What is The New Perspective on Paul 

Dude, your knowledge of liberal Christian thought is super helpful for getting the whole conversation out. Thanks!

4 yrs had gone by, and your explanation remains clear and helpful to me. Thank you.

Excellent explanation. Very helpful indeed.

I've been in class for 5 weeks now trying to wrap my head around all these terms and ideas my teacher has been throwing around. I learnt more in 15 minutes then I have in hours and hundreds of dollars of schooling. Thank-you.

Thanks for your explanation!

Thanks for explaining it so clearly.

Good job!

This makes more sense than anything else I’ve heard so far thank you

impressed by this succinct yet complete introduction to NPP as most are so difficult to crack. and that despite fundamental differences in my faith and conclusions to yours. thanks!

Thanks for a clear explanation.

Truly a great summation of justification and simplifies my efforts in understanding the discord between N.T. Wright and John Piper about this doctrine.

tanks for the clear explanation - and for the "Tubingen School" - this is very interesting ...

Thanks for this.

Great explanation

Dude, thank you brotha. This was great!

So good!

Thank you for sharing. I got saved

Awesome man!

I love how graceful, thoughtful and kind y'all are in your replies to folks. Kudos!

I second all these comments! You did do a great job explaining this. Text critical conjecturing aside, i.e., taking the text at face value, Paul is very clear concerning the stumbling block for non-believing Israelites: shame and scandal. See Rom 1:16; 9:32-33. So yes to the unfortunately named “New Perspective!”

Love that you held that yawn together @12:52 haha

For 15 minutes, I'm impressed.

Well done!

I like this perspective on Paul's writing. I do in fact believe that reconciliation is the high point of his gospel but I'm wondering how to interpret Romans 3:20. Any insight would be greatly appreciated

You just saved me from reading a whole book, good job

The problem with Ehrman's interpretation of the New Testament is that he completely ignores the dynamic of the inspiration of God, and the power of Paul's transformed life.

This seems like an interesting church! I disagree quite strongly with many of the more liberal Christian influences, but you all still hold on to the historical creeds. You're also very smart! Thank you for your politeness in this space that tends to have lots of strong emotions

I really liked this synopsis. Thank you for taking the time to work through it! Seeing Peter accept Paul's rebuke is important. Especially since Paul brings a lot of baggage from his former persona as Saul of Tarsus and had so much work to do just to get the other Apostles to believe he wasn't going to have them beaten or killed. Its a beautiful progression of movement from distrust to admiration of Paul, particularly by Peter. These men are of such completely different backgrounds within Judaism and are both equally and remarkably changed by their encounters with the risen Christ. Their conflict is settled quite nicely without having to worry that it has been smoothed over to get an artificial harmony in the New Testament. The new perspective on Paul is a "not so new" attempt to discount the Gospel message.

I agree that Christianity has been burdened by the respective burdens of the personal moral guilt of Augustine, Luther, my own mentors and celebrity preachers of justification by faith; it is true also of myself. Their experience of personal guilt seems to have forced and formed the parameters of their hermeneutics and the expectations and experiences of their followers. The elevation of personal morality to such lofty status as eternal decisiveness before God - despite the cosmic dimensions of the cross - has been anything but liberating! “For freedom Christ has set you free…” The shift in interpretation from “my faith” to “his (covenant) faithfulness” is good but there are many signs in the “new perspective(s) on Paul” that indicate it’s not always the New covenant that drives the discussion but the old lineage. Whether our portrayal of the (extent of) the love of God is hamstrung by the emphasis on forgiveness regarding our personal shame or the ethnic framework of Paul’s particular apologetic, hamstrung it appears to remain .

Does anyone still hold to the 1st school of thought

Do you have any videos on speaking in tongues?

Thank you. I also find that it is helpful to also see the first centuary as a transition time. The old covernant was been brought to its propper conclusion and the church was movin into the next age. Hebrews points to this about the letter(Moses Covernant) waxing old and will soon pass away. So I see that those "Born under the Law" ..Jewish believers had an obligations to the law while it was still in affect. This changed when the temple and city were destroyed in the "Day of Judgment". From then on all believers wether they be Jew or Gentile are only counted under the new covernant. We see some hints in the book of acts, the gentiles are not asked to keep the law while paul himself at the end of his time in Jerusalem shaves his head and makes sacrifises according the the Law and in his defense before the Jews he can with a clear concience declare that he did not in any way break the law as he was accused of. This is also the conclusion of what Daniel was given regarding his people and the future. He was also given that the end of God's particular dealings with the Jews would be the destruction of the City.

I know I'm late to the party, but is The New Perspective really about approaching Paul through his Jewish identity, or about approaching Paul through his Jewish identity as defined by E.P. Sanders? Can we truly say that his perspective that there is no tension between faith and works in traditional Jewish thought is true? Doesn't the existence of the Sadducee's and Pharisee's militate against such a view, not to mention Paul's acknowledgement of such a tension in places like Romans 7, for example?

So is New Perspective Heretical? and why/why not?

