The New Perspective On Paul

The issue between the Gospel of Matthew and Judaism is a convoluted one. The picture that emerges when talking about whether Jesus’s teaching is anti-Semitic or not becomes ambivalent and it is not easy to interpret, as Coogan has pointed out, “Matthew functions as a bridge between the two Testaments . . .”(Coogan, 1746). In the context of Jewish-Christian dialogue, the fundamental question is how much of Judaism’s principles and practices ascribed to Jesus are preserved from traditional Judaism? As much as Matthew’s Gospel has been considered to be an extremely anti-Semitic, especially in the Christian realm, there remains substantial evidence indicating how Jesus, as presented by Matthew, had preserved the quintessence of Judaism.

It is determined by the readers and writers’ religious response to the world and by a person's final cultural categories of rhetoric. Apostle Paul’s journey to minister and teach the church, embodied more than one religious response, his primary response was the Reformist view of the world (see Table 1). This assumes that salvation would come from supernaturally given insight to deal with corruption in social organizations and structures (Robbins, 1996). His secondary religious response to the world was Revolutionist (see Table 1). This view declares that a supernatural power has to destroy the natural earth for salvation to come, as believers feel compelled to participate in changing the world in word and in deed (Robbins, 1996). Apostle Paul encouraged the church of Philippi to be humble and work together because others are watching their example. It is clear that his ministry was a religious movement due to his consciousness of the group. In chapter 2 verse 4, the Apostle Paul appeals to keep the harmony and solidarity of the group (Desilva, 2004); explaining that Christ’s example of humility is the solution to selfish motivations and vanity.

The book under review is titled, Reading Romans in Context: Paul and Second Temple Judaism, edited by Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, Jason Maston with a foreword by Francis Watson.

Christianity over the course of history has a vast influence on individuals, society and the way believers conduct themselves. It provides morals, practices and ethics that every Christian attempts to live by. Throughout the many denominations in the Christian church, Paul of Tarsus had a significant influence on the faith. His contribution to the development and expression of Christianity is immense and can be seen to stem from his writing and missionary journeys which have implemented his ideas and interpretations onto the development of Christianity. After Jesus, Paul was arguably the most significant figure in Christianity as his teachings form a significant part of the New Testament. Like may other Pharisees of that time in history, Paul sought to suppress the early Christian movement. He accused early Christians of blaspheming against God and breaking Mosaic Law. However, Paul had a life-changing experience when he had a vision of Jesus, and he spent the remainder of his life as a missionary for the early church. Centuries after his ministry, his teachings still influence Christian theology.

Paul addresses several issues that can been seen in today’s society. Taking from the scriptures we can see that Paul’s understanding of God’s plan for his people is very clear. If we look at how our own lives we can relate to these eight chapters in Romans that we can see they have just as much meaning in Paul’s time as they do today. The letters that Paul writes to the Roman’s seems they are harsh, but if we look at them closer we can see it is God’s plan given to Paul for his people to follow.

The chapters of the book under consideration are chapters one thru five. The book in its’ entirety deals with Luke as well as Paul, but for our study, but we will only deal with the writings of Paul. Kim’s desire is to critically examine scholars and theologians who ascribe to an anti-imperial interpretation of some of Paul’s letters.

Paul’s letter to the Roman’s was an occasional epistle as opposed to a systematic theology. However, Paul did present the Gospel in a systematic way. He was writing to an unknown audience of Christian’s, so he made sure to explain himself thoroughly in all areas, more so than if he was writing to those who knew him or had heard him speak before. He wanted to give the Roman’s a good foundation to work from. In doing so he has given Christian’s of today a good foundation for their biblical worldview. While one certainly cannot extract their entire worldview from the book of Roman’s, it is certainly a good basis. Paul covers several areas that are important to one’s worldview in this letter. They will be discussed in this essay. They are creation, sin, salvation, eschatology, ethics and theology. Each topic will be given a closer look as we proceed.

In 1Corinthians, Paul appeals to the lowest denominator in the group and abjures wisdom. “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the intelligence of the intelligent will I frustrate.” 1Cor18. He deals with incest, lawsuits, sexual immorality, and married life, food sacrificed to idols – matter which one readily answered by the Torah and the law. Yet Paul does no research and uses no knowledge he might have learned in his years as a practicing Jew. He relies only on his own intuition, and his personal revelation of Jesus’ death, resurrection and the imminence of his second coming. Unfortunately, this off-the-cuff memo of dealing with real life issues is open to prejudices, rationalizations, projections and a variety of defense mechanisms.

