The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion

The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion

Prepare a six to seven (6-7) page analysis of the New Perspective on Paul. This analysis should include the following elements:

A list of the major New Perspective scholars and their publications
A one to two (1-2) paragraph summary of the major tenets of New Perspective
A discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the New Perspective
A two (2) page summary of the implications of the New Perspective on Paul for the doctrine of salvation, the doctrine of sanctification, and the place of Israel and the Church in the divine plan
A bibliography of no less than five (5) sources The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion

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The New Perspective of Paul is an important shift in how many scholars, particularly Protestant scholars, interpret Apostle Paul’s writings. Since the Protestant Reformation, studies on the writings of Paul have been greatly influenced by Reformed and Lutheran views (known as the old perspective) that are thought to assign negative attributes connected with 16^th-century Roman Catholicism to first-century Judaism. The new perspective is an effort to lift Paul’s letters Paul out sssssof the old perspective and construe them based on what is thought to be an understanding of first-century Judaism. The paper analyzes the new perspective on Paul and the major Perspective scholars and their publications The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion

The Major New Perspective Scholars and Their Publications

The letters of Paul contain a significant number of criticisms of works of the law. The fundamental discrepancy in the old and new perspective interpretations of what Paul implied by the works of the law. Is the steadiest differentiating feature of the old and new perspectives. The old perspective construes the term “works of the law” as referring to human effort to perform good works so as to meet the standards of God. In this perspective, Paul is against the notion that humans can obtain salvation from God through their good works (Lyall, 141) The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion

On the contrary, new perspective scholars view Paul as talking about badges of covenant membership or disapproving Gentile believers who had started relying on the Torah to reckon Jewish kinship. It is argued that during the time of Paul, Israelites were being faced with the potion of whether to continue following their ancestral customs/ the Torah or to follow the trend of the Roam Empire to adopt Greek customs. This is equivalent to Westernization and the decision that contemporary individuals face such as American Indians to adopt Western lifestyles and customs 0r to follow their native culture(Lyall, 142)The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion

Kristein Stendahl

Kristein Stendadl argues that the typical Lutheran view of the theology of Apostle Paul failed to fit with statements in the writings of Paul, and indeed was based more on misguided assumptions about beliefs of Paul than cautious interpretation of his writings. In his influential essay The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West, Stendahl argued the tendency of Western culture since Augustine’s day has been to misinterpret Paul as if he developed his doctrine as the response to a conscience that is troubled. Stendahl argued that the interpretation of the Scriptures by Paul imposed by the introspective conscience of the West has generated a misunderstanding of the doctrine of Paul. Paul talked of justification, not as the rejoinder to the issue of a troubled conscience before God, but to clarify why there was no reason for imposing the law on the Gentiles, who in the Messianic time of God, have become participants in fulfilling the promises to Abraham (Smith, 81)The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion.

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P. Sanders

In 1977, E. P. Sanders published Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Sander examines a wide range of Jewish Sources. According to Smith Sanders examines the early Rabbinic literature from the era between the fall of Jerusalem and the compilation of Mishnah and then looks at parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a collection of materials from pseudepigraphical and apocryphal writings. From the lengthy survey, Sanders makes the argument that the Judaism of the time of Paul was not a religion in which an individual must seek to get acceptance by God via the acquisition of personal merit via good works. Rather, the Jews of the days of Paul were imparted to observe the law out of thankfulness to God for His mercies. This was not aimed at gaining acceptance from God or so as to get into a covenant relationship with God. The understanding was that the acceptance and covenant relationship was freely bestowed on them by the grace of God. Instead, the observance of the law was intended to maintain this acceptance (83). Sanders states that getting in is purely by the grace of God while staying in entails gratefully obeying the law, not sinless obedience by the effort and intention to be obedient. Being obedient does not make one earn acceptance, obedience merely maintains acceptance. Sanders refers to this pattern of religion as covenantal nomism (Smith, 83)The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion.

James D. G. Dunn

Dunn created the phrase New Perspective in a 1982 lecture that he later published in his work Jesus, Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians. Other works written by Dunn to promote and articulate the New Perspective include The Theology of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, A Commentary on the Epistle of Galatians, and The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Also, Dunn wrote a two-volume commentary on Romans in the Word Biblical Commentary, which is a repository of evangelical biblical scholarship. Dunn fully accepts the interpretation of Palestinian Judaism by Sanders. Dunn believes that Sanders conclusively proved that first-century Judaism did offer the teaching that salvation is gotten by the merit of good works (Smith, 85)The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion.

