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A Defense of the Traditional View of Paul: A Response to Sanders, Wright, and the New Perspective

October 13, 2024 Ecclesiology Hamartiology

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A Defense of the Traditional View of Paul: A Response to Sanders, Wright, and the New Perspective

In recent decades, scholars like E.P. Sanders and N.T. Wright have popularized what is commonly known as the “New Perspective on Paul,” a framework that seeks to reinterpret Paul’s writings, particularly his teachings on justification, grace, and the role of the Law, through the lens of what they argue was a misunderstood Second Temple Judaism. At the heart of this movement is the idea that Paul has been misread by centuries of Christian tradition, most notably by Augustine, Luther, and subsequent Protestant reformers. According to the New Perspective, Paul’s letters have been wrongly interpreted as a critique of Jewish legalism, when in fact, they contend, Judaism in Paul’s day was not a religion of works-righteousness but of grace.

Though this fresh interpretation has gained considerable traction among contemporary theologians, it's important to recognize that the sources it depends on—primarily rabbinic literature and other documents from both pre- and post-Second Temple Judaism (Tannaitic: all of which emerged after the rise of Christianity)—pose significant challenges. The documents Sanders and Wright rely upon for their reconstruction of Judaism are, in most cases, dated after the time of Christ and Paul. This fact alone calls into question whether these sources accurately reflect the Judaism that Paul himself encountered and addressed in his letters. That said, we must also consider whether these later texts preserve earlier traditions that might still offer valuable insights into the world in which Paul lived.

As a defense of the traditional view of Paul, I intend to demonstrate why the New Perspective is built on shaky ground and why the traditional reading, rooted in the earliest understanding of Paul’s letters and consistent with the gospel itself, provides a more coherent and historically sound interpretation of the apostle’s theology—while also acknowledging the potential value of these later Jewish texts.

The Chronological Problem: Post-Christ Sources and Paul’s Context

The most glaring issue with the New Perspective on Paul is its reliance on rabbinic sources that were written hundreds of years after Paul’s time. E.P. Sanders, in his seminal work Paul and Palestinian Judaism, presents a view of Second Temple Judaism as a covenantal religion where grace and works coexist, arguing that Judaism was not a legalistic system but one based on covenant membership and God’s grace.

However, the sources that Sanders and Wright often draw upon—such as the Mishnah (c. 200 AD), the Tosefta (c. 250 AD), and the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds (4th-6th centuries AD)—were compiled long after both the destruction of the Second Temple and the rise of Christianity. These rabbinic texts were shaped in a different context, often responding to the loss of the Temple, Roman oppression, and the growing influence of the Christian church. Thus, they reflect the theological and sociopolitical concerns of post-Temple Judaism, not necessarily the beliefs and practices of Jews in Paul’s day.

It is both anachronistic and methodologically suspect to use these later texts to reconstruct Paul’s context, as if the Judaism of Paul’s time can be fully understood through the lens of later rabbinic theology. Paul was a Jew writing in a specific time and place, addressing issues pertinent to first-century Judaism. To retroactively impose the theology of later rabbinic writings onto Paul is to misunderstand the historical setting in which Paul lived and wrote. As C.S. Lewis famously noted in his essay Fern-seed and Elephants, when scholars speak with such confidence about events and ideas far removed from their time, we should rightly grow skeptical of their claims.

However, Can We Find Value in Later Rabbinic Sources?

At the same time, we must be careful not to dismiss these rabbinic sources entirely. While they were written later, they often reflect oral traditions that could have roots in the Second Temple period, including in the time of Paul. Judaism, especially in its Pharisaic form, maintained a strong oral tradition, which was later codified in the Mishnah and the Talmuds. Some of the discussions in these later texts could indeed preserve earlier theological insights and practices that Paul might have encountered. Thus, while they do not provide a direct window into first-century Judaism, they offer indirect insights into the development of Jewish thought, some of which may have been present in Paul’s day.

In this sense, the post-Christ rabbinic writings might still contribute to our understanding of Paul’s Jewish world, but we must use them cautiously, always aware of their later context and their possible theological evolution in response to the rise of Christianity. They should be studied alongside other contemporary Jewish sources, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo of Alexandria, and Josephus, which provide a more immediate context for Paul’s letters.

