"Toward a New Perspective on Paul"

Before, we look at the main New Perspective writers; there is a preliminary scholar that should be discussed.  Kister Stendahl, in the 60’s was already looking critically at the interpretation of Paul.  Specifically, Stendahl noted that the problems Luther dealt with where not the primary issues for Paul.  Paul was interested in the relation of Jews and non-Jews.  For Stendahl the contrast is not “Christianity” and “Judaism” but “the law” and “the gospel.”

This shifts the way Paul’s conversion has been traditionally read.  Paul conversion was not from “Judaism” to “Christianity.”  Paul’s changed outlook was more in line with the calling of prophets, such as Isaiah and Jeremiah.  As Zetterholm notes “According to Stendahl, Paul serves the same God as before, admittedly in a different way, but still directly linked to what was already part of Jewish tradition” (99).  Paul’s theology then is understood as being in line with his own calling to be an apostle to the non-Jew.

“Justification,” for Stendahl is a part of the relation of Jew and Gentile, in Romans and Galatians.  “Justification” should be placed along side the center of the letter, mainly Romans 9-11.  This section deals with the God’s plan for final salvation and the relation of Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles, as a part of that plan.  Stendahl argues that God’s salvation plan anticipates the “no” of the Jews and opens to the Gentiles.  Salvation is for the Jews, as well, according to Stendahl, and he argues against a contradiction between salvation offered to Jews and non-Jews.  “Justification” then fits within this overall idea of God’s “victory” and “salvation” and that God’s righteousness will set everything right (99).

Stendahl’s writing points towards many of the ideas of recent scholarship and it is the overwhelming dominance of the traditional view, at the time, that made Stendahl’s ideas hard for many to understand.  It will be a short move from Stendahl to the next several scholars.

Normative theology, meet Biblical Studies

The last two posts have been some background for our discussion of the New Perspective on Paul as well as, areas of study that have moved beyond the NPP.  We have seen that several influences have led to the “traditional” or “standard” Lutheran view of Paul.  These influences come from Luther, Augustine, and other theologians and philosophers, like Hegel, as well.

The mixture of ideas created a view of Judaism as rejected by God and inferior to Christianity.  This way of thinking was widely assumed in the Post-Enlightenment period.  The theological assumptions remain intact, as the next group of scholars reconstructs history in light of theology.

Bultmann can be seen as the main influence for this final step of paradigm formation.  It is not Bultmann’s understanding of Paul but his marriage of Biblical Studies and Theology.  Bultmann was both an academic scholar and theologian, using each field to enlighten the other.

Ernst Kasemann was one of Bultmann’s disciples, although he broke from Bultmann’s interpretation, was influenced by his teacher.  Kasemann wanted to “build a bridge between the historical Jesus and the gospel of the early church” (78).  Kasemann saw Paul’s doctrine of justification coming from the teachings of Jesus.  It is this interconnected notion of the gospel of Jesus and justification that constitutes the issue for Kasemann. 

“The principle problem of Israel is not sin, Kasemann claims, but ‘pious works’…According to the doctrine of justification by faith, salvation is only possible for the lost and the damned - the ungodly – while the ‘good’ and the ‘pious’ imagine they can escape the impending judgment by means of their deeds” (80).  Kasemann’s view clearly rests on Reformation theology.  Even as we get into the New Perspective scholars, normative Christian theology will not change drastically.  Zetterholm sees this, the arguments over normative theology as the reason for so much of the debate amongst scholars and theologians.  The connection between normative theology and Biblical Studies, put forth by people like Bultmann and Kasemann, sets the tone for the next group of scholars and goes unquestioned until we look at those who have taken Paul beyond the New Perspective.

Zetterholm part 2

Yesterday, I introduced the book I will be going through this week and next week, “Approaches to Paul” by Zetterholm. In the last post, the foundation of the “traditional” view was laid. Today, we move into the theological explorations that marked the difference between Judaism and Christianity. This next step is, as Zetterholm points out, a construction of Christian theologians.

After working through the ancient sources that led to Christianities separation/distancing from Judaism, Zetterholm turns to Augustine, who will pave the way from Luther’s doctrine of grace. It is in response to Pelagius that Augustine developed his theology of sin and grace. Augustine emphasized the divine aspect of redemption against a human action. Divine intervention was necessary for both the ability and will to perform good deeds. As Zetterholm summarizes, “No human effort to please God is possible, which in the long run means that God decides who is to be saved and who is predestined to perdition” (59).

