Journal for the Study of the

New Testament
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Sins of the Flesh and Suspicious Minds: Dunn's New Theology of

Paul
R. Barry Matlock
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 1999; 21; 67
DOI: 10.1177/0142064X9902107204

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 67

SINS OF THE FLESH AND SUSPICIOUS MINDS:

DUNN’S NEW THEOLOGY OF PAUL

R. Barry Matlock
Department of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield
Arts Tower, Western Bank, Sheffield S 10 2TN

Staking claim to having ’the last word’ on Paul’s theology,

no

Professor James Dunn offers his new Theology of Paul the Apostle as a
’positive and eirenic’ contribution to the ’ongoing dialogue’ on Paul’ss
theology, to the ’reassessment’ of Paul currently underway.’ I am
pleased, as part of the present exchange, to join in that dialogue, to
which Professor Dunn is so commendably open.2 Now Dunn is known
and appreciated for his provocative views and formulations as much as
for his peaceful overtures: this work both offers resting places into
which Dunn might hope the dialogue could settle for a while and sets
off sparks to ignite further critical discussion. If my attention alights
more on the latter, I would hope still to work in the same constructive

spirit as he. Thus, while it is the way with such things that we raise for
1.J.D.G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1998), pp. xviii, 6 (all further references to this work are by page number in the text
or notes).
2. ’Dialogue’ within this exchange has, unfortunately, not been possible
(though Douglas has seen an early draft of my review, in consideration of our not
overlapping too much, I have not seen his review or been able to benefit from his
comments on mine—I expect and hope that he will, among other things, clarify the

significance of the interpretative choices on πíστι&sfgr; Xριστo&uacgr;, a matter on which I

am also elsewhere engaged; and neither of our contributions could benefit from

Professor Dunn’s reply). I have four friends and colleagues to thank, though, for
graciously reading and thoughtfully replying to my essay: John Barclay, Andrew
Lincoln, Bruce Longenecker and Stephen Moore; our dialogue has meant much to
me.

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68

comment what dissatisfies us (passing over so much that has been done
so well as to provoke no remark), we must acknowledge our debt even
where we disagree, in that our very disagreement, and the struggle for
answers that satisfy us better, is crucially enabled by the efforts of those

who attempt the Herculean task of synthesis. By no means as a mere

formality, then, I voice first my appreciation for Professor Dunn’s con-
tr-ibution and congratulation for his achievement.
Given the distinguished record of its author, this work will foster
high hopes. That there is a gap to be filled is beyond question. This
volume would do so with the qualities we expect from Professor Dunn:
the work is thorough, readable and well-informed. Among its virtues
are its impressive breadth of coverage, its wealth of citation of primary

literature and its judicious interaction with secondary literature. The

work thus lends itself to selective reference use for Dunn’s account of
aspects of Paul’s theology; but it is best read right through for its pre-
sentation of Dunn’s distinctive synoptic vision of Paul’s theology.

Suspicions nf’Rlretnr-ic
Dunn commendably avoids getting mired down in what has sometimes
been rather simplistic argument over tlre preferred method of construct-
ing a ’theology of Paul’. (Should we employ systematic theological
categories, or work with ’Paul’s own&dquo;? Work out from the ’centre’ of
his thought, or follow a more genetic approach?) Some choice has to
be made, and Dunn’s decision to structure his work according to
Romans-‘the most sustained and reflective statement of Paul’s own
theology by Paul himself’ (p. 25)-is a reasonable one; naturally, a dif-
ferent choice would in turn bring different matters into pi-omineiice.4
But a few comments on Dunn’s overall approach are in order. The first
begins as a quibble (a typically ’Sheffield’ one, I suppose it will be
said) over a technical term introduced in a brief discussion of recent
3. Ridderbos is named as the last full-scale attempt at a ’theology of Paul’, and
the post-Sanders need for a new synthesis is offered as further justification for this
volume (p. 5).
4. This, it should be said, is my own gloss on the matter. Dunn, for his part,
makes fairly strong claims for his own choice (if we are after Paul’s ’mature
theology’, ’we cannot do better’ than follow Dunn’s approach; p. 26); and one
could wish for more attention to or apparent awareness of the consequences of such
interpretative choices. At any rate, I take the choice of structuring metaphor itself to
be largely pragmatic, and not worth too much fighting over.

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 69

’developments in literary criticism’: Dunn uses ’implied author’ in an

unexpected way, to refer to that which we must be content with when
’the real author is unknown to us’ (p. 10). This might in itself be incon-
sequential, but what Dunn is getting at is that, with Paul’s letters, we
know so much about their ’real’ author and his situations that it is, ’if
not impossible, at least unwise to abstract what is said from the person
and personality’ of Paul (p. 11). In an important sense, this is back-
wa rds (as the implied/real distinction is meant in part to suggest):
’Paul’ is an abstraction from the letters (which abstraction then assumes
its place as their source, their unifying, originary centre).5 The signi-
ficance for Dunn’s project is that he pointedly wishes to write a the-
ology of Paul, not (merely) the letters (pp. 13-19). It is not necessarily
that this is an illegitimate task. But it should be entered with both eyes
open.
A second comment concerns Dunn’s account of ’the tension of a
theological hermeneutic as a tension between critical disinterestedness
and personal irmolnernertt’ (p. 8). On the latter: ’Such personal involve-
ment will normally include participation in (or reaction against!) a par-
ticular faith (Christian) tradition and worshiping community, and the
preunderstanding which such participation (or reaction) involves’ (p. 8
n. 28). As to the former, then, Dunn commends a specifically ’theo-

logical’ approach informed by but taking precedence over ’social-

scientific’ and ’rhetorical’ approaches, urging the need for ’sympathy’
as against an overzealous ’hermeneutic of suspicion’ (pp. 6-12). Now it

is quite reasonable to wonder of what interest is a Paul without the

theology (and whether an interest specifically in sociology or ancient
rhetoric might perhaps find more promising subjects elsewhere).6
But Dunn cannot be unaware that ’social-scientific’ and ’rhetorical’
approaches might relate to his own ’theological’ project other than in
the fairly comfortable way that he projects (see pp. 9-12): I have in
mind the ideological dimensions of Paul’s discourse that might
be revealed by (I would say) a contemporary rhetorical approach.

5. Dunn pleads sensibly enough for the hermeneutical significance of histori-

cal context (pp. 11, 15 and n. 43). No argument here, so long as we do not pretend
that ’context’ provides an extra-interpretative anchor to interpretation-’Paul’ and
his ’context’ are rhetorical constructs from ’the text’, itself a construct.
6. Again my gloss, echoing Stephen Westerholm, Preface to the Study of Paul
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), pp. ix-x.

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70

’Suspicion’ is missing in Dunn.~ To cite a concrete example: Dunn

argues on cråpç that ’it is precisely the fact that circumcision is &dquo;in the
flesh&dquo; ... which explains Paul’s hostility to it’ (p. 69).~ Might one not
rather say that, given a commitment to uncircumcised Gentiles, ’circum-
cision’ could be relativized by figuring it as ’fleshly’, trading on the
negative associations of the term? What must be appreciated, and what
Dunn seems to overlook in so delimiting his task, is that such ’suspi-
cion’ (if that is what it is) might be precisely a theological contribu-
tion.9 My point is not necessarily to assert one sort of construction over
the other. But both should be heard.
A final general observation: Silva’s introduction to lexical semantics
has been through two editions and the Louw-Nida lexicon has been
around for a decade now, but neither makes an appearance in Dunn’ss
massive work, though word study is a staple ingredient (and though
copious reference is made to TDNT, as well as to BAGD and LSJM). &dquo;’
This is not just a bibliographical omission, but a serious methodological
lack.&dquo; I will cite two related examples where this lack is telling. In
treating acwpa in Paul, Dunn searches for a conceptual core to the
various usages, and this he finds in ’embodiment’, expanded as ’cor-
poreality’ and ’corporateness’ (pp. 55-61). Now, while it is true enough

