I’m working on my new book on justification and have finished the portion directly dealing with Jesus in the Gospels. I’m now moving on to Paul. I’ve begun my assault on the New Perspective. If we look at the context of Rabbinic Judaism, I think we can find a number of polemical echoes in Paul – although it’s hard to say how much is pre-70 A.D. Rabbinic tradition and how much gets generated after the fact. There are two interesting ideas in Rabbinic Judaism to which Paul seems to be responding:
Image from
St Paul Kpehe Parish,
http://stpaulkpehe.org/st-paul-the-apostle/
A. That there is an “evil impulse” in humanity, but that it can be master by the law.
B. That although Israel isn’t going to be 100% perfect in obeying the law, they can always draw on the reserve of good will in the merits of the patriarchs.
On the first point Paul argues not only that the evil impulse is morally incapacitating, but that the law actually eggs it on and makes it worse. Hence, the law doesn’t help us master it.
On the second point, Paul inverts the idea of the merits of the fathers and claims that we’re actually under the curse of our ancestor Adam.