Das, A. Andrew. Paul and the Jews. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Pp. 238. $24.95.

In this well-written and thoughtful analysis of the now perennial subject of Paul and the Jews, Andrew Das (Professor of Theology and Religion atElmhurst College) seeks to build on the so-called “new perspective” on Paul and to offer a few correctives along the way. In my view he does both successfully. Das takes on the ever daunting task of trying to make coherent sense of what Paul says about the Jews, the Jewish law, the relationship between Christian Gentiles and non-Christian Jews, the significance of Israel's election, and how all of this relates to Paul's convictions about the coming of Jesus as the messiah. In the process Das does an admirable job of contextualizing Paul in the first-century Jewish world, and of offering close exegetical readings of Romans and Galatians in particular, where the issues Das addresses are most pressing for Paul and hence for Christians who stand as heirs to the Pauline traditions.

Das begins by rehearsing the “new perspective” on Paul, launched especially by E. P. Sander's landmark Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977) and developed in the many writings of James D. G. Dunn. Having surveyed this new starting point in Pauline studies, Das takes a detailed look at the crisis in Galatia and the situation in Rome that elicited Paul's letters to these early Christian communities. In Galatians, Paul is struggling with law-observant Jewish-Christian opponents. While this is nothing really new, still Das provides a thorough exegetical discussion of Paul's argument, particularly in light of his apocalyptic convictions. For Paul, any insistence on Gentile law-observance obscures the guidance of Christ's indwelling Spirit. Everything has changed in light of the Christ-event, and this includes Paul's evaluation of the Jewish Law and the identity of Israel. Faith in Christ becomes the new boundary marker of God's people, not law-observance.

As for Romans, Das focuses on the issue of the “strong” and the “weak” in Romans 14-15. The “weak” are those who observe Jewish customs, though Paul advocates that such observance should be tolerated and respected, if not encouraged. In Romans 9-11 Paul tries to explain how God's elect people did not benefit from their election, as they failed in large measure to recognize their own messiah. But even this rejection of Israel's messiah fit into the plans of God's divine election, extending God's election from Jews to Gentiles in Christ. Das makes a strong case against the notion of a “two covenant” approach in Paul—one covenant via the Mosaic Law for the Jews and another covenant via Jesus as the messiah for the Gentiles. The coming of the messiah has resulted in the hardening of the hearts of some in Israel, but Paul remains confident that “all Israel” will be saved eventually. The ethnic identity of Jews is not the basis for salvation, as Das reads Paul, rather faith in Christ is the common basis for salvation of Jew and Gentile alike. Paul affirms both the election of Israel (Rom. 11) and the necessity of faith in Christ.

One of the more intriguing arguments that Das offers has to do with the image in Romans 11 of the branches that have been broken off the olive tree. Das opposes an “extreme displacement” reading of this image. Instead, he argues that “far from being permanently displaced, the natural branches will eventually be restored.” This is what Paul means by saying that Israel has not stumbled so as to fall (Rom. 11:11). Das also offers a helpful reading of the difficult passage from 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16, seeing it as genuinely Pauline, but also reading it within the context of ancient polemical hyperbole within an eschatological context. Although Israel experiences God's eschatological wrath apart from Christ, nevertheless Paul remains confident that the salvation of all Israel is an eschatological certainty. Just as the Law was a temporary measure (Gal. 3), so is Israel's hardening (Rom. 9-11).

In a thorough discussion of “the curse of the Mosaic Law,” Das provides a useful discussion of what Paul finds wrong about the Law. He focuses first on the tension between Galatians 3:10 (anyone who tries to do what the Law requires falls under its curse) and Philippians 3:6 (where Paul labels his own law-observance as “blameless”). While it was commonly thought in early Judaism that both Abraham and Moses kept the whole of the Law perfectly, and Jews admonished each other to perfection (not unlike Jesus in Matthew 7), Paul's self-report of being “blameless” should be distinguished from perfect obedience. “Whereas perfect obedience was unerring success in doing all that God commanded in the Law, blamelessness included the broader context of the Law: God's election and mercy upon the people.”

Finally, Das develops the notion of the Law as “an enslaving power. He argues that “the Law thus appears to be a negative, enslaving power from which one must be liberated.” In my view this is an unfortunate way of describing the situation. Is it really the Law from which one needs liberation, or is it the power of sin that has misused the Law to enslave? Das seems to recognize this tension (“the virus of Sin has simply commandeered the Law and its commandment”), but still refers to the “power” of the Law to enslave. Perhaps this is a minor point, but it seems to me important to be careful about denigrating the Law per se, as opposed to criticizing the way the Law has been misused. Indeed, Das can also present the positive ways in which the “Spirit takes hold of the law.”

In sum, then, Das is to be commended for letting Paul be Paul. Paul's approach to the Jews, the Law, election, and all the rest can really only be understood from Paul's christocentric understanding and experience. As Das concludes, Paul “adopted the aberrant position that ethnic Israel would not benefit from God's election or promises apart from faith in Jesus Christ.” And yet, any Christian “dare not proceed beyond faith in Christ to a presumptuous dismissal of ethnic Israel's place in God's plan.”

Jeffrey S. Siker
Loyola Marymount University