7. This absence is palpable in Dunn’s reaction to H. Räisänen (and sometimes

E.P. Sanders) in this regard: see pp. 19 n. 55, 100 n. 95, 117 n. 74, 131 n. 16, 137 n.
51, 148 n. 111, 157 nn. 149, 152, 159 n. 160, 657 n. 141 (’atomistic’, ’pedantic’,
’gross exaggeration’, ’superficial’—does Dunn protest too much?).
8. This is in fact an important point for Dunn: see pp. 68-70, 114-19, 149-50,
160-61, 359-66.
9. This would be so even under Dunn’s own terms, if one took seriously the
’reaction’ side of ’personal involvement’ (as it is, the only ’reaction’ evident in
Dunn is against a ’Lutheran’ reading of ’justification by faith’ and against certain
forms of evangelicalism-but never-against Paul).
10. M. Silva, Biblical Words and their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical
Semantics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, rev. edn, 1994 [1983]); J.P. Louw and E.A.
Nida (eds.), Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic
Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 2nd edn, 1989 [1988]).
11. F.W. Danker might speak with some authority here: ’Change comes with
difficulty, and the Louw-Nida lexicon will continue to meet pockets of resistance
in academic circles where the future is blurred by complacent acceptance of the
past...’ ; further, ’the use of all types of books devoted to word study should under-
go the philological correctives and insightful directions’ offered by Silva, among
others (Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, rev. edn,
1993], pp. 124, 127).

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 71

that ’the body ... is what enables the individual to participate in human
society’, that is true for just about anything else we could name (p. 61;
see pp. 56, 57, 59). And while it is granted that for Paul the human
being is a social being (a point Dunn wishes for certain purposes to
emphasize), that is hardly to be concluded from the fact that crwlla is
used both with the sense ’human body’ and the sense ’corporate body’
(see pp. 56-61).’-’ Dunn’s treatment of aap~ (of which we’ve seen a
glimpse already) reveals the same tendencies, where again the concep-
tual core sought (’human frailty’, p. 66) serves Dunn’s larger interpre-
tative agenda (the ’important theological point’ that crápç is liable to
’nationalist demagogery’, p. 70; see pp. 62-70).&dquo; Such ’lexical theolo-
gizing’ confuses word and concept, pouring the desired conceptual
essence into the varied occurrences of the word in question-the the-

ological tail wagging the linguistic dog-and critique of this is not

new.14 ’Theological interpretation’ of ’Paul’, including both Paul’s own
theologizing and our writing of ’theologies of Paul’, is a rhetorical
exercise (it is this to which both eyes should be open). Dialogue on
such calls for rhetorical sensitivity-call it ’suspicion’, if you prefer (it
is this that must be given a hearing). Language can be handled in such a

12. Louw-Nida simply describes the latter usage of σ&OHacgr;μα as a ’figurative

extension’ of the former (p. 127). (Such usage is replicated, of course, with the
English ’body’—evidence of the essentially corporate anthropology of Western
thought? And what of languages lacking this figure?) According to Dunn, Paul’s
social conception of the ’body’ ’is what prevents the individual from ... construct-
ing a religion which denies social interdependence...’ (p. 61), an emphasis perhaps
not incidental to a ’social’ reading of ’justification by faith’ (though it is part of a

general contemporary theological critique of individualism).

13. As it happens, the methodological introduction to Louw-Nida uses σ&a cgr;ρξ as
an example to warn precisely against such tendencies (namely, aiming for a neat

and continuous structure built on an ’underlying meaning’, and, in pursuit of such,

smoothing over semantic distinctions to which specifically one ought to be
attending; see Louw-Nida, pp. xiv-xv, xviii-xix). By these lights, Dunn’s procedure
is more or less the reverse of what it should be. Thus Dunn on σ&OHacgr;μα: ’If "body"
meant simply "physical body," [the corporate] usage would be quite discrete and at
some remove from the basic meaning. But body understood to denote corporeality

leads directly into the idea of the body corporate’ (p. 57); and on σ&a cgr;ρξ: ’To mark
off a neutral sense, "flesh" denoting ethnic identity, as clearly distinct from a moral
sense, "flesh" the ally of sin, would obscure the fact that for Paul it was precisely
"flesh" denoting ethnic identity which was at the root of his own people’s failure to
appreciate the gospel’ (p. 70).
14. See, e.g., Silva, Biblical Words, pp. 22-28.

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72

way as to obscure this or drown it out (perhaps for rhetorical purposes).

All cr Big Misunderstanding: Paul. the Law. and Judaism

Professor Dunn’s Theology draws on an impressive career of research

and writing on Paul-which, among other things, means that Dunn’s
reputation precedes him. Issues for which he is known from his earlier
work make their expected appearance here, such as his ’minimalist’
readings (shall we say) of pre-existence in Paul’s Christology and bap-
tism in Paul’s soteriology.15 But the interpretative issue with which
Dunn is most recently associated is his version of ’the new perspective
on Paul’. Readers will welcome the gathering within a single cover of
his mature reflections on Paul’s discourse on the law and Judaism (even
if there are few surprises for those already familiar with Dunn’s work).
Dunn’s reading of ’Paul and the law’ is one of the handful of major
options in the contemporary debate, and so I have chosen to focus on
this single set of interpretative issues in sustained criticism. &dquo;’ I will start

15. See pp. 266-93, 442-59. Without re-opening those debates, having Dunn’s
readings of each together in the same volume gives rise to a methodological obser-
vation. In the first case, his minimalist reading of pre-existence involves a strenuous
insistence on ’allusion’ and ’metaphor’ (see pp.
283-84), in this case with ’Adam
Christology’ (Phil. 2.6-11) and ’Wisdom Christology’ (1Cor. 8.6; Col. 1.15-20) in
mind (though, ironically, ’Adam’ and ’Wisdom’ seem to be treated less as meta-
phors—figures through which Jesus could, variously and unpredictably, be
imaged—and more as representing rigid schemes that determine, quite literally, the
shape Paul’s thought must take in alluding to them; see pp. 281-88). In the second
case, his minimalist reading of baptism involves a reluctance to acknowledge allu-
sions to baptism (indeed, now appeal to allusion seems to count against a reading;
see pp. 443-45) and a tendency to take
seemingly literal references to baptism as
metaphorical (1 Cor. 12.13; Gal. 3.27; Rom. 6.3).
16. I must assume a degree of familiarity with the contemporary interpretative
debate. I will not list or cite Dunn’s earlier contributions here; they are well known,
and duly listed in the work under review. I have for some time been trying to teach
Dunn’s perspective to myself, and the present review essay offers the selfish
occasion for me to try to make clear to myself his version of the ’new perspective’
on Paul (which this Theology culminates), to
put my finger on what it is about it
that has long given me a certain uneasiness. My singular focus admittedly passes
over much of Dunn’s Theology (as I said at the outset). Thus, when I
speak below
of ’Dunn’s reading of Paul’, I mean particularly as focused through ’new perspec-
tive’ interpretative issues. And although his reading of ’Paul and the law’ is central
to the work and a major part of what is distinctive in Dunn’s overall
approach to

