FROM PLIGHT TO SOLUTION: A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING PAUL'S VIEW OF THE LAW IN ROMANS AND GALATIANS AGAINST A JEWISH BACKGROUND

This study contends that Paul's view of the law in Romans and Galatians is best understood against the background of Jewish eschatological expectation. It seeks to show that underlying Paul's comments on the law in these two letters is the Jewish conviction that until the eschatological age humanity is under the curse of disobedience to the law but that in the age to come God will provide the means for escaping the curse and obeying the law.;Chapters three and four investigate Paul's discussion of the law in Galatians and Romans and find that in both letters Paul's comments on the law are frequently based on a plight-solution scheme similar to that described in chapter two.;Chapter five summarizes the study and concludes that Paul's view of the law is best understood not merely as a reflex of his christology, but as the application of a common pattern of Jewish thought to Christ's death and the coming of the spirit.;The first chapter analyzes the decline of interest in explaining Paul's comments about the law in light of his Jewish background and the growth in popularity of the idea that Paul's view of the law can only be understood as a product of his experience with Christ. This chapter concludes with a critique of the christological explanation of Paul's view of the law and calls for a renewed attempt to understand Paul in light of his Jewish heritage. As an initial step in this direction, chapter two investigates the Hebrew scriptures, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and several pseudepigraphic documents and discovers within them that the human plight is frequently described in terms of continual disobedience to God's law. The solution to this plight is seen as God's provision of a supernatural ability to keep the law and thus to avoid sin and punishment.