Paul And The New Perspective: Second Thoughts On The Origin Of Paul's Gospel

Understanding Paul and his conversion to Christianity is imperative for a thorough knowledge of the New Testament. In Paul and the New Perspective Seyoon Kim offers an extensive argument for the foundation of the gospel that Paul spread in the first century.

A re-examination of Paul's Damascus experience in a debate with James D. G. Dunn confirms the view that Paul obtained his gospel of justification from that experience. The discovery that Isaiah 42 influenced Paul's interpretation of his apostolic call helps explain how Paul developed his antithesis between the Spirit and the flesh/law and why he insisted on the impossibility of justification by works of the law. Against the assumption of the New Perspective School, Kim's provocative study issues a call to take Paul seriously as an important witness to his contemporary Judaism.

The book also explicates how Paul used the Jesus tradition in light of the Damascus experience to develop his christological and soteriological doctrines. While reaffirming the significance of the Damascus event, Kim now appreciates the Jesus tradition as equally important for the origin of Paul's gospel. Thus, the overall thesis of the book is that the origin of Paul's gospel lies in two places -- his radical conversion at Damascus and his usage of the Jesus tradition in light of Damascus.

A fine introduction to the history of the debate regarding Paul as well as a challenging contribution to that debate, Paul and the New Perspective will be valued by scholars, students, and general readers interested in the roots of the Christian gospel.