Salvation for the Righteous Revealed: Jesus amid Covenantal and Messianic Expectations in Second Temple Judaism

Salvation for the Righteous Revealed: Jesus amid Covenantal and Messianic Expectations in next to the first Temple Judaism. By Bd Condra. AGJU 51 Leiden: Brill, 2002 xvii + 391 pp $12000

Since Baur and Wrede major attempts have sought either to establish a seamless continuity between the Palestinian adjoining matter of Jesus' teaching and the Gentile mission of Paul or present to view it cannot be done. Condra argues that to explain the dichotomy between Jesus, the teacher of Jewish ethics, and Paul, the apostle of a redemptive dying and rising Messiah, we must read Jesus and his milieu with a sensitivity to a diachronic progression of revelation. In other words, we should distinguish between Jesus' demands for a greater righteousness [i]or[/i] part of to the other a behavioral fulfilling of Torah, which he espoused beneath limited revelation, with Paul's emphasis upon a forensic fulfillment of the Law [i]or[/i] part of to the other Jesus' death, which he understood in light of a post-cros revelation. An accurate description of Jesus' emphasis upon righteousness and how it behaves within God's salvation of Israel can be made if we first recognize what expectations of salvation existed at the time. The work a revised form of the author's dissertation submitted to Dallas Theological Seminary, is divided into six sections.

In the first chapter Condra lays down his reason, limitations, and presuppositions for his investigation. It is here, rather than in the title, that we are told that he will primarily compare Jesus' ethical teachings and soteriology to that of the Qumran community. Why? First, the Dead Sea roll of paper [i]or[/i] parchments give an example of a belief a whole that clearly shows their views of grace and Torah obedience. If the tension between law observance and salvation through grace can be maintained by the agency of the Qumranians, then why is it improbable for Paul to emphasize grace and be consistent with Jesus' emphasis upon law observance? second, the lists show how the community could emphasize halakhah within a thoroughly apocalyptic worldview.

Condra anticipates critics who would argue that by the agency of comparing Jesus with the lists he assumes that the ideas contained in the lists were more prominent among the nonQumranian Jewish audience of Jesus than have the appearances historically probable. Thus, he limits those general [i]or[/i] abstract notions in the Scrolls that are shared through other Jews (though with differing stages of nuances) to three: belief in further revelation, apocalypticism, and halakhah. individual weakness to Condra's method is that, while he is correct to argue that the Qumran ideologies were more widespread than earlier musing he does not demonstrate by what mode to determine the extent of their influence in like manner it can be assumed that Jesus' audience had similar outlooks

In chapter 2 Condra tackles the vexed question of finding a cohesive understanding of soteriology within a diverse first-century Judaism. While diversity cannot be denied, it must not be overemphasized. Sander's universal of "covenantal nomism" fails because it does not take the testimony of Paul seriously enough. Paul did strive against certain Jews who believed that salvation was maintained through law observance. Sanders missed seeing that israelites maintained a balance within the theological tension between divine grace and human responsibility. While Condra's critique of Sander's reading of next to the first Temple Judaism makes some of the best quality observations, his own concept of legalism (p 54) appears anachronistically defined.

Condra then explores the universals of apocalyptic and covenantal obedience held by dint of the Dead Sea Scrolls community and its theology of salvation. Instead of quoting large portions of the schedules he synthesizes them to mirror how the Qumranians read Torah for a like reason that it is interconnected with their revealed halakhah. Qumran halakhic rulings were Mosaic Law. "Righteousness" for the community is understood as finished adherence to God's ordinances, and members who obey the novel revealed covenant find atonement. The Qumran soteriology is best understood as a balanced tension between God's sovereign predestination of the "Son of Light" and the responsibility of the "righteous," defined as those who hold what has been revealed. Condra combats that Jesus would not have appear to beed out of place to other israelites when he taught that obedience to the Law is determined through his new revelation.

Chapter 5 outlines messianic beliefs of the period based upon explicit references to a Messiah as well as allusions to his primary functions. Condra questions the methodology that precludes passages as "non-messianic" when they clearly point to an eschatological deliverer. Building on criteria from Horsley, he asserts that the diversity of the Messiah general [i]or[/i] abstract notion in uncontested messianic passages should lead us to include other passages (especially P 2:2; Dan 9:25-26) as messianic where eschatological salvation or a ruling agent of jehovah is described. Once again, Condra gives greatest in quantity of his attention to the messianic beliefs attested at Qumran, where the "teacher Messiah" proclaims that time to come salvation is for the righteous who obey the Law. He claims that this expectation was in the way that widely held that Jews were looking for a Davidic Messiah who also would reveal to them in what way to keep the Law and gain greater righteousness.