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 73

with Dunn’s thesis of the Jewish ’misunderstanding’ of the ’law’ and

’Israel’, since this turns out to be the key to everythino,.&dquo; I will try to
give a clear picture of what this ’misunderstanding’ consists in (this
will involve some repetition, but it is Dunn’s repetition), of the several
Pauline problems to which the thesis is applied, and of the questions
that might arise―questions enough for this review.
I will begin in the middle, with Dunn’s account of ’justification by
faith’ in Paul (pp. 334-89). Luther opens the story in the now familiar
role of foil to the ’new perspective’: his rendering of this doctrine
infected his followers with ’an unfortunate strain of anti-Judaism’, with
Judaism seen as ’a degenerate religion, legalistic, making salvation
dependent on human effort, and self-satisfied with the results’ (pp. 336-
37). Enter now E.P. Sanders, who restores a properly ’covenantal’ con-
ception of Judaism, and Dunn himself, who restores a properly ’cov-
enantal’ reading of Paul (pp. 338-46). Paul’s ’conversion’ was not a
renunciation of the law as ’a means of salvation’, not ’a general revul-
sion against the thought that any human striving or achievement can be
the basis of God’s acceptance’, but a turn away ’from measuring righ-
teousness primarily in terms of covenant distinctiveness’, the law
becoming a concern for Paul ’primarily in its boundary-defining role,
that is, as separating Jew from Gentile’ (pp. 178, 355, 350, 353; see pp.
346-54). The phrase ’works of the law’ in Paul’s critique does not
denote ‘good works done as an attempt to gain or achieve righteous-
ness’ (Judaism wasn’t like that), but is Pauline code for a ’nomistic
attitude’ set on ’protecting Israel’s privileged status and restricted pre-
rogative’ (a critique of the nationalistic separatism into which the real
Judaism of Paul’s day had fallen, pp. 354-59; see pp. 137-43, 346-54).
Paul’s denial that ’justification’ is by ’works of the law’ is not a pol-
emic against ’deeds done to attain righteousness’, against some thought
of righteousness being ’earned’, against ’self-achieved righteousness’,
but rather Paul opposes that Jewish ’attitude’ bent on ’maintain[ing]
covenant righteousness, not least by separation from Gentiles’, an over-
weening ’sense of privilege and distinctiveness’ and a ’boasting’ in

Paul, it would not be fair or right to suggest that the work as a whole stands or falls
entirely with the matters on which I dwell.
17. ’Misunderstanding’ or some variation seems to be Dunn’s term of choice
for that to which Paul objects: see, e.g., pp. 119, 147, 149, 160, 366, 368, 369, 375,
378 n. 181, 514 , 515, 517, 638, 639, 640, 641, 644, 647, 649; related noetic terms
are ’attitude’, ’mind-set’ and ’confidence’.

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74

such presumed advantage, a ’misunderstanding’ of the law as requiring

Jewish separatism and of righteousness as belonging to Israel alone (pp.
360, 363, 366- % 1 ). When Paul affirms that ’justification’ is ’by faith’,
he is ’combating’ not ’legalism’ but ’the restrictiveness implicit in the
counteremphasis on works of the law’ (p. 372: see pp. 371-79). ’Justi-
fication by faith’ is about the terms of inclusion of the Gentiles in the
covenant (pp. 339-40, 353-54, 363-64, 370-71, 388, 501, 734-35).
Paul’s perspective, rightly understood, stands back on its feet, as it
were, a ’covenantal nomism’ found on its head, reaffirming the prop-
erly shared foundation of Jewish theology effectively denied by his
contemporaries, that ’all God’s dealings with humans’ must be ’by
grace through faith’-faith as ’simple trust’ and ’utter dependence’ (pp.
378, 379; see pp. 372-79; 366-67).

Much of the remainder of the work may be seen as standing in

mutually supportive relationship to this reading of ’justification by
faith’, upholding it and upheld by it: Paul’s anthropology, theology of
law, soteriology, ecclesiology, and ethics are all implicated. The key to
Paul’s anthropological conception of sinful ’flesh’ is provided by Paul’ss
reference to ’confidence in the flesh’ (Phil. 3.3-4), that is, ’confidence
in belonging to the people of Israel, confidence in a national identity
marked out by physical kinship, by circumcision in the flesh’ (p. 69).’~
’Sin’ (as ’power’ rather than ‘transgression’; pp. 94-100, 111-14) mani-
fests its reign pre-eminently in ’misdirected religion’: Paul’s ’attack’ in
Romans 2 is against ’a typically Jewish conviction that they had a
favoured status before God which would exempt them from judgment
on their own sinful actions’, ’a confidence falsely based on their reli-

gion’, a ’mind-set’ conscious of ’religious superiority’, an ’overcon-

fident religious identity’ and an ’overreliance on its praxis’, the ’idola-
trous misplaced confidence’ of the Jews in their privileged position
given classically sinful expression in their religious ’boasting’ (pp. 114-
19). Paul affirms that the law was graciously given for the protective
oversight of Israel, but his Jewish contemporaries fail to understand
that this arrangement ’was only temporary’, that with Christ ’a new
epoch’ of ’fulfilment’ for Jews and Gentiles has arrived- ’concentrat-
ing too much on the law’, ’too concerned to maintain their privileged
position’, ’focusing on the outward and visible and defining privilege in
18. Again, ’it is precisely the fact that circumcision is "in the flesh," physical
and visible (Rom. 2.28), denoting a religious identity conceived in such terms (Gal.
6.12-13), which explains Paul’s hostility to it’ (p. 69).

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 75

terms of the flesh’, the Jews were failing to see this fulfilment in Jesus
(pp. 137-45).’‘’ The ’life’ of which Paul speaks in connection with the
law (Rom. 7.10; 10.5/Gal. 3.12 [Lev. 18.5]) is simply ’covenant’ life
ordered and regulated by the law-‘there is no thought of obedience
earning or meriting life or of obtaining a life not previously experi-
enced’ (p. 152; see pp. 150-55). The Christian Paul thus represents pure
biblical ’covenantal nomism’, in fact outdoing his Jewish contempo-
raries (my impression of the drift of Dunn’s exposition here), for
’properly speaking’ the law is ’secondary’, and God’s gracious estab-
lishment of the covenant is ’primary’, the only proper human response
to the latter being ’faith’ (p. 153):

Strictly speaking, the law has no role at that point. Strictly speaking, ’the
law is not from faith’ (Gal. 3.12). Its role comes in as the secondary
phase-to regulate life for those already chosen by God (Gal. 3.12 =

Lev. 18.5). Paul’s complaint is that his fellow Jews have put too much
emphasis on that secondary stage (Rom. 10.5); but that is not in itself a
criticism of the law.

No: it is a criticism of the Jews. ’Law’ and ’faith’ ’should be regarded

as complementary’, not as being in opposition, as Palll’s fellow lews

would have it by implication (p. 153). Nor is it the fault of this ’law of
life’ that it issues in death (Rom. 7.10), as ’sin’ and ’flesh’ are to blame:
’The weakness of the flesh means that the law on its own is unable to
counteract the power of sin’ (p. 158).~&dquo; ’Israel’s clinging to its privi-
leged position’ is a ’classic example’ of ’sin’ using ’law’ and ’flesh’: ’It
was the law focused in the requirement of circumcision in the flesh

which gave sin the opportunity to bind Israel to a fleshly perspective’

(pp. 160-61). In keeping with his reading of ’sin’ as ’power’ rather than
‘transgression’, Dunn reads Paul’s soteriological conception of Jesus’
death, even when imaged as an atoning sacrifice for sins, primarily in

19. This, of course, is ’not a criticism of the law’, but an ’eschatological

criticism’ of the Jews, ’that a privilege ... had been abused by being still asserted
after its time was past’ (p. 145).
20. This is no ’criticism of the law’s provision of atonement (through repen-
tance and sacrifice ... ), but of the law’s inability to prevent sin from inciting the
desire which the law forbade’ (p. 158 n. 156). The comparison between the old and
the new ’epochs’ expressed in Paul’s flesh/Spirit and letter/Spirit contrasts (Gal.
4.21-31; 2 Cor. 3; Rom. 2.28-29, 7.6) reveals the former epoch as such (and not just
as misunderstood) to be ’focused too much on the visible and fleshly’, giving too

much leeway to ’sin’ (pp. 145-50).

