Abraham and His Offspring in the Pauline Writings

Abraham is presented in the book of Genesis as the great ancestor of the people of Israel. Through Isaac and Jacob, the Israelites are his direct offspring. In the first century after Christ, the Jews continued to see themselves as the descendants of Abraham and the heirs of the divine promises associated with him. The apostle Paul, in his controversy with the Judaizers with regard to the basis of justification (faith or works), elaborates a personal re-reading of the history of Abraham. In his arguments, Paul does not limit himself to considering Abraham as a model of faith or as a paradigm of justification received outside the Law, but presents him as the ancestor of all who believe in Christ, whatever their origin. Our objective in this short exposition is to observe the texts where Paul deals with this theme (above all Rom 4 and Gal 3–4) in order to understand a little more the logic of his thinking. In particular, our analysis reflects on the contributions of the so-called “new perspective” in Pauline studies, which aims to consider first-century Judaism on its own terms, not in the context of Protestant-Catholic debates of the sixteenth century, and which thinks that Paul’s doctrine of justification has more to do with Jewish-Gentile issues than with the individual’s status before God1.