I mentioned my search for sources where Anabaptists can be found wrestling with the New Perspective on Paul (NPP). After much searching through books and journals, it does appear that Anabaptist interaction with the NPP is scant. The primary resource, it seems, is Toews’ commentary on Romans. I have found, however, a short chapter in John Howard Yoder’s posthumously published The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited (which is searchable on Amazon) on “Paul the Judaizer” in which Yoder mentions Krister Stendahl’s landmark essay, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” (Harvard Theological Review, 1963). Many reference Stendahl’s article as the beginning of the NPP, though the term was not coined until later. Yoder’s chapter was originally a lecture at Bethel College (KS) in 1982 [update 1/21/07: hear audio files of the lectures here] and it argues that Paul was a Judaizer of Hellenistic cultures, rather than a Hellenizer of Jewish culture (in the words of Peter Ochs’ commentary at the end of the chapter).

I hope to do my term paper for Hagner’s “Paul and the Law” course on an Anabaptist assessment of the NPP. Frankly, I’m surprised at the paucity of available sources on this. It seems like a topic that would be of interest to a great many Anabaptists. Perhaps all the Anabaptists are just saying, “Well, yeah, of course… you think this is ‘new’? What’s the big deal? Where were you when we were challenging Luther himself rather than his memory? You may get bad reviews, but we got burned at the stake!” It appears that most of the small references I’ve found assume that the NPP is a good thing without critically reflecting on the matter. I guess I’ll just have to take it on by myself for now . . . unless any of my friendly readers would like to offer some reflections!