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76

’participatory’ terms, as ’power’ (p. 223; see pp.

liberation from this
208-33, 317-19, 323-33, 390-412).~’ Paul’s ecclesiology redefines
’Israel’ apart from ethnicity or nationality so as ’to include &dquo;Gentiles&dquo;
within &dquo;Israel&dquo;’ (Rom. 9-11), a redefinition that met with Jewish resis-
tance due to a failure ’to appreciate the role of the law’, a ’misunder-

standing of &dquo;Israel&dquo;’, a ’failure to understand how God exercised his

righteousness’ and how ’Israel’s old self-understanding was now a hin-
drance’ (pp. 501, 505-507, 510-11, 514-515; see pp. 500-532). Paul
thus maintains ’continuity with historic Israel’ while striving for an
inclusive community freed of ’fleshly’ (visible, material, external, eth-
nic, national) impediments to unity (p. 543; see pp. 534-43, 543-48,
551, 561, 562). Discussion of Pauline ethics finally answers the ques-
tion of the continuing place of the law in Christian practice (pp. 631-58;
see pp. 130, 133, 153-54, 160, 179, 347, 369, 515-17). Dunn focuses

the question around Rom. 3.27, ’the law of faith’, Rom. 8.2, ’the law of
the Spirit’, and Gal. 6.2, ’the law of Christ’ (p. 632; cf. p. 133 and
n. 31 ).22 ’[T]he law is not to be understood in terms of [nationalistic]

works; but it can and should be understood in terms of faith’-Israel

pursued the law ’wrongheadedly’ (pp. 639, 640; see also pp. 515-17);
Paul opposes the ’letter’ or ’flesh’ of the law, ’the law understood too
narrowly (in distinctive ethnic terms)’, but not ’the law understood as
guidelines for Spirit-directed conduct’ (pp. 644, 647); the ’law of
Christ’ is the law as fulfilled in the love command and thereby freed
from the ’misunderstanding of the role of the law in relation to Israel’
(p. 656). Thus: ’For Paul, the objective of God’s saving action in Christ
was to make possible the keeping of the law’ (p. 646) !23 It is only the

law as ’misunderstood’ by Israel that is ’ended’ (pp. 369, 515-16).

It is clear, then, that Dunn’s reading of ’justification by faith’ (and all
that goes with it) offers an integrated package, a complete plight-and-
solution kit for interpretation of Paul. But as soon as we start to play
around with it, complications arise (these things seem rarely to work as

21. After all, ’transgressions’ are apparently already provided for under the law
(see pp. 158 156, 215, 232, 345, 350, 361).
n.

22. Dunn suggests that the option of translatingvóμo&sfgr; as ’order’ or ’principle’

(a play on ’law [of Moses]’) in some or all of these cases is theologically
vóμo&sfgr; as
motivated; pp. 632-33.
23. ’The law for Paul retained its function as a measure of righteousness’, and
’the "whole law" [is] still obligatory for believers (Gal. 5.14)’ (pp. 641, 656; but
see n. 51, below).

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 77

well in hand as they look in the brochure). An Israel that understood the
law as enjoining its separate existence would seeiii to have understood
the law rather well. Just how is observing the law a ’misunderstanding’
of it? And how is it a ’misunderstanding’ for Paul’s fellow Jews to
imagine that they are ‘Israel’? How, that is, except from a retrospective
(Christian theological ! ) point of view’? And how, then, has Paul criti-
cized Judaism ’as it really was’, as Dunn would have him do, and not
from a point of view already crucially ’outside’ ?24 And even then,
surely.for Paul the ’old’ way (Torah observance!) was not a ’misunder-
standing’ of the law (even if carried by some, such as Paul himself, to
violent extremes), but was in fact the only right way until the divine
revelation of the ‘new’.’-5 This makes the ’old’ way not itself the
’plight’ but-just the opposite-that which formerly would have con-
stituted faithfulness. So the only problem Paul could have with the
’old’ way in principle would be adherence to it past its time (not least
because this would make it a rival to the ’new’ ).26 If problems arise
with Dunn’s category ’misunderstanding’ as indicating a truly prior
’plight’, would it fare any better as this present sort of ’plight’?
Problems arise here as well. On the one hand, there is the matter of how
Jesus’ death could answer directly to such a present ’plight’ (as Dunn
must strain to make it do in Gal. 3.10-14, where he appears to have
Jesus dying to release Paul’s hard-line Jewish Christian rivals from the
curse that would befall them only as a consequence of the nomistic
recalcitrance with which they would greet Jesus’ very mission; see pp.

24. Dunn cannot entirely avoid this ’outside’ by regarding ’Israel’ as itself at
issue and as thus being up for grabs, for to have it as up for grabs in Paul’s sense is
already to have gone along quite a way with Paul’s Christian theological ’redefini-
tion’. The more familiar ’Israel’ might see itself as being defined out of existence
and Paul’s ’redefinition’ as more of a fresh start. But Dunn seems to dismiss such
resistance as merely part of the whole Jewish ’misunderstanding’ (Dunn often
seems inseparable from his Paul on such matters).

25. But then Dunn does not really want to speak of a ’new’ way, which partly
explains his having Paul overcome precisely a ’misunderstanding’, that is, of the
pure, true, biblical way, which Dunn can then credit Paul with rediscovering, thus
preserving continuity with his tradition; but then Dunn must turn a blind eye to the
interestedness of Paul’s own attempts so to credit himself with ’upholding’ or ’ful-
filling’ the law in its ultimate designs (of course Paul would claim such continu-
ity—the question is whether it takes a believer to believe it).
26. I say ’in principle’ as opposed to ’in practice’, an example of the latter being
the problem of human failure to comply with the law.

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78

361-62). And the other hand, Paul seems to think that where such
on

present differences are in view, what divides is not really a matter of

understanding but of basic conviction: belief in Christ. 27 The very cate-
gory ’misunderstanding’, so necessary for Dunn’s particular bid for
Pauline continuity with his tradition, seems fundamentally to miscon-
strue Paul’s standpoint. Would Paul think to bridge the gap between
himself and Judaism (or his Jewish Christian rivals) by correcting a
’misunderstanding’, or by eliciting faith (or explicating a faith already
professed)? Given this ’faith’, much indeed will look quite different
(must look different). Paul’s Christian theology of the law has an irre-
ducibly solution-to-plight character that Dunn would avoid.2’
When the ’suspicion’ Dunn withholds from Paul is applied, it comes
quickly to rest over Dunn himself. 29 How exactly can Dunn have
’works of the law’ signify both ’what(ever) the law requires’ and a par-
ticular perversion of the law, the ’misunderstanding’ and its character-
istic emphases and effects (pp. 354-59)?~&dquo; In response to ’misunder-
standings’ of his earliest statement of his position, Dunn has had to
make clear that he understands ’works of the law’ to refer to any and all

27. Thus Rom. 9.30-33; contrast Dunn, pp. 365, 514-15, 639-40. This holds true
for Paul even where, as in Galatians, his opponents are Jewish Christians, since on
his showing they are either false believers (Gal. 2.4), disagreeing with Paul on
’justification’ and ’works of law’, or else they are confused or inconsistent believers
(Gal. 2.11-14), agreeing with Paul without realizing it or sticking to it.
28. Dunn allows a ’solution-to-plight’ movement in Paul only in the ’unavoid-
able’ sense that ’from his conversion onwards Paul theologized in the light of the
fundamental "revelation of Jesus Christ"’ (p. 181;see pp. 232, 332 and n. 90, 388-
89). Part of that prior ’plight’ now more clearly revealed is the Jewish ’need for
more far-reaching repentance’—not of transgression of the law (in the usual sense,

anyway), but of the attitudinal sin of racial bigotry (see p. 181 n. 101, and
p.116). But again, Dunn’s sense of that as a prior ’plight’ is subject to question.
29. The only place where Dunn gives the slightest opening to anything
approaching ’suspicion’ is in his Epilogue (pp. 716-29); and even then, continuity
of Paul with Judaism is maximized. This too-little-too-late effort falls in principle
under the ruling of Schweitzer’s criticism nearly a century ago of those works of
New Testament theology that would contain eschatology to an appendix, at a safe
distance from theology proper.
30. Assessment of Dunn’s reading of ’works of the law’ in Paul remains a sore
spot for him (p. 358 n. 97; he lists his various accounts here and on p. 335) and, I
think, a trouble spot for his entire reading of ’Paul and the law’ (since Dunn makes
this the keystone, trouble here could be devastating).

