not only in the sense that they would no longer separate themselves from the

Gentiles, but also in the sense that the Gentiles could now become acceptable to God.

Moreover, as if this was not offensive enough, Paul insisted that Gentiles could be acceptable

to God by faith alone, hence justification by faith. Gentiles, in Paul’s view, were righteoused

apart from fulfilling the law. Paul addressed this misunderstanding “that the works, which could

quite properly be expected of Jews as such, should be demanded of Gentiles as well, as a

condition of their being reckoned acceptable to God – thus exposing the basic mistake of

requiring anything in addition to faith.”36

This view of justification by faith is difficult for many modern readers of Paul to grasp,

but when Sanders’ new perspective of Second Temple Judaism with its covenantal nomism are

considered, it should become much easier to understand. Nevertheless, I offer Edward

Hamilton’s explanation of justification through faith:

Justification is “through faith alone,” in the sense that additional customs and rituals are
not necessary to delineate the boundaries of the new Christ-centered body of believers.
But salvation (the process by which we are saved) should not be reduced to justification
35
Dunn, The New Perspective, 30. Emphasis mine.
36
Ibid., 32.
 12

(the declaration that we have been saved) -- and thus the rejection of specific “works”
(in the narrow sense of ritualistic observances) as mandatory, in the context of the
justification debate, should not be taken as a blanket rejection of any positive
relationship between faith and works (in the broad sense of applied ethics and
obedience to God), as if they were mutually exclusive polar opposites.37

Sanders’ description of covenantal nomism not being about “getting in,” but about “staying in”

should come to mind when Hamilton’s definition of justification by faith is read.

While Hamilton’s description of justification by faith adequately addresses the non-

necessary nature of “works,” it majorly lacks in that it does not speak to the breaking down of

barriers. “Pauline scholarship must not diminish the importance for Paul of the gospel as the

power of God in breaking down barriers (not least of the law) between Jew and Gentile.”38 To

Paul, justification by faith meant barriers were torn down and that acceptance was extended to

those of different races, nations, etc. At the least, this meant accepting believers who are

different from you and may even disagree with you.39 In Paul’s gospel message “the two

dimensions are inextricably interlocked – the vertical and the horizontal, acceptance by God

with acceptance of others.”40

It is at this point that Dunn slides out of his normal historical-critical approach to speak

to contemporary application; clueing the reader in to just how seriously he takes this aspect of

Paul’s theology. In this vein, he says:

37
Edward L. Hamilton, “What is the New Perspective on Paul?” Mark Mattison.
http://www.thepaulpage.com/What.html (accessed 16 April 2009).
38
Dunn, The New Perspective, 32.
39
Ibid.
40
Ibid., 33.
 13

Such ‘attitudes,’ and ‘misunderstandings,’ which maintain barriers between peoples and
races, which demean others and treat them as of lesser importance before God, which
refuse respect for others who see things differently, would not only have undermined
the teaching of justification by faith, but would have crippled, indeed destroyed
Christianity if they had not been challenged.41

Dunn’s acceptance of this viewpoint is even clearer just beyond the previous quote:

…to insist that others can be respected and accepted only if they share the same tribal
loyalty, only if they formulate their faith in the words that we recognise, only if they act
in ways that we approve, narrows the grace of God and the truth of the gospel in ways
that would cause Paul the same anguish and anger as he experienced in Antioch.42

I quote Dunn on this point because, though he is speaking of current application, his passion for

justification by faith and his insistence that justification by faith must work to break down

barriers is an appropriate echo of Paul. Paul felt just as strongly about this topic, if not more so.

There was no question for Paul, justification must be by faith alone and must include Jews and

Gentiles. Showing even more that he views this issue as central to Paul, Dunn identifies

“slogans which we should use to summarise Paul’s gospel – ‘to all who believe, Jew first but

also Greek’, ‘no distinction between Jew and Greek … to all who call upon him’ (Rom. 1.16;

10.12).”43 I would add to that list ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek’ (Gal. 3:28).

