Qualifications on Sanders

(Part 3 - See Part: 1, 2)

Following our study from the previous blog, before I try to make any attempt at summarizing Sanders argument, I must add here at least one very large qualification: it has become evident to me that I am held hostage to the mercy of the work and nature of Sanders study. That is, I do not have access to either Rabbinic literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Apocryphal/Pseudepigrapha of the period of and before Christ; furthermore, even if I did have access to this wide body of literature I would not be able to access them in their original language! And even if I did have access to them and if I understood the original language my primary interest lay in Biblical, not Rabbinical, studies. I am only interested in this study insofar as it relates to and shines light on the context of Christ and his Message. Therefore I am wholly dependant upon Sanders, on the specific material he references and the such, without the means to “verify” and cross-check the context of his work.

What this means is that when Sanders quotes a certain Rabbi I am compelled to trust that he has quoted accurately, that he has not taken the said Rabbi out of context and that he has not ‘ignored’ other Rabbi’s who might disprove his thesis. This does not mean, however, that I must accept the conclusions which he has drawn from the material he has referenced, for indeed to that my response is that I have my own mind.

So then the question becomes: can I trust Sanders work? The answer I believe is yes and the reason is due to scholarship support since the 70’s of Sanders thesis of first century Judaism. However, I am not so blind as to assume that just because the majority support a view that I must agree also (if I were, I would on the one hand join the bazillions of people who have accepted Tim Lahey’s caricature of the End Times exemplified in his novel series ‘Left Behind’, and on the other hand, wholly accept Darwinian evolution and the ridiculous notion of a ‘Big Bang’). However, there is something to be said about the fact that Sanders study has literally altered (it seems to me) an entire generation of scholarship, but what is most interesting is that many of those who accepted his thesis regarding the generally accepted first century Jewish doctrine of soteriology, are also those who have rejected his conclusions regarding the affect of this study on Paul (i.e. the New Perspective on Paul) which adds credibility to his work and is a testament to his reliability.

For these reasons primarily I accept Sanders work as reliable, until or unless I read other scholars to the contrary, and only if they can be more convincing. Furthermore, I have concluded most of Paul and Palestinian Judaism, the major sections regarding the wide body of literature in Palestine from 200 bce to 200 ce, and have been persuaded that the ‘official’ religion of Judaism was in fact a ‘grace based religion’ (which I believe is in keeping with Old Testament soteriology) and not a religion that taught ‘works righteousness’. However, I am not convinced that the ‘official religion’ was properly understand and practiced by the average Jew. It’s the difference between the orthodox Christian doctrine of sin nature (Augustinian) and the common unorthodox Christian practice of Semi-Pelagianism (especially among Pentecostals – see Olson, Arminian Theology ©2006, and see also Alan Jacobs, Original Sin, ©2008).

Now then, having acknowledged my weakness in this area – and I believe also my justification for moving forward – let us turn to the question: Was first century Judaism ‘officially’ a religion of ‘justification by works’ or ‘justification by grace’?