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 79

of the deeds demanded by the law.&dquo; Dunn, then, makes two inter-
pretative moves. One is to argue for the ’social function of the law’,
that is, that the law it.sel f had come to function as a boundary/identity
marker-the law is Isrnel ’s law. The other is to argue that in its ’social
function’ certain aspects of the law emerged historically as crucial, and
these are, contextually, precisely the identity/boundary issues to the
fore for Paul (especially circumcision and food laws). Dunn can then
claim that ’works of the law’ on his reading pertains to the law as a
whole, since the particular boundary issues in view effectively stand in
for the whole law, and the whole law is itself a boundary issue. In this
way, Dunn can acknowledge ’works of the law’ as a general phrase and
still assign it a particular, limiting meaning, as indeed he must, for this
phrase must mark the limits of Paul’s critique of the law, must in fact
mark the very point of objection. When Paul questions whether ’justi-
fication’ is by ’works of law’, everyone must understand him to mean:
’Is Jewish ethnic/national separatism necessary for (ultimately, consis-
tent with) covenant standing?’ But Paul’s language still seems to outrun
Dunn’s thesis. 12 And Dunn’s reading requires a very specific logic to
Paul’s critique of ’justification by works’: ’works of the law’ must stand
for something now seen as bad that has to stop, whereas Paul seems to
want to talk about the necessity and, ultimately, the possibility (not the

propriety in itself) of the ’law observance’ in view.;; Finally, it is one

thing to argue that any dispute over law observance will have some and
not other issues in mind, and that such emphases will tend to mark
distinctive group divisions; we could then assert here that we know
what the real issues are, that the dispute is actually over ’identity mark-
ers’ and ’group boundaries’. This sort of (very loosely ’social scien-

31. Since, of course, Paul wants to talk about the moral law and not just those
laws pertaining peculiarly to Israel (Rom. 2, 7; Gal. 5), and indeed about the law as
a whole and not just some part of it (Gal. 3).

32. The law in its ’social function’ pertains by definition to Israel, and only
impinges on Gentiles in that this ’misunderstanding’ would think to exclude them
or is foisted upon them. But in these contexts Paul does not seem to want to talk
about the law simply as pertaining to Jews (Gal. 3-4; Rom. 1-4), and he goes so far
as to assure Gentile Christians that they have been ’freed’ from the law (Gal. 5; cf.
Rom. 6) or have ’died’ to it (Rom. 7), language which Dunn must have mean some-
thing like ’rescued from the ill-effects of typical Jewish attitudes’.
33. In this latter case, then, ’works of the law’ can be seen as neutral, indeed, as
the law’s entirely proper demand for compliance, the question being whether that
demand has been or can be met—which, granted, creates problems of its own!

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80

tific’) perspective seems ‘outsider’s’ take on the

self-evidently to be an

disagreement. But the ’insiders’,

expects, will regard the dispute as
one

being about ’God’s will’ or some such. Dunn’s account seems to be,
but for his purposes cannot be, such a de facto reading. Dunn must
have everything happening on the surface, with Paul and opponents one
and all knowing full well that it’s all about social boundaries. But this
Would seem to turn everyone into rather self-conscious sociologists.
And that strikes a false note, both in ,general and in this particular
case.34 ’Works of the law’ is not obviously a complicated phrase; the
complications that appear in Dunn’s account arise from the precise
requirements of his overall reading of Paul.
Other questions arise in kind. Can Paul’s criticism of ’confidence’ or
’boasting’ in ’the flesh’ serve as a straightforward statement of what he
is opposing and why. considering its polemical character? Doesn’t this
critique of ’the flesh’ already assume a certain point of view more than
argue for I *t?3~ What place is left to ’sin’ as ’transgression’ in Paul’s

34. In terms of the language in question: of course proper ’law observance’ will
always be understood in particular, variously slanted ways—but does this affect the
sense of the phrase ’works of law’ for the users, making it a transparent shorthand

for ’boundary issues’?

35. There is a relation, I think, if a roundabout one, between Dunn’s suspicion
of ’suspicion’ and his ’lexical theologizing’. Failure to distinguish smaller semantic
features and larger semantic domains makes it easier to overlook the rhetorical
space Paul is operating in and the rhetorical work he is doing. Thus, σ&a cgr;ρξ may be
used in connection with a rite performed on the ’flesh’ (Rom. 2.28; Louw-Nida,
p. 102), or of a ’nation’ or ’race’ (Rom. 11.14; Louw-Nida, p. 112), or of ’physical
descent’ (Gal. 4.23; Louw-Nida, p. 587), among other usages, and σ&a cgr;ρξ as ’human’
may be used in some sense of contrast with the ’divine’ (Gal. 5.19; Louw-Nida, pp.
322-23). By exploiting this last negative potentiality and the semantic range of
σ&a cgr;ρξ, Paul could argumentatively draw the former three referents into the negative
usage. (Probably not coincidentally, the move can be replicated with the English
’flesh’; but even without this linguistic facility, one could retain Paul’s move by
reconstructing,à la Dunn, Paul’s ’concept’ of σ&aacgr;ρξ. Thus a move made by Paul for
rhetorical purposes is retained by Dunn for his own—different—rhetorical pur-
poses. Language is a tool in human hands; but here to mystify words into fleshly
carriers of spiritual essences is to become a tool in the hands of language.) The bib-
lical and cultural terms ’flesh’ (or ’letter’) and ’Spirit’ offer Paul a virtually ready-
made ’appearance/reality pair’ on which to mount an argumentative ’dissociation’
of righteousness from Torah-praxis (the terms here are those of Perelman’s ’new
rhetoric’, to which it is by no means arbitrary to turn to illuminate such inter-
pretative phenomena in Paul: see C. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New

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 81

critique of the law, and to Jesus’ death as atoning for trans-,ressions ?16
Can all that is at issue for Paul over ’life’ and the law be handled in
terms of ’covenantal nomism’? And even if we allow that Paul implic-
itly claims, ’strictly speaking’, to be a covenantal nomist’s covenantal
nomist, should such a claim raise no critical eyebrows’? How is appeal
to an ’epochal’ shift an explanation of discontinuity with the law (rather
than an expression of a discontinuity already arrived at)? Does Paul’s
’redefinition’ of ’Israel’ not warrant cross-examination, given the rival
claimants to the title? Can such disputed texts as Rom. 3.27, 8.2 and
Gal. 6.2 bear the weight of Dunn’s claims for the law’s continuing
place ?3’ Does it make no difference at all that, in such ’continuity’
texts, Paul is asserting his own continuity with the law?3X Does Dunn’s

Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation [trans. J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver; Notre

Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969], pp. 415-42; C. Perelman, The
Realm of Rhetoric [trans. W. Kluback, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1982], pp. 126-29). We are perhaps still conditioned to hear ’rhetorical’
simply as ’cynical’, making it more difficult to see Paul’s discursive moves as an
evocation of a vision-for-life for the sustainment of basic convictions (gathered
around ’Christ’, or, for that matter, ’Torah’)—an instance of the practical reasoning
common to shared human life (a messy business no doubt, but not necessarily a

disreputable one). There is no need to deny, then, that Paul is acting on principle.
But the principle is not perspicuously represented as Paul’s ’spiritual’ opposition to
(the Jewish attachment to) ’flesh’. If Paul himself were convinced that circumcision
was meant by God to continue, it would hardly be ’fleshly’, though still in the

’flesh’; it is this discernment of God’s will, in ’Torah’ or ’Christ’, that is at issue.