Mark Mattison speaks well to the aspect of justification by faith that breaks down

barriers. He says that Paul affirms that “all cultural and ethnic groups stand before God on an

equal footing and that we are not justified on the basis of peripheral issues. In this light, the

Pauline doctrine of justification has less to do with the individual quest for righteousness and

41
Ibid., 34.
42
Ibid.
43
Ibid., 36.
 14

more to do with the sociological makeup of the community of faith.”44 Mattison is on to

something by asserting that “the Pauline doctrine of justification has less to do with the

individual quest for righteousness and more to do with the sociological makeup of the

community of faith.”45 For, the Jewish understanding of justification was a communal one.

Indeed, Paul’s argument was that Gentiles were being included in a community - Israel, albeit

with a modified understanding of “Israel.” N. T. Wright also seems to support this non-

individualized understanding of justification:

Jews like Saul of Tarsus were not interested in an abstract, ahistorical system of
salvation. They were not even primarily interested in, as we say, 'going to heaven when
they died'. (They believed in the resurrection, in which God would raise them all to
share in the life of the promised renewed Israel and renewed world; but that is very
different from the normal Western vision of 'heaven'.) They were interested in the
salvation which, they believed, the one true God had promised to his people Israel.46

God had made a promise to the people of Israel, not to individuals. This remained true even

once Gentiles were included.

As has been made clear already, the inclusion of Gentiles was a difficult issue. Thus, Paul

was insistent that justification by faith meant that nothing could be added to faith. This view

naturally played out in Paul’s writings as “‘works of the law’ became a key slogan in Paul’s

exposition of his justification gospel because so many of Paul’s fellow Jewish believers were

44
Mark Mattison, “A Summary on the New Perspective on Paul.”Mark Mattison.
http://www.thepaulpage.com/Summary.html (accessed 16 April 2009).
45
Ibid.
46
N. T. Wright, What St. Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 32-33.
 15

insisting on certain works as indispensible to salvation.”47 This aspect of Dunn’s definition has

received quite a bit of criticism, mostly in the form of dismissal. It should, however, be

eschewed without further consideration. Dunn’s point is simply that while “works of the law”

surely referred to what the law required, “the conduct prescribed by the Torah,”48 it also came

to refer to more, for Paul at least. For Dunn, “the phrase ‘works of the law’ is a way of

describing the law observance required of all covenant members, and could be regarded as an

appropriate way of filling out the second half of the Sanders’ formula – ‘covenantal nomism’.”49

When the first instance of Paul using “works of the law” is explored, the picture

becomes even clearer. Galatians 2:1-16 offers its reader with the understanding that there

were some Jews who were insisting that circumcision was compulsory for those who believed

in Jesus. Further, it seems that many of the Jews also believed that it was still necessary to Jews

to separate themselves from Gentiles, especially during meal times. Thus, they were continuing

to uphold the laws of clean and unclean. In so doing, they were adding to justification by faith,

or “faith alone.” This was no small breach in Paul’s view. Nils Dahl puts it thus: “For Paul, the

behaviour of Peter and Barnabas constitutes their rejection of the doctrine of justification by

faith.”50 Peter, Barnabas and the others likely did not see their actions with such implications.

More likely, they were still faithful to their conviction that certain rules were still binding on all

47
Dunn, The New Perspective, 16.
48
Ibid., 23.
49
Ibid.
50
Nils Dahl, “Doctrine of Justification,” 109 as quoted in Dunn, The New Perspective, 27.
 16

Jews, as they had always been, and that they were remaining faithful to God by remaining

faithful to the covenant, which included the laws of clean and unclean.51

The illustration easily carries on into what Paul calls “living like a Jew/judaizing.” In

Paul’s view, Peter and other Jews were insisting not only should Jews keep certain

requirements, but that Gentiles should as well. Hence Dunn’s equation: “observ*ing+ food laws

= judaize = do works of the law.”52 “Works of the law,” then, no longer refers just to what

“members of the covenant are obligated to do by virtue of their covenant membership

(‘covenantal nomism’).”53 Rather, “works of the law” has also begun to stand for the Jewish way

of life (“living like a Jew/judaizing”) in general.

