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A Lutheran Response to the New Perspective on Paul by ERIK M

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A Lutheran Response to the New Perspective on Paul by ERIK M A Lutheran Response to the New Perspective on Paul by ERIK M. HEEN What is this new perspective? At its core is the recognition that Judaism is not a religion of self-righteousness whereby humankind seeks to merit salvation before God. Paul's argument with the Judaizers was not about Christian grace versus Jewish legalism. His argument was rather about the status of Gentiles in the church. Paul's doctrine of justification, therefore, had far more to do with Jewish-Gentile issues than with questions of the individual's status before God. http : / /www. thepaulpage. com/ If there has been one development in biblical scholarship over the last generation that challenges the way confessional Lutherans relate to their theological tradition, the "New Perspective on Paul" (NPP) would be it. According to the NPP s historical-critical revision of the role of "justification" in the Pauline corpus, Luther's reading of Paul is largely in error. Rather than representing a theological breakthrough that recovers the liberating power of the gospel and establishes the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls, justification in the NPP is reduced to a term Paul invokes to express his conviction that Gentiles need not conform to Jewish "ceremonial" law in order to become followers of Messiah Jesus and full members of the people of God. In short, the NPP has completely redefined justification. It no longer is the critical expression of Christian soteriology, but rather a reflection of a dated practical ecclesiology of the primitive church (when Jewish-Gentile relations were particularly problematic).1 It might appear, therefore, that, "The 'Lutheran Paul' has already been crucified and buried by New Testament scholars for some time, although there are still a few attempting to raise him from the dead."2 Because of the increased range of the NPP, including its popularization through publications by high-profile New Testament scholars, it is appropriate to review for contemporary Lutheran theology the gains and losses that come 263 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY Volume XXIV (2010) 2Ó4 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY with this new "school" of New Testament studies. Only some aspects of this project can be carried out in this context. The analysis begins with a brief description of the NPP. Part two notes the most significant contributions for Lutheran theology. We conclude with observations concerning the shortcomings of the NPP. Chief among its shortcomings is its misapprehension of Luther, as well as, its failure to appreciate the theological trajectory that flows from his exegetical and hermeneutical insights.3 As more than one observer has noted, "The strength of the new perspective does not rest on the accuracy of its depiction of Luther."4 The New Perspective on Paul The exegetical and historical work that falls under the NPP designation represents a broad and complex spectrum of interests. Fortunately, the history of the NPP has been charted out in a number of easily accessible works, including some that are internet-based.5 What follows is the briefest of summaries, highlighting the points that particularly challenge confessional Lutherans as articulated by the most prominent proponents of the NPP: Krister Stendahl, E.P Sanders,James Dunn, and N.T.Wright. Krister Stendahl The NPP is not really so "new,"6 hence the recent move of N.T. Wright to try out the label of the "Fresh Perspective on Paul."7 Articulate and persuasive advocacy for the NPP in its most recent dress dates from the 1960s. The Swedish Lutheran exegete Krister Stendahl s two famous articles ("Paul Among Jews and Gentiles" and "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West")8 set the tone of the discussion by questioning the adequacy of Luther's Augustinian-influenced reading of Paul at several points. Front and center is the claim that justification, rather than representing the scopus of Paul's theology and the "criterion for the really true gospel . was hammered out by Paul for the very specific and limited purpose of defending the rights of Gentile converts to be full and genuine heirs to the promises of God to Israel."9 Other differences A LUTHERAN RESPONSE TO THE NEW PERSPECTIVE ON PAUL 265 between Paul and Luther are drawn out by Stendahl. Let two examples suffice: i) Stendahl contrasts Paul's "robust" conscience with Luther's introspective guilt before God;10 2) Stendahl plays off Paul's focus on the church and the Jewish people against Luther's focus on salvation of the individual.11 From Stendahl's perspective, the primary error of Luther, which led to all the others, was the way in which he re-contextualized Paul into the theological and anthropological categories of late medieval Germany12 E.P Sanders In 1977, Ε. P. Sanders published Paul and Palestinian Judaism, a book that has remained central in the NPP project. Sanders describes