36. In the case of Israel, even where Dunn finds he must acknowledge trans-
gression as being in some sense in view, Dunn must make the self-confident atti-
tude that accompanies it the problem (see pp. 114-19). And he seems to have ’sin’
as ’power’ and Jesus’ death as ’participatory’ encompassing transgression-and-
atonement (despite his own warnings, pp. 231, 332).
37. Despite Dunn’s disclaimer (p. 634), considerable weight is placed on these
texts, and on Gal. 5.14, all the while passing over such texts as Gal. 5.18 (which
latter, of course, will have reference to the law as ’misunderstood’). And can noth-
ing more be said for a play on ν&oacgr;μo&sfgr; (as ’principle’ or the like) in (some or all of)
these texts? At any rate, Dunn tacitly takes back his strong claims for the continuity
of the law, and in the usual Pauline manner (see n. 51, below).
38. Rom. 8.2-4 is said to be a ’defence of the law’ (p. 646), and in Dunn’s haste
to find ’the law established by faith’ (as he phrases Paul from Rom. 3.27-31; pp.
638-39), he completely overlooks that Paul asks whether ’we’ (he!) invalidate the
law by faith and claims that ’we’ establish it thus. Whatever else it is, Paul’s claim
to ’uphold’ or ’fulfil’ the law is a self-defence against appearances (and Dunn’s

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82

constant talk of a ’misunderstanding’ here, a misplaced ’emphasis’

there, the law viewed in this used in that or this way
or that light or

reflect Paul IS idiom? Is it clear that Paul finds it as easy as Dunn to

make such distinctions within or with respect to the law, and to pick
and choose among them? Does Paul ever offer quite the same reas-
surance that, if you just pick up the law by the right handle, it works as

intended?
Despite the fact that I seem to have questioned in some way just
about everything that I drew out from Dunn for attention, I do not
really intend an outright rejection of his reading. Dunn could hardly be
too far wrong about the Paul of Gal. 3.8. That is, Dunn’s primary inter-
pretative assertion-the central significance of the ’Gentile question’
for Paul-could scarcely be denied. But we are still left asking whether
crll of ’Paul and the law’ must come down to that question, let nlocce to
Dunn’s particular take on it (it is this apparent reduction, along with
his suspicion of ’suspicion’, that my questioning of Dunn is directed
against). Which raises another matter: that is, the precise way in which
the ’Gentile question’ is taken to be central for Paul-for, of course,
Dunn is not the only one to assert this. It appears, for example, that
Dunn could never be happy with a reading according to which the
Gentiles are iii ,fact Paul’s real concern, no matter what he says, or
seems to say .3’ For Dunn, Paul must be seen to be acting according to

principle, out in the open, and on common plight-to-solution ground

with Judaism. But even if we can just about manage the first two, I
reckon the third is too much-and that this is trouble for Dunn, not
Paul, who, I think, is under no such illusions here. Dunn’s singular
pursuit of Paul’s singular concern can indeed create the impression of a
tightly integrated solution to Pauline problems. But the problems aren’t
always Paul’s, and the line can be fine between integrated exposition
and reductive oversimplification.
The next question is: Why such a reduction? My suspicions lead me
to Dunn’s setting-up of the issues. This is how Dunn crystallizes the
’continuity and discontinuity’ questions focused in his ’new perspec-
tive’ on ’justification by faith’ (p. 340 and n. 23): ’What was at issue
between Paul and &dquo;those of the circumcision&dquo;? Can we continue to
speak in terms of Jewish boasting in self-achieved merit? What is it

response to those like Räisänen who would bring this out, such as it is, tells a tale;
see again n. 7, above).
39. So, roughly, Räisänen and Sanders; see again, above, on ’works of the law’.

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 83

about &dquo;works of the law&dquo; to which Paul objects so strenuously?’ The

real issue for Dunn is ’whether Paul’s theology of justification con-
stituted a decisive rebuttal and disowning of Judaism’, and since Paul’s
doctrine draws on Jewish scripture and ’covenant theology’ (’covenan-
tal nomism’ ), Dunn concludes that ’in its essence it was simply a
restatement of the first principles of his own ancestral faith’ (p. 345).
(The starkness of that choice should not escape notice-nor should the
fact that the conclusion is Dunn’s, and not just claimed as Paul’s.)
Dunn reckons that a proper appreciation of ’covenantal nomism’ is
what is wanted: ’the resolution to the debate between the old per-
spective and the new lies in clarification of the distinction between
achieving righteousness and maintaining righteousness’ (p. 354; see pp.
360, 366-69, 373-79). A feel for Dunn’s distinction in action is gained
from his commentary on Paul’s use of Lev. 18.5 (Gal. 3.12/Rom. 10.5),
’the doer of the law shall live’ (p. 516 [and see again p. 153, cited
above]):
[This text] does not indicate that the law is a way to achieve or gain life;
it was, rather, primarily intended to indicate the way life should be lived
by the covenant people. This, then, was what we might call a secondary
righteousness, the righteousness which was the fruit of the primary
righteousness, the righteousness from faith. Israel’s failure was that it
had confused the two, had given the righteousness from the law a more
fundamental status-as something required of Gentile believers as much
as the primary righteousness.

Whose terms are these, ’primary’ and ’secondary’ righteousness?

Not, manifestly, those of Paul or his opponents, else they would use
them in order precisely to avoid the confusion that anyone making such
a distinction is anxious to avoid. Does Judaism need this kind of help

from ’covenantal nomism’ ?40 Can Paul be con fined to, or made sense of

40. That is, does Judaism worry in this way over keeping ’grace’ and ’works’
’properly’ parsed into ’achievement’ and ’maintenance’? This is a question not just
for Dunn but for the perspective of Sanders, which Dunn is reflecting here. Sanders,
in his Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), recog-
nizes that Judaism ’did not have the Pauline/Lutheran problem of "works-righte-
ousness"’, since ’grace and merit did not seem ... to be in contradiction’ (p. 100; cf.
pp. 296-97); more characteristically, though, Sanders’s account of ’covenantal
nomism’ has it that Judaism ’kept grace and works in the right perspective’, kept
’the gift and demand of God’ in ’a healthy relationship’, ’kept the indicative and
the imperative well-balanced and in the right order’ (pp. 426-27, 97; a closer look
at the former kind of statement in Sanders makes clear that they are made in terms

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84

with, its terms?41 I submit that these are the categories of a mind exer-
cised by Reformation worries: Dunn’s distinction finds characteristic
expression in his denial at every turn that Judaism ever offends against
Protestant scruples on ’grace’ and ’works’, or that Paul ever imagines
anything different.&dquo; Neither Paul nor his opponents were so exercised:
at issue for them is whether acceptance with God is contingent upon
observing the law. In an important sense, it is Dunn who brings ’JegaJ-
ism’ into it.
I do not simply mean that Dunn’s polemic against an anti-legalism
Paul (against, that is, a Paul who opposes Jewish ’lecalism’) has been
overtaken by events (I think there is some of that-as though, straining
so hard against that obstacle, its sudden removal sends Dunn headlong,

flailing at the air-but I wouldn’t want to be too sanguine about the

continued need for this polemic). More than this, if an anti-legalism
reading of Paul is a distortion, then so is an anti-anti-legalism reading.
There is something awry with finding it meaningful constantly to deny
the presence of what one keeps insisting is not there-meaningfitlfor
Paul and his dialogue partners, that is. The more, presumably, we see
this whole ’legalism’ business as our- problem, the less concern it

of the latter). What can this ’right perspective’ and ’healthy relationship’, this
proper ’balance’ and ’order’ be if not the kosher Protestant order? Let me be clear:
I am not denying the significant gain that has been made with the thesis of ’cov-
enantal nomism’; rather, I am questioning certain values that the thesis tends to
carry.
41. That is, even if we grant both that Judaism was concerned over ’achieving’
and ’maintaining’ in the manner suggested and that Paul was ever-careful as well to
think in terms of ’entry’ versus ’maintenance’ (as differently portrayed by Sanders
and Dunn), can Paul’s perspective be mapped onto the former in a simple and
straightforward way?
42. This is a misguided, if well-intentioned, attempt to keep Paul and Judaism at
one on ’grace’, ’works’ and ’the law’. It intervenes to solve a problem that is not

there (not that there is no problem); and it forces a unity by having Judaism agree
with Paul but on Protestant terms. This assimilates Judaism to Paul only to reopen
the divide with a plainly solution-to-plight judgment of Israel’s ’failure’ based on
the very terms Dunn has wrenched onto the debate, which terms Israel is now
faulted for having confused. It is a legitimate question to ask whether with Dunn
(and Sanders) Paul and Judaism would be allowed to be different on ’grace’ and
’works’. I raise related concerns in ’Almost Cultural Studies? Reflections on the
"New Perspective" on Paul’, in J.C. Exum and S.D. Moore (eds.), Biblical Studies/
Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium (JSOTSup, 266; Gender, Culture,
Theory, 7; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 433-59 (see pp. 444-47).

