Reading Paul and Palestinian Judaism: Paul & the Law
After showing that Paul repetitively, when defining the Gospel, did not ‘start from man’s need, but from God’s deed’ (cf. 1 Cor 15.1ff et al), Sanders’ concludes that, contrary to the views of Bultmann et al, Paul did not start with the problem and move to the solution, but rather he started with the solution and then deduced the problem.
This may sound like minutia but is in fact of great importance to Sanders.
Here’s how his logic runs: The new age has come and far surpasses the old evil age. Salvation in this new age is only in Christ. Since salvation is only in Christ, all other perceived modes of salvation are wrong. Thus, what is wrong with the law is not effort itself, but that the law is not Christ.
Here are a few of the many texts Sanders discusses in favor of this view:
- Gal 2.21: Paul clinches his argument not by making a comment about boasting in the law, but by saying, ‘if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose.’
- Gal 3.1–5 (quoting from Hab 2.4): Only those who are made right by faith will live. The Galatians did not receive the Spirit, who is a present guarantee of their future salvation, by faith not the doing of Torah. Therefore, those who are made righteous by Torah will not live, because they the law is not faith.
- 2 Cor 3.7–18: The problem with the old covenant and Torah is not that it places impossible demands upon people but that ‘what once had splendour has come to have no splendour at all, because of the splendour that surpasses it’ (3.10).
If one concludes with most of current scholarship that Romans 7 is not about Paul pre-Christian experience and if one agrees with Sanders’ conclusion about the Second Temple Judaism[s]‘ sentiment towards and perceived role of the Torah in their covenant relationship with God, then Sanders argument seems fairly reasonable. The new age of new creation has been brought about by the death and resurrection of Jesus, so allegiance to another other than Christ is wrong because of its surpassing greatness compared to all things of this present evil age, including the Torah. Further, this logic syncs quite well with Galatians, as the old dividing lines of gender, race, economic class, etc. also were not inherently evil. Nevertheless, to continue to live by them suggested that one’s identity was still attached to this present, evil age and not in Christ. And it was for this reason that to be exclusive to Gentiles was to forsake the Gospel, because it forsake the basic notion that they had been delivered from the present, evil age that adheres to normal racial divisions, as opposed to being in Christ where difference in ethnicity no longer mattered.
Lars…
I have enjoyed reading your quest through P&PJ. Having only read enough to support my own views on the subject (if I am going to be honest) I have appreciated your careful and thoughtful study.
I have a thought that I would love to get your feeback on. Recently I have been striving to read Paul as both a theologian and a Pastor. That is to say that my task has been to seek out the pastoral/ethical occasion of Paul’s letters as well as their theological/ideological context. My question is this: as we seek to gain a better understanding of 2nd Temple Judaism in terms of its theology and ideology as a system, how are we understanding 2nd Temple Judaism in terms of its ethics as a culture? If Sanders’ view of Covenantal Nomism is indeed correct, how do we suppose the Role of the Torah was actually appropriated in the first century?
On Wednesday, Author Anne Rice announced her departure from Christianity saying “Today I quit being a Christian … It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group.” She went on to say, “My faith in Christ is central to my life…. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been or might become.”
Despite the reality that the Gospel is founded upon Grace, a costly salvation in Christ’s death burial and resurrection, Christians are often prone to distorting this message and making it their own. Christians are often prone to works-righteousness, they are often prone to self-righteousness, they are often prone to legalism. I wonder if this was often the case in Second Temple Judaism as well. While it may certainly be that first century Judaism was not based upon works-righteousness at the systemic level, could it be that first century Jews were prone to works-righteousness at the heart level?
Could it be that work-righteousness is not a primarily a systemic issue, but an issue of the human heart?
Does the remedy we have in the Gospel of Jesus Christ solve the problem of a flawed and broken theological system or does it solve the problem of a flawed and broken people?
How would this impact Paul’s pastoral intent in Romans et al.?
And most importantly, how would this impact my own propensity to rob Christ’s work and claim it as my own?
I would love to hear your thoughts man. Yours is a brain I wish I could pick more often.
PG
Paul,
Thanks for your helpful comments. I won’t even attempt to answer some of your question, because, though of high importance, I don’t feel qualified to attempt an answer.
However, your primary question seem to be basically, “Is it possible that, though Second Temple Judaism might not have been legalistic on the systemic level, many Second Temple Jews operated in a legalistic manner on the individual level?”
This is a valid question, and one that Sanders comments on himself in P & PJ. At bottom, attempting historical reconstruction is precarious business, because we are always dealing with limited information from a culture, so we can never FULLY reconstruct a past culture.
Having said that, yes, even Sanders recognizes that it is quite possible that individuals exhibited a legalistic works-righteousness pattern of religion. He, however, follows this comment by noting that we don’t possess any literature to verify this claim. And, in my view (less informed on the literature than Sanders), I am inclined to agree with him. But, again, this is not mean in any way that such individuals didn’t exist. It simply means the bulk of the literature doesn’t seem to point in that direction.
The other side of the issue, for me, is that legalism and ‘in-group’ exclusivism (or, basically bigotry) go hand in hand. In my own personal experience, once ‘in-group’ exclusivism is established legalism is usually not far behind.
Yes, this would impact the way we read much of Paul’s letters, including Romans. Racism becomes an important issue for him when read in this light. To use an example from N.T. Wright showing the import of an NPP reading, it would be as if God gave a light to Israel and instead of building windows around it, they built windows to keep the light to themselves. At bottom, this creates a more missional reading of Paul, in my opinion.
Pax,
ML