Friday Review: Dunn's 1983 Article, "New Perspective"

In chapter 1 of James D. G. Dunn's compilation volume, The New Perspective on Paul, Dunn chronicles the beginning of his interest in Paul in the "13th grade" (6th form). He tells of his attempt to figure out what "works of law" were, since Paul opposed justification by works of law to justification by faith. The standard view at that time was that such works were an attempt to earn your justification.

Early Puzzlings
A first puzzle for Dunn grew from the increasing recognition at that time that the Reformation understanding of the "the righteousness of God" did not fit with the sense of righteousness in texts with which Paul interacts like the middle portion of Isaiah and the Psalms. Luther, Calvin, and Wesley all took the phrase in relation to a righteousness God ascribes to us. But Isaiah and Psalms treat righteousness as a characteristic of God himself in relation to us.

The still relatively recently discovered Community Rule of Qumran especially drove the point home: "If I stagger because of the sin of my flesh, my justification shall be by the righteousness of God which endures for ever... He will judge me in the righteousness of his truth and in the greatness of his goodness he will pardon all my sins."

This sounds a lot like something Paul would say. But isn't this Dead Sea text Jewish? Isn't it pre-NT? You're telling me that the righteousness of God that Paul presents as a Christian is the same as the Jewish perspective in the Dead Sea Scrolls? Then what is Paul reacting against? If Jews like those at Qumran saw their justification as something that came from God's grace already, then how did he differ from them? What are these "works of law" he suggests other Jewish Christians are relying on for their justification, if they still believe they are justified by the grace of God?

E. P. Sanders
Dunn rightly pinpoints Sanders' contribution as a "new perspective on Second Temple Judaism" in his groundbreaking Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Sanders' argument was of course that Judaism was a religion of grace and not works. Keeping the law was about "staying in" not "getting in." For Dunn, "Critical to Sanders' new perspective on Judaism was the recognition that in this 'pattern of religion' God did not require perfection, but allowed for failure, by providing means of atonement and forgiveness for those who repented of their sin" (6).

The chief reponse to Sanders' view of Judaism is the two volume Justification and Variegated Nomism edited by D. A. Carson, Peter O'Brien, and Mark Seifrid. Another important respondent is Simon Gathercole in Where is Boasting? I have not finished Carson et al yet, but I perceive their basic point is that many Jews did see themselves earning God's favor by their works.

I have a sense is that there is a good deal of circularity in Lutheran and Reformed responses to Sanders, that a certain definition and theological sense of works is assumed as the Jewish texts are approached. They find "justification by works" in the Jewish literature according to their definition, and pronounce Sanders wrong, when Paul neither agrees with their definition nor has a problem with works in relation to (final) justification. Admittedly, this seems in part Sanders' fault for overplaying his own hand.

We will see Dunn's response to these voices soon enough.

"The New Perspective on Paul," Manson Memorial Lecture, November 4, 1982
a. Dunn's rejection of Sanders' version of Paul
Dunn did not coin the phrase "new perspective," but he certainly popularized it. This lecture, which later appeared as an article and then was printed in Jesus, Paul, and the Law, marks a new era in Pauline scholarship on justification by faith.

Sanders had rightly corrected a vastly myopic view of Judaism--and I might add that despite the correction of Carson and friends, they have adopted a good deal of Sanders' claims. They would not advance the same arguments we find in the Romans commentaries of the 50's and 60's.

Dunn also mentions with approval what is for me the starting point for truly understanding Paul: Krister Stendahl's groundbreaking 1963 article, "Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West." This article is the place to begin the path out of anachronistic Reformation readings to a more authentic one. You can find it in Stendahl's later collection, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles.

But if Sanders' understanding of Judaism was revolutionary, Dunn found what he then did with Paul less satisfying. Sanders basically saw Paul arguing from the solution he knew in Christ to the problem. For Sanders, Paul knew that faith in Christ had to be the solution to the human problem. Now all he had to figure out was why the Jewish system of being declared righteous didn't work. If his argument sometimes seems almost inconsistent and paradoxical, so Sanders thought, it's because Paul was not moving from his argument to a conclusion. He was trying to work back from a conclusion to an argument.

Dunn did not find this line of thought convincing. He saw Sanders expressing Judaism more accurately than ever and then still misrepresenting Paul. Sanders had correctly identified "covenantal nomism" as the operating principle of Judaism, the idea that God graciously made Israel His people and then expected then to keep the law in response. But Dunn believed Sanders was wrong to see Paul "arbitrarily" dumping this system for a path to righteousness based on faith.

b. Galatians 2:16--Paul's view of righteousness and justification by faith, common to Judaism
Dunn uses a detailed look at Galatians 2:16 to push back at Sanders' understanding of Paul. Dunn notes that Paul starts with ground he shares in common with Peter. We Jews know that a person is not justified by works of law. Dunn sees Paul here making "a deliberate appeal to the standard Jewish belief, shared also by his fellow Jewish Christians" (107). Jews do not believe that they are justified by works of law.

Further, Dunn disagrees with Sanders' claim that justification is thus "transfer terminology." Justification is rather "God's acknowledgement that someone is in the covenant--whether that is an initial acknowledgement, or a repeated action of God (God's saving acts), or his final vindication of his people" (107). For some reason I didn't notice this statement before. It anticipates N. T. Wright's understanding of justification, although Wright focuses on final justification.

Dunn then argues that "Paul is wholly at one with his fellow Jews in asserting that justification is by faith" (108). The issues is the exact content of that faith.

c. Galatians 2:16--"works of law" focuses on particular observances of the law like circumcision and the food laws. They are not good works in general. Rather Jews were boasting in their "national righteousness," to use a phrase Wright coined in his dissertation.

d. Dunn sees in this verse the very development of Paul's thought in progress. Peter and others view faith in Christ as complementary to works of law (of course Richard Hays would say faithfulness of Christ). Paul argues that it is entirely faith in Christ that justifies.

In this section he makes some important distinctions that I think tend to undermine the criticisms of Carson et al: 1) faith for Paul is not totally passive because it fears to become a work (115), 2) the distinction between faith and works is not a contrast between faith and ritual. It is faith versus a racial boasting as Israel, faith versus nationalism rather than faith versus activism.

Dunn has clarified his position on works of law in recent days. But that will have to wait for other Fridays.