Look at New Perspectives on Paul

This will be a slightly different post than my usual for this blog. Normally I grab a Bible passage or a principle of interpretation and comment on it. In this post, I want to tie together several threads of my blogging and teaching and point the direction toward some new questions that I’d like to examine as I continue some of my current study.

I was launched in this particular direction by a post at Adrian Warnock’s blog, The PCA Considering Excluding the Followers of N. T. Wright. Now I’ve been watching Adrian’s blog lately because of the various atonement wars (as I call them), and things about N. T. Wright are bound to catch my attention. I have truly appreciated reading Wright’s material on the historical Jesus. His thorough scholarship and remarkably courteous form of dialog are quite refreshing. It’s not my plan to criticize anyone’s readings of the Westminster Confessions. I am, after all, not Calvinist. But the broader issues involve are very important to me.

In addition, I just started podcasting a series on Mark that came from the older Bible Pacesetter Radio Program. This series was started 11/24/2003, and continued into 2004 until we canceled that program. Now I’m using the old programs, and then planning to continue through Mark. In listening to my teaching, I couldn’t help but notice some dependence on N. T. Wright for things that I said about Mark’s view of the proclamation.

Further, I just completed a read through Galatians alongside J. Louis Martyn’s commentary, and I have saved more than 20 note items intended for future blogging out of Galatians. I’m not going to call that a series, because I have no idea when I’ll get to them. I already have numerous items for my series on Hebrews that I simply haven’t had time to post.

I would note here that my primary training was in the ancient near east and in Old Testament, rather than New Testament. Yes, my concentration was Biblical languages, but at the graduate level that involved a very small amount of Greek, and a very large amount of Hebrew, but since I now spend my time teaching lay audiences, the New Testament is more in demand. This whole issue has become somewhat more important to me.

So I followed this all up by starting to read from The Paul Page which is dedicated to the new perspective on Paul. One key item immediately caught my attention. As argued by Martyn, the new perspective relates the controversy over circumcision more to the identification with God’s people than to a faith-works issue. In a related point, Martyn argues that the “Jerusalem” of Galatians was not Judaism, but the circumcision oriented mission to Judaism which was based in, if not supported by, the Jerusalem church.

A second key item is the view of Judaism, and particular the view of the law in the Old Testament/Hebrew scriptures. It has always seemed to me that New Testament scholars do not characterize this view accurately. It seems more like a caricature, but I haven’t taken the time to work on that in detail.

This leads to the following comment, also from The Paul Page (Summary):

Translating the doctrine of justification into contemporary terms, Wright notes with irony that this doctrine, which was principally concerned with unity and acceptance in the body of Christ regardless of social barriers, has been one of the most divisive doctrines in the history of Christianity, particularly between Catholics and Protestants who have traditionally interpreted it as a question of precisely how salvation is to be attained.

I think this is a point of critical importance. How is something that is supposed to bring joy, freedom, and unity so often construed as a way to divide the body of Christ?

In discussing this and other issues related to the atonement, I’m going to be working through these materials and becoming better informed on this new perspective.

Update: Since I’m not Calvinist, I won’t be interacting with this that much, but I think it is only fair to present a link to the PCA preliminary report.