It is also necessary when discussing this almost technical terminology by Paul, the it is

reiterated that “works of the law” were not seen by Paul or by his opponents as actions that

earned God’s favor or merit. Rather, they were merely what those who were members of the

covenant did to mark their status as Jews, or, more specifically, as God’s chosen people.

Another common misconception when “works of the law” are being discussed is to equate

“works of the law” with “good works” in general.54 Following in the vein of this misconception,

many under the “old perspective” assert that no works should be done (though they clearly do

not adhere to this themselves, for they simply replace the old works with new ones). Thus,

Paul’s opposition to “works of the law” became, by many, especially by those who followed

51
Dunn, The New Perspective, 27.
52
Ibid.
53
Ibid.
54
Ibid., 111.
 17

Luther, opposition to any works that contained even the appearance of being “works in the

sense of self-achievement.”55 This implementation misconstrues the specific and technical use

of “works of the law” by Paul. Understanding how Paul used “works of the law” is indispensible

to understanding Paul as a whole from the new perspective.

The phrase “works of the law” in Gal. 2.16 is, in fact, a fairly restricted one: it refers
precisely to these same identity markers described above, covenant works – those
regulations prescribed by the law which any good Jew would simply take for granted to
describe what a good Jew did. To be a Jew, was to be a member of the covenant, was to
observe circumcision, food laws and Sabbath. In short, once again Paul seems much less
a man of 16th century Europe and much more firmly in touch with the reality of first-
century Judaism than many have thought.56

To see Paul in a fully first-century Jewish context if difficult for many because of our own

removal from that time period and world view, but also because of the grip that Lutheranism

has had on the understanding of Paul for five centuries now.

Essential to understanding Paul apart from the classically Lutheran dichotomy between

“outward ritual done in the flesh and inward grace operative in the spirit” is the specific context

that pushed Paul to making his assertion of justification by faith in the first place.57 Paul is

preaching a message that God accepts all who believe. This, however, is an ineffectual message

if, in Paul’s understanding, if there is anything that could stand in the way of a believer coming

in to the fold. Paul encountered a situation that did just that at Antioch, namely, Jewish

believers in Jesus were not eating with Gentile believers in Jesus and were also declaring that

they too must be circumcised to be acceptable to God. Additional requirements were being
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid.
57
Ibid., 117.
 18

added to faith and that was at odds with the essence of the message that Paul was preaching. It

becomes obvious, then, why Paul must confront rules and regulations which uphold barriers on

any lines, but especially on racial and nationalistic lines.

One last point that should be noted, lest one still think that Paul was simply speaking

against the law as a whole and Judaism as a whole, is the evidence that Paul was actually

engaging in intra-Jewish polemic. The Qumran writings contain an almost identical phrase –

“deeds of the law” (hrwt yXcm). In 4QFlor. 1:1-17 this phrase refers to what “marked out the
Qumran community in its distinctiveness from outsiders and enemies.”58 The understanding is

very similar to what Paul seems to have in mind when he uses the phrase “works of the law.”

For, both phrases refer to obligations put on the members of the covenant community. 59 The

point is that it was not uncommon for groups of Jews to have interpretations of the law that

required certain actions for their adherents. Many times these actions were based on specific

nuanced interpretations that differed from other groups’ interpretations of similar subjects of

passages.60 Thus, other groups would write or speak polemically against the interpretations

that did not line up with theirs. Of this potentially polemical nature of Paul’s writings, Dunn

notes that “it remains significant that in just such a context of dispute over the extent and

detail of Torah obligation binding on Christian Jews, Paul uses a phrase which was used

elsewhere in the Judaism of the time in similar intra-Jewish factional dispute over points of

58
Ibid., 204.
59
Ibid., 235.
60
Ibid.
 19

halakhah.”61 The point is that Paul was likely engaged in a common sectarian dispute; he was

not breaking from the law and Judaism on the whole, as many would like to believe.

