<\/p>
To understand EP Sanders\u2019s \u201crevolution\u201d in Pauline studies, it\u2019s helpful to look at Bultmann\u2019s understanding of Paul, against which Sanders and others are explicitly and implicitly reacting. (I\u2019m following the superb summary in Stephen Westerholm\u2019s Perspectives Old and New on Paul.) <\/p>\n
Bultmann\u2019s starting point is anthropological. As a creature, man is dependent on God for everything, and only when man acknowledges this dependence is he \u201cauthentic\u201d and \u201cat one with himself.\u201d Since always involves turning from God to the creation as the basis for security, to procure life, to gain satisfaction in one\u2019s accomplishments. The \u201cdesire to gain recognition for one\u2019s achievement\u201d (Westerholm\u2019s phrase) is universal and \u201cthe root of all other evils\u201d (Bultmann). <\/p>\n
Gentiles and Jews both strive for recognition of their achievements, but in Judaism this takes the specific form of striving to obey the law. Jewish zeal for obedience thus becomes one particular form of life according to the flesh, as Jews attempt to conform to the law to establish their own righteousness. It is not, of course, obedience to the law per se that condemns Jews; God wants His law obeyed. It\u2019s the use that Jews make of the law and their attitude toward it that perverts its true purpose. When Paul condemns \u201cboasting,\u201d this is what he\u2019s talking about. Paul condemns Jewish law-keeping because it is at one with the universal human pretension to boast in one\u2019s own accomplishments and attempt to establish one\u2019s own existence \u201cin forgetfulness of his creaturely existence, to procure his salvation by his own strength\u201d (Bultmann). <\/p>\n
The cross is God\u2019s great answer to this human delusion. Faced with the cross, a sinner must \u201csubject himself to God\u2019s judgment, i.e., to the judgment that all of man\u2019s desires and strivings and standards of value are nothing before God, that they are all subject to death . . . . All of man\u2019s accomplishments and boasting are at an end; they are condemned as nothing by the cross.\u201d Faith is thus submission to God\u2019s judgment, a renunciation of boasting in our own achievements and a recognition that our achievements do not establish any claims with God. <\/p>\n
Believers are not, however, free from the demand for obedience. The issue is not whether one must obey the law; all must obey. The issue is the manner of obedience and the attitude in which one obeys. The radical obedience of the believer is one that recognizes he has nothing except by gift from God and doesn\u2019t boast in its obedience. <\/p>\n
Westerholm concludes: \u201cfor Bultmann\u2019s Paul the pursuit of righteousness of the law is the typically Jewish expression of man\u2019s universal striving for recognition on the basis of his accomplishments. Faith is the renunciation of such striving as one recognizes one\u2019s utter dependence on God. It is expressed in genuine, radical obedience to God\u2019s demands in the law.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sanders recognizes that Paul condemns boasting, but, given his views on Judaism, he cannot follow Bultmann in seeing boasting as boasting in human achievement or one\u2019s obedience to the law. Instead, Jewish boasting is boasting in the special privileges granted to Jews. They seek to establish \u201ctheir own\u201d righteousness (Romans 10:3) in the sense that they seek to establish a righteousness available only to Jews. Sanders finds no textual support for the \u201cview that Paul regarded the righteousness of the law as wrong because it leads to self-righteousness and boasting\u201d (Westerholm). Paul\u2019s intention is simply to do away with the requirement to keep the law. Bultmann goes wrong, on Sanders\u2019s view, because he sees Paul starting with a universal anthropological viewpoint, with a general human plight; Paul, in Sanders\u2019s view, instead moves from solution to plight: If Christ is the only way of salvation, as Paul comes to believe at his conversion, then obviously the law is ruled out as a way of salvation. Plus, Paul, as an apostle to the Gentiles, doesn\u2019t believe that righteousness and salvation can come through a strictly Jewish way of life, since that would exclude Gentiles. Outside polemical contexts where he is dealing with the issue of membership in the people of God, however, Paul has positive things to say about the law, and requires believers to obey it. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To understand EP Sanders\u2019s \u201crevolution\u201d in Pauline studies, it\u2019s helpful to look at Bultmann\u2019s understanding of Paul, against which Sanders and others are explicitly and implicitly reacting. (I\u2019m following the superb summary in Stephen Westerholm\u2019s Perspectives Old and New on Paul.) Bultmann\u2019s starting point is anthropological. As a creature, man is dependent on God for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-nt-paul"],"yoast_head":"\n