You’ve heard about “the New Perspective on Paul” long enough now to know it’s no longer new, but you will also know, then, that it hasn’t gone away. Just what is the debate all about? And why is it important?
Hi, I’m Fred Zaspel, executive editor here at Books At a Glance, and this is what we’re talking about today with Dr. Robert Cara, author of the important new book, Cracking the Foundation: The New Perspective on Paul.
Bob, congratulations on your new book, and thanks for talking to us about it today.
Cara:
You’re welcome very much, and I look forward to our enjoyable conversation.
Zaspel:
Alright, first, help us get this issue in focus. Just what is the New Perspective on Paul? How is this related to a new perspective on Second Temple Judaism, which you call the “foundation” of the New Perspective on Paul? And what are the central questions at issue?
Cara:
Well, that’s a big question, but I’ll give it a shot. The way I like to explain the New Perspective is to say that there’s actually two new perspectives. There’s a new perspective on Judaism that certain scholars have come up with. And then based on the new perspective on Judaism, they then change the traditional view of Paul to a new perspective on Paul. So, back to the first new perspective, what is their new perspective on Judaism? Their new perspective on Judaism is that no one in the first century was works righteousness oriented. Judaism was not works righteousness oriented. That’s their new perspective on Judaism. They then say, “oh, how does that affect Paul?” If Paul was not arguing against works righteousness, therefore, he must have been having some other view, because the traditional Protestant view says that Paul is arguing against works righteousness.
What do New Perspective people believe? Okay, so about Judaism – no one was works righteousness oriented. What about Paul? What is his view? If it’s not the traditional view, what is it? Well, works righteousness they redefine as simply what they call Sabbath, circumcision and food laws, the boundary markers of Judaism or national righteousness. It’s just being Jewish. So all Paul was saying when he said, “don’t be works of the law, don’t be works oriented,” all he was saying is don’t follow Sabbath, circumcision and food laws. It was not a salvation or soteriological statement, it was simply – to be a Christian, you don’t have to do Sabbath, circumcision and food laws.
So if that’s their view of works righteousness, what was justification? Well, justification is not the traditional view, it’s just simply a statement that you are part of the community (and they’ll call it ecclesiastical) you’re part of the community of Christians if you have faith in Jesus and you don’t have to do Sabbath, circumcision and food laws. They call that “initial justification.” But then they also have “final justification.” Final justification includes (and that’s at the end, as you go to heaven) it includes both faith, but also some level of works. Now they would say the works were given to you where you did them in the ability through the Holy Spirit, but still, they connect, at least partially, works to justification. And that’s the big problem.
To make this a little clearer, how is that as opposed to the traditional view? Well, the traditional Protestant view says works righteousness are works done in order to merit heaven. And Paul is against that. And then, as opposed to that is justification. So justification in the traditional Protestant view is the opposite of works. So justification are not your works, they are the works of Christ, they are given to you by grace. And then the instrument by which you grab onto Christ and his works, is faith.
Zaspel:
Let’s chase that just a little further – give us the 90-second version of the traditional Reformed view of justification.
Cara:
Justification is God declaring that you are just or righteous or perfect, based, not on your works, but based on someone else’s works, the works of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that’s ultimately by grace and you grab onto Christ through faith. Justification is a declaration, a legal declaration by God, and when you first believe in Christ, he declares that. Now, the logic is, “well, I thought normally when you use justification in regular English, justification is like something, some works you do that prove a point. Well, why isn’t it at the end of your life that you are justified? We normally use the word justification that way – I predict the Yankees will win the World Series, and at the end they win. Okay, those works by the Yankees proved my point.” Well, in the logic of the Bible’s justification, the reason we don’t have to wait until the end to see if we are justified is because we’re not justified on our works, were justified based on someone else’s works, Christ’s works. So that’s why, in the middle of our life, when we first believe, we can be justified and then we are assured of that declaration through the rest of our life in a grand and glorious way.
Zaspel:
On page 19 of your book you relate a conversation with Alistair Begg that I think well summarizes a frustration many have felt. And it also takes us to the focus of your book. Tell us about that.
Cara:
Okay, it just happened to be that Alastair Begg was at my seminary, speaking at an academic conference and we had lunch together. He knew I was writing a book on the New Perspective and he said the following to me, he sort of lamented to me: “many evangelical pastors do not know how to respond when someone who is in favor of New Perspective makes an argument from Second Temple Judaism. The pastors hardly know Second Temple Judaism documents and the tenuous arguments from them. Then once this person you’re talking to makes a claim about Second Temple Judaism, the evangelical pastor doesn’t know how to respond, and the conversation simply stops. To say it another way, the first of the two perspectives of New Perspective is the perspective about Judaism, that it’s not works righteousness oriented. Dr. Begg was lamenting that his buddy pastors did not know how to deal with that first part of the New Perspective’s perspective.
