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Luther and the new look on Paul v Christianity and Judaism

Luther and the new look on Paul v Christianity and Judaism

Postby postodave » August 20th, 2008, 7:02 pm

I said I would start this one but I have to begin by confessing that I know very little about the new look and so I hope I will learn a lot. Let me begin by summarizing Luther's interpretation of Paul as I understand it and where some scholars disagree.

Luther writes and thinks in the context of late Medieval Catholicism. Key to this kind of thinking is the idea of merit. Christ's work merited salvation but this was not guaranteed to any baptized Christian. Rather one had to merit that salvation. This did not mean earning salvation in Pelagian fashion where salvation was seen as a reward commensurable with ones works but rather these works were seen as works of condign merit not in themselves worthy of salvation but counted as worthy by God as a kind of step in the right direction. In practice this seemed to mean that a person was earning salvation through good works.

Luther's nightmare was that he knew God was holy and could never believe that his own works were good enough to merit salvation. What he discovered, or invented, in reading Paul was a doctrine of justification by faith alone. Salvation is not a reward for our works but a response to our faith or trust in God. But behind this stands a doctrine of salvation by grace; the faith which saves us is itself a gift which God gives to whom he will. It is our act of faith and this alone which enables us to have a right standing before God and any good works are a response of gratitude.

Luther equates law and gospel with nature and grace so that nature and grace are in sharp contrast in a way they never were in medieval theology. The law serves only to condemn but under grace we stand forgiven, released from the burden of trying to earn our way to heaven without having to say God has lowered his standards in order to let us in.

In Luther's view first century Judaism is seen as a religion of works, similar to the Catholicism he is opposing but fully rather than partially Pelagian.So having discovered the true gospel the good Dr.Martin visits some of the local Jewish communities to take them the good news that they can be released from the burden of the law; if they accept the gospel this will be a tremendous endorsement for protestantism. It doesn't pan out and the Jews are no more keen on the new Christianity than the old one; indeed in so far as over in Spain some of the key figures in the counter reformation are converted Jews it may be said to be less so. In later life Luther comes to regard the Jews as stubborn and recalcitrant and hence his now notorious ant antisemitism. Over in Switzerland Calvin modifies the protestant gospel, produces something less sharply paradoxical and instead of a contrast between faith and works proclaims a gospel where we are saved by Christ's work not ours. The evangelicals of later years simply add Luther to Calvin and ignore the conflicts between them.

Meanwhile back in the twentieth century Sanders does some digging around in first century sources. He proves to many people's satisfaction that Luther was barking up the wrong tree. First century Judaism was a religion of grace not of works, though not really much concerned with how to get into heaven. So if there was no religion of works for Paul to be arguing against what was he talking about . . . Over to you
Last edited by postodave on August 20th, 2008, 7:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Karen » August 20th, 2008, 7:06 pm

I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. -- Jorge Luis Borges
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Postby postodave » August 20th, 2008, 9:01 pm

Well that's going to give me a lot to read. I get the impression that I have not been barking up the wrong tree altogether.

Can I ask a personal question Karen? As someone coming at Christianity from a Jewish background does this kind of approach help? Does it make Christianity make more sense for you?
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Postby Karen » August 20th, 2008, 9:57 pm

I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. -- Jorge Luis Borges
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Postby JRosemary » August 20th, 2008, 10:19 pm

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Postby Karen » August 20th, 2008, 10:36 pm

Heh. You know me better than that. I should have said "Wright does a marvelous job of showing the covenant relationship that the Jews had with God in the Old Testament." The problem is that so many Christians don't understand the nature of that relationship, either historically, or now.

I don't think you're an anachronism. :wink:
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Re: Luther and the new look on Paul v Christianity and Judai

Postby Adam » August 20th, 2008, 11:52 pm

"Love is the only art that poorly imitates nature."
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Postby JRosemary » August 21st, 2008, 1:30 am

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Postby Adam » August 21st, 2008, 2:01 am

JRosemary,

I don't think you are giving me a very patient audience; we've had conversations about this before, but your reply to me has no memory, and no familiarity. You are painting me into a corner but you yourself know better.

The very starting point of my thesis is that Paul ought to be treated like any other prophet in the Hebrew Scriptures; Jeremiah in particular provides a great historic parallel.

Let us look at Jeremiah, then, for a moment. Hebrew Scripture itself pits Jeremiah against most of the people of Israel, certainly the common people of Israel, for acting without righteousness yet believing that the Temple of the Lord would save them. However, when we read the story of Jeremiah, we don't consider the people of Israel to be representing the religion of the Hebrews; we consider them to have departed from it in error, and Jeremiah himself represents the true Hebrew religion, and corrects that error.

