Position · 1977

New Perspective on Paul

A reading of Paul which holds that first-century Judaism was not a religion of earning salvation by works, and that Paul’s teaching on justification mainly concerns how Jews and Gentiles belong together in God’s covenant people.

E.P. Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977) argued that Judaism taught “covenantal nomism”: people enter the covenant by grace and keep their place by obedience. James Dunn coined the name in 1982, and N.T. Wright became its best-known evangelical voice. Its writers differ among themselves. Holders say it frees Paul from being read through Martin Luther’s struggles. Critics, often in Lutheran and Reformed circles, argue that it weakens the doctrine of imputed righteousness.