Levine’s book titled The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus proves to be a highly informative resource when trying to understand the intricate relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Levine’s primary objective seems to be a desire to address the idea that there is a vast, irreconcilable disparity between the beliefs and practices of Christians and Jews. Levine’s central argument focuses upon a common misperception of this dissimilarity: it is the result of Jesus being in direct opposition to Judaism. Furthermore, she contends that only a decided openness and interfaith dialogue between Christianity and Judaism can truly provide the most complete and compelling portrait of Jesus’s life and work. To me, the most edifying facet of Levine’s argument was her call to anchor Jesus within the historical and cultural context in which he was teaching in order to best understand his work and his message. Levine not only provides support for this idea throughout The Misunderstood Jew, but near the end of the novel also offers up ways in which both Christians and Jews can reconcile these two ostensibly conflicting perceptions of Jesus. Therefore, in this essay, I will analyze Levine’s arguments regarding the importance of historical/cultural context in Chapter One and Chapter Four while synthesizing it with her solutions presented in Chapter Seven.

The religious philosophy of Judaism during the Second Period time includes: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots. Judaism is based on worshipping the one true God, circumcision as a sign of being one of God’s chosen people, worships on the Sabbath, obeying God’s laws and following the traditions given from one generation to another.

This argument does not, however, decisively remove the possible use of ‘conversion’ for Paul, as Stendahl’s view that conversion must mean abandonment of a previous religious system is certainly not a necessary condition. In addition to this, to remove the language of ‘conversion’ from Paul’s experience is to remove its decisiveness; its absolute alteration of Paul’s thinking and being that can be seen in Gal 1:12-14. In these passages we see Paul speak of the risen Christ, who gave him his teaching and drew him away from his life in the Law, and as a Pharisee, in which he excelled (Gal 1:14) and which had led him to persecute the Church (Gal 1:13). When this Christocentric language is placed against his former understanding, which had caused him to persecute the Church, one cannot simply speak of a ‘call’, but rather must move to language of radical turning, of ‘conversion’. As this shows, while Stendahl’s argument that Paul should not be considered a ‘convert’ is not strong enough to warrant abandonment of the term, his exposition of Paul as ‘called’ should not be ignored, as, from a missional point of view, he certainly was. This leads us to the conception of Paul’s experience as encapsulating both ‘call’ and a ‘conversion’ dynamic, more fully expressing the reports he and others gave of this time.

Jesus affected those who knew of him; whether it was a favorable or displeasing impact, people’s lives transformed. Scholars believe that Jesus was born around six to four B.C. E. in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph, Jesus’ birth story is found in the Gospels for further understanding. Furthermore, at a young age, Jesus sought to learn more about God. Although his works are more prevalent in his thirties, Jesus may have begun performing his works during his unknown life period (ages 12-30). Several people consider Jesus to the founder of Christianity due to his focus on sharing the Gospel of God to those around him. However, another person had a strong part in the early Christian movement. Paul, formerly known as Saul, was a Pharisee who persecuted Christians. The high priest entrusted Saul with the mission to travel to Damascus to persecute Christian men and women. On his road to Damascus, Saul encountered Jesus as a vision, where he went from a persecutor to a believer, and from Saul to Paul. This paper will focus on noting the differences between the Gospel of Jesus in Mark, and undisputed Paul. I will accomplish this by arguing that Paul’s gospel is similar to current Christianity in the sense that it focused more in the heavenly salvation, rather than earthly salvation. To do this, I will emphasize on Paul’s belief of justification through faith; his belief that he was appointment by God to preach the gospel, concluding on his view of Jesus’ crucifixion.

The Survey of the New Testament course covered a vast amount of material. A person with no knowledge of the Bible could absorb a wealth of sacred information. Jesus Christ and Paul the Apostle covered a great amount of material in the New Testament. Throughout this paper, I discuss the life of Jesus Christ and the life of Paul the Apostle and their extraordinary missions they accomplished that led to faith in Christianity.

When we look at the canonical structure of the New Testament we observe a collection of 27 books, which accredits thirteen of them to the Apostle Paul. The writings of Luke, in particular the Acts of the Apostles, can be used as a theological and historical basis, but it presents strong point and restrictions for Pauline interpretation.

This was a crucial turning point for Paul, he witnessed the Christians actions and he began to have a growing respect for the faith, until he was finally ready to join the cause. Paul was instrumental in shaping western churches and Christianity. Many revival and reform movements during the course of Christian history have been started by Paul’s section of the New Testament. For example, Martin Luther's commentary on Romans was an important factor in the advancement of the Protestant Reformation. Paul’s letters have had enormous influence on Christianity and secure his place as one of the greatest religious leaders.