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A review by ben_smitty
Paul's Three Paths to Salvation by Gabriele Boccaccini
4.0
Boccaccini is the kind of guy who shows up uninvited to a church potluck and ruins the party by correcting the pastor’s speech to you every time they quote Paul. You don’t really want to listen to him because you don’t want to leave the potluck but you can’t deny that damn he could be right what are you even doing at this potluck?
His main argument in Paul’s Three Paths to Salvation is that what Paul means by justification must be situated within his Jewish context, and that it deals exclusively with past sins and not future glorification. Jesus’ forgiveness of sin frees all who trust him from the powers and principalities of evil which oppress them. These principalities make it difficult (but not impossible) to live righteously. Thus, being freed from the powers of sin, those who follow Jesus can now be good people© and await for the coming judgment, whereby they will be judged by their works. So it is possible to pass the judgment at the end and come out as a good person© without Jesus’ forgiveness, but it will be harder (narrow is the gate, etc etc).
He contends that Paul assumes (Rom. 2:6), James agrees (James 2:14), and the early Fathers reaffirm this doctrine of judgment by good works.
He’s not afraid to bash Wright et al. for not gong far enough to take Paul’s Jewishness to its logical conclusion. He also bashes Christian scholars who think STJ is unified in its beliefs, cosmology, eschatology, views of Messiahship, and that those who see Paul as “against Judaism” must understand that difference in belief doesn’t mean he’s out of the camp. It actually proves the opposite because Jews argued with each other all the time and were/are never unified in belief.
I think Boccacini is on to something but there are verses which flatly contradict him. Off the top of my head, verses like “No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14:16), “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10) seem problematic to his theory. I can’t blame him because Paul is hardly a systematic writer and seems to contradict himself (and James…. and Peter……) often. Overall a fun read because I enjoy speculative theology, but I’m not leaving the potluck just yet.
His main argument in Paul’s Three Paths to Salvation is that what Paul means by justification must be situated within his Jewish context, and that it deals exclusively with past sins and not future glorification. Jesus’ forgiveness of sin frees all who trust him from the powers and principalities of evil which oppress them. These principalities make it difficult (but not impossible) to live righteously. Thus, being freed from the powers of sin, those who follow Jesus can now be good people© and await for the coming judgment, whereby they will be judged by their works. So it is possible to pass the judgment at the end and come out as a good person© without Jesus’ forgiveness, but it will be harder (narrow is the gate, etc etc).
He contends that Paul assumes (Rom. 2:6), James agrees (James 2:14), and the early Fathers reaffirm this doctrine of judgment by good works.
He’s not afraid to bash Wright et al. for not gong far enough to take Paul’s Jewishness to its logical conclusion. He also bashes Christian scholars who think STJ is unified in its beliefs, cosmology, eschatology, views of Messiahship, and that those who see Paul as “against Judaism” must understand that difference in belief doesn’t mean he’s out of the camp. It actually proves the opposite because Jews argued with each other all the time and were/are never unified in belief.
I think Boccacini is on to something but there are verses which flatly contradict him. Off the top of my head, verses like “No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14:16), “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10) seem problematic to his theory. I can’t blame him because Paul is hardly a systematic writer and seems to contradict himself (and James…. and Peter……) often. Overall a fun read because I enjoy speculative theology, but I’m not leaving the potluck just yet.