This the first post of the “Sundays With St. Paul” series I started last Sunday. Today’s post is still being finished up.
One of the classes I’m taking this semester is titled “Paul and the Law” and deals with precisely those two things: Paul and the Torah (“law,” “teaching,” or “instruction” in Hebrew). After only two weeks of the class, I’ve read so much that I’ve felt the need to write some thoughts down to help process. Thus we arrive to “Sundays With St. Paul.”
Years ago, here at Near Emmaus, there once was a blog series titled, “Wednesdays With Wright,” which walked through various passages from some of N.T. Wright’s work and simply stirred the pot of discussion within the blogging community (this is slightly over-simplifying their discussions – well worth the read). My goal with this series is essentially the same: to stir the pot of discussion regarding the apostle Paul, his letters, the Torah, and the world from which he arose.
With as much as I would like to give an exhaustive account about Paul, I think I would be overbooking myself given the amount of reading, writing, and research I have this semester. No doubt, such background knowledge is crucial to understanding Paul. But I sense such background information will arise when and where it is needed. Instead, I’d like to share some things I’ve read and discuss the ideas represented within – both in matters pertaining to faith and biblical scholarship (despite what might be said, the two worlds of faith and scholarship are compatible).
To begin, then, I’d like to introduce a few names we’ve read in the past two weeks who have had a significant impact on the study of Paul. Since I’m barely dipping my toes into this particular study, anyone who has read the original works of these scholars is welcome to provide insights, push back, and/or offer clarification where needed. The texts we’ve been reading for class are Stephen Westerholm’s Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The ‘Lutheran’ Paul and His Critics and Frank Thielman’s Paul and the Law: A Contextual Approach.
Sanders
E.P. Sanders is the first name I’d like to discuss primarily because he focuses on the backdrop to Paul’s world. As Westerholm states, “In comparing Paul with Palestinian Judaism, Sanders examines not individual motifs common to both, but the ‘patterns of religion’ they represent,” (129). Sanders defines these “patterns” as “how getting in and staying in are understood,” (as quoted in Westerholm, 129).
One pattern that Sanders finds within every Judaic witness of this time he describes as “covenantal nomism,” which is “the notion that a Jew’s standing before God is secured by God’s election of Israel as his covenant people […] and that obedience to the law is Israel’s proper response to God’s initial act of grace,” (Westerholm, 129; his emphasis). Another way of talking about this notion is that it wasn’t a “works-based” process wherein devout Jews would earn their standing with God. Rather, obeying the law was an act in “response” to grace already given from God.
We may ask at this point, why did Paul seem so opposed to the law, then? If Sanders’ suggestion is true, then what’s Paul real peeve with the law? As Frank Thielman points out, Sanders thinks Paul’s real issue is that Judaism “is not Christianity,” (Thielman, 36). However, this is where I’d like to introduce another scholar: Krister Stendahl.
Stendahl
In the discussion of what was Paul’s problem with the law, Stendahl thinks it wasn’t an “inner struggle with sin,” but instead the ramifications of trying to uphold the law. Paul seemed more concerned about what sticking to the law might mean for the Gentile believers: “[Paul] wrestled with the problem of Israel’s law, not because his conscience was tormented by a failure to keep its commands, but because it appeared to bar the access of Gentiles to the people of God,” (Westerholm, 147). To understand Stendahl’s stance another way, Paul was speaking more to the Jewish-Gentile separation than to any matter of conscience.
What Stendahl finds when we treat Paul’s struggle with the law as a matter of his own internal conscience is that we make it our own. “Here the (redefined) law is understood as given ‘to make man see his desperate need for a Savior,’” (Westerholm, 148). Once one sees their need for a savior, then they’ve followed the path of Paul and can embrace the grace of Christ. Not only is “the age of the law” rekindled when it shouldn’t be, but it’s rekindled in a way it was never meant to, which, as Stendahl argues, then distorts our understanding of the Mosaic law and especially of how Paul is actually defending the law in Romans 7 (Westerholm, 149).
What I find interesting about Stendahl’s focus is that it hints at what Paul was really concerned with. Yet where Stendahl seems to hint at, another scholar, and the final one I’ll discuss for this post, James D. G. Dunn, hits the nail on the head.
Dunn
According to Frank Thielman’s summary, Dunn agreed “heartily with Sanders […] that the old Protestant picture of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness must be abandoned, and he endorses the description of Judaism as ‘covenantal nomism,’” (41). Yet he takes this a step further and targets the “social function” of the law; that even while it was an indicator of Israel’s unique relationship with God, it was being used “as a racial barrier to exclude Gentiles from entrance into the people of God,” (42). As discussed earlier, Stendahl mentioned this, but yet focused on the “introspective conscience” aspect and how it was blotting out Paul’s context. Dunn places his focus on this social function and argues this is what Paul was opposed to: an elitism that kept people out when Christ is inviting people in.
Again, this is a very brief overview of what I’ve been reading, which is also a brief overview of the entire study revolving around Paul. But these scholars bring up things I might have never thought about while reading Paul’s letters – especially how he wasn’t, as these scholars suggest, targeting a “works-based” Judaism (that may not have even existed in Paul’s time!).
In future posts I hope to focus a little more on only one or two scholars, especially as I dive deeper and deeper into my research topic. For now, though, I think this is sufficient to get the ball rolling and hopefully create some nuance in our dialogue about Paul.