Paul was a Pharisee. It is likely that Jesus was as well. I do not understand why it is hard to imagine that Pharisees, who may loom large in literature and history but who could not have accounted for more than a very small minority of Jews, found themselves having to correct popular error. Paul didn't write Romans, in particular (where we find much of this discussion of righteousness according to the Law), to Shimon or Hillel or Shammai, but to the common Jews and Gentiles of Rome.

It seems to me that you may be the one caught in an anachronism, assuming that an interpretation of Paul or Jesus cannot be correct unless it disagrees with the Pharisees, that the key to historical criticism in Pauline interpretation is to make sure that Paul is opposing the real Judaism, and not a Protestant stereotype. Well, maybe Paul isn't opposing real Judaism at all; maybe he's correcting what the common Jew believes. Where does he ever say that he disagrees with Pharisees?

You say "Our Pharisees--the men who shaped Rabbinic Judaism--emphasized that message over and over and over." True. And Paul was one of them.

You say "we figured out the importance of deeds of loving kindness long before Paul, thank you." True. And Jeremiah wasn't the first Jew to suggest that righteousness comes by obeying the Law. But that doesn't mean that he wasn't incredibly influential or important in his own time, and suggesting that he was is not an insult to Moses.

You say "As for Paul--I think he had some serious issues with Jews as a particular people, lol. That's why he reacted so strongly to what's sometimes called the 'ritual' aspects of Judasim: circumcision, kashrut, Shabbat observance." This is an example of where Paul may be parting with some of the other Pharisees (though clearly not all of them, or even a majority of them) in determining the proper obedience of Torah.

You say "I agree with Daniel Boyarin, a Talmudic scholar and author of Paul: A Radical Jew. Paul envisioned a oneness for all humanity--and some part of him seems offended by the notion of the Jews as a separate and distinct people (although he couldn't quite rid himself of that notion.)" I think that Boyarin is violating Ockham's Razor and engaging in bad historical criticism here: attributing Paul's particular opposition against Jewish distinction to a pesonality trait is impossible to confirm or deny; but I suggest that Paul opposed notions of Jewish distinction because, for many, that notion had become exaggerated into a claim of Jewish privilege, manifesting itself as exemption from the Law.

You say "But I don't think you should start your thesis by saying to yourself, "What was wrong and ugly about Judaism that Paul felt he had to correct? What was lacking in Judaism that Paul had to provide?"" Why not approach interpretation of all the Hebrew prophets with this same defensiveness? What mistakes had God made in the past, that made Hosea so darn important?

Eschatology in Palestine during the time of the Second Temple was based on the idea that God's judgment, His recreation, His reassertion of power and control, would manifest itself in rescuing Israel by destroying the oppressive and sinful nations; Paul suggests, like a good Jewish prophet, that God's judgment will include their own destruction as well. The prophet Habakkuk himself said to Israel "Why do you look forward to the Day of Judgement? It will be your undoing!" Paul is saying the same thing, in part because his use of Scripture indicates that he was using Habakkuk in particular to help him understand Israel's current situation.

If you approach Paul, or Jesus, by asking yourself what THEY THOUGHT was wrong with Judaism, that they needed to replace it with Christianity, then you are accepting all of the assumptions you despise. Ask yourself, rather, whether or not Paul and Jesus have contributed, not even to an evolution of Judaism, but to keeping it orthodox. Christianity, as we imagine it today, doesn't really have anything whatsoever to do with this conversation.

In the end, one of the best reasons for believing that it was a common error of laymen in Israel to find confidence in their identity as Jews is that Hebrew Scripture, New Testament Scripture, and thousands of years of history in nearly every religion and denomination of religion that has ever touched this earth indicates that it is common for people to grow lax in their obedience to principles or virtue and take refuge in their status as an individual or as a group: certainly I think it is fair to say that the majority of Christians in America place more emphasis on their identity as Christians (where they go on Sunday, how they self-identify, what they believe in, who they surround themselves with) then on their actual actions (taking care of the poor, the hungry). Is this not a common human error? Are we to ignore evidence of this sort of habitual thinking throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and imagine that Israel was immune from this error? If Paul seems himself to suggest that, at least in his mind, this error was indeed prevalent in his time just as it is in ours, are we to paint him as a zealot and an exaggerator?

Adam
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Postby JRosemary » August 21st, 2008, 3:46 am

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Postby JRosemary » August 21st, 2008, 4:03 am

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Postby Adam » August 21st, 2008, 4:36 am

"Love is the only art that poorly imitates nature."
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Postby Adam » August 21st, 2008, 4:47 am

"Love is the only art that poorly imitates nature."
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Postby JRosemary » August 21st, 2008, 5:56 am

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Postby JRosemary » August 21st, 2008, 6:07 am

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