From Plight to Solution: A Jewish Framework for Understanding Paul's View of the Law in Galatians and Romans (1989 Thielman), book
From Plight to Solution: A Jewish Framework for Understanding Paul's View of the Law in Galatians and Romans (1989) is a book by Frank Thielman.
Abstract
Thielman wishes to contribute to the ongoing debate over Paul’s understanding of the Law by moving the discussion from a Paul completely separated and out of touch with contemporary Judaism to a Paul who can only be understood from the perspective of Jewish eschatology. While most of Thielman’s contemporary Pauline scholars preferred to argue Paul’s view of the Law as stemming from a solution to plight scenario (i.e. from Christology to attacks on the Law), Thielman wants to reverse this recent trend and maintain that Paul argues from the perspective of plight to solution, a position which aligns Paul with a long tradition seen in both Old Testament texts and non-canonical Second Temple literature, which often viewed the history of God’s people as a history of failure to do God’s will, as a continual violation of the Law (the plight), but which extended the hope that in the eschatological age God would intervene to destroy the cycle of sin and rebellion and produce a people who would obey the Law from their hearts (the solution). This is the perspective of Paul. In the present evil age humanity is under the power of sin and unable to follow the precepts of the Law, but those who belong to the eschatological community (believers of Christ) are able to fulfill the Law by walking in the Spirit. Therefore, Paul’s view of the law was not completely divorced from the reality of contemporary Judaism, nor was it a new breakthrough. His view was based on familiar ideas and echoes a theme that would have been intelligible to many of Paul’s contemporary Jews. – Jason Zurawski, University of Michigan
Editions and translations
Published in Leiden: Brill, 1989.
Table of contents
- I. Paul, Torah, and Judaism in Recent Debate
- II. From Plight to Solution in Ancient Judaism
- III. From Plight to Solution in Galatians
- IV. From Plight to Solution in Romans
- V. Paul, Torah, and Judaism in Romans and Galatians
- Appendix – Paul’s View of the Law According to Lloyd Gaston and John G. Gager