What do you think of Paul’s apparent negativity toward the law? Is there a negative tone? And what do you think all this means for modern day Christians and our understanding of what Paul is actually trying to say?
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Reblogged this on James’ Ramblings.
What a complicated subject to study, right? I tend to lean toward those who have contributed to the various NPP, though I’ve always been interested in how the contested Pauline Epistles seem to lean more toward the Lutheran understanding, which leads me to wonder if the binary between “grace” and “works” was principled and universalized early in the Church’s history. In other words, Paul may have had a more nuanced view of “works” of Torah and grace being a (mostly) covenantal idea, but his own writings opened the door for generalization.
I’ve heard positive things about John Barclay’s forthcoming work. Some are saying that it moves past the dichotomy of Lutheran and NPP readings of Paul. On this blog I linked to a lecture he gave that may interest you: http://nearemmaus.com/2013/05/15/barclay-discusses-paul-mcgrath-discusses-lewis-and-more/ .
Paul wrote “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.” [Rom 7:14] and “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” [Rom 8:2]. That sounds pretty positive.
Clearly Paul is using ‘law’ to describe different things.
When Paul is being ‘down’ on the law, he is being down on the ‘law of works’, but the ‘law of works’ he is being down upon is that construct the Pharisee’s built up from Old Covenant texts as the thing that would save them. The emphasis the Old Covenant writers placed in the text was on ‘atonement’ rather than ‘bull and goat’.
Paul is negative not towards the law itself, but the idea that righteousness comes from possessing the law [Gal 3:2]. The House of Israel who had lost the Law in their foray into Assyria, Medo-Persia, Greece (Seleucid Empire), and Rome were still capable of doing ‘things of the law’ apart from the law ([Rom 2:14]) and so were a ‘Law unto themselves’. Simply possessing the law made no one righteous, and not possessing it made no one ‘unrighteous’, but it was doing the things of the law by the spirit of grace, from when righteousness arose.
So was Paul negative about the Law? No but he was negative about people’s misconception of it.
Jeremy, thanks for taking the extra time in a busy schedule to do this summarizing work. It’s useful to me in that I don’t have time to read many of even the “big names” in Paul studies (or other areas), tho my interest is high in Christian origins. (I COULD, but my interests are a bit too broad… what might be called long-span sociology and psychology of religion, with special view to both culture and theology.) NO QUESTION Paul is pivotal!
I like that Sanders and Dunn, particularly, are observant of the social dynamics that I also think were high priority in Paul’s thinking and actions. I don’t recall whether Paul ever says much as to just what his visionary experience(s), especially his “conversion” one, conveyed to him in terms of the deeper social and inter-ethnic issues that seemed paramount in his mind (along with other aspects of spirituality). But from Paul directly and various readings (quite a few) on him, I sense that he actually already carried, pre-conversion, the “seeds” of his interest in uniting people… Jews and Gentiles, male and female, social “classes”, etc.
Yes, he was devoted to Torah and its study from youth (or childhood, likely), and thoroughly Jewish in that sense. Yet he was raised in a very multi-ethnic, multi-religious city (of some size and import). (BTW, I seriously question Act’s claim that he studied under Gamaliel and/or in Jerusalem, at least at any length.) Paul’s apparent broad familiarity with Greek and pagan thought and religious rituals, etc., I think he first gained in Tarsus or the vicinity, though certainly added to in his travels.
Now, here is where a sort of “fun” speculation enters, that your post has just stimulated in my mind: I even wonder if it’s possible that his powerful drive to see Jewish-Gentile barriers broken down in a common fellowship around Christ (specifically “Christ” for him, more than “Jesus of Nazareth”) has strong roots in his childhood and family life. It’s interesting (tho certainly not clearly indicative of much) that he says almost nothing about even his father, or any other family members, though he apparently had at least one sibling, who had a son who WAS in Jerusalem. Although the situation was not real common, even in the diaspora, I’m wondering if it’s possible that Paul was the child of an ethnically mixed marriage? I don’t know, via his name of Saul, or otherwise, if there is indication whether the non-Jew would have more likely been his mother or his father, if it’s even the case that the marriage was Jew and Gentile.
Has anyone encountered any enlightened/informed discussion of this possibility? Even if it’s wrong (and I’d not build any case for it or around its possibility), I think we CAN be quite certain that Paul was well exposed to mystery religion and various Greek/pagan/Persian (?) and other traditions; and that he may well have seen a lot of tensions/problems between Jews and Gentiles in his youth as well as later, and, for whatever reason, become very ambitious to do something about it, along with being the best Jew he could be, out of his deeply spiritual sensibilities. And being philosophically oriented in pursuit of spiritual vitality, I’d find it natural for Paul to also probably WANT to synthesize what he’d seen and perhaps felt was positive in non-Jewish religion around him…. Which he in fact DID in powerful ways.
Brian
I feel as though the more I talk about Paul and the law, the more confused I become about what Paul actually meant. Westerholm does briefly touch on nuance of various terms, although he focuses on legalism and how there are certain proponents who do not believe they’re earning their salvation and there are others who do believe they earn their salvation by what they accomplish through Torah observance. But that is an interesting thing to consider about Paul’s definitions of works and grace and how embedded they were or weren’t in the Torah.
I’ll have to check out that lecture when I have some more free time. Tonight’s my Hebrew class and we’re supposed to be able to translate a certain number of readings without any assistance from any glossary or grammar. Need to warm up a bit.
Thanks Brian!
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