Zaspel:
And you are writing to fulfill that need then?
Cara:
Right. The major point of my book is to fill that gap. I think of it as the main argument for the correct Protestant view of justification. The correct biblical view is the whole argument of the Bible. And, primarily Paul, but the whole argument of the Bible. Arguments from outside of the Bible, I just consider secondary arguments. But, since many people have done good books on the primary argument, but there haven’t been as many books on the secondary arguments. So, my idea was: I’m going to talk a lot about Second Temple Judaism, and in my mind are pastors and very interested people who I know don’t know all these books. So as part of my book, I have a large appendix to get you up to speed on the various questions – What’s rabbinic literature? What’s Dead Sea Scrolls? What’s pseudepigrapha literature? – and show the arguments that New Perspective people make about Second Temple Judaism and show how tenuous those arguments are.
Zaspel:
So then what do we learn about all this from Jewish literature of the time? What was the Jewish understanding? Was Second Temple Judaism grace oriented? Works oriented? Or is it more complicated?
Cara:
Yes, it’s more complicated than that, and I know you’re being facetious. I might say, there are many, many, many documents that show works righteousness in Second Temple Judaism. And I bring them out in the book; I explain these documents; I have quotes from them so you can read the quotes for yourself. I might say, overall, Second Temple Judaism documents have ones that are grace oriented, as we would expect from the Old Testament. They have some that, if I can use a technical term, are semi-Pelagian – a combination of grace and works, and then some that are more straight Pelagian – straight works oriented. All types are in Second Temple Judaism, but one of the arguments of New Perspective people – that there are, with rare exception, no works righteousness documents. So, once you show that there’s a bunch of works righteousness documents, their argument then falters.
Zaspel:
And you can find those, as well?
Cara:
Correct. There’s many works righteousness documents in the Second Temple Judaism. Now, another angle to my book… A big part of it is the Jewish background, but another angle is looking at three Paul texts that traditionally are rarely discussed in arguments about New Perspective. Those three Paul texts are, Ephesians chapter 2, Titus chapter 3, and 2 Timothy chapter 1. And then you may say, “why would those texts be ignored in New Perspective arguments?” Well, most liberal scholars don’t think Paul wrote those texts, so, therefore, they don’t tend to talk about them. They say that’s not the real Paul, that’s, as they call it, Deutero-Paul. Now, it’s not my view, that their view, these are Deutero-Paul texts. Interestingly, some very famous New Perspective people, like Dunn for instance, say that these texts do show that Paul is arguing against works righteousness, but it’s not the real Paul – it’s a disciple of Paul.
My rebuttal to that is: Well, Mr. Dunn, are you not at least admitting that somebody was arguing against works righteousness? So your whole argument, that works righteousness didn’t exist in Second Temple Judaism, is broken there. In addition, are you saying that the gentleman who wrote Deutero-Paul, you can tell the distinction between his slight adjustment of Paul’s argument to himself? You are 2000 years later, and you’re noticing this thing, as opposed to just assuming that he has the same argument – even if it is Deutero-Paul, which I don’t accept, wouldn’t it make more sense just to say he has the same view of Paul? So if he’s arguing against works righteousness, then why isn’t the real Paul arguing against works righteousness?
And finally, if you are an evangelical, I’m hoping you believe that Ephesians, Titus and 2 Timothy were actually written by Paul. So therefore, from an evangelical perspective, you would have to believe that it’s the same Paul writing both in Romans, Galatians, and Philippians 3, and then also in these three other texts, Ephesians, Titus and 2 Timothy.
Zaspel:
I’ve often wondered if some advocates of the New Perspective on Paul at this point may be a bit guilty of a kind of historical naivete. I mean, of course Rabbis in that period spoke of grace – grace permeated their Bible. How could they not speak of grace? But grace permeated the Bible of medieval Roman Catholicism too, and they all talked about grace and would have been appalled at the suggestion that they did not believe in grace. Still, I think most of us would agree that their doctrine of salvation amounted in fact to a denial of grace. Is that a fair parallel to the way some read the documents from the second temple period?
