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New Testament scholars previously understood Paul to be combating Second Temple Jewish peers using the Mosaic Law to earn their way into heaven. E. P. Sanders's Paul and Palestinian Judaism ushered in a new perspective on Judaism as a religion inclusive of God's election, grace, and mercy. The new perspective on Paul then sought to identify what he found problematic about the Law if his Second Temple peers were not works-righteous legalists. James D. G. Dunn emphasized especially those elements of the Law distinguishing Jews and gentiles. Jews were guilty of ethnic pride and presumption in thinking that gentiles needed to become Jewish to enjoy God's salvation in Christ. In the last few decades, a radical new perspective has emerged, also known as Paul-within-Judaism. Paul's letters were to gentile audiences and were describing the Jewish Law as it pertained to them. A. Andrew Das contends that both the new perspective on Paul and the radical Paul-within-Judaism perspective overreach in their claims. Starting afresh from E. P. Sanders with a salvation exclusively in Jesus Christ, he argues that what Paul finds wrong with the Jewish Law is that adherents see the Law itself as saving. To follow the Law apart from Christ is to engage in an exercise of vain, empty, and ultimately meaningless works, severed from God's grace. A new perspective on Judaism, then, does not lead to a dethroning of the grace-works contrast that more traditional interpreters saw in Paul, even if nuanced by greater appreciation of the ethnic implications of Paul's argument for gentile audiences.