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 85

should be either to Paul nr to the Judaism he knew. But there is still

more. Dunn appears unable to conceive of the alternative to his own

account of what Paul is opposing as anything other than ’legalism’ (an

inability to see ’works of law’ as a proper demand of the law for com-
pliance, a demand simply not met, not, that is, according to Paul’s-
quite loaded !-account). 4 ~ And this is not just a lack of imagination on
Dunn’s part. If the position that Paul opposes is in some sense one of
having divine acceptance depend on law observance (bearing in mind
that Paul speaks for the other side!), it seems that for Dunn’s money
that just is ’legalism’ :~4 It seems inescapable that this represents Dtit7ii’s
own theological verdict. Granted, he is careful to keep Judaism on the

side of the right, which is all very nice (a definite improvement on the
older Christian caricatures)-but nicer still would be to free the whole
debate from such values. Then Judaism could emphasize in its own
way the importance of obedience to God’s good law, and Paul for his
own reasons could question the necessity and even the possibility of
such obedience, and no one would see the difference as having any-
thing to do with ‘legalism’, or indeed any other attitude. Which brings

43. For what it is worth, my own provisional reading of ’Paul and the law’,
as reflected here and throughout, tends to fall somewhere between Stephen
Westerholm’s and Heikki Räisänen’s (and usually rather nearer the former); the
two in fact share a great deal, and where they crucially differ is on whether Paul

really means that which Sanders and Dunn-quite differently-would remove and
which Räisänen would regard, more or less, as mere expedient; for a partial
comparison between these four, see my ’A Future for Paul?’, in D.J.A. Clines and
S.D. Moore (eds.), Auguries: The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of
Biblical Studies (JSOTSup, 269; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp.
144-83. While one could argue (I don’t think I would) that Westerholm could give
more place to the ’Gentile question’ in Paul, Dunn can allow no place at all to what

Westerholm characteristically finds in Paul; the irony is that Dunn affects to

remove the Reformation reading of Paul while in fact retaining certain of its key

values, while Westerholm claims continuity with aspects of that reading but is sus-
picious of those values as reflected back onto ’Paul and Judaism’. Indeed, though
Westerholm is characterized by Dunn as simply reasserting the traditional reading
of Paul (see the following note), he is actually offering a reading that mediates
between insights of the ’old’ and ’new’ perspectives (a possibility disallowed by
Dunn’s reading). Such mediating efforts are precisely what is now needed (an
exemplary call for such is made by Bruce Longenecker in a forthcoming JTS
review of Douglas Moo’s Romans commentary).
44. I take this to be why Dunn persists in representing Westerholm’s reading—
most unfairly—in those terms; see pp. 339 and n. 19, 354 and n. 77, 366 and n. 133.

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me to final indication of how mired Dunn is in the very tradition of

a

reading Paul from which he claims to be free and from which he would
free us, namely, the interiority that pervades his reading: Paul ends up
not so much concerned with ’doing’ or failing to ’do’ the law as with
what passes through the head in the effort-as it is there that ’Sin’
lurks .15 Substitute for ’legalism’ in the traditional reading ’nationalism’
in Dunn’s, as the perverted attitude toward the law and its observance
that is the real target of Paul’s attack, and the old perspective fits Dunn
right down to the ground, complete with Dunn’s own version of
traditional preoccupations with prideful ’boasting’ in works and smug
’self-confidence’ in one’s religion.46 Dunn is as implicated as anyone in
a Reformation reading of Paul.&dquo;

Outing Theological Interpretation

For all Dunn’s Pauline abuse heaped on inexplicably thickheaded Jews,
it must be remembered that he is actually denying that Paul’s theology
is a ’decisive rebuttal and disowning of Judaism’! His theological inter-
pretation of Paul would demonstrate an essential continuity of Pauline
Christianity with Judaism-an unimpeachable aim, in principle. Jewish
scripture and tradition (’covenant theology’) are both sources of that
continuity. The only trouble is that the Jews do not seem to understand
45. This is Dunn’s equivalent of Bultmann’s view that even keeping the law is
inwardly ’sin’, a supposed deep Pauline insight into the subjective human predica-
ment under ’law’, ’flesh’ and ’sin’. Räisänen’s quip about Bultmann—with him
’one gets the impression that zeal for the law is really more damaging than trans-
gression’—works equally well against Dunn (H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law
[Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986], p. 169).
46. See pp. 69,119 and n. 83, 348-49, 363-64 and n. 120, 370, 372, 387, 389 n.

224, 638.
47. I should be clear that I do not really want to play less-Reformational-than-
thou with Dunn (this is to me neither a compliment nor an insult); but I note both
the relative emptiness of a charge so easily slung about as that of being ’still caught
up in the Reformation’, and the irony that Dunn has done his share of the slinging
(for a charge of this sort against those hermeneuticists of suspicion Sanders and
Räisänen, see Dunn’s Jesus, Paul and the Law [London: SPCK, 1990], p. 219).
Douglas might well put Dunn and me both together on the wrong side of this
divide, given our shared scepticism of his (and others’) ’subjective genitive’ read-
ing of π&iacgr;στι&sfgr; Xριστo&uacgr;. But then I might return the favour by casting both Dunn and
the ’subjective genitivists’ as alternative revisionist attempts—along with certain
traditionalists—to avoid an objectionably solution-to-plight Paul!

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 87

either of these. But then Dunn must ignore much of the hindsight
involved in Paul’s key scripture readings supporting his stance toward
the law.48 And Dunn’s appeal to ’the covenant’ (in the singular, as
though self-evident, and in the name of continuity, as in ’the inclusion
of the Gentiles in the covenant’) must overlook how Paul himself could
figure continuity with the Abrnhnmic ’covenant’ as discontinuity with
the Mosaic law (Gal. 3.15-18).49 And as for Paul’s continuity with the
’fundamental’ Jewish theological principle of ’faith’, which Paul is said
to draw from both these prior sources, Dunn can (not unlike Paul!)

neglect to mention for considerable stretches that for Paul ’faith’ is

’faith in Christ’ .50 Dunn’s reading of ’justification by faith’ has the
effect, if not the design, of cleanly limiting the discontinuity of the law
to the ’misunderstanding’, clearing the way for Dunn’s insistence on
the essential continuity of the law, which is taken to be yet another line
of continuity with Judaism. But then the ’misunderstanding’ is the char-
acteristically Jewish one-Dunn’s constant defence of the law against
the Jews is somehow in service of continuity with Judaism. And Dunn
would correct this ’misunderstanding’ simply by repeating Pauline
rationalizations whereby the law is ’upheld’ and ’fulfilled’ without
being ’done’, or even by not being done-not well-calculated to im-
press Torah-centred Jews.51 The very category ’misunderstanding’

