Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's Response in Romans 1-5

Trinity Journal, Fall 2004 by Moo, Douglas

Simon J. Gathercole. Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's Response in Romans 1-5. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. xii 311 pp. $32.00.

Simon Gathercole's revised Durham dissertation is a very useful addition to the growing collection of studies raising questions about the final adequacy of the "New Perspective." This approach to Paul's theology, which revises the dominant Reformation paradigm as it impinges especially on Paul's relationship with Judaism, gained widespread acceptance in the last decades of the twentieth century. Stimulated by E. P. Sanders's influential reappraisal of Palestinian Judaism (Paul and Palestinian Judaism [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977]), the New Perspective was given its name in a seminal 1983 article by James Dunn ("The New Perspective on Paul," BJRL 65: 95-122). He and N. T. Wright in their many writings have been the most influential advocates of the New Perspective; and it is thus both ironic and commendable that Dunn was himself Gathercole's mentor at Durham.

Central to the New Perspective is a shift away from the Reformation focus on anthropology to a focus on ethnicity. Paul's attack on the law, so it is argued, arose not from a concern that human beings were falsely thinking that their obedience to the law might merit salvation but from Jewish attempts to use their possession of the law (and the covenant it represents) as a means of guarding their privileged identity as God's covenant people and thus of excluding Gentiles from "the blessing of Abraham." It is Jewish pride in possession of the law, not their confidence about their performance of the law, that stimulates Paul's polemic. And it is just at this point that Gathercole has chosen to enter into the debate over the New Perspective.

The "boasting" that Paul criticizes in Rom 2:17, 23; 3:27; and 4:2 (cf. 5:2, 3, 11) has traditionally been understood as an inappropriate boasting in performance of the law, or of works in general. While manifested in Paul's context particularly by Jews, "boasting" is essentially a human problem, a manifestation of sinful human hubris. The New Perspective, true to its general direction, has generally understood this boasting rather to be inappropriate Jewish pride in exclusive possession of the law and covenant privileges. Without suggesting a wholesale return to the earlier paradigm (which, to be sure, we have generalized), Gathercole argues essentially that the New Perspective interpretation of "boasting" in Romans 1-5, when set in the context of Jewish soteriology, is itself, in turn, an oversimplification. Gathercole makes his case in two basic stages, first providing a fresh analysis of Jewish soteriology as a vital context for Paul's polemic and then carefully studying the "boasting" texts of Romans 1-5 in this context and in the context of the overall argument of these chapters.

The considerable attention Gathercole gives to Jewish soteriology (over half the book) is needed to establish his case. For the popularity of the New Perspective has been due in large measure to the "fit" it creates between the new view of Judaism and Paul. And this is certainly the case with respect to the "boasting" passages in Romans 1-5. New Perspective advocates, following Sanders's lead, interpret Jewish soteriology in terms of the by now famous "getting in"/"staying in" distinction. Jews "get in" the covenant by God's gracious covenant election; they "stay in" by remaining faithful to that covenant as expressed in maintaining, to the best of their ability, the stipulations of the covenant found in torah. Since Jews therefore attributed their standing in the covenant to God's elective grace, displayed initially in their nation's historical creation and manifested continually in their possession of torah, little room for any pride in accomplishment, for doing the law, is left. Gathercole, however, argues that, while this portrait of Jewish soteriology is not wrong, it is incomplete. Insufficient attention has been paid, he argues, to the issue of "getting into the world to come" (e.g., pp. 23-24). He surveys the relevant Jewish writings-Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, rabbinic writings, inferences from the NT itself-and concludes that a regular (though not of course universal) emphasis is found on the need to obey torah in order to attain eternal life. God's elective grace is often strongly emphasized in these documents (and New Perspective advocates are right to point them out), but alongside this emphasis and often incompletely integrated with it is a focus on the need for works in order to inherit eschatological blessing. "God is portrayed as saving his people at the eschaton on the basis of their obedience, as well as on the basis of his election of them" (p. 90, summarizing his interpretation of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha); "Final judgment on the basis of works permeates Jewish theology" (p. 111). With respect to "boasting" in particular, Gathercole rightly dismisses the view, popular in some Christian portrayals of Judaism, that Jews felt considerable insecurity about their future vindication. On the other hand, he also criticizes New Perspective advocates for failing to recognize the fact that works were often seen as a basis for pride.