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Loading...Now that I have finished this subthread on the letters of Paul in a nutshell, I’d like to provide brief summaries of the various Pauline writings (both “undisputed” and deutero-Pauline). These posts will be quick and to the point. In them I reproduce my overviews called “At a Glance” for each letter that I give in my textbook as the final bit of each discussion for each book, along with a couple of questions to reflect on. If the summaries don’t make immediate sense and/or the questions don’t seem to have an obvious question, I’d recommend rereading the relevant posts from a while back.
In this post I deal the the letter to the Romans. Here are the previous posts, in case you need a reminder:
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Hello Dr.Bart Erhman
When a ancient text was created the original copy almost never survived and then there is a time cap after the text was written and when we find the first manuscript. Do religious text often have a smaller time cap then other text at the time?
The New Testament has a shorter time gap than the vast majority of writings (including the Old Testament), but I’m not sure about “religious texts” in general.
Hello Dr.Bart Erhman
What do you think about the Thiede’s Re-dating to 66CE with the matthew manucript?
It’s been thoroughly debunked by textual experts (did Eldon Epp write on this? Gordon Fee?)
answering to QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION #1.
In Romans 4:7 should “lawlessness” be interpreted as “without the Torah”?
If yes then there should be a way to be saved without the Torah.
The Torah (***) did not exist so to say until after Abraham? Even Moses and the Israelites were “lawless” until Mt Sinai. The Torah began, came into existence during the Exodus when Moses and the Israelites were at Mt. Sinai. However, Abraham was “lawless” but had faith, Romans 4:22.
(***): I’m considering it in a mindset where the Torah is eternal, it has always existed. (cf. Psalm 119:142 as “eternal Torah”).
Do you mean ANOMIA? I guess it technically means “without the law” but notice that it is put in synonymous paralllelism with “sins” and so I’d suppose it means something more like “one who violates the dictates of God” (rather than something more tchincal as “without the Torah”
Is Romans 2:13 “doers of the law will be justified” an example of the judicial model and Romans 3:20 “no human will be justified by deeds prescribed by the law” an example of the participationist model?
Thy’re both judicial, referring to the human problem as violations of God’s law.
Two questions, Bart . . .
1. Is there any good evidence that Paul ever got to Rome?
2. What is your view? Do you personal think he was ever in Rome?
1. Nothing solid. He indicates he wants to go there in his last letter, but other than that it’s just Acts and later legends.
2. I suppose so, but am not fully confident.
Paul deserves credit for the spread of Christianity, but his theology is different from what Jesus taught. In fact, he seldom references the teachings of Jesus.
His claim of having a “cosmic” experience is a hard one to accept suggesting it might have been an altered state of consciousness, possibly linked to a physical condition like temporal lobe epilepsy.
The Bright “cosmic” light, a common element in Paul’s account, is considered typical of the first stage of ecstatic trance.
So, my question is should we be giving Paul so much scriptural authority?
I’d say that’s a theological question for believers. I know some Christians for whom Paul is almost everything, and others who simply can’t abide him very well. As a non-Christian I don’t give him any authority for what I believe or think.disabledupes{caaeb28501bb1780e4ca5a1e0a8fb82c}disabledupes
I suspect Paul’s opponents weren’t upset about his “law-free gospel” lacking an ethical foundation. Instead, both Paul and opponents—having accepted Christ was raised while the rest of humanity remained in grave—reinterpreted texts like Ezekiel 36-37 as describing a two-stage resurrection process.
Stage one (Ezekiel 36:26–27): God cleanses His people/places His Spirit within them—inward transformation.
Stage two (Ezekiel 37:8): God restores mortal bodies—future physical resurrection.
Both sides saw the Torah as an ascetic natural law—capable of restraining sin’s corrupting power, but powerless to conquer death. With the arrival of the Spirit, stage 1 had begun. The ethical implication wasnt legalism, but transformation: if the Spirit is within us, we will automatically live the divine law without need of the written code in the old way.
The debate wasn’t about promoting ethical laws, but what lifestyle aligns with the coming new creation. Paul’s opponents would’ve asked: If the new age has begun, would it really involve eating unclean animals? Wouldn’t a resurrected body lack foreskin? Even if the Torah was never the final solution to sin/death, it still offered a clearer revelation of divine order than Paul’s Platonic notion of abstract virtues like “fruit of the Spirit.” After all, the Torah came from God—not Plato.
Paul’s an apocalyptic thinker whose theology reflects the structure and concerns of apocalyptic literature.
In this tradition, resurrection, judgment, and new creation aren’t distinct doctrines but interwoven moments of the same divine intervention. Paul’s language mirrors this:
• Judicial/forensic terms (justification, condemnation, righteousness) point to final judgment, where God publicly vindicates his people/condemns evil.
• Participationist language (being “in Christ,” receiving the Spirit, being conformed to his image) anticipates moral transformation/bodily renewal through resurrection and new creation.
These aren’t stages in Paul’s theological development but two vantage points on one apocalyptic solution to a double-sided human problem: guilt and corruption.
This explains Paul’s fluid movement between both in the same letters:
• In Romans 4–5, he moves from Abraham’s justification by faith (judicial) to believers dying and rising with Christ (participationist).
• In Galatians, he stresses justification by faith (judicial), then shifts to life in the Spirit and being formed in Christ (participationist).
• In 1 Corinthians 15, it all converges: Christ’s death addresses sin (guilt), his resurrection inaugurates bodily transformation (corruption), and the coming judgment finalizes new creation.
So when Paul says in Romans 8, “those whom God justified, he also glorified,” he’s collapsing the entire sequence into a single eschatological process already breaking into the present through Christ and the Spirit.