Dunn comes to the agreement that the problem Paul is talking about in his doctrine of justification is not the problem of legalism. Dunn argues that the Reformation was incorrect. Smith asserts that the antagonists of Paul were not attempting to gain acceptance from God based on good works. The problem that Paul is dealing with is Jewish exclusivism expressed in the doggedness that Gentile Christians comply with particular boundary-marking regulations like food, circumcision, and sabbath laws. Justification is about removing ethnic boundaries between Gentiles and Jews by affirming that all those who believe in and are faithful to Christ are in the covenant (87)The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion.

T. Wright

Wright is the most influential advocate of the New Perspective among evangelicals. The reason for his influence is his capability to speak and write at a popular level. His work What Saint Paul has greatly popularized the New Perspective. Wright agrees with the basic interpretation of Sanders of the second temple of Judaism. Wright states that Judaism in the days of Paul was not a religion of legalistic works-righteousness and this has been the mistake of the majority of Protestant exegetes. Also, wright agrees with Dunn concerning the “works of the law”. Wright describes this expression as the badge of the Jewish race and recaps it in terms of food laws, circumcision, and sabbath (Smith, 88). Wright argues that the conventional Reformed description of justification is incorrect. He stets that the discussions of discussion in most of the history of the church since Augustine have misunderstood Paul. Wright states that what Paul implies by justification is not the way to become a Christian but the way one can tell who belongs to the covenant family. Wright asserts that justification is a covenant phrase that implies being recognized as a member of the covenant (Smith, 89)The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion.

A Summary of the Major Tenets of New Perspective

The New Perspective on Paul argues that there has been a wrong misunderstanding of the Jewish context of the New Testament and that this misunderstanding has resulted in mistakes in conventional-Protestant comprehension of justification. According to the New Perspective, the Jewish systems of salvation were not based on works-righteousness but instead on covenantal nomism, which is the belief that a person gets into the people by the grace of God and remains in by obeying the covenant. This implies that Paul could not have been talking about works-righteousness by stating works of the law, Paul was talking about Jewish boundary markers that clarified who was or was not within God’s people. Therefore, justification takes on new perspectives; the initial justification is by grace/ faith and acknowledges ecclesiology/ covenant status, while the other justification is partly by works, although works are generated by the spirit. The New Perspective on Paul is distinguished by arguing that justification by faith is not the central theological category by Paul; justification by faith is not an answer to a troubled conscience; Judaism against which Paul structures his argument is not legalistic, but instead operates from a pattern of religion designated covenantal nomism; The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion

The Strengths and Weaknesses of the New Perspective

The major strength of the new perspective is that several proponents of the new perspective attempt to see Paul from a hermeneutically altruistic perspective in terms of his epistles. The scholars who have contributed to the New Perspective on Paul utilize the scripture as well as the numerous manuscripts to inform the reader on the way Paul wrote and to whom. Another strength of the new perspective is that the scholars offer great consideration to the work of each other while usually finding evidence in the conclusions of each other. The outcome of this hermeneutical integrity and respect is a progressive understanding of who Paul was regarding Christianity and his Jewish Faith (Roberts, 27).

The New perspective is diverse and varied as the numerous authors have made contributions and thus the concepts are not simply analyzed on their merits. According to Roberts, an appropriate approach is to analyze the strengths of the scholars individually while recognizing the benefit of the work as a whole. The strength of exegetical reorientation by Stendahl is that he was capable of assuming a critical stand on his own tradition assisting to mold the research of the time. Also, Stendhal was able to go beyond the ideas of his predecessors of what Christianity is compared to Judaism. He perceived the nature of God in his work regarding the need of humanity for a savior who is manifested both to the Gentiles and Jews in Jesus (27)The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion.

The strength of Sanders work is that it offers two distinctive paths utilizing the highly disputed Torah and all the Christian beliefs on the law of the reformed church. Sanders demonstrated that the Torah is not capable of leading to righteousness, but is capable of pointing to Messiah. Also, Sanders demonstrates that when Jews obey the covenant, they get to Jesus as Christians do. The strength of the work of Wright is that he lightens the opposition between Christianity and Judaism by demonstrating that Paul dealt with unbelievers, whether Gentile or Jewish. Also, Wright demonstrates a theological and scholarly explanation of the calling and methods of Paul utilizing history as a backdrop… for the position of Paul with Gentiles and Jews (Roberts, 26-27)The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion.

