James Barr believed there was a Jewish background to natural theology. This made it likely that the passages in the New Testament that seem to imply natural theology actually do imply natural theology. This is my understanding of his argument so far in Biblical Faith and Natural Theology.
Part of his argument is that Paul has strong affinities with the Wisdom of Solomon, a Jewish work in Greek that is part of the apocrypha or deutero-canonical Bible recognized by Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Christians, but not by Protestants.
One of the affinities is that both Paul and Wisdom of Solomon have a doctrine of the Fall centered around Adam’s sin. In the Hebrew Bible Adam’s sin is not a hugely important incident and there is no idea that before this there was no death. However, both Paul and the Wisdom of Solomon see Adam’s sin as determinative for human…
View original post 530 more words
James' Ramblings 