Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The Lutheran Paul and His Critics

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 488 pages
• Published by: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company November 2003
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0802848095
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0802848093
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Weighs: 1.6 pounds

Reader Reviews
What can I say? Westerholm's "Israel's Law and the Church's Faith" was a classic introduction to recent Pauline debates. "Perspectives Old and New on Paul" began as a revision, and turned into an opus double the size. Beginning with overviews of historical figures who taught the so-called "Lutheran" Paul (Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley), which place justification within the context of their broader theologies, this work is a welcome, clear-headed contribution to the discussion of justification in Paul. Westerholm offers some insightful consideration of numerous Pauline texts, as well as helpful correctives on numerous points regarding the NPP. As with others, Westerholm leaves gaping holes and large questions, however. Although he is relatively evenhanded, one might suppose from reading Westerholm that certain NPP advocates were in fact a great deal more radical revisionists than is actually the case. Furthermore, Westerholm does not attempt to integrate entire classes of texts into his view of Paul, and his handling of righteousness (or in his words, "dikaiosness") comes across as rather too simplistic. On the former point, for example, Westerholm claims that Paul's problem with the law is that is makes demands to "do," but does not seriously attempt to relate this position to Pauline texts which (like Leviticus 18.5, which Paul juxtaposes to his own gospel) correlate the promise of "life" and "doing" in the Christian life (e.g. Galatians 6.8-9). With regard to the latter, Westerholm attempts to boil everything down to "ordinary" righteousness (with regard to which all without exception have failed) and "extraordinary" righteousness (i.e. the unique righteousness given as a gift to faith, based upon the work of Jesus Christ). The difficulty with this is that it sets Paul at odds against the Old Testament (which has three kinds of righteousness, including that which refers to general faithfulness apart from perfection) and against himself (Paul seems to assume this third category himself in numerous contexts). But what can we expect, after all? We have yet to see a book that integrates all of these matters in a wholly satisfactory fashion. This remains an important, and indeed indispensable, contribution to the debates in Pauline studies. Comment | | (Report this)