I am taking two courses this Winter that have so far had some interesting parallels, especially in regard to legalism. My “Paul and the Law” class is taught by Don Hagner, along with some very capable doctoral students giving presentations. It is an introduction for me into the New Perspective debate on Paul (I will refer to the New Perspective as the NPP and the Old Perspective as the OPP–Not to be confused with: “You down with OPP? Yeah, you know me”). I’ve had a vague sort of concept of it, but now I’m starting to learn some of the basics. The NPP is trying to say that the OPP is colored by a “Lutheran” understanding of Paul. That is, the OPP is allegedly reading too much of a Reformation-like “justification by faith” emphasis into Paul. Therefore, the OPP (typically consisting of more conservative Protestants) is projecting their negative attitude towards the Roman Catholic Church (at least as it was in the 16th Century) into their understanding of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism.
The NPP authors, as I understand, consist of something of a not well-defined historical trajectory including W. D. Davies to Krister Stendahl to E. P. Sanders to N. T. Wright to James Dunn. This group would instead argue that the primary issue in the Pauline corpus, particularly Galatians and Romans, is a reaction against a “national righteousness” consciousness or simply a “national pride” that hindered them from accepting Gentiles into their fold. Paul’s arguments on “justification by faith,” therefore, should be understood as part of the Jewish-Gentile debate and not the central core of his theology (if that can even be found!).
The OPP seeks to prove that Judaism was legalistic in the time of the NT. That way we can say that Paul was reacting against that legalism and not just a closed-minded “national identity.” Both sides use rabbinic literature to make their case, but it is notoriously difficult to determine what from rabbinic literature (Mishnah, Talmuds, Midrashim, etc.) backdates into the first century. If the rabbinic documents do lean on the legalistic side, maybe Judaism was reacting against a perceived libertarianism in Christianity. It is hard to know.
If so, it would be similar to the reaction of the early church towards the Docetic and Gnostic threats in the second century. In my class on “Early Church History,” taught by James Bradley, we are learning that though elements of “grace” can be found in the Apostolic Fathers, we see a distinct move towards legalism. Bradley suggests that this is a reaction to the perceived libertarianism in Gnosticism. If the NT documents are a reaction against legalism, can the established, orthodox church really be considered 100% orthodox when it has gone too far towards legalism? Then again, one of the complications here is that the early church does not have an established NT canon. So it is somewhat anachronistic to judge the early church against the standards of the NT documents as we understand them today.
Isn’t ironic that if the NT does indeed emphasize grace over a “covenantal nomism” that the church itself was drawn towards legalism not too long into its beginnings? The Reformation “Lutherans” no doubt saw themselves as recovering the biblical vision of grace after a much longer period of legalistic leanings had taken place. To me, though, it seems so much more messy than an either-or dichotomy. Looking at Paul (let alone the entire NT canon), even Galatians itself, we can see a concern for both grace and ethics. I wonder if it could be both the OPP and the NPP. It seems rather presumptuous for us to proclaim that there was only one characteristic of Second Temple Judaism that a Christian Jew (or Jewish Christian, as Hagner would say) like Paul is reacting against, and that we know what it is for sure.
I know that the major concern for OPP people is that it leads to a dual path for salvation for Jews and for Christians. Hagner is adamant that there is only one way. I think that starting with that theological presumption taints our reading of the material. It only proves the point for me that OPP followers are reading the NT with Luther & Augustine colored glasses. I think theology should come after our exegesis of the texts.
It should be interesting for me to think through the issue from the perspective of Anabaptism after a close reading of the relevant texts. Anabaptism has some history with legalism and my own predisposition, I think, would be for the NPP. After a brief search for articles relating directly to an Anabaptist perspective on the NPP, not much turned up. I did discover that John Toews’ commentary on Romans shares the NPP and two articles that rely on the NPP from an Anabaptist perspective can be found here and here. But I have to try not to make prejudgments here. If I do end up on the side of the NPP, I don’t want to get there uncritically.
By the way, for more on the New Perspective, check out The Paul Page.
