Paul's New Perspective

Charting a Soteriological Journey

Garwood P. Anderson

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780830873159
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Études bibliques

The debate between proponents of the Old and New perspectives on Paul has been followed closely over the years, consolidating allegiances on either side. But the debate has now reached a stalemate, with defectors turning to apocalyptic and other solutions. Garwood Anderson recounts the issues and concludes that "both 'camps' are right, but not all the time." And with that teaser, he rolls up his exegetical sleeves and proceeds to unfold a new proposal for overcoming the deadlock. But in a field crowded with opinions, could anything new emerge? Anderson's interaction with Paul and his interpreters is at the highest level, and his penetrating and energetic analysis captures attention. What if Paul's own theological perspective was contextually formed and coherently developed over time? Have we asked justification to carry a burden it was never meant to bear? Would fresh eyes and a proper sequencing of Paul's letters reveal Paul's own new perspective? Might we turn a corner and find a bold and invigorating panorama of Pauline soteriology? This is a Pauline study worthy of its great theme, and one that will infuse new energy into the quest for understanding Paul's mind and letters.

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BREAKTHROUGHS, IMPASSES AND STALEMATES

Assessing the New Perspective

In what follows, I offer a summary account of this new perspective (NPP) in its various manifestations. There are now sufficient introductory surveys of the NPP so that it will not be necessary to add another full-scale introduction to the competent ones already available, yet perhaps at least a few readers will benefit from this close-at-hand reminder.1 I trust it will be clear that I consider the NPP a necessary and salutary corrective that has advanced our understanding of Paul, his context, his aims and his theology. On the other hand, the NPP has achieved some of its widespread influence in a manner typical of major paradigm shifts, often by means of overcorrections sometimes compounded by sweeping rhetorical gestures. To the credit of architects and critics alike, there is evidence of an emerging more temperate and nuanced middle ground, and the present chapter intends to make a similar contribution, first by describing the gains of the NPP under four themes and then by assessing those same themes critically and offering certain qualifications.

1.1 WHAT WE (SHOULD HAVE) LEARNED FROM THE NEW PERSPECTIVE

To speak of the new perspective on Paul is at its most basic to take account of two fundamental moves in recent biblical scholarship (if a half century can be considered “recent”). The first is a thoroughgoing reappraisal of the Judaism broadly contemporary with Jesus and his earliest followers, especially with respect to its implicit soteriology. The second is a more diverse set of reappraisals of Paul, albeit with certain family resemblances, in light of—perhaps, required by—the reappraisal of Judaism. These two “moves” can be differentiated and even theoretically separated, but in fact they form a compelling partnership in Pauline scholarship that would gain the label of convenience, “new perspective.” In principle, earlier standard readings of Paul remain sustainable, though not without certain difficulties, even granting the new perspective on Judaism.2 And for that matter, there is enough grist in the Pauline mill to drive fundamental reappraisals of Paul’s motives and theology even apart from the new perspective on Judaism.3 But it was the powerful synergy of the two perspectives in concert that fomented a revolution in Pauline studies, and it is for that reason that E. P. Sanders’s opening gambit would prove so influential, combining in one place a devastating reappraisal of Judaism with a plausible, albeit less persuasive, account of Paul, the latter necessitated by the former.4

In what follows, I trace four themes that characterize the revision of Pauline biography and theology accomplished by the NPP. It is tempting—and it would be a fair bit easier—to move figure by figure and describe the work and unique contribution of each scholar. However, not only has this already been done quite adequately by others,5 but my particular interest is less to divide and conquer and more to synthesize what is shared among the architects of the paradigm, noting of course that one or another is more responsible for this or that emphasis. I am at this point, however, specifically resisting an extensive engagement with the idiosyncrasies of a particular scholar. It goes without saying that, while sharing a broad set of convictions and tendencies, there will be countless matters of difference. But for our purposes it will prove more useful to note where the contributions of, for example, Krister Stendahl, E. P. Sanders, James Dunn and N. T. Wright, among others, stand in a continuity, with the cumulative building each upon the work of the other, sometimes by appropriation, sometimes by correction. Finally, what follows is first not only a description but also an affirmation of what I regard as fundamentally correct claims. I am arguing that each of these themes marks a genuine advance in our understanding of Paul, and I am commending these insights as ground gained from which there should be no retreat. I also take it as a given that such breakthroughs born of correcting zeal are frequently also attended by excess and hyperbole and that qualifications and refinements are often necessary and usually follow. But before we turn to a critique of the new perspective, we consider its several groundbreaking insights.