Paul’s Understanding of the Law: A Radical Break

The heart of the New Perspective’s argument is that Paul was not critiquing Judaism itself but a misunderstanding of how the Law functioned within the covenant. N.T. Wright, for example, argues that Paul’s concerns were more about ethnic boundary markers—circumcision, food laws, and sabbath observance—than a critique of works-righteousness. According to Wright, Paul was addressing a system that saw these boundary markers as central to maintaining covenant membership, not works-righteousness in the traditional Protestant sense.

However, this reinterpretation minimizes the radical nature of Paul’s actual teachings. Paul’s epistles, particularly Romans and Galatians, present the Law not simply as a misunderstood boundary marker, but as something fundamentally incapable of bringing about salvation. In Galatians 2:16, Paul writes: “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ.” This statement, alongside Paul’s discussion of the Law as a curse (Gal. 3:10) and his depiction of righteousness as being apart from the Law (Romans 3:21), underscores Paul’s conviction that adherence to the Mosaic Law could never be the means of justification before God.

Far from being a mere ethnic marker, Paul viewed the Law as a tutor that pointed to humanity’s inability to keep it (Gal. 3:24). The Law revealed the depth of human sin and highlighted the need for a savior, which is why Paul could say in Romans 7:10, “The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.” This is not the language of a man critiquing boundary markers; it is the language of a man declaring that the Law, as good as it was, could only lead to death when it stood between sinful humanity and a holy God.

The New Perspective’s claim that Paul was addressing only certain aspects of Jewish identity, rather than the Law as a whole, fundamentally misunderstands Paul’s argument about the universality of sin and the inadequacy of the Law for salvation. Paul’s gospel is clear: both Jew and Gentile are under sin (Rom. 3:9), and only through faith in Christ can one be justified.

The Gospel as Freedom from the Law

If Paul’s message were merely about reinterpreting boundary markers within covenantal nomism, why then does he speak of the Law with such urgency and finality? Why does he describe it as something from which Christ’s followers have been set free? In Romans 7:6, Paul writes, “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”

This release from the Law is a core tenet of Paul’s gospel, and it cannot be reduced to a critique of ethnic markers. Paul is declaring the arrival of a new covenant, one in which righteousness comes through faith in Christ, apart from the works of the Law. The New Perspective, by softening Paul’s critique of the Law and emphasizing boundary markers, diminishes the radical nature of the freedom that Paul preaches—a freedom not only from circumcision or food laws but from the entire system of works-righteousness that, in Paul’s view, the Law represented.

Conclusion: The Gospel According to Paul

The New Perspective on Paul, though well-intentioned in seeking to reframe first-century Judaism in a more gracious light, ultimately fails to account for the radical break that Paul makes with the Law. While later rabbinic sources may offer insights into the development of Jewish thought, they reflect theological concerns that postdate Paul by centuries. These texts cannot be taken as direct evidence of the Judaism that Paul encountered, though they may preserve echoes of earlier traditions. Paul’s gospel remains what it has always been: a proclamation of grace through faith in Christ, apart from the works of the Law. As he himself declared, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). No amount of reinterpreting Paul’s context can obscure the clarity of his message: salvation comes not from works, not from the Law, but from faith in Christ alone.

The gospel has always been simple. Paul’s message is not one of complex boundary markers or subtle shifts within Judaism; it is the announcement of a new creation in Christ Jesus, who has fulfilled the Law and made a way for sinners to be reconciled to God. Let us not obscure that simple, life-giving truth with the complications of modern reinterpretation, but seek always to return to the clarity and power of the gospel as it was first preached.

Chaplain WHITEHORN
I'm honored to serve as the State Prison Chaplain at Avon Park Correctional Institution. My journey into ministry was deeply shaped by my military experience as a Combat Veteran Sergeant and later as an Officer in the U.S. Army. Alongside my military career, I've pursued a lifelong passion for theology and scholarship, beginning with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biblical Studies from Crichton College. I continued advanced studies at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, earned a Master of Divinity from Liberty University, and I'm currently completing my Ph.D., driven by a desire to understand and faithfully communicate God’s Word.

9/10/25

A Defense of the Traditional View of Paul: A Response to Sanders, Wright, and the New Perspective

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