The major weakness of the New Perspective on Paul is the lack of uniformity in the interpretation of the new perspective. According to Farnell, the New Perspective on Paul has not developed a broad agreement among its proponents. The subjective bias of the New Hermeneutic and historical criticism directly contribute to non-uniformity. The contradictory Lutheran approach had a broad accord of understanding since it affixed itself o to grammatico-historical principles that endorse objectivity. On the contrary, each o proponent of the New Perspective on Paul, although sharing some basics with others, has his individual ideas for new perspectives on Paul. The new perspective on Paul might be viewed as a loose collection of the same yet at times conflicting opinions (Farnell, 202)The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion.

The Implications of the New Perspective on Paul for the Doctrine of Salvation, the Doctrine of Justification, and the Place of Israel and the Church in the Divine Plan

The New Perspective on Paul is concerned with viewing the New Testament with fist-century eyes. In support of the assertion for covenantal nomism, the new perspective on Paul intends to follow the lead of the thoughts of the authors of the New Testament about salvation regarding the Old Testament theological heritage as deliverance from captivity: first, the liberation from Egyptian captivity, then exile and the oppressive reign of sin due to idolator. This implies that the basic emphasis is on the function of the covenant and real moral transformation in salvation since the covenant is law-oriented instead of an emphasis on escaping from the final rage and judgment (Ayars, 388)The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion.

The new perspective on Paul argues that redemption is less concerned with the calamity of the sin of a person as it is much more as much about the oppressive supremacy of sin with the creation manifests due to proclivity of the heart of humans for idolatry. Ayars posits that When constructed in this manner, redemption turns into God fulfilling His promises and filling His creation with His glory through the bearers of His image that it is bout people escaping everlasting damnation. Shifting the emphasis from the individual to the collective unfolds within an eschatological framework with the precise aim to shift the eschatology of Western Christianity out of the reformed underpinning. In His work, N. T. Wright states that election was closely bound with eschatology since Israel was one people of God the creator and God would soon work to vindicate Israel by freeing it from its rivals(389)The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion.

Similar to the Old Testament, the covenant is the scheme through which the plan of God for redemption manifest in the world. It is only the covenant God’s people who live under the reign of Yahweh, and it is only via the covenant along with the covenant people that the redemptive plans of God reach into the world and there is the launching of the new creation. Obeying the covenant of God implies bringing the kingdom of Heaven and the reign of Christ back into the new creation (Ayars,389). The New Perspective in Paul emphasizes the messianic office of the king. By thinking of the role of the messianic king as a leader and redeemer of people and the covenant people of God, the Israel piece naturally falls into place. The Messiah is the fulfillment of God’s righteousness to Israel and the world via Israel. This formation synchronizes much better with the emphasis of the Old Testament on Davidic Messianic promise that becomes a fundamental aspect, particularly in the Psalter (Ayars, 390).

Conclusion

The New Perspective of Paul is an important shift in the way scholars, particularly Protestant scholars, interpret Apostle Paul’s writings. The new perspective argues that the traditional protestant comprehension of justification is wrong. According to the new perspective, the Jewish systems of salvation are based on covenantal nomism rather than on works-righteousness. Through works of the law, Paul was describing the Jewish boundary markers that clarified who was within God’s people. new perspective scholars view Paul as talking about badges of covenant membership or disapproving Gentile believers who had started relying on the Torah to reckon Jewish kinship The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion

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Works Cited

Ayars, Matt. Wesleyan Soteriology and the New Perspective of Paul: A Comparative Analysis. The Asbury Journal, 74.2 (2019): 385-406

Farnell, F. Davis. The New Perspective on Paul: Its Basic Tenets, History, and Presuppositions. The Mastery Seminary Journal, 16. 2 (2005): 189-243.

Lyall, Ian. Paul of Tarsus: Apostle to the Gentiles. Mainz: PediaPress.

Roberts, Daniel. The Pastoral Epistles and the New Perspective on Paul. Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, Eugene. 2021.

Smith, Jeffrey. An Overview and Critique of the New Perspective on Paul’s Doctrine of Justification. Reformed Baptist Theological Review, 3:1 (2007): 77-108 The New Perspective On Paul Essay Discussion