New Perspective on Paul

The new perspective on Paul represents a significant shift in the way some scholars, especially Protestant scholars, interpret the writings of the Apostle Paul.

Paul, especially in his Epistle to the Romans, advocates justification through faith in Jesus Christ over justification through works of the Law. In the historic Lutheran and Reformed perspective, known as sola fide, theologians understood Paul as arguing that Christians' good works would not factor into their salvation - only their faith would count. But according to the "new" perspective, Paul was questioning only observances such as circumcision, dietary laws, and Sabbath laws (these were the 'boundary markers that set the Jews apart from the other nations), not good works in general. This grew from the work of Ed Parish Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, published in 1977. Sanders saw the Jews of Pauline times not as a "legalistic" community, nor as "works-salvation" oriented. For Sanders, the Jews felt they were saved as they were God's chosen people. By being God's chosen people they were under His covenant. The Jews kept the Law to remain under the covenant - the Law was not a way of entering the covenant but of staying in the covenant.

Since the Protestant Reformation (c. 1517), studies of Paul’s writings have been heavily influenced by Lutheran and Reformed views that are said to have been ascribed to the negative attributes that they associated with sixteenth-century Roman Catholicism to Second Temple Judaism. These Lutheran and Reformed views on Paul's Writings are called the "old" perspective by adherents of the "new" perspective on Paul. The "new" perspective is an attempt to lift Paul's letters out of the Lutheran-Reformed framework and interpret them based on what is said to be an understanding of first-century Judaism, taken on its own terms.

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