New perspective on Paul

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The New Perspective on Paul ( english New Perspective on Paul 's) one since the 1980s controversial view in the New Testament research that the writings of Paul of Tarsus , regardless of the traditional Lutheran interpretation of the Pauline doctrine of justification of believers new in the Want to take a look. The consideration of the theological statements and basic positions of Paul serves above all to determine the Judeo-Christian relationship.

Basic approach

The Pauline theology freed the Gentile Christians of Jewish customs such as circumcision and enabled in this way facilitate their admission of non-Jews to Christianity. Lutheranism regarded the understanding of justification developed by Martin Luther primarily on the basis of his interpretation of the Letter to the Romans “ solely from faith ” as an essential message of the Gospel and an indispensable foundation of Reformation teaching. The interpretation of Paul's writings was then determined by this pre-understanding. The focus of Paul’s reception was his rejection of the Jewish law, in which Luther believed he recognized a fundamental criticism of the so-called “ work righteousness ”. According to Luther, who believed he was leaning on Paul, salvation cannot be achieved through good or pious works, but only through unconditional faith. The “new perspective on Paul” questions the Lutheran pre-understanding and tries to analyze the Pauline teachings in a more impartial way in its early Jewish context. Representatives of this point of view would like to clarify whether and to what extent Paul rejected the Jewish understanding of the law in principle and understood Christianity as a law-free religion.

development

The New Perspective on Paul (so summarized only afterwards named in 1982 by James DG Dunn ) began with the works of Krister Stendahl . This criticized the presentation of Paul's doctrine of justification in German exegesis. Unlike Luther, Paul did not come to his criticism of the law because of the agonizing question of individual salvation, but developed it in the service of legitimizing his mission to the Gentiles. Therefore it is inappropriate to interpret the doctrine of justification as the center of Pauline theology.

The "New Perspective" became known in particular through the work of Ed Parish Sanders , especially in his influential work Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977). In it he developed his idea of ​​a covenantal nominism (" covenant nomism "), which was widely accepted by New Testament scholarship, as the unifying basic conviction of all early Jewish currents ("Common Judaism"), to which Sanders also included Paul. On the basis of his Judaic studies, Sanders criticizes the view of ancient Judaism as a law religion, which is widespread in Christian theology , which requires observance of the Torah in order to attain salvation, whereas Paul finds a new way of salvation - not through the fulfillment of works of law, but through justification by faith in Christ - would have offered. Sanders describes this simplified characterization as a caricature and tries to use various early Jewish texts to prove that observance of the laws in ancient Judaism was not conceived as a means of salvation ("getting in"), but as an outward sign of staying in touch “Staying in”) of members of the federal people. Sanders' investigation questions the traditional Protestant idea, according to which the Christian Reformation doctrine of the justification of sinners solely by grace stands in opposition to the alleged Jewish- Pharisaic concept of “work righteousness ”. The evaluation of post-Christian Judaism by Augustine , which influenced the whole of Western Christianity, is also called into question, because, according to Sanders, Paul did not criticize Judaism's righteousness (which in terms of content already presupposes Augustine in his antipelagian doctrine of grace), but only the rejection of the Savior figure of Jesus Christ. Paul, who sees himself as a Jew, therefore only condemns Judaism "that it is not Christianity".

According to Sanders, Albert Schweitzer anticipated essential insights from the New Perspective with his interpretation of Paul . Schweitzer's findings were then pushed into the background by the appearance of Rudolf Bultmann and his form-critical school. The view of form-historical exegesis on Judaism was shaped by the one-sided Reformation misinterpretation, in which Judaism as the “religion of law” is contrasted with the novelty of the Christ message (“ kerygma ”) as a negative contrast film .

Today the most important representative of the "New Perspective on Paul" is named after James Dunn. He expanded Sanders' reflections on covenant nomism by pointing out that commandments in Judaism are not just “identity markers” but above all “boundary markers” with which the Jewish people differentiated themselves from the heathen. Correspondingly, Paul's criticism of the Jewish law and of the “works of the law” should be understood primarily as a criticism of the demarcation of the Jews from the Gentiles. For Paul, the question of justification was subordinate to his interest in the question of how the Gentiles can also come to salvation. Paul does not criticize the work righteousness of the Jews, but their striving for ethnic-social demarcation through ethical-religious segregation.

