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The New Perspective on Paul |
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Book Review James D.G. Dunn, When
James D.G. Dunn delivered his Manson Memorial Lecture in 1982, he set out to
sketch an emerging paradigm in current Pauline studies. Though it wasn’t his
intent to label that paradigm or coin a phrase, nevertheless his description
of “the new perspective on Paul” struck a chord and became the catchphrase
for the new paradigm. However,
the term clearly had some inherent weaknesses. For one, it wasn’t very
descriptive; it didn’t convey anything about the content of the emerging
approach to Paul. Second, “the new perspective” isn’t so “new” anymore,
leaving other scholars to articulate more recent proposals with descriptions
like “the fresh perspective on Paul” (Wright, 2000) and a “newer perspective”
on Paul (Das, 2003). Thankfully, no one has yet
proposed “the new and improved perspective on Paul”! Finally, the prevalence
of the label itself has apparently enabled certain critics, primarily
conservative Presbyterians, to imagine an entire systematic theology which
they awkwardly dub “new perspectivism”! Nevertheless,
for all its weaknesses, the term stuck, partly because it’s still helpful as
a shorthand way of describing the seismic shift in approaches to Pauline
studies since E.P. Sanders’ monumental Protestant reevaluation of the
Second-Temple Judaism with which Paul would have been familiar. Now in his
2008 book The New Perspective on Paul:
Revised Edition, Dunn sums up the history of this new perspective and
provides a thorough reevaluation. In his opening Preface, Dunn comments on
the terminology itself insofar as he chose it as the title of his new work: I need to add at once that the title should not be read as
‘the new perspective on Paul’, as
though that was the only ‘new
perspective’ possible or accessible to students of Paul; given the brief
history of the title, it would have been more misleading to entitle the
volume ‘A New Perspective on Paul’. Nor should it be read as ‘the new perspective on Paul’, as implying
that any and every old perspective
is thereby rendered passé or condemned to the dustbin; quite the contrary, as
the opening essay should make clear. Nor should it be read as a claim to
provide a definitive statement of ‘The New Perspective on Paul’; in the pages
that follow, I speak only for myself, not as representative of some kind of
‘school’. Nor, perhaps I should add, is ‘the new perspective’ some kind of
‘dogma’ which is somehow binding on its ‘adherents’; that is not how properly
critical (including self-critical) exegesis and historical scholarship goes
about its task (ix, x). This
anthology of Dunn’s key contributions to the new perspective includes twenty
essays published between 1983 and 2004, including his original Manson
Memorial Lecture “The New Perspective on Paul,” several follow-up essays on
“The Works of the Law,” his 1991 article “The Justice of God,” and “In Search
of Common Ground,” his summary of the Third Durham-Tübingen
Research Symposium on Earliest Christianity and Judaism on ‘Paul and the Law’
in 1994. Of particular interest, however, are the brand new chapters prepared
for this volume: a concluding chapter on Philippians 3.2-14 and the New
Perspective on Paul, and a new 50,000-word introductory essay (expanded for
the Eerdmans Revised
Edition) which alone is worth the price of the book. That
introduction, “The New Perspective: whence, what and whither?” is divided
into five parts. In the first section (1-17), Dunn provides a personal
account of the evolution of his thought on Paul, including the impact of
Sanders and further insights from In the
second section (17-41), Dunn provides a gratifyingly spirited counter-response
to many of his critics, including Seyoon Kim, Simon
Gathercole, Mark Seifrid,
Mark Elliott, and a host of others, including more caustic critics such as
Carl Trueman (who has since acknowledged his
misrepresentation) and Lee Gatiss, who incorrectly
surmised that Dunn has no firsthand knowledge of the writings of Martin
Luther. The third
section, “Taking the debate forward” (41-58), is an important reappraisal of
current issues, including particularly Dunn’s continuing reflection on
Galatians 3.10-14 in light of further criticism and “the later Paulines, particularly Eph. 2.8-10, but also 2 Tim.