Illuminating the finer points of Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith and “works of the

law” leads nicely into the final facet of the new perspective on Paul as outlined by Dunn: “It

protests that failure to recognise this major dimension of Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith

may have ignored or excluded a vital factor in combating the nationalism and racialism which

has so distorted and diminished Christianity past and present.”62 Dunn’s personal application of

the doctrine of justification by faith was mentioned earlier, but there is more to this final point.

This doctrine had very practical applications for Paul and it should for the modern reader and

follower of Paul as well.

The necessary implications of justification by faith, those of accepting fellow believers

regardless of their adherence to other certain rules and regulations, are not seen or

implemented by many Christians. Some of this results in “minor” grievances, such as not taking

communion with other Christians because they have some different views and beliefs, not

allowing someone to be a member of a church because they have been baptized by a different

means (or have not been baptized at all), and labeling some Christians as non-Christians

because they take different stances on social issues than some Christians think they should.

While these are “minor” grievances, they still work to break down Christianity and distort and

diminish it.

61
Ibid.
62
Ibid., 16.
 20

There are, however, other types of grievances that can be called “major.” These

grievances are much graver and include large-scale discrimination. Examples of “major”

grievances include the apartheid of South Africa and slavery and subsequent racial segregation

in the southern states of the USA. In these instances, inequality was supported and condoned

by the church. Barriers were not only allowed to remain standing, but were, sadly, buttressed

by the church’s teaching and action. The genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda also involved

Christians, and was supported by many of them. The gravest offence, however, in my opinion,

has to be what Dunn calls the “turning of the tables” when Christianity turned full scale against

Judaism with its supersessionism and anti-semitism which resulted in the Holocaust (Shoah).63

German Christians supported the Reich and built barriers so that Jews could not be brought

into their fold as many Jews had tried to do to Gentiles almost 2,000 years prior. This time,

however, the result was much more than ostracization. Jews were murdered by the train load,

with an estimated 6 million Jews being killed by the Nazis, many of whom were Christians.

Paul challenged those who wanted to maintain boundaries and if contemporary

Christianity desires to combat the “nationalism and racialism which has so distorted and

diminished Christianity past and present,”64 this doctrine must be seen how Paul intended it to

be seen and it must be implemented as such. This means that Christians accept who God

accepts, namely, all who believe, “and on no other condition – not ethnicity, not colour, not

race, not class, not creed, not denomination.”65 Many biblical studies students may think that

63
Ibid., 35.
64
Ibid., 16.
65
Ibid., 36.
 21

this sort of practical application has no place in the academic setting. Dunn, however, rejects

this and makes clear that it is fundamental to the new perspective on Paul for him.

This I say once again is what the ‘new perspective’ is all about for me. It does not set this
understanding of justification by faith in antithesis to the justification of the individual
by faith. It is not opposed to the classic Reformed doctrine of justification. It simply
observes that a social and ethical dimension was part of the doctrine from its first
formulation, was indeed integral to the first recorded exposition and defence of the
doctrine – ‘Jew first but also Greek’.66

The new perspective on Paul is concerned with recovering an accurate historical picture of

Second Temple Judaism and of Paul, but it is also concerned with how Paul implemented his

views. As a result, the new perspective finds value in the last few chapters of Galatians as

speaking to the “social and ethical dimension,” whereas the “old perspective” dismissed them

because they could not see how they fit if justification was by faith alone.

It is my hope that at this point the whole picture is becoming clear as regards the new

perspective on Paul. For, building upon Sanders’ new perspective on Second Temple Judaism

brings to light the covenantal nomism aspect of the Judaism of Paul’s day and works to place

Paul in his original context and not the context of 16 th century reformation Europe.

Understanding covenantal nomism, then, makes it much easier, if not simply possible, to

understand the social and ethical dimension of Paul’s message. To be sure, one could only be

justified by faith, but that was not the whole picture. There were still “requirements” of being a

part of the covenant, much like covenantal nomism is not about “getting in” but “staying in.”

Paul, in essence, sets up his own covenantal nomism by asserting his doctrine of justification by

66
Ibid.
 22

faith and by also asserting that there are necessary social and ethical implications to being

justified by those means and of being a member of the covenant group.

