Reading Paul

Session 6The Light Project

Factors influencing NT readings

• Theological and interpretative questions• Exegetical issues (syntax, textual

criticism)• Historical matters (Judaism and Greco-

Roman world)• Questions of language (Greek, Aramaic)• Archaeology illuminating texts• Patristic and other interpretations of texts

For centuries what has been the dominant understanding of Paul and his theology?

• Augustine• Luther• Both, it is claimed, read Paul in light of the

theological and political issues of their day.

New views on Paul:• Stendahl• Sanders• Dunn

•Paul opposed a Judaism based upon:

•Works-righteousness

•Legalistic religion

•Earning one’s salvation

•Keeping the law as much as possible

•God sent Jesus to abolish all of the above

•Established a new religion of grace and forgiveness

•Sinners are ‘justified’ through their faith

•Paul interpreted through the lens of Augustine and Luther

•Paul more concerned with the practicalities of how Jew and Gentile Christians could live together in his communities

•Judaism not a legalistic religion of works but a religion of salvation (including Gentiles)

•Paul placed squarely within his context of first-century Judaism

•Paul’s experiences of God and Christ are interpreted accordingly

•Paul ‘de-Lutheranized’

‘Old View’ ‘New View’