Paul the Apostle has been placed within Second Temple Judaism by recent scholarship since the 1970s. A main point of departure with older scholarship is the understanding of Second Temple Judaism; the covenant with God and the role of works as a means to either gain or keep the covenant.
A central concern for Paul was the inclusion of Gentiles into God's New Covenant, and the role of faith and commandments in the inclusion of Gentile converts. Paul did not deem circumcision necessary, as witnessed throughout his writings, but thought that God included Gentiles into his New Covenant through faith in Christ. This brought him into conflict with the Judaizers, a faction of the Jewish Christians who demanded strict observance of the Mosaic Law by Gentile Christians. Eventually the less strict view prevailed, and led to the separation of Gentile Christianity from Judaism.
Overview
Paul's influence on Christian thinking is considered to be more significant than that of any other New Testament author. According to Krister Stendahl, the main concern of Paul's writings on Jesus' role, and salvation by faith, is not the individual conscience of human sinners, and their doubts about being chosen by God or not, but the problem of the inclusion of Gentile (Greek) Torah-observers into God's covenant.
Paul draws on several interpretative frames to solve this problem, but most importantly, his own experience and understanding. The kerygma from refers to two mythologies: the Greek myth of the noble dead, to which the Maccabean notion of martyrdom and dying for one's people is related; and the Jewish myth of the persecuted sage or righteous man, c.q. the "story of the child of wisdom." The notion of 'dying for' refers to this martyrdom and persecution. 'Dying for our sins' refers to the problem of Gentile Torah-observers, who, despite their faithfulness, are not Jewish by birth, and are therefore 'sinners', excluded from God's covenant. Jesus' death and resurrection solved this problem of the exclusion of the Gentiles from God's covenant, as indicated by .
The inclusion of Gentiles into Judaism posed a problem for the Jewish-Christian identity of some of the proto-Christians, since the new converts did not follow all the tenets of the Mosaic Law; circumcision in particular was regarded as a token of the membership of the Abrahamic covenant, and the most traditionalist faction of Jewish Christians (i.e., converted Pharisees) insisted that Gentile converts had to be circumcised as well. Paul objected strongly to the insistence on keeping all of the Jewish commandments, considering it a great threat to his doctrine of salvation through faith in Jesus. According to Paula Fredriksen, Paul's opposition to male circumcision for Gentiles is in line with the Old Testament predictions that "in the last days the gentile nations would come to the God of Israel, as gentiles (e.g., ), not as proselytes to Israel." For Paul, Gentile male circumcision was therefore an affront to God's intentions. According to Larry Hurtado, "Paul saw himself as what Munck called a salvation-historical figure in his own right", who was "personally and singularly deputized by God to bring about the predicted ingathering (the "fullness") of the nations ()."
For Paul, the sacrifice of Jesus solved the problem of the exclusion of Gentiles from God's covenant, since the faithful are redeemed by participation in Jesus' death and rising. According to and Acts chapter 15, Paul discussed the issue with the leaders of the Jerusalem ekklēsia, agreeing to allow Gentile converts exemption from most Jewish commandments, which opened the way for a much larger Christian Church, extending far beyond the Jewish community. Hurtado notes that Paul valued the linkage with "Jewish Christian circles in Roman Judea", which makes it likely that his Christology was in line with, and indebted to, their views. Hurtado further notes that "[i]t is widely accepted that the tradition that Paul recites in must go back to the Jerusalem Church."
New Perspective on Paul
E. P. Sanders introduced a new perspective on Paul with his 1977 publication Paul and Palestinian Judaism. According to Sanders, Western theology has misunderstood the Judaic context of Paul's religious views. Law-keeping and good works were not means to enter the covenant (legalism), but a sign of being in, and a means of keeping, the covenant. Sanders called this pattern of religion "covenantal nomism". Sanders' perspective calls the traditional Protestant understanding of the doctrine of justification into serious question.