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Rushing to complete this on time by my own strength will result in failure indeed, but by God’s grace, ‘twill be done!

Since about the late seventies (1970’s) a “revolutionary breakthrough in New Testament scholarship has been rocking the academic Christian world” [1]. There are three major players: N. T. Wright, James Dunn and E. P. Sanders. These three scholars are pioneering what is being called a fresh exploration of the Pauline epistles using a new approach, the New Perspective on Paul [NPP]. It’s called the New Perspective because it claims that the “old” perspective didn’t understand Paul or his historical context correctly. They say that this misunderstanding of Paul can be traced all the way back to as early as Augustine, but most prominently with Luther. Before we look at the implications of NPP, let’s see what they see wrong with the “old” perspective, and what the “New” perspective is. What’s wrong with the “old” perspective?

NPP claims that Protestant scholars have misunderstood Paul’s letters because they misunderstood first century Judaism. NPP charges Protestants with the error of interpreting Paul in light of first century Judaism as a religion of works and of self-righteousness. This error, NPP says, has an effect on the Protestant interpretation of such verses as Galatians 2:15-16 which reads:

“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” – [ESV]

NPP claims that “Since the time of Martin Luther, this has been understood as an indictment of legalistic efforts to merit favor before God. In fact Judaism in general has come to be construed as the very antithesis of Christianity. Judaism is earthly, carnal, proud; Christianity is heavenly, spiritual, humble. 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.” [2] NPP argues that by casting first century Judaism into the antithesis of Christianity, particularly the medieval church, the protest of Paul in the above text becomes very Lutheran, thus reinforcing the Protestant theology that flowed from Luther. NPP says that the hermeneutical error of this interpretation begins by falsely identifying first century Judaism as a legalistic religion, which Protestants set as the historical context when interpreting such texts.

NPP concludes that Protestant interpretations of Paul’s epistles are incorrect because the interpretations reflect these types of errors. So, what you have at this point is a historical argument. NPP relies heavily on Jewish source material (rabbinic literature) that says “[t]he law in Judaism was not a burden which produced self-righteousness. On the contrary, the law was itself a gift from a merciful and forgiving God.” These findings came from such Jewish theologians such as Claude G. Montefiore, who criticized Ferdinand Weber’s work of arranging a systematic presentation of rabbinic literature. According to Weber, an individual Jew’s destiny was determined by the weighing of his or her fulfillment of the law over against transgressions, as if on a scale [3]. Montefiore’s criticism of Weber’s work was that the rabbinic literature was not approached with sufficient sensitivity to it’s nature and diversity. Then along came George Foot Moore, a non-Jewish scholar, who really laid into Weber, and said that Weber had little firsthand knowledge of rabbinic literature and in fact took most of his quotations from earlier Christian works against Judaism. Moore used this to discredit those who followed Weber, and affirmed Montefiore’s position that Judaism was not a legalistic religion. So, that’s the kind of debate that sparked the whole NPP attack on Protestant theology. Much more can be said regarding all of the technical details of the historical debate, but that would bog this lightning-paced crash course down to a crawl. The important thing to remember is not so much what the details of the debate were back then, but only the type of debate it was, so that we better understand the backdrop that NPP came out of.

That brings us to the birth of the New Perspective on Paul. What is the “new” perspective? The historical argument and debate didn’t really begin to move anywhere significant until 1977 when Paul and Palestinian Judaism by E. P. Sanders was released. Sanders, a New Testament scholar that had a pretty good grasp of rabbinic literature, delivered the first major attack against the traditional Protestant “caricature” of Judaism. Sanders’ book contained an extensive treatment of the Tannaitic literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and claimed to interpret Judaism on it’s own terms, rather than as the antithesis to Christianity. Unlike Montefiore and Moore, Sanders was successful in convincing other New Testament scholars of his position. Sanders was extremely influential in spreading NPP and coined the now popular phrase to describe first century Palestinian Judaism: “covenantal nomism.” [4]

Covenantal Nomism says that human obedience (works) is not how one enters into God’s covenant. Inclusion within the covenant body cannot be earned; it is purely by grace. Human obedience (works) within the covenant body is the means by which one maintains status within the covenant. Covenantal Nomism puts an emphasis on divine grace, and forgiveness, and claims to prove that Judaism was not a legalistic, works-based, self-righteousness religion. In this light, NPP says that Paul must be re-interpreted to compensate for Protestant theology’s error regarding the nature of first century Judaism. NPP says that when the perspective on Paul changes, the interpretations of his letters change along with it. NPP interprets Paul’s letter to the Galatians as arguing about the status of the Gentiles in the church, not grace vs. legalism. Therefore, NPP concludes that Paul’s doctrine of justification has more to do with Gentile vs. Jewish issues than questions of the individual’s status before God. This new perspective on Paul leads to a new perspective on all of Paul’s writings. This is something that NPP proponents find fascinating and exciting. As you can see, there are some technical academic debates surrounding the subject of NPP. These debates have been mainly out of reach for the layperson. However, in the information age in which we live, the internet, among other things, has brought the battle into the pews, only to get closer once Piper’s book comes out a couple months from now. Beginning with Sanders and Dunn, NPP has tossed the task to the extremely influential heretic: N. T. Wright. His world-wide popularity and warm-welcomed acceptance has furnished NPP with it’s largest stage. Next session, I plan to take a look at the big three: Sanders, Dunn and Wright – beginning with E. P. Sanders.

This concludes Crash Course 1 – A Summary of NPP. Coming next: Crash Course 2 – Early Developments in NPP (subject to change)

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I apologize for typo’s and grammatical errors. This is a shotgun series. Footnotes and references will be provided after completion.

Reminder: PRAY!!!