The new perspective on Paul wants to be able to apply Paul’s teachings and views to the

modern situation, but it understands what Mark Mattison calls a “hermeneutical truism,”

namely, “that a New Testament text must be understood and appreciated in its context before

it can be applied to that of the interpreter.”67 For this reason, the new perspective on Paul

spends the bulk of its efforts and resources on the first four points in Dunn’s definition rather

than on the final point.

This paper began by mentioning the paper by Krister Stendahl in 1963, which contended

that the dominant Lutheran view on Paul and his theology was actually not consistent with

Paul’s own writings. While this may be true to some degree, the new perspective on Paul, for

the most part, has actually been quite careful to not build the dichotomy as being between

Lutheranism and the new perspective. In fact, Dunn even speaks a few times of how the

Lutheran understanding of a certain topic has been sent to the trash, so to speak, simply

because it was a Lutheran view, yet it needs to be recovered, for it correctly read and

interpreted Paul’s writings.

Further, this paper has shown a bit of the history of the beginnings of the new

perspective on Paul and has laid out the main concerns that the new perspective on Paul deals

with, as espoused by James Dunn, the father of the new perspective. The new perspective is

determined to understand the context and worldview of Paul, one in which covenantal nomism

67
Mark Mattison, “A Summary on the New Perspective on Paul,” n.p.
 23

was a given, so as to better understand Paul and his writings. The new perspective also

attempts to approach the role of the law from the perspective of Second Temple Judaism,

asserting that the law is not all bad and impossible to follow, but served as a means of identity

and boundary for the members of the covenant. These barriers then, that the law helped

uphold, were challenged by Paul’s teaching that justification is through faith alone, with no

additional requirements whatsoever. The additional requirements that many Jewish Christians

were still holding on to, the new perspective holds, were referred to by Paul’s technical use of

“works of the law.” Finally, then, the new perspective on Paul recognizes the social and ethical

dimension to Paul’s message for his context and attempts to apply that message non-

anachronistically to the modern context.

The new perspective on Paul offers the reader and follower of Paul a fresh look at Paul

and his context. It is not without fault, nor is it understood uniformly by new perspective

scholars. This paper chose to go with James Dunn’s description of the new perspective since he

is the leading scholar in this area and, indeed, is the father of the new perspective. Though the

new perspective is not the antithesis to the Lutheran perspective, there are many differences,

which will excite some and frustrate many. Nevertheless, as Pauline scholarship moves forward

in whichever direction it will, it has been and will continue to be, well served by the so-called

“new perspective on Paul.”

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dunn, James D. G. The Epistle to the Galatians in Black’s New Testament Commentaries 9.
Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1993.

--. The New Perspective on Paul. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.

Hamilton, Edward L. “What is the New Perspective on Paul?” Mark Mattison.

http://www.thepaulpage.com/What.html (accessed 16 April 2009).

---. “The New Perspective and Catholic-Protestant Debate.” Mark Mattison.

http://www.thepaulpage.com/Debate.html (accessed 16 April 2009).

Kong, Wan Chee. “Not Either/Or but Both/And.” Mark Mattison.

http://www.thepaulpage.com/Keong.html (accessed 16 April 2009).

Mattison, Mark. “A Summary on the New Perspective on Paul.”Mark Mattison.

http://www.thepaulpage.com/Summary.html (accessed 16 April 2009).

Meeks, Wayne A. and John Fitzgerald, eds. The Writings of St. Paul: Annotated Texts, Reception
and Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.

Nanos, Mark D., ed. The Galatians Debate: Contemporary Issues in Rhetorical and Historical
Interpretation. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2002.

Sanders, E. P. Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977.

---. Paul, the Law and the Jewish People. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1983.

Stendahl, Krister. “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.” The
Harvard Theological Review 56 no. 3 (July 1963): 199-215.

Strecker, Christian. “Paulus au seiner “neuen Perspektiv”: Der Paradigmenwechsel in der

jüngeren Paulusforschung.” Kirche und Israel 11 (1996): 3-18.

Wright, N. T. What St. Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.

24