Jewish leaders believed they were saved because they were God’s chosen people in covenant with him, but they had also layered man-made traditions on the Tanakh and believed that works synergized what had started at their infant circumcision initiation. This is similar to how Catholic leaders believe themselves to lead God’s chosen congregation in covenant with him, and they’ve layered man-made traditions on the Bible and believe that works synergize what started at their infant baptism initiation. Jesus brought reformation to such false teachings and fulfilled his covenant promise by offering his own life’s blood as a sin sacrifice to bring peace with God for those who believe, then Paul explained that salvation is not by membership (circumcision) or works but faith in Jesus (Romans 3-4). Likewise, reformers overturned parallel Catholic false teachings about salvation being tied to membership and works, restoring the truth that salvation is by grace alone thru faith alone in the blood of Jesus Christ.

Not sure your attempt to smoothe off the sharp corners is all that real, though I understand the desire to 'downplay' some pretty major new tangents that Paul drives into very early Christianity. James Tabor in "Paul and Jesus" really gets it closer to home, in my personal view.

The marker of "faith in Jesus" is not merely a subjective experience, St. Paul clearly holds this together with the death and resurrection of Jesus via baptism in which the believer participates with Christ in his/her own death and incorporation into Christ. Thus Christian baptism replaces physical circumcision becoming the "circumcision of the whole flesh" for both Jews and Gentiles. Baptism then is the new outward marker of inclusion. Secondly, I think the message of Luke/Acts is indeed that the Hellenized Jewish Christian understanding of Christ's death and resurrection won out over the Hebraic Jewish Christian view which held to the notion that Gentiles needed to be converted to Judaism to become full followers of Christ.

I think this is a good representation of the NPP but it leaves out a key critical detail: the NPP advocates hold that obedience to God’s law is actually a condition for remaining a member of the covenant. If you become disobedient, you are no longer a member of God’s household. This view of justification by “faith plus obedience” is precisely why so many Protestants consider the NPP to be repugnant and anathema to the Gospel. I would have liked it if you could have honed in on this more.

I can hear the Canadain influence not only in the accent but in the non-binary perspective so refreshing. Speak louder

I’m not hearing the difference. Not your fault. I’ve tried to understand this “New Perspective” from different sources. I don’t think Paul was that hard to understand, but from what I gather, the New Perspective is barking up the wrong tree.

Jesus’ teachings are along side object relation theory splitting memetic desire the scapegoat complex and Freudian concepts also… The parallels are there. God is great 😊

The conflict outlined in the first 3&1/2 minutes is so artificial as to be ridiculous.

Clear as mud! Just in less words than NT Wright. I’m probably too stupid to understand any of this!

Unless you are born again you cannot even see the Kingdom of God. The Pharisees had twisted the Law to make it a works thing. The story of the Pharisee and the tax collector shows this.The tax collector called on God to propitiate him for he knew he was a sinner. The thief on the Cross knew he deserved his punishment and he called on Jesus to remember him. You don’ t just join a club but need to repent as in Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost in the name of Christ be baptised for the forgiveness of sins and receive the Holy Spirit.

Paul did not set the ethnic marker as opposed to faith, he set works opposed to faith (see on Gal 2:16). Paul and Martin Luther were asking the same essential question. How is one commended before God? Faith is the answer. From Gen 15 onward, it has ever been faith as opposed to works. The Jews errored in that they sought the righteousness as if it came by the law and not by faith. They stumbled at that stumbling stone. Rom 9:30f. I have big problems with NPP (once singular but now plural). It belittles substitutionary atonement and throws more emphasis to the Ransom theory but under a different name, Christus Victor. While I love NT Wright, we do not see eye-to-eye here. Also, your Higher-Critical view of the Pauline epistles being smoothed out doesn't show that in the manuscripts, it is only a theory. So my friend, come back to the light side. 😅

The coming of the Messiah doesn't diminish the "chosenness" of the Jewish people. In fact, it affirms it!

New perspective is needed to renew a Jewish understanding of scripture. Trying to apply 16 century questions and philosophy to 1st century Jewish questions and narrative theology it doesn’t quite fit. Thank God for the story of Israel, and Jesus inaugurating the kingdom unto all the Earth. Gentiles now share in the promises of Israel! Just like the Jew, the gentile shares in the forgiveness of sins and the hope for new creation among all things! (Have to stop straw manning Israel to be “works based.” Luther and Calvin were liberal critics and greatly wrong about that)

I would say that God chose the Jews to bring humanity back to The Father, and of course, the redeemer came from Judah.

Satan's voice it is, all the same- Gresham Machen

Jesus did not ( romanize ) the message . Even he was against Romans theology and was crossed by the Romans . So if paul was right to ( romanize ) the faith . That means that Jesus was wrong . I know Jews did wrong by not accepting Jesus but at least they did not mess things very badly as paul and the roman empire did .

Beware of false teachers.

Why do we need to have all these "interpretations"? We gave the clear Holy Spirit written Bible in the Greek language and Strong's Concordance aids us to understand every single word. This higher critism is of the unbelieving devils of Jude 1: 4. That is ok, you can keep your unbelief.

Heresy in 15 minutes. Wow!