In addition to Dunn, the theologian Nicholas Thomas Wright , retired Anglican Bishop of Durham , took up the work of Sanders and further developed the New Perspective on Paul . The theologian, who himself comes from the evangelical-reformed movement, tries to find an interpretation of Paul that is based strictly on text hermeneutics and does not refer to hypotheses relating to the sociology of religion than the approaches of Sanders and Dunn (which are more in the theologically liberal spectrum). In contrast to the criticism of conservative theologians, he believes that he can take the exegetical results of the New Perspective seriously and deepen them through his own knowledge without giving up the core of the Reformation understanding of justification.

From the perspective of the Jewish religious philosophy, Daniel Boyarin accepted Dunn's results essentially and with approval and developed them further into his own view of Paul as a Jewish religious teacher in the context of a cultural tension field of difference and commonality (related to postmodernism ).

In the German-speaking area, the New Perspective has encouraged various attempts to research the contemporary environment of early Christianity and the historical Jesus with the help of socio-historical methods (including Luise Schottroff , Wolfgang Stegemann , Marlene Crüsemann and Claudia Janssen ). The critique of anti-Judaistic stereotypes in the Christian tradition and also in the older historical-critical exegesis plays a central role .

criticism

The New Perspective on Paul is often contradicted. The first contradiction of German theologians to Stendahl's thesis comes from Ernst Käsemann , who, however, dealt less with Stendahl in terms of content, but rather expressed the general fear that an exegesis determined more by worldview than by Scripture would have negative effects on the proclamation. Eduard Lohse criticizes the reduction of Paul from theologian to a missionary practitioner and the shortening of the doctrine of justification to a concept of mission strategy.

Reformed theologians in particular strongly criticize the fact that the new perspectives do not reflect the teachings of John Calvin in a dogmatically correct manner. The New Perspective on Paul has also been the subject of heated debates in evangelical circles, particularly in the conservative Presbyterian churches in the United States.

The more recent discussion within the New Perspective between Sanders and Wright is mostly ignored by the critics. In 2003 NT Wright distanced himself from Sanders and Dunn: "[T] here are probably almost as many 'New Perspective' positions as there are writers espousing it - and I disagree with most of them." In his 2011 essay Justification: Yesterday, Today and Forever , Wright makes an explicit attempt to dispel the dogmatic concerns his Pauline reading raises about the doctrine of justification.

The Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner is one of the most weighty opponents of the influential construct of early Jewish “covenant nomism” developed by EP Sanders and, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of the halachic controversies about the correct interpretation of the law between the various Jewish groups. He also criticizes Sander's interpretation of Paul in the context of the scientific controversy about the role of Pharisaic Judaism in rabbinical literature , which Neusner considers to be less formative than is commonly assumed. He questions in particular the EP Sanders et al. a. developed methodology and dealing with rabbinical sources and speaks of an anachronistic appropriation of various writings for Sander's point of view. Conversely, Sanders sees inaccuracies and arbitrariness in Neusner's interpretations of the Pharisaic discussions and resolutions and considers the conclusions drawn from them to be questionable.

