Serious Problems in the 'New Perspective on Paul'...
It all started in 1977 with the publication of E.P. Sanders' Paul and Palestinian Judaism.
The book came from a background of a widespread perceived need to rehabilitate the Jewish people following the great evil of the Holocaust. Soul searchings could be found almost everywhere: had not Christians themselves occasionally been anti-semitic? Was not even Martin Luther scathing in some of his comments about the Jewish people? Was the New Testament itself not anti-semitic in places? This last assertion, of course, was plainly ludicrous but we speak of a climate in which many intellectuals were busily at work in improving the curriculum vitae of the Jewish people and nation.
Theologically, the movement was rooted in theological liberalism and Sanders' book soon garnered predictable support from many men who did not believe the Bible to be divinely inspired and believed that it should be given consideration simply as a philosophical set of propositions, most of which could be rejected with impunity by sophisticates who now knew better.
Sanders, and others who would follow, claimed several things (which we must attempt to 'pin down' later), but were especially critical of the belief that the religious Jews of the New Testament period were legalistic. Sanders' only partly blamed the New Testament itself for this, the real problem, he believed, was caused by its interpreters of the Protestant Reformation, but probably especially Martin Luther. Sanders' wrote,
"Our analysis of Rabbinic and other Palestinian Jewish literature did not reveal the kind of religion best characterized as legalistic works-righteousness. But more important for the present point is the observation that in any case that charge is not the heart of Paul's critique..." (p 550).
Who Are The Main Protagonists?
The'NPP' or 'new perspective' teaching has now spread quite widely and is even now upheld in all the usual liberal seminaries, but the three main NPP men are E.P. Sanders (who wrote the original 1977 book), James Dunn, and N.T. Wright, and it is the latter who is now seen as the real 'heavyweight' of the movement. Actually for a long time Wright, who is a British Anglican bishop, was critical of many of the 'NPP' arguments but now appears to have staunchly joined the party. Bishop Wright has previously been seen as firmly evangelical on many points of the Christian Faith but his support for the NPP movement is now causing many to call his 'evangelicalism' into serious question, certainly his attack on Protestantism's traditional view of Justification by Faith Alone has been little short of scathing and it appears to have opened a door for closer Anglican/Roman Catholic understanding. In fact an 'ecumenical spirit' is strong within the 'New Perspective' and many would claim that - at base and root - the movement was only ever motivated by post-holocaust sensibilites, coupled with a desire for closer Anglican - Roman Catholic understanding.
Read the rest of this essential article here.
Robin A. Brace, April 1st, 2008.
UK Apologetics
Museltof Countercult and Apologetics
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So
our main work is now on these sites:
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Apologetics (www.museltof.org.uk/)
We are happy to say that from Autumn 2006 this site is no longer on OurChurch.com web space but on our own puchased web space - this frees this site from the sometimes dreadful "Christian ads" which marred its pages at times.
In the end, it just was not acceptable that a site warning of cults sometimes carried ads purchased by such cults!!
However, we remain grateful to OurChurch.com for giving us a great start.
UK
Apologetics.Net(www.ukapologetics.net/)
A new site which we started developing from March, 2005. We have
purchased this site space and this is now our main
site. Even by April, 2006 this huge site contains almost 500
articles! It has also become the top Apologetics resource in
Europe in view of both its size and its huge number of
'hits.'
Witness
to the Word (www.ukapologetics.net/witnessindex.htm) .
'Witness to the Word' is now included under our 'UK Apologetics'
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homepage also finds articles on this site.
Your Brother in Christ,
Robin A. Brace
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