1.1.1 Reconsidering Paul’s conversion. The conversion of the apostle Paul is arguably the most consequential historical event in the formative era of Christian history,6 but its interpretation is a matter of dispute and even of theological consequence—both what happened and what it means.7 In fact, that it should be thought of as a “conversion” at all is now frequently disputed, never mind the church’s ancient tradition of doing so.8 In New Testament studies, that reevaluation of Paul’s conversion was popularized especially in the 1963–1964 lectures of Krister Stendahl, who argued, plausibly enough, that it was a category mistake to regard the Christophany on the road to Damascus and its aftermath as a religious conversion.9

In the first place, neither Paul’s allusions to (1 Cor 15:8; Gal 1:15-17) nor the Acts narrations of the event (Acts 9, 22, 26) describe it in terms of “conversion,” “turning,” “repentance” or even with respect to “salvation” or cognates. Rather, these texts repeatedly emphasize that Paul is being commissioned by the risen Lord to a Gentile mission: “ . . . when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles” (Gal 1:15-16 ESV; cf. Acts 9:15; 13:47; 22:15, 21; 26:19-20). Here, “called” does not carry any particular soteriological overtones, as it well might in Pauline usage,10 nor does “grace”; but instead “called by his grace” refers to Paul’s vocation, the purpose of which (hina) was to “preach [Christ] among the Gentiles.” As is often noted, there can be little doubt in this passage of at least two allusions to the prophetic corpus: (1) the language of being set apart before birth (lit. “from the womb of my mother”) is reminiscent of other prophetic call accounts (Is 49:1; Jer 1:5); and (2) preaching among the Gentiles is arguably an allusion to and participation in the servant’s vocation to be “a light to the Gentiles” (Is 42:6; 49:6; 51:4; cf. 60:3). Likewise, Paul’s other reference to his encounter with the resurrected Christ in 1 Corinthians 15:8 refers specifically to his apostolic calling, as “one untimely born.” All of this is confirmed in a variety of Acts narrations, featuring in certain cases a commentary to the effect that the risen Christ had appointed Paul to preach to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; 22:21; 26:16-18; cf. 13:47; 15:7).

But Stendahl and his followers are interested in more than simply aligning conceptions of the Damascus Road event with biblical language in a more disciplined way; the very language of “conversion” has misdirected subsequent Christian reflection, causing Paul to be read in artificial ways. It hardly needs saying that the observant Jew did not convert from irreligion to religious devotion, nor that his “conversion” could have been from one religion to another, given that a decisive separation of the Jesus movement from mainstream Judaism would be still decades in the future. But there is yet a more important reason for disclaiming Paul’s conversion as such: we lack evidence in the New Testament that Paul underwent anything like a crisis in which anxiety of conscience and soteriological uncertainty were satiated by a sense of gracious divine acceptance.11 As we will note below with respect to Philippians 3:2-6, the available evidence contradicts the picture of Paul as guilt-ridden and despairing of his ability to find God’s approval. If Sanders’s account of Judaism (on which, again, see below) is even remotely accurate, we should not have expected Paul’s self-consciousness to match that of subsequent Christian conversion paradigms in which personal anxiety is frequently prerequisite for personal redemption. And when the autobiographical portions of Galatians (1:13-16) and Philippians (3:2-11) are given their due, we find that, far from anxiety, Paul exhibits what Stendahl called a “robust conscience,” confident in his covenantal status.12 Even were we to regard Paul’s former absence of anxiety as a contemptible hubris, we are left still only with a culpable rather than a guilt-ridden Paul. This is especially so if, with a growing majority of scholars, we take Romans 7:7-25 as other than autobiographical of his pre-Christian struggle with the law.13

Thus, quite some time before the “Sanders revolution” with respect to Judaism, we already have a quiet undoing of certain implicit tenets of a Pauline model in which law provokes guilt and anxiety only to find relief in a gospel free of works. That this was not Paul’s experience must now be regarded as beyond serious dispute. But this does not mean that this could not be Paul’s gospel, an assumption that seems mistakenly to trail the reconfiguration of Paul’s conversion as if by necessity.14 It does mean, however, that the burden of proof has shifted decidedly to the law

guilt

relief model. And it should be obvious—now at least in retrospect—that the revision of Paul’s conversion experience would serve as a harbinger in miniature of the considerably more ambitious reappraisal of Second Temple Judaism, especially with regard to its “soteriology,” to which we now turn.

1.1.2 Reappraising the “soteriology” of Judaism. By any account, E. P. Sanders’s paradigm-shattering work on “Palestinian Judaism” must be regarded as among the most influential works of New Testament scholarship in the second half of the twentieth century, influencing not only Pauline research but the whole of New Testament studies.15 The argument, anticipated by others but mainstreamed by Sanders, has now been so often recounted that a rehearsal of the highlights must suffice for our purposes.

Sanders begins with a sobering account of modern, mostly German Protestant, scholarship on Judaism that served generations of biblical scholars as the context for interpreting the New Testament. But, as Sanders sees it, this reconstructed background was in fact merely a foil, for it was obvious to these scholars that Jesus and early Christianity represent a decisive contrast, indeed a break, with contemporary Judaism. If Paul articulates a defect in his former religion (and that would be the right way to put it), it could be assumed that the defect existed, even if it would take the light of the Christian gospel to expose it. But once so exposed, it would not be hard to mine the literary detritus of Second Temple and especially rabbinic Judaism and so believe that one had discovered the failed Judaism of Paul’s ...