See also

literature

English
  • Robert Badenas: Christ. The End of the Law. Romans 10.4 in Pauline Perspective . JSOT, Sheffield 1985, ISBN 0-905774-93-0 ( Journal for the study of the New Testament Supplement Series 10).
  • Daniel Boyarin: A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity . University of California Press, Berkeley 1994, ISBN 0520212142 ( Contraversions: Critical Studies in Jewish Literature, Culture, and Society ; 1).
  • James DG Dunn: The New Perspective on Paul . In: Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 65, 1983, ISSN  0301-102X , pp. 95-122 (reprinted frequently, including in: James DG Dunn: Jesus, Paul and the Law . Westminster - John Knox Press, Louisville KY 1990, ISBN 0-664-25095-5 , pp. 183-214).
  • Simon J. Gathercole: Where Is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's Response in Romans 1-5 . Eerdmans, Grand Rapids MI et al. a. 2002, ISBN 0-8028-3991-6 .
  • Michael B. Thompson: The New Perspective on Paul . Grove Books, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 1-85174-518-1 ( Grove Biblical Series 26).
  • Stephen Westerholm: Perspectives Old and New on Paul. The "Lutheran" Paul and his Critics. Eerdmans, Cambridge 2004, ISBN 0-8028-4809-5 .
  • NT Wright: What St Paul Really Said. What about Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? Eerdmans, Grand Rapids MI et al. a. 1997, ISBN 0-8028-4445-6 .
  • NT Wright: Paul. Fresh Perspectives . Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London 2005, ISBN 0-281-05739-7 .
German
  • Michael Bachmann , Johannes Woyke (eds.): Lutheran and New Paulus Perspective. Contributions to a key problem in the current exegetical discussion (WUNT 182). Tübingen 2005.
  • Athanasios Despotis: The "New Perspective on Paul" and the Greek Orthodox Paul Interpretation (VIOTh 11). EOS-Verlag, St. Ottilien 2014.
  • Jörg Frey , Benjamin Closer (eds.): The Theology of Paul in Discussion: Reflections following Michael Wolter's outline ( Biblical-Theological Studies 140). Neukirchen-Vluyn 2013.
  • Jens-Christian Maschmeier: Justification with Paul. A critique of old and new Pauline perspectives (BWANT 189). Stuttgart 2010.
  • EP Sanders: Paul. An introduction . Reclam, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-15-009365-1 ( Reclam's Universal Library 9365).
  • EP Sanders: Paul and Palestinian Judaism. A comparison of two religious structures ( Studies on the Environment of the New Testament 17). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1985, ISBN 3-525-53371-3 .
  • Krister Stendahl: The Jew Paul and we Gentiles. Inquiries to Western Christianity ( Kaiser tracts 36). Kaiser, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-459-01177-7 .
  • NT Wright: What Paul Was Really About . Brunnen, Giessen 2010, ISBN 978-3-7655-1454-8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Krister Stendahl: The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West. In: Harvard Theological Review 56 (1963), pp. 199-215 (including writings).
  2. ↑ EP Sanders: Paul and Palestinian Judaism. A comparison of two religious structures. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1985.
  3. ^ A b Karlheinz Müller : New Testament Science and Judaic Studies. In: Lutz Doering, Hans-Günther Waubke, Florian Wilk (eds.): Jewish Studies and New Testament Science: Locations, Limits, Relationships. Göttingen 2008, pp. 31–60 (here: p. 36 and note 15).
  4. ↑ EP Sanders: Paul and Palestinian Judaism. A comparison of two religious structures , Göttingen 1985, p. 513.
  5. ↑ EP Sanders: Paul. An introduction. Reclam, Stuttgart 1995, p. 171.
  6. ↑ James DG Dunn: The New Perspective on Paul , Tübingen 2005 (WUNT 185); id .: Romans , Dallas 1988 (WBC 38); ders .: The Theology of Paul the Apostle , Edinburgh 1998.
  7. ↑ Claudia Janssen u. a .: Anti-Judaism in the New Testament? Basics for working with biblical texts. Christian Kaiser / Gütersloher publishing house, Gütersloh 1997.
  8. ^ Ernst Käsemann: Justification and salvation history in Romans ; in: Ders .: Paulinische Perspektiven , Tübingen 1969; Pp. 108-139
  9. ↑ Eduard Lohse: Theology of justification in critical disputes - to some more recent perspectives in the interpretation of the theology of the Apostle Paul ; GGA 249 (1997), pp. 66-81
  10. ↑ Lee Irons: Seyoon Kim's Critique of the New Perspective on Paul (PDF file; 177 kB) . Lee Irons website. Retrieved November 24, 2004.
  11. ↑ Report on Justification Presented to the 73rd General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (PDF file; 690 kB). Orthodox Presbyterian Church website . Retrieved November 24, 2010.
  12. ↑ Mississippi Valley Presbytery Report (PDF file; 303 kB). Site of the Mississippi Valley Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America . Retrieved November 24, 2010.
  13. ^ NT Wright: New Perspectives on Paul . NT Wright website. Retrieved November 24, 2010.
  14. ^ NT Wright: Justification: Yesterday, Today and Forever (PDF file; 100 kB). In: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (JETS) 54/1 (2011), 49-63.