The New Perspective on Paul

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The New Perspective, at the basis (or as it seems to me), is taking Paul out of Christianity, and placing him into Judaism. Now, the argument isn't that Paul was a good Jew, or anything like that. It simply is taking Paul and putting him into his Jewish context.

But as Dunn, who coined the term according you your link (thanks for that, by the way; I enjoyed reading it), points out, there is a great deal of ambiguity in what things like "Jewish context" or "christianity" and other such terms mean. That is (as I'm sure you are aware) it's certainly true that we can't take our modern use of "christian" and apply it accurately to Paul, but the same kind of issues are involved with speaking of Paul as "Jewish". You may have already read it, and perhaps others active on threads concerning Paul (e.g., AE, Jayhawker, etc.) have as well, but I've uploaded Dunn's paper "Who did Paul think he was? A study of Jewish-Christian identity" (NTS vol. 45, 1999). For those interested the paper is quite related to the OP's topic and is a relatively short but nonetheless nuanced approach to the question of Paul's socio-cultural and religious identity (and I apologize about the site I used to upload, but I don't know much about file sharing and when I joined this forum and needed to share sources I just went with the first free site that came up with a google search).

 

[angellous_evangellous]

The New Perspective, at the basis (or as it seems to me), is taking Paul out of Christianity, and placing him into Judaism. Now, the argument isn't that Paul was a good Jew, or anything like that. It simply is taking Paul and putting him into his Jewish context. So instead of interpreting Paul through Christian lenses, and in particular Lutheran lenses, it interprets Paul through a more culturally accurate lens. At the same time, it paints a better picture of Judaism. Christianity, or at least certain branches (especially historically), have deemed that Judaism is a flawed or misguided religion (and usually it is much more harsh then that).

The new perspective basically asks people to reread Paul, while stripping off the centuries of traditions, and advancing beyond Martin Luther, and the Reformers. Which is why it is relevant to study of Paul. As with any field, there are problems with this new perspective, but the basis is a good start for studying Paul.

I'm not sure if I answered your question here fully, and I'm willing to expand if needed.

Yes - but the NP takes Paul out of his *later* Christian theologies and places him in Greek//Roman contexts as well as Jewish theological contexts.

It began as a way to separate Pauline studies from Lutheran theology and place it within the first century Jewish theology. But NP scholars already knew - especially E. P. Sanders, who produced a ton of work on Paul's Hellenistic contexts.

The thing is, the "NP" group couldn't embrace the full range of later methodologies that have no interest in Pauline theologies.