1.9-10 and Tit. 3.5-6” (41), which have not received enough attention by
scholars working through the new perspective. In the
fourth section (58-95), Dunn addresses what he considers to be the most
substantive issues, which revolve around the tension between election and
judgment both in Second-Temple Judaism and in Paul. In this section he
emphasizes Paul’s teaching regarding final judgment according to works, but
even here he strives to preclude misunderstanding by those who would
characterize Dunn as anti-Lutheran: Critics, please note: my concern is not to argue that Paul’s understanding of salvation was
synergistic; I have no desire to
promote a Pelagian or semi-Pelagian
interpretation of Paul; I have no doubt that I and all other believers in
Christ will be saying ‘the prayer of humble access’ throughout our lives and
to the end. My concern is rather twofold: (a) to question whether the charge
of synergism should be laid so confidently at the door of Judaism when some
of Paul’s language seems vulnerable to the same charge; and (b) to ask
proponents of Pauline ‘monergism’ to take more
seriously and with due seriousness the other Pauline teaching and
exhortations referred to above. In the latter connection, I have to insist
that it is Paul’s own teaching and urgings which force the issue upon us.
According to 2 Cor. 5.10, the judgment on each will
be according to what each has done.
Even if done by (the indwelling) Christ or in the power of the Spirit, the
doer is the individual and judgment will be in accordance with that doing. It
is that Pauline understanding of final judgment which has to be integrated
with the Pauline understanding of justification by faith (88,89). Most
importantly, in his consideration of whether the new perspective’s
reevaluation of the law diminishes the need for Christ, Dunn helpfully
demonstrates how Paul’s christology precludes the
polarization (articulated so forcefully by Schweitzer) between the categories
of “justification” and “participation in Christ.” Specifically, Dunn argues that
“the forensic metaphor of justification” is only one of three models of
salvation in Paul, the other two being the gift of the Spirit and
identification with Christ – identification with Christ, that is, “as a process to be worked through and not
simply a status to be accepted”
(93). In Dunn’s
fifth and concluding part (96-97), he reiterates that Christian scholars
cannot return to the old caricature of Judaism as a religion of dry legalism
and that while the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone is
still necessary, it is equally important to recover the full scope of Paul’s
doctrine of justification, particularly its social and corporate dimension.
Paul’s tension between justification by faith and judgment according to works
needs to be maintained, as well as the fundamental point that for Paul, the
eschatological significance of Christ was the primary difference between his
gospel and the traditions of Israel. Overall,
Dunn’s latest volume is an exceptional contribution to the ongoing dialogue.
One of its few shortcomings might relate to the scope of its
counter-criticism. Dunn’s principal dialogue partners are clearly those
conservative Christian reactionaries whom Pamela Eisenbaum
has described as “neotraditionalists”; particularly
notable is his lack of engagement with important contributions by Jewish
scholars on Paul, like Eisenbaum herself and most
notably Mark Nanos (although references to Daniel Boyarin and Alan Segal do turn up in a few footnotes). Returning
to the comments with which this review opened, one final question remains for
this reviewer. Clearly, during the last thirty years the new perspective on
Paul has become the consensus position for a majority of biblical scholars
(remaining an issue only for the “neotraditionalists”
mentioned above). Given that, and given subsequent developments, such as the
more recent trend in Pauline studies which considers Paul’s writings in the
political context of imperial Rome, might it not be appropriate at some point
to speak less of “the new perspective on Paul” and to speak in a more precise
(and historically useful) way of “the quest for the historical Paul,” of
which the Sanders revolution and the trend of Paul and Empire may be
considered different phases along the way? That, of course, is for others to
decide; the question is here simply posed. At any
rate, for the present no student of the new perspective on Paul can afford to
overlook Dunn’s latest monumental contribution to the ongoing discussion. The New Perspective on Paul: Revised Edition
belongs on the bookshelf of every Pauline scholar. Mark M. Mattison |
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