Paul as an Early Witness to the Jewish Notion of Liberation-through-Torah

Full title
Paul as an Early Witness to the Jewish Notion of Liberation-through-Torah
Updated By
Research notes

SHS/not checked/02/09/2018 YKC/reader checked/09/01/2022

Reference type
Author(s)
Ruzer, Serge
Year
2018
Journal / Book Title || Series Title
Journal for the Study of the New Testament
Volume
41
Issue / Series Volume
1
Abbreviated Series Name
JSNT
Pages
82-94
Work type
Label
08/10/2018
Abstract

This study focuses on Paul’s ‘liberation language’ in Galatians, re-examining Shlomo Pines’s suggestion that Paul responded to a tendency, attested in later rabbinic sources, to present the Torah as intrinsically linked to true liberty. The study first analyses the apostle’s supposed polemical response, with the characteristic motif of the gift of the Spirit – instead of the Torah – as the guarantor of the eschatological freedom; its probable Jewish matrix is also outlined. Further, it is argued that side-by-side with Paul’s Spirit-centered line of argument, a positive appraisal of the Torah-of-freedom concept can also be discerned in Galatians. The epistle thus becomes a witness for the early provenance of that broader Jewish tendency.