There are three main interpretive paradigms for understanding Paul’s writings available today within mainstream, predominantly Protestant, scholarship. The diagram below names the paradigms, briefly notes the defining characteristics, and mentions some of the major exponents. It also highlights the significance of the boundaries between them. It obviously oversimplifies the picture, and you may disagree with some of the emphases, but it shows rather well, I think, how interpretations of Paul’s “gospel” can be sorted into three obvious categories: the personal, the cosmic, and the political.
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