Paul and the Law

What did Paul find wrong with the Jewish Law? A. Andrew Das returns to E. P. Sanders and argues that both the New Perspective and Paul-within-Judaism overreach: Paul’s objection is not to the Law itself but to trusting it for salvation apart from Christ. The grace-works contrast stands, nuanced by the Law’s ethnic implications for Gentiles.

New Testament scholars previously understood Paul to be combating Second Temple Jewish peers using the Mosaic Law to earn their way into heaven. E. P. Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism ushered in a new perspective on Judaism as a religion inclusive of God’s election, grace, and mercy. The new perspective on Paul then sought to identify what he found problematic about the Law if his Second Temple peers were not works-righteous legalists. James D. G. Dunn emphasized especially those elements of the Law distinguishing Jews and gentiles. Jews were guilty of ethnic pride and presumption in thinking that gentiles needed to become Jewish to enjoy God’s salvation in Christ. In the last few decades, a radical new perspective has emerged, also known as Paul-within-Judaism. Paul’s letters were to gentile audiences and were describing the Jewish Law as it pertained to them. A. Andrew Das contends that both the new perspective on Paul and the radical Paul-within-Judaism perspective overreach in their claims. Starting afresh from E. P. Sanders with a salvation exclusively in Jesus Christ, he argues that what Paul finds wrong with the Jewish Law is that adherents see the Law itself as saving. To follow the Law apart from Christ is to engage in an exercise of vain, empty, and ultimately meaningless works, severed from God’s grace. A new perspective on Judaism, then, does not lead to a dethroning of the grace-works contrast that more traditional interpreters saw in Paul, even if nuanced by greater appreciation of the ethnic implications of Paul’s argument for gentile audiences.

Introduction
Chapter One: The Gentile Encoded Audience of Romans: The Church Outside the Synagogue
Chapter Two: "Praise the Lord, All You Gentiles": The Encoded Audience of Romans 15:7-13
Chapter Three: Romans 14:1-15:13 and Jewish Christianity in Rome
Chapter Four: Περὶ Ἁμαρτίας As the Sin-Offering in Romans 8:3: A Critique
Chapter Five: Paul and the Law: Pressure Points in the Debate
Chapter Six: Paul and Works of Obedience in Second Temple Judaism: Romans 4:4-5 As a "New Perspective" Case Study
Chapter Seven: The Obedient Abraham and Isaac in The Aqedah
Chapter Eight: Galatians 3:10: A "Newer Perspective" On an Omitted Premise
Chapter Nine: The Ambiguous Common Ground of Galatians 2:16 Revisited
Chapter Ten: The Issue at Antioch (Galatians 2:11-14)
Chapter Eleven: Galatians 6:16's Riddles and Isaiah 54:10's Contribution: Gentiles Joining the Israel of God?
Chapter Twelve: The Paul-Within-Judaism / Radical New Perspective Movement: An Appraisal
Chapter Thirteen: Prophetic Hope for Israel in The Eschatological Ministry of 2 Corinthians 3:2-11

• By (author) A. Andrew Das