Cara:
Very good point, Fred. You’re well-informed. Interestingly, many New Perspective people said, “what did the Reformation do?” The Reformation looked at Roman Catholicism and arguments about merit, and then wrongly applied that to rabbis in Second Temple Judaism and to the people that Paul was arguing against. Their naïveté, by the New Perspective people, is that they assumed that there was no category of semi-Pelagianism. From a Protestant perspective, we would say Roman Catholic, maybe at its worst, was straight works oriented, or Pelagian, but at its best it was semi-Pelagian. As you said, they say the word grace all over the place. So, therefore, when we’re looking at Second Temple Judaism documents, we’re not simply looking for pure works documents (and there are some), but we’re also looking at semi-Pelagian documents, of which there are many also. So there is a true parallel to what was happening in Roman Catholicism during the Reformation time. It had both – official semi-Pelagian, and unofficial Pelagian. And the same thing is happening in Second Temple Judaism. I may also say that the Bible itself, when you understand the covenant of works with Adam, the Bible itself has the category of – in theory for Adam, if he was perfect, he would go to heaven, but due to sin he couldn’t get there. So that theoretical justice of the universe – if you’re perfect – does exist in the Bible, but no one can do it due to sin.
Zaspel:
It’s long struck me in that way. I think any Christian who has tried to give a witness for the gospel has witnessed to, at some time or another, to a Christianesque-type of person who claims to believe in grace, of course, but at the same time they believe that they are going to make it by their works. So just because they speak of grace, it would be naïve to think it’s a pure doctrine of salvation by grace.
Cara:
Yes. In fact, the leading scholar on the Judaism part of the argument for New Perspective is a gentleman by the last name of Sanders. The way he defines the Jewish salvation system uses the words, “you get in by grace, and then you stay in by doing works of the law.” Just the way he’s saying it, from a Protestant perspective, already sounds semi-Pelagian, but he just doesn’t have the reformed categories to see that. He thinks if you get in by grace, then the whole system is a system of grace.
Zaspel:
Just to make sure we get it, crystalize for us just what is at stake in this debate. How does all this bear on the gospel?
Cara:
The gospel is a large thing in the Bible, but it also has a core. At the core of the gospel is the person and work of Christ and what he has done for us, including justification. If you get justification goofed up, or sort of wrong, then that’s going to affect your sanctification; that’s going to affect assurance, and a bunch of other issues. This New Perspective argument about Judaism being non-works righteousness oriented, gets them to a confused view of justification – a view that includes, at least partially, works. So that’s the danger. The gospel becomes unclear because of their view of justification.
Another angle to their view is that justification just isn’t that important. That’s another problem for them.
Another angle to this is that since they don’t see Paul arguing against works righteousness, as a minister would be preaching through Romans, one of the standard sins that a traditional Protestant would see would be that we are works righteousness oriented. The non-Christian (and he needs to repent of that sin and turn to Christ), and even Christians with the remaining sin in us, have tendencies towards works righteousness. But if Paul is not arguing against that, then the minister wouldn’t be preaching against that. And if you’re not preaching against that, that’s another core issue of the gospel we need to care about. All that, to say justification is very, very important and any doctrine that’s making that improper, or goofing it up so to speak, is a problem.
Zaspel:
So Luther’s emphasis that the gospel is outside of us in the sense that it’s something that Christ did for us and therefore received of grace – the more we get into the New Perspective, the more we lose that.
Cara:
A hundred percent correct, yes.
Zaspel:
Tell us how you go about in your book to examine and answer this question. What is the contribution you hope to make?
Cara:
Again, because there’s many good traditional Protestant Reformed books that deal with Paul, I don’t deal as much with Paul, I deal with the background issue of Second Temple Judaism. One of the main goals of my book is to show people who know a lot about the Bible, but don’t know that much about Second Temple Judaism, just have you read the documents, I quote them for you, and show you, “see, there’s works righteousness.” That’s a big part of the book. I deal primarily with the scholar named Sanders, as he’s the superstar on that issue about no works righteousness in Second Temple Judaism. Another angle of the book happens to be those three verses that liberal scholars call Deutero-Paul verses in Ephesians, Titus, and 2 Timothy. That’s a secondary argument.
I don’t see my book as providing the ultimate argument for the correct view of justification – it’s providing secondary arguments underneath that, to aid us in interacting with New Perspective people.
Zaspel:
We’re talking to Dr. Robert Cara, author of the new book, Cracking the Foundation: The New Perspective on Paul. There are scarcely any questions more important for us than those that bear on issues central to the gospel. The NPP has challenged the historic Protestant understanding on Jewish grounds, and Robert Cara’s new book is sure to earn an important place in that debate. It’s a pleasure to commend it.
Bob, thanks so much – for your good work and for talking to us today.
Cara:
You’re welcome, Fred. I enjoyed talking to you, too.