how New Testament scholarship, beginning with Friedrich Weber in the nineteenth century, increasingly portrayed Second Temple Judaism in terms of legalist works-righteousness, that is, the logical antithesis of Christianity13 In Paul and Palestinian Judaism Sanders indicates how a misuse of rabbinic texts and an improper exegesis of the New Testament reinforced this persistent characterization of Judaism in Christian biblical theology. Sanders then offers another understanding of Second Temple Judaism, which he labels "covenantal nomism." Of primary importance here is the observation that God's gracious election of Israel establishes the covenant. The law is experienced as a gift of God (rather than a burden) that guides the people of Israel in its covenantal obligations while providing a means of atonement for transgressions.The law, therefore, has nothing to do with meriting salvation. It is, rather, a means of maintaining the elect status granted to Israel by God as structured by covenantal obligations. "Salvation is by grace but judgment is according to works; works are the condition of remaining 'in', but they do not earn salvation."14 James Dunn James Dunn15 and N.T.Wright are the most high-profile New Testament exegetes that have pushed the NPP further in the decades since Stendahl and Sanders' breakthrough studies. Dunn spelled out 266 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY what was implicit in Sanders work: "The Judaism of what Sanders christened as 'covenantal nomism' can now be seen to preach good Protestant doctrine: that grace is always prior; that human effort is ever the response to divine initiative; that good works are the fruit and not the root of salvation."16 As Stephen Westerholm has astutely noted, while this characterization does save Judaism from explicit "legalism," post-Reformation concepts (nestled under the rubrics of "grace" and "works") are still imposed anachronistically upon Second Temple Judaism.17 Yet if one grants Dunn's point—that Paul is not reacting to a religious ethos that is centered in "works righteousness"—then what is Paul's post-Damascus problem with Judaism? The primary failing of first-century Judaism, according to Dunn, is not (the sixteenth-century's backward projection of) legalism and self-righteousness, but its exclusivity. Here Dunn's exegetical focus is on the phrase "works of the law" in Paul, which he understood primarily as signifying those laws that traditionally separated Jews from Gentiles, specifically the "boundary markers" of circumcision, as well as food and liturgical regulations. When Paul says that justification is by faith and not by "works of the law," his intent is to remove all cultural barriers that would restrict membership.18 N.T.Wright N.T.Wright shares Dunn's analysis that the problem with Judaism (from Paul's perspective) is its ethnocentrism. In his latest writing on the subject Wright notes that "the point of the covenant always was that God would bless the whole world through Abraham'family . the unfaithfulness of the Israelites is not their lack of belief. The point is that God has promised to bless the world through Israel, and Israel has been faithless to that commission!'19 Although Wright separates himself from the "old perspective" on Paul, a tradition that understands "legalism" and "self-righteousness" as problematic anthropological issues (such failings are not limited to "Judaism"), one wonders how the characterization of Israel as being fundamentally faithless to God by means of a narrow ethnocentric interpretation of the law, in the end, escapes the net cast by the term "legalism."20 In fact, such curvatus A LUTHERAN RESPONSE TO THE NEW PERSPECTIVE ON PAUL 267 in se (self-absorption)—whether experienced on the individual or collective level (for example, that of the late medieval Western church)—is what Luther identified as the primary expression of the human bondage to sin. When one is turned in upon oneself, then even the good gifts of God (like the Torah, or episcopacy, or even the insights of the Reformation) can be so twisted that they function against God's intention. The fundamental theological problem that stands behind the presenting symptoms of "legalism" and "self- righteousness" in the "old perspective" is idolatry. Idolatry— confusing the creator with the creaturely creation (Rom 1:25)—is the inevitable result of the alienation from God that sin effects. One might even posit that Luther appropriated this fundamentally Jewish concern about the dangers of idolatry from his close reading of Paul (for example, Rom 1:18-2:16). For Luther the only alternative to idolatry is the apprehension that through Christ one is justified by grace through faith. Justification, properly understood, therefore, is the litmus test of one's orthodoxy.21 Positive Contributions of the New Perspective Before turning to a criticism of the NPP's understanding of Luther, as well as, the Reformation tradition that flows from him, it is appropriate to acknowledge the positive contributions that have come with the multi-faceted work of the NPP.
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