48. See pp. 118, 152-53, 169-73, 373-78, 516-17, 640-41.

49. Dunn seems to appeal less to ’the covenant’ in this as compared to his
earlier work; but see, e.g., pp. 340-46, 354-55, 373-75, 501, 503, 632.
50. See pp. 367, 371-79, 515-18, 638-42. The argumentative link that Paul
forges between Abraham’s ’trust’ and the Christian’s ’belief’(Gal. 3, Rom. 4) is
aided by the semantic range of π&iacgr;στι&sfgr;, a move completed by figuring the Christian’s
’belief in Christ’ as the supreme instance of ’trust in God’—again, a link that can
be replicated with the English ’faith’ (argumentative figures at work here include
argument by ’authority’ [Abraham/scripture], by ’example’, and by ’definition’; see
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, pp. 305-10, 350-57, 444-50).
51. Thus while ’the law for Paul retained its function as a measure of
righteousness’, ’that measure could only be "attained" through [Christian!] faith’
(p. 641); while ’the objective of God’s saving action in Christ was to make possible
the keeping of the law’, ’Paul presumably had in mind conduct informed and
enabled out of a direct and immediate apprehension of the divine will’, and that is
’not something which could be read off from a law code or rulebook’ (pp. 646, 647,
648); and while ’the "whole law" [is] still obligatory for believers (Gal. 5.14)’, Paul
means ’the whole law as summed up and fulfillable in and
through’ the love com-
mand, which ’fulfills the spirit of the law’, showing ’what things really matter and
what can be treated as nonessentials’ (pp. 656, 657). Here it appears that, rather

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88

serves Dunn’s sense of ’continuity’, suggesting that Paul and Judaism

are on about the same thing, only the Jews are just not getting it.52
Dunn’s interpretative need to keep up Pauline appearances pulls ’con-
tinuity’ out of all reasonable or useable shape-time and again I find
myself failing to see the value for anyone of such an attenuated sense of
’continuity’ as Dunn seems to arrive at. What is worse, one gets the
uncanny feeling that he is more interested in a continuity with an
idealized biblical ’Israel’ than with Paul’s flesh-and-blood fellow Jews.
Dunn’s reading of Paul would restore to us a Paul in proper con-
tinuity with his tradition operating everywhere on pr-oper biblical prin-
ciple in proper plight-to-solutiol1 terms. Wherever such common
ground appears lacking, this can neatly be put down to Jewish igno-
rance or obstinacy. I have found reason to be suspicious of such claims
made in Paul’s name. As to ’suspicion’ of Paul himself, I should be
clear that it is not really that I want us to think less of Paul, but to think
better about him (as I sometimes tell my students). I reckon that, most
of the time at least, Paul knew exactly what he was up to, and that an
awareness of this is a significant addition to our own understanding.53

Dunn’s resistance to ’suspicion’ is of a piece with his resistance to a

certain sort of solution-to-plight Paul. Whereas I think that rather than
try to avoid such a Paul we ought instead to get clear about where he is
problematic for himself and where for us (so to speak)-this is not a
’suspicious’ alternative to ’theological interpretation’, but an interpre-
tative aim precisely of theological interest. Dunn cannot give any real
place to ’suspicion’ and still maximize ’continuity’ in the way that he
does. But his exclusion of ’suspicion’ is an impoverishment of theo-
logical interpretation, and the ’continuity’ thus obtained is theologically

than being too far off from Paul, Dunn is actually all too near him, both of them
offering much the same equivocations in defence of Paul’s stance on the law.
52. Dunn is then able to have the Christian Paul bypass his Jewish contempo-
raries in a direct apprehension of biblical truth (a venerable move in Christian
theology).
53. ’Suspicion’, after all, is in large measure a matter of sensitivity to how
Paul’s stance appears from other points of view—sensitivity to the contingency and
contestability of Paul’s standpoint (of which, I am suggesting, Paul would himself
be largely aware). And there are reasons other than undermining Paul for being
interested in this—such ’suspicion’ is essential to understanding him at all. If Dunn
judges Sanders and Räisänen to have overdone it here, they can certainly argue that
the other side (’sympathy’) has already been given its due.

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 89

impoverished in kind. Suspicions arise of the influence of a certain

biblicism.
It is probably far too late for me to begin to worry about coming off
as the young upstart-still, I must stand by my criticisms, some as

pointing up reasonable questions (even if my understanding is less than

complete), others as raising serious doubts (even if I can take the
discussion no further), and all as in some sense touching the centre and
not just the periphery of Professor Dunn’s reading of Paul. I have to
admit that there are no profundities in the present review. I must even
confess that I myself could not come within a thousand miles of ful-
filling the task of a synthesis on Paul. It would be a shame if our critical
engagement with the very few syntheses that come our way were itself
to make the synthetic task even harder, to discourage even further the

shouldering of- that burden. But it must be the task of criticism of such
syntheses to judge whether and where that burden has been taken up
too lightly, that task discharged too easily, both in conception and in
execution.
That said, I return one last time to ’theological interpretation’. Early
on, Dunn puts it that ’theology wrestles with the supreme questions of
reality and human existence’, and he claims, ’I wish to theologize with
Paul’ (p. 24). It will be a grave disappointment to many readers that this
never really happens. Instead, scattered through the book are a handful

of (usually) one-liners, typically oblique, and often rather bland.

Dunn’s theological commentary is usually limited to an intimation of
contemporary relevance Often one senses that Dunn is well enough
aware of a potential problem of relevance: but even so, the bare
reassurance is all we get. Dunn pleads considerations of time and space

(pp. 715-16), and we can all sympathize. But many, I think, would
gladly have read another couple hundred pages (and would even have
waited another few years for them).55 As it is, Dunn does most of his

54. A characteristic example, remarking on Paul’s preference for the language

of ’commitment’ over that of ’conversion’: ’There is matter for reflection here in
contemporary gospel preaching and theologizing’ (p. 328). See pp. 50, 73, 75, 78,
103, 119-20, 127, 164, 212-13, 233, 240, 293, 315, 332, 340, 371, 410, 482, 540,
542, 563, 564, 598, 620; an Epilogue drops a few more hints and offers about three
pages on ’innovative and lasting features’ (see pp. 713-37); Dunn seems least
reticent when discussing the Spirit (pp. 415-16, 427, 432-33, 494, 495, 497) and
Jewish-Christian dialogue (pp. 507-508, 531-32); quite striking is the lack of direct
reference to contemporary interests in two long chapters on ’ethics’ (pp. 625-712).
55. Well illustrating what more could be done in even much more modest

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90

theologizing (as have seen) under cover of exposition of Paul (in

we

that sense, he is theologizing ’with’ Paul all right). Barth famously

complained of the biblical commentary that is ’no commentary at all,
but merely the first step towards a commentary’, in that it limits itself to
a repetition of Paul in his (and other) words.56 This is to put in question

our claim even to have understood Paul then if we stop short of

engaged theological dialogue with him now. In which case perhaps

Luther has the last, and loudest, laugh.

compass is Westerholm’s Preface to the Study of Paul. Dunn also pleads limita-
tions of ’expertise’, modestly declaring himself unequal to the full theological task
(p. 716)—and again we can all sympathize. But the challenge for those to whom
Dunn has left the dialogue is to ask whether yet another generation spent going
over the same ground in the same way will not land us back where we started, and
whether then a broadening of our conception of what is proper to the ’professional
expertise of the New Testament specialist’ (p. 17) is in order.
56. The reference is to Barth’s preface to the second edition of his Romans
commentary, cited from W.G. Kümmel, The New Testament: The History of the
Investigation of its Problems (trans. S.McL. Gilmour and H.C. Kee; London: SCM
Press, 1973), p. 367; as Barth has it elsewhere, theology as such ’does not inquire
what the Apostles and Prophets have said, but what we ourselves must say’ on their
basis (CD I/l, 16).

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