Luther would then start with the divine intervention, leaving the human action of good deeds to be result of grace. Righteousness is accessed through faith alone, a complete reversal of the Occamistic theology of the time (Which maintained that good deeds where met with grace leading to salvation). This left the Law in a very specific place, mainly for certain people at a certain time. Zetterholm points out,

“With Luther, the Law thus represents something good, in fact, the will of God, but its fulfillment is at the same time something unattainable. Anyone who imagines that he or she by means of the law can attain a relation to God is guilty of the of the most fundamental sin of all- self-righteousness- based on the false assumption that God can be pleased through human effort. For such a person, the law does not lead to grace and forgiveness, but to punishment and damnation” (61).

This theological formation with the Hegelian evolutionary process puts Judaism in a terrible place. Luther’s theology meant a complete rejection of Judaism. Zetterholm stress that Luther was not reading Paul for historical reconstruction, but to address theological issues. Luther’s formulation was a Christian theological construction. It will be the later Biblical scholars that apply this reading to their reconstructions of Paul. In the next couple of days, we will look at Zetterholm’s third chapter, “The Formation of a Standard View.”

"Approaches to Paul"

I thought I would go through a book this week and in to next week.  Over the Christmas break, I had dinner with a friend, who works in a church but not heavily into Biblical studies.  Over dinner, he asked me to explain the New Perspective on Paul.  He had heard about it at church and in the Christian media.  So, along that line I thought I would go through Magnus Zetterholm’s “Approaches to Paul: A Student’s Guide to Recent Scholarship.”

Zetterholm does an exceptional job of over viewing the history and current trends in the study of Paul by analyzing the major works that have contributed to Pauline scholarship.  He broadly lays out three main groupings, the standard view, new perspective, and beyond the new perspective.  These form the main portion of his work with some introductory and concluding chapters.

I wanted to skip the first chapter, which is a history of Paul and his missions, and jump into what has lead to the necessity for a new perspective on Paul.  Zetterholm begins with the Tubingen School and the influence of Hegel.  Hegel’s philosophy, in many ways, and was understood as open theology back up in light of the Enlightenment.  Hegel’s understanding of reality functioned in a process.  Each generation gives rise to a higher ordered understanding, followed by another even higher understanding.  This view sees the past as “a lower evolutionary form than the present, and the future always holds something better in store.  The reason for this s that the dialectical process is not governed by chance…The history of the world is thus a process run by reason, which in reality is the true lord of the world” (34).

This influenced the way Biblical scholars viewed Judaism, mostly in theological terms.  Zetterholm notes the work of F.C. Baur who was influenced by Hegel and the Tubingen School.  In Baur’s writing of history, Paul argues against Judaism.  Paul represents a later, higher understanding than earlier Judaism.  With Hegel’s ideas in mind, it is easy to see how this can lead to anti-Semitic notions of Judaism.  Zetterholm draws on the historical nature of anti-Semitism in Christian communities, noting that distinctions where made between Jews and Christians from an early point in Christian history.

It is with this background that Zetterholm discusses the nature of Luther’s writings, as well as Augustine.  Which we will turn to next time.

Religion verses Relations

I recently was reading a friends blog about her experience in Africa.  This post was dealing with the nature of the church in Africa that brought up some ideas on which I wanted to comment.  She was frustrated with a range of things, many of which are frustrations I share.  The biggest was the popularity of “Prosperity Gospels,” which was recently spoken of as the worst religious idea of this decade in The Washington Post.

However, amidst the frustrations of locals becoming pastors, orphanage caretakers, or teachers so that they have a steady job that can pay, the real frustration was that Africans struggle with understanding Christianity as a relationship and not a religion.  I think this is the wrong way view Christianity.  The religion/relationship dichotomy fails to see the function of religion/s.  Marx’s definition of religion serves as an example of this unintelligent reasoning.  Marx’s states that religion is the opium of the masses, so the relational Christian states, “Marx’s maybe be right but it does not matter because Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship.”  In short, it turns into a way of sidestepping the harder question of the function and meaning in religion, in spite of definitions like Marx, Freud, Fuerbach, and others.

Christianity is a religion.  It constructs a world-view that orders and makes sense of the world around the individual.  It provides rituals, sacraments, and a liturgy to reinforce this understanding of the world.  But what is bad about this?  All world-views do this. 

When applied to many African communities, this dichotomy is often to initially misunderstood.  To the Westerners, it seem as though the Africans do get it.  That’s right, they don’t.  They did not get the Enlightenment hammered into their heads from grade school.  They did not group up with spirituality and physicality completely separated.  That is our inheritance.  We make the distinction between religion/relations and spirituality/physicality.  Spirituality is a part of physicality for them.  They are in relationship with their religion.  So of course, they “don’t get it.”  The spiritual realm is in relationship with the everyday.  That is why the “Prosperity Gospel” is appealing.  That is why the everyday notions of religion are just that, everyday notions.  This is an area where we should be learning from each other.  Not simply imposing the Western understanding and getting upset because they are not “doing it” the way we do